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Rowan’s full mouth curves. He looks very pleased with himself. Then his face returns to serious; he lifts one huge hand, slowly, and holds it out between us, palm up.

“May I touch you?”

And I fucking melt, because nobody’s ever asked me that. Not once. Gareth Tolley grabbed my ass at the harvest dance and called it courting.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “You can.”

I put my hand in his, and it’s like flipping a switch. One second, he’s standing there all calm and polite, carefully holding my hand. The next, he’s on me. One arm wraps around my waist and hauls me against him so fast my feet almost leave the floor. He buries his face in my neck and breathes in deep… then growls. A low, rough sound that rumbles through his chest and straight into mine.

“Fuck,” he groans against my skin. “Fuck, you smell good.”

His huge hand slides down to my hip and squeezes, hard, his fingers digging in like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me. I can feel him pressed against my belly, thick, long, heavy, hard, and my knees go freaking weak. His nose drags up my throat, his lips brush right over my pulse, and he rasps, “Mine.”

I whimper. Out loud. In front of Mother Wren.

And he freezes, lets go of me like I burned him, and steps back, all the way back, until he bumps into a shelf and knocks over an entire row of little wooden soldiers, staring at me with his chest heaving and his eyes wild.

“I apologize,” he says stiffly. “That was… I don’t know what that was.”

I’m standing there panting, with my dress all twisted and my underwear completely ruined. “It’s… it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You didn’t say I could do that.”

“I said you could touch me.”

“I meant shake your hand.”

Oh my God, he’s embarrassed. This giant wooden man who just growled into my neck like he wanted to eat me alive is standing there with his fists clenched, genuinely upset that he didn’t ask first. And something warm and soft spreads all through my chest.

“Rowan,” I say with a small, happy smile. “I really didn’t mind.”

His eyes snap to mine, and there’s so much heat in them I almost need to sit down.

Mother Wren blows sawdust off her carving, then points her chisel from Rowan to me. “No returns.”

* * *

We walk home through the village.

I figured it’d be quiet, since it’s a weeknight and folks should be inside eating supper. Nope. Apparently, the whole village decided tonight was a beautiful night to sit out on the porch.

Every single head turns as we walk by. Conversations stop mid-sentence. Somebody drops a whole bucket of water, and the baker’s wife’s jaw is literally hanging open.

And Rowan doesn’t notice any of it… or if he does, he doesn’t care. He just walks next to me with his hand resting on the small of my back like it belongs there, staring down at me the whole way. Not at the houses, not at the moon. At me. It’s so distracting I almost trip twice.

Old Mister Hatch is standing in the middle of the way with his cow. He squints way up at Rowan. “Who’s this, now?”

Rowan looks down at him like he’s something stuck to his shoe. “Move.”

“Excuse me?”

“You and your cow are in her way. Move.”

Mister Hatch moves. So does the cow, and I’ve never seen that cow move for anybody. I press my lips together so I don’t laugh.

And then, because God clearly hates me, we pass Bess’s porch. She’s with Marigold, both of them in their rocking chairs, shelling peas.

They see us, and the peas go everywhere.