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The guy was already around the side of the greenhouse, and the moon seemed to shine a spotlight on her. Adrenaline pumped wildfire into her bloodstream. But it didn’t matter. His legs were longer, and he had a head start.
In a few long strides, his arms snapped around her torso like a living straitjacket. “You’re caught. You’re done,” he said, his breath igniting a hot trail from her earlobe to her collarbone.
Cinnamon gum.
The primitive part of her brain did a strange double-duty analysis, acknowledging the alarm of being caught, while simultaneously detecting that her captor smelleddelicious. Somehow like marshmallows, undercut with sharp, peppery juniper and clean sweat. That weird juxtaposition of sensory delight with the compounded anxiety from the entire evening made her light-headed.
More screams in the distance, more laughter, more hoots of victory from male voices. Really, had the rest of her team hidden behind bushes and tree trunks?
Rowan jerked against his grip.
“Easy,” the guy said, letting his arms fall away. At the same time, she twisted to face him to push free, and the momentum made her bounce her nose sharply against his breastbone like a choreographed slapstick gag.
Phantom stars instantly bloomed behind her eyes, a firework of pain. Tears welled, her scalp prickled. The stranger reached out and slid his hands down the backs of her arms, clutching lightly to keep her steady.
Rowan moaned into her cupped hands.
“Damn it, sorry. Let me see.” He removed his ball cap, and a boyish swoop of hair fell over his forehead. He tossed the locks back with an upward jerk of his chin, then reseated the cap bill-backward on his head. Gently, he cuffed her wrists and pulled her hands away from her nose.
“Bleeding?” she mumbled.
“Ah, youcanspeak.” He tucked a knuckle under her chin to tilt her face to the moonlight, bringing his face close to hers.
Rowan glared. It was her first real look at him in the glow of the moon. His height disoriented her—she wasn’t used to having to look up to meet someone’s eyes. His clothes were too big for his lean frame. Hollows bracketed his mouth beneath too-sharp cheekbones. The edges of gleaming white teeth showed beneath a vaguely snarly top lip as he struggled to catch his breath.
There was an intangible vulnerability about him that tempered her combativeness. Something about his posture, or the way his concerned frown made his eyebrows dip down at the outer edges. The backward ball cap, or the spicy scent of his gum.
One of his hands maintained a warm, proprietary grip on her arm, his thumb absently passing up and down her bicep. His other hand cupped her opposite elbow. Awareness stirred inside her—an explicit human-to-human recognition of warm, healthy skin against her own. Somehow, this entire bizarre situation was beginning to turn her on, muddling her instinct to run.
Ofcourseher libido would make this even weirder.
“I look like a goblin shark now, don’t I?” she said. Her voice sounded nasally to her own ears, but the tingling pain had already faded, urged on its way by the long-fingered hands steadying her. Soothing her.
“Ah—I’m not sure if I should take you straight to an emergency room or a reconstructive surgeon.”
His expression was placid on the surface, but something in his eyes churned like a rip current. As he studied her face, Rowan caught a glimpse of his tongue, nudging against the tip of a perfect incisor.
“Ha, ha,” she deadpanned.
While evading him in the dark greenhouse, her rampaging imagination had painted him as a faceless wraith. A thing devoid of personhood. But now that she was close enough to him that shesmelledhis body heat and felt the gusts of his breath against her mouth, it was impossible to ignore his very appealing humanity.
With a lover’s familiarity, he tucked a loose curl behind her ear. The pads of his fingertips brushed along the sensitive curve of the lobe. “You good now?” he said. His eyes dipped to her lips. It sent a sucker punch of desire straight to her belly.
She didn’t know his name.
The narrow space between them changed and charged, like the air pressure plunge before a major storm. They breathed each other, inhaling what the other exhaled. The greedy ache in her belly unwound and spread lower until it found a home between her hip bones. Rowan tipped her head back and narrowed her eyes in silent challenge, daring him to make a move.
Did people hook up at housewarming parties?
She didn’tneedto know his name for that.
A few flyaway filaments of her hair floated upward, caressing his face. He dipped his head subtly to the side, questioning, calculating. A modest forward nudge, a deeper downward exhale, and his mouth would be on hers. Curiosity and panic and recklessness expanded in her chest like an intoxicant-filled balloon.
God,she’d never felt anything like it before, and she didn’t even know his name.
The loud bleat of an air horn shattered the silence. The guy flinched like he’d been slapped, throat convulsing in a hard swallow as he glanced down the hill and back to her. They stared at each other, chests rising and falling in unison.
“What’s that mean?” Rowan asked. “The horn.”
