He tried to take her hand as she stepped up into the truck. Just to help her, obviously, in almost the same way he’d helped her before. Only now it didn’t just feel weird, or a little uncomfortable. It shot ten thousand volts through her palm and right the way up her arm. She actually stumbled a little, it was that intense.
But that just meant he said, “Whoa, easy there.”
Then caught her with those big hands. One of them on her waist, the other splayed over her back. Both of them as practical and careful as anything about it. Though, god, it didn’t feel practical and careful to her body. It couldn’t possibly, because his hands were just so massive. The moment he made contact, it felt as if he were touching her everywhere at once.
The curve just above her ass, the slide of her side into the soft spot underneath her arm. Hell, he had such a big grip that his fingers almost seemed to get right around her. One of them was definitely almost at the underside of her right breast. It felt as if she could have flinched and forced it all the way there.
And that was nuts.
It was too much.
She tried to twist away, automatically, instinctively.
But all that did was turn her in his arms. Then somehow her hand was on his shoulder, way, way too close to the nape of his neck, his shaggy hair. She could have touched the beginnings of one little curl, without it seeming like a big deal at all. Though it wasn’t this temptation that made her heart race even harder.
It was the way he looked in the dying light.
She had always known he was handsome, of course. But it had never really mattered to her. She had neverletit matter. It was just a fact of life, likethe sky is blueandthe grass is green. Worse than that, really—it had annoyed her that he was.
Only it wasn’t annoying her now.
It was drawing her in, like a detail on a painting that didn’t seem like much at first glance. Until you looked closer. Saw its true intention. Realized it had meant something else all along. Then suddenly you just couldn’t look away.
Not even when he seemed to notice.
“Emmett,” he said. Only he didn’t say exactly that. There was no doubleTon the end. There was anIand anE, so softly spoken it didn’t even just seem like a switch of letters, to form a sort of nickname. It seemed like a term of endearment. Something warmly chosen, in a moment of sudden realization.
Even though the realization had only been hers.
He hadn’t suddenly grasped the difference between being handsome and being attractive. He couldn’t have, he wouldn’t have. This was just the way things had builtto a head for him, most likely. All this touching and pretend affection, rising and rising until he couldn’t stop a slightly sweeter name from dropping out of him.
Nothing really.
Not like what she almost did in that terrible crescendo.
She heard that soft version of her name, and her hand just lifted of its own accord. Away from his shoulder and toward that face, that suddenly fascinating face. The one that actually seemed to tilt up to hers, for a second, and so convincingly she found herself leaning down.
Like she was going tokisshim.
Kiss Caleb Miller, right on the lips.
Her college self would have killed her if she had seen such a thing about to happen. Though truth be told, it felt like a kind of dying. And she couldn’t even say she saved herself from it. It was someone else, shouting at them from across the parking lot. “Hey,” they said. “Get a fucking room.”
And suddenly the spell was broken.
She snapped away, fast and violent enough that he made a sound of surprise. As if nothing had been happening to him—all of that had been perfectly ordinary in his eyes. It made no sense that she would jam herself into her seat and try to slam the door shut on him. Or that she would snap “Just get us to the hotel fast” once they were ready to set off.
In fact, that probably explained why he seemed even stranger than he already had been for the last two days suddenly. He couldn’t seem to focus. They went to check out and it took the woman at the desk three attempts toget him to answer the question “Was your stay nice?” And not even in a surly way.
More like in a forgotten-what-words-were way.
She actually heard him say “Huh?” Even though he had once told her that sayinghuhmade her sound like a goose. By the time they exited the building she desperately wanted to ask him if he was okay. But god in heaven, did she fear the answer. What if he wasn’t? What if this was already fucking him up?
Try to get him to focus on the road, she told herself.
On the sights and scenery on the way to Paramus, New Jersey.
In fact, that seemed like a good idea for her, too.
