“I was surveying.”
I reached up to the higher shelf for no reason. My shirt lifted. My chest pressed lightly against his back. He kept washing the pan in his hands, but his head tipped down a fraction.
“Jace.”
“What?”
“Don’t start something you don’t want finished.”
The words went straight through the noise.
My brain did that thing I hated and loved, where everything narrowed so fast it was almost dizzying. Sink running. Soap. His voice. The heat off his body. My own breathing.
“I’m helping,” I said.
“You’re provoking.”
“Can’t I do both?”
I crouched to put a bowl in the lower cabinet. On the way down, I let my hand slide along the front of his sweats, not enough to grab, enough to feel him hardening under the fabric.
The pan hit the sink with a dull sound.
I smiled at the cabinet.
Then Declan’s hand closed around the back of my neck and pulled me up.
Not rough enough to hurt. Not careless. Exact.
My body listened before my mouth had a chance to ruin it.
He turned me and backed me into the counter. My lower back met the edge. His other hand planted beside my hip, caging me in without trapping me.
“Try again,” he said.
My pulse thudded hard. “I was helping.”
His thumb moved once at the side of my neck. “Try again.”
I swallowed. “I wanted your attention.”
“You had it.”
“I wanted it on me.”
“There it is.”
The praise wasn’t the usual shape. It didn’t soften me. It stripped me down.
I reached for his waist, but he caught my wrist and put my hand on the counter beside me.
“Leave it there.”
My fingers curled against the stone.
His gaze moved over my face. “Color?”
“Green.”
