His eyes—that piercing, impossible green—swept over the mess before locking onto mine.
Even irritated, the man was unfairly gorgeous.
“Poppy.”
He just said my name, but the weight of it settled exactly where it shouldn’t have. Deep inside my core. It wasn’t a question. It was a rumble that made my pulse jump.
“It was me,” I blurted out, before Tyler could crumble. “I was reaching for a label and caught the edge of the tray. Tyler’s been a lifesaver helping me sort it out.”
Tyler looked like he wanted to vanish into the floorboards. Cord’s gaze shifted to the kid, then back to me. He didn’t say he didn’t believe me. He didn’t have to. The way his jaw ticked told me he saw right through my protection of his youngest hand.
“Tyler,” Cord growled. “Go check the water levels in Greenhouse Two. Top to bottom. Don’t come back until you have a full log.”
The kid vanished like he’d been shot out of a cannon.
Silence rushed back into the shed, thick and heavy. Cord didn’t move for a long moment, just watched me. I was on my hands and knees, my leggings stretched tight over my hips. By ass was up in the air, and I resisted the impish urge to wiggle it. His gaze tracked the line of my spine down to where my shirt had ridden up enough to expose a sliver of skin along the small of my back.
I felt the weight of his stare like a physical touch. I knew what he was seeing—the flare of my hips, the curve of my bottom—and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to hide. I wanted to arch my back and see what he would do. Exciting, naughty thoughts ran through my mind. Of him touching me. Kissing the sliver of skin. Biting it.
Of course, that was my fantasy self thinking that. The one who had already risen to her knees and pulled his head down for a hot, scorching kiss.
He finally moved, dropping to his haunches, his knees brushing mine. The friction of his rough work pants against my leggings sent a bolt of awareness straight to my core.
“You’re a terrible liar, Poppy Evans.” His voice held a hint of amusement.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, tossing my head a little defiantly. It was so unfair what this man did to me just by entering the room. It wasn’t that he was attractive, although he was, in the specific devastating way of men who had no idea and wouldn’t care if they did.
No, despite the broody man persona he wore like one of his flannel shirts, he had a caring attitude. He’d fed me, given me the morning off to go buy food, and he didn’t yell when something went wrong. Like now. Or the seedling disaster.
I knew what it looked like when someone took care of things. I’d been doing it my whole life. I just hadn’t ever been on thereceiving end. I didn’t know if I was equipped to handle that. Or him. He was a mountain man, rooted to this place like the pines surrounding it. I was a woman who’d blown in on the wind. And might blow back out just as quickly.
He picked up the piece of cardboard Tyler had abandoned and started helping.
We worked in a silence that should have been uncomfortable but somehow wasn’t. I was overly conscious of how much space he took up—how much I took up. I’d made peace with my curves a long time ago. I was a big girl in a world that had opinions about that, and most days I walked through it without a second thought.
But there was something different about being in a small, warm shed with a man that size. The accidental touches were unavoidable. A brush of knuckles. A bump of the knee. Each one landed like a small, deliberate secret.
When the floor was finally clear, he stood up and offered me a hand. His palm was calloused and warm, his grip firm as he pulled me to my feet. He didn’t let go immediately. He kept my hand in his, his thumb tracing a slow, deliberate circle over my knuckles.
“Your hands are dirty,” I said, wanting to tell him to move his hands higher. To touch me harder.
“Occupational hazard.”
“It suits you.”
He released me after a beat too long and nodded toward the sorting machine. “You know how to run this?”
“Not yet. I was getting to it.”
“Sit.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Made in that deep velvet tone, it was a command that I didn’t mind obeying. My nipples hardened thinking about other commands he could give me that I would be more than willing to obey.
I scrambled onto the high wooden stool, and Cord stepped in behind me. He didn’t just reach around me. He caged me in. His massive arms were on either side of my waist, his chest pressing firmly against my back. I could feel the hard planes of his muscles, the steady, heavy beat of his heart.
That movie scene flashed through my mind. Wet clay, close bodies. Of course, that had been a figment of that’s woman’s imagination too.
Was I imagining what was happening?
