“No, out in Boston.”
“Look at us, regular jet-setting folks getting ready to drive cross-country.” To almost opposite sides of it, too, unfortunately.
He snickered and squeezed my hand. “I’m glad we both got the chance to take a break from the moving madness and do this today.”
“Me too.”
We followed Sadie’s directions until we reached a gnarled old tree, its trunk split and twisted around itself at the base almost like a braid. Several branches jutted out to the right at the perfect height to lean against, and the rest fanned out above us. The sign post at the edge of the trail proclaimed it to be an Osage orange that was over 170 years old.
It looked good for its age.
Neither of us needed any prompting to venture close while Sadie found a good spot to shoot from.
Zeke tested the strength of the low-hanging branch. “I bet it could hold you,” he said when I came up beside him to lean against it.
My gaze wandered down to his shirt and the minimal amount of skin he was showing, then down at myself and themaximumamount of skinIhad on display. I chewed on my bottom lip a moment before I caught his sleeve and tugged.
“Hey, can I fuss your look for the next few pictures?”
He looked down at my hand, then back up at me. After a moment of thought, he nodded.
I bounced up from my lean and unbuttoned the cuffs at his wrists so I could roll the sleeves up below his elbow. When I reached for his collar, I hesitated.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. His soft voice rumbled over me and made me feel warm all over. “It’s okay.”
I pinned my bottom lip between my teeth while I undid the top few buttons of his shirt and tugged the collar until it gaped open to expose a bit of his chest. A tiny dot of black ink peeked out at the top of his left pec, and I grinned.
“You have tattoos?”
“Just the one for now,” he said. He reached up to undo another button and tug his shirt to the side to show a pair of tiny animal paws above another pair that were more elongated. “I have a rabbit, Murph. These are his footprints from when he was a baby.”
“Oh my gods, how littlewashe?!”
He held his hands far closer together than I expected. “He’s a Holland lop. They’re small, even full grown.” He went quiet while he re-fastened the button he’d undone, then shrugged. “You could come meet him after this if you want.”
Be still my heart. Who could say no to that?
CHAPTER 04: ZEKE
I didn’t know what possessed me to invite Jericho over, but he accepted so enthusiastically that I was glad I did.
Once Sadie was ready to continue, Jericho hopped up to sit on the low-slung branch and pulled me in by the open front of my shirt until he could pin me between his knees. My face heated for the hundredth time in the last half hour, but our interactions were getting easier, less nervous. I didn’t hesitate to slide my arms over his shoulders, or to play my fingersthrough the short hair at the nape of his neck when he leaned into the touch.
“That’s nice,” he murmured as his eyes slid closed. “Going to put me to sleep if you keep this up for too long, though.”
“We definitely don’t want that,” I chuckled. “I mean, you’re small enough. Icouldlug you around over my shoulder for the rest of the shoot, but I doubt that would make for good photos.”
His eyes snapped open, and he grinned up at me. “I would let you pick me up anyway. You know, for a couple of photos.”
It was Sadie’s turn to laugh. “That could be fun, if you want to try.”
After a quick glance over at her, I bent down and grabbed Jericho around the waist to sling him over my shoulder like a potato sack. He squeaked and fisted his hands in the back of my shirt until I straightened.
“Well?” I adjusted my grip on his legs when he bent his knees and shifted so my shoulder wasn’t digging into his ribs. “Is it everything you thought it would be?”
“Man, the air’sthinup here,” Jericho said through a snicker.
