Hot, but rude.
I step into the shade and glance around once, twice.
Nothing.
Then a hand catches mine from behind a brick column and I choke on a laugh before I can stop myself.
He steps out in a black hoodie and baseball cap, travel bag slung over one shoulder, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes and doing absolutely nothing to make him less devastating.
“Tristan.”
His mouth curves.
“Morning, baby.”
I swat his arm, still laughing under my breath because the entire thing feels insane.
“We look like fugitives.”
“We look efficient.”
“That’s not what this looks like.”
His fingers tighten around mine.
“It is if we move.”
Then he tugs me with him down the alley, and I go, trying not to laugh out loud as we jog past a row of campus landscaping carts like two idiots escaping a heist movie.
My duffel bumps against my hip. His hand is warm and firm around mine. My heartbeat goes strange and skittery with the combination of adrenaline and the fact that I am very aware of exactly how long it has been since I’ve been alone with him without teammates or tension or public space forcing restraint into the room.
We round the corner.
His SUV is parked in the shadow of a service building, black and clean and entirely too polished for the amount of chaos currently happening in my chest.
He takes my bag before I can protest and tosses both duffels into the back.
I fold my arms and look at him.
“So this is how it starts.”
His brows lift.
“How what starts?”
“My disappearance.”
A grin pulls at his mouth.
“If I were kidnapping you, I’d be smoother about it.”
“I don’t know.” I open the passenger door and slide in. “The sneaking and alley rendezvous were a nice dramatic touch.”
He leans one forearm on the roof of the car and looks at me over the top edge of his sunglasses.
“You’re enjoying this.”
I buckl? in and refuse to answer because yes, obviously, and he knows it.
