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She rolled her eyes at his corny comeback, but her lips tugged into a small smile. The blanket rustled below as Curtis edged closer. She didn’t even try to pull away. She’d end up in the grass if she did. She could have. The grass wouldn’t have been so bad, but she didn’t move.
Her entire being froze like a blast of frigid air swept through her insides, chilling them beyond functioning properly. Curtis shifted a little closer and she knew she couldn’t move if she tried. She was about to have an internal meltdown in five seconds. She was turning into a pile of mushy goo, or rainbow slime, as the seconds ticked on.
He was too close. She could feel his body heat. The night was chilling off as the sun went down. He was so warm. So. Warm. So. Close. He smelled so good. Intoxicating.
Her insides turned into a squirmy, liquid mess. If he was the fire, she was the marshmallow. She imagined herself getting all gooey and perfect and then suddenly combusting into flames. She’d never actually roasted a marshmallow before. She’d totally seen videos though. That was her. Gooey. Flames. Charred. She was burning up in her own skin.
And then, Curtis touched her. He edged his hand closer until his fingers brushed hers. She actually gasped like she’d just sat down on a hill of ants and realized that the ants in the pants saying was no joke. His baby finger grasped hers and twined through it like a weird version of a pinkie promise. What was she promising him? Was she agreeing, just like that? Silently, because they didn’t need words? Because words were what was wrong all along? They’d both talked a big game and they were both done with their paltry protests. They were both done sparring, slinging stones and arrows.
Her eyes flew to his face. The purples, pinks, and reds of the sunset were illuminated there, turning his already bronzed complexion into a burnished gold. She shivered.
“I wanted you from the first day I saw you.”
Lexi blinked. That was not what she expected to hear. “I didn’t. I didn’t want you from the first day I met you.” Her words were lacking their normal heat. Maybe they really were done sparring.
“I can live with that.” Curtis went on the offensive, reaching over with his free hand and running the pad of his thumb down her cheek. She tried not to revel in the callousness.
“Why are your fingers rough? All you do all day is type on your laptop and indulge in rich, entitled things.”
Curtis chuckled under his breath. “Lord. You have no idea, but I applaud the effort. I actually enjoy woodwork. I have a shop at the house. In the garage. You never went out there. I do a little every single day. It was something my grandfather loved too. This cabin was only half finished when he bought it. He did the rest. Finished all the inside. Built most of the furniture too.”
Lexi tried not to think about the detailed cabinets, the amazing kitchen table with the carved legs or the nightstands and dressers in the bedroom that she’d put her suitcase in. It made it too real, too personal. She could imagine Curtis’ grandfather with a five year old Curtis, teaching him how to hold some woodworking tool. It made her feel all soft and weird inside. She didn’t want to feel soft or weird.
“Right. Well, you’re still a jerk. A rich jerk. My boss jerk. This is never going to happen.”
His finger ran down her cheek and caressed her jaw, sending off a shower of sparks through her bloodstream. Her heart hammered so loud it sounded like a freaking frog was standing between them, bellowing out his mating call. No, she was not pounding out a mating anything. That was a stupid thought. Being so close to Curtis, his dark blue eyes, as dark and alive as the lake’s surface as it mirrored the sunset, was doing horrible things to her.
“It would ruin our lives,” she went on. “Or at least, my life. Which you obviously don’t care about. You can fire me. Hire another one of me. Find a model, find- find anyone else….”
“You’re wrong.” The pad of his thumb smoothed over her bottom lip. The spark shower in her blood reached apocalyptic proportions. “There isn’t anyone else like you. You don’t give a shit that I have money. You don’t care about anything I own. That’s not who I am to you.”
“You don’t need money to be an asshole.”
Curtis sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of impatience. It was one of those sighs that told her that he knew very well she was going to surrender soon.
“We’re back to that, are we?”
“If we do this, it’s not going to be anything more than hate sex.”
