Page 85 of Have To Be Mine

She was across the set in the shade of the crew tent, one hand on a cooler, cracking open a water bottle. She tipped her head back and drank. Her throat moved. I watched as a man who had recently become acquainted with that throat and was hoping to have my lips back on that stretch of skin very soon.

She was back in the khaki shorts. Different pair, same energy. White tee just short enough that when she raised the water bottle there was maybe half an inch of stomach visible above the waistband. I knew what that patch of skin tasted like. I knew what every inch of her tasted like. Well, like eighty percent. I planned on learning the other twenty over the coming days. I knew what her ass felt like. Her hips. And what it felt like to be between those muscular thighs. My eyes traced down her legs and I paused.

What the fuck were those atrocities on her feet? Velcro sandals? I was pretty sure those were mandals. She could climb mountains in those damn things. Way too utilitarian and zero percent sexy. They were an insult to the eyes. A genuine affront to fashion. A woman who had legs like Krista Hedley should never wear those things. I had three sisters-in-law with impeccable taste and every shoe brand in the world at their disposal and none of them, not one, had ever committed a crime against footwear like this.

And somehow she still looked incredible.

That was the thing about Krista. She didn’t try. She just existed without caring whether the world found her appearance acceptable. I got it, but I was still burning those shoes the first chance I got.

She looked my way, but the second she saw me looking at her, she looked away. That was weird. I expected something more. A wink. A smirk.

Something.

She’d been off all day. She wasn’t seeking me out between tasks. When our paths crossed, she was professional, but something was different. I didn’t expect her to kiss me or flirt, but I expected something more than what I was getting from her.

I tried to focus on the staging walkthrough with the production coordinator. I managed it for about twenty minutes before my attention went back to the tent. I needed to make sure we were okay.

I found her talking to one of the set assistants, pointing at something on the upper level of the staging structure. The old Dash would have handled this one of two ways.

He would have convinced himself it was nothing, that he was imagining things, and buried himself in whatever he could until the feeling went away on its own. It would either resolve or explode. Or he would have walked up to her and said something direct enough to be classified as a confrontation, which would have sent her directly into defense mode. The old Dash was an idiot.

Krista would want a conversation, not a confrontation.

I excused myself from the lighting walkthrough and crossed the set. She saw me coming and excused herself from the conversation she’d been in.

“Can I steal you for a minute?” I asked.

She took a second too long, which told me she was pissed at me about something. I couldn’t imagine what. I hadn’t done anything. I’d been working like she wanted me to.

She followed me away from the cluster of crew members.

I turned to face her. “You’ve been off today.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not asking if you’re fine. You’re not the same woman I was with yesterday. I’d like to know what’s going on.”

She looked out at the view. It occurred to me that maybe I was overstepping. Maybe I should let it go.

“We can talk about it after the event,” she said.

“That’s two days away.”

“I know.”

“If something’s wrong, I want to know now. Tell me how to fix it.”

She pressed her lips together. I could feel something coming and I didn’t like it. Something had happened and I had lost the soft, supple woman I’d held in my arms on that yacht.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “When we go back. I don’t want to take the logistics role with Blackwell Couture.”

I waited because that wasn’t what was bothering her. “Okay,” I said. “I didn’t even know that was an option on the table. Why were you worried about telling me that?”

She looked away.

“Krista.”

She exhaled. “I don’t think we should continue this when we get back to New York either.”