“And that’s it? Two parts?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ve been showering in a barn for six weeks because of two parts.”
“Twenty-three fifty worth of parts.”
She made a sound that was half laugh and half something else. “If you tell anyone I could’ve bought back my dignity for twenty-three dollars and fifty cents, I will feed you to Clarence.”
“Clarence likes me.”
“Clarence likes anyone who wearsbuttons. Don’t think that will save you.”
I pulled out the old heating element. Corroded green at the base, just like I’d expected. I held it up so she could see.
“That’s disgusting,” she said.
“And it was your problem. Once the new one’s seated and I refill the tank, you should have hot water in about forty minutes.”
She shifted in the doorway. Her arms were crossed, the coffee cup hooked in one hand. She’d already changed position three times since she’d been standing there.
“You need anything? I feel bad that you’re doing all the work and I’m doing nothing. I can hand you tools. I’m extremely good at tool-handing. It’s basically my only useful skill in this situation.”
“You could hand me the Teflon tape. It’s in the bag.”
“On it, boss!” She gave me a little salute and set her coffee cup on the hallway floor before crouching beside me to dig through the bag.
I immediately realized I should’ve just reached over and gotten it myself. This closet space was not built for two people. Her knee pressed against mine. Her shoulder brushed the doorframe, and when she leaned forward to reach the tape at the bottom of the bag, her hip grazed mine and stayed there.
“Found it.” She held up the roll. “I told you I was excellent at…”
Her voice faded out as she sat up, and we were face-to-face in the tiny closet. Her eyes dropped to my mouth just for a second before she caught herself. Color hit her cheeks, and she started to shift back, already reaching for whatever joke would put the air back between us.
No. Fuck that.
My hand was on her face before the thought finished forming. I pulled her in and her mouth opened against mine, and the taste of her coffee and the heat of her breath hit me at the same time. She made a sound low in her throat, and her hand came up and fisted the front of my shirt and pulled me closer, and whatever had been left of my restraint went with it.
We both stood in jerky motions, my hand on her face and hers still fisted in my shirt. I shifted forward and pressed her back against the doorframe. No adrenaline this time. No panic, no floodwater, no woman shaking apart in my arms. Just her mouth and my hands and the fact that I wanted this. Webothwanted this. My hand moved from her face to her jaw to the back of her neck, and her other hand found my shoulder and held on.
Two steps and she was against the hallway wall, my body pressed into hers. She dragged her fingers through my hair and pulled, and the groan that came out of me surprised us both. Her mouth opened under mine, and I tasted her deeper, my hands gripping her hips hard enough that she arched into me.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to want something this much. I’d forgotten that my body could do this: reach for someone instead of bracing against the next thing that would go wrong.
This was different from that cave yesterday. While that had been adrenaline and fear and a woman who needed somewhere to put her pain, this was a hallway on a Tuesday morning and two people who just wanted each other. No crisis driving it. No flood outside. Just want, clean and simple, and I was done pretending I didn’t feel it.
My hand slid under her shirt, and the sound she made when my fingers hit bare skin almost took out my knees. We were heading somewhere specific, and both of us knew it. And the only reason we were still standing was because getting horizontal meant making it to a room, and neither of us was willing to break contact long enough to get there.
Until a truck door slammed outside and all the dogs in the barn began barking. A few seconds later, Beckett’s voice carried through from the front porch with a loud knock. “Yo, Stroud. You in there?”
We both stopped.
Lark’s eyes went wide. Her hands dropped from my neck to my chest, and she backed away. Her cheeks were flushed, and her shirt had ridden up on one side where my hand had been.
“Oh my God.” She pulled the shirt down. Her hands went to her hair, then her face, then back to the shirt. “Of course. OfcourseBeckett just shows up right at this second.”
“Lark—”
“I need to go check on the animals. The animals need checking right now.” She ducked under my arm and headed for the kitchen. At the back door, she turned. “Tell Beckett I said hi. And that I hate him.”
