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I winced at the mud under her pale green sweater. “Need some help?”
“Oh thank god. Your arms are freakishly long.” Eva piped up from my right.
I tore my eyes away from Chloe’s ass, molded to perfection in her jeans, and caught sight of Eva crouched next to a soft-sided enclosure full of live ducks. No wonder they were surrounded by onlookers.
Chloe sighed in disgust and kicked out at me with her leg, connecting with my running shoe. “I could use another twelve inches of reach. Henry the escape artist got out of the pen and waddled his little butt between the tents.”
I crouched next to her shoulder and glanced into the hole. A small duck was clearly silhouetted by the light shining from the other end. The whole depth of the tent was barely longer than my arm.
“I think I can get him, but I need you to move.”
Chloe pushed herself off the ground, muttering obscenities at the duck, the dirt, someone named Alexis, and the race as a whole. It was an impressively long list in a short amount of time.
I got to my feet next to her, moving to the side of the hole so as not to startle the duck. “Having a hard morning?”
She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “I thrive in challenging situations.”
“Looks like you might be losing the challenge.”
“What?”
I nodded at her chest, where brown and green smears marred the front of her sweater. She looked down and added another curse to her diatribe.
“Here,” I muttered, then pulled my shirt over my head.
It wasn’t too cold out, and I probably had an extra in Mac’s car somewhere. I held the material out to Chloe, but her eyes locked on my left shoulder. As if in a daze, she reached up to trace the tip of my tattoo.
My arm dropped, and I stood still while she circled me, following her with my gaze. Her fingers traced the sweeping lines making up the phoenix’s body, trailing down my back in a blaze of fiery feathers and need.
If she kept touching me, I wouldn’t be able to hide my reaction from her in my running shorts. I cleared my suddenly dry throat and turned to capture her hand. Chloe looked up at me, lust chasing the questions in her eyes.
“Your phoenix is beautiful—”
Eva whistled from her spot distributing ducks to unsuspecting runners. “Can you stop ogling each other long enough to get Henry, please?”
Shit, we’d completely forgotten about the duck. At her raised voice, a loud quack came from the hole. A second later, a mottled brown head poked out. Henry shook his whole body, then ran with webbed feet slapping the mud straight toward Eva.
She shrieked and tried to put down the duck she was already holding. “Catch him! Catch him!”
Chloe blinked, then lunged for the bird. She scooped him up before he could reach his goal, and he let her know his displeasure by trying to bite her between angry quacks.
“Bad duck.” Chloe scolded as she walked him the rest of the way to Eva.
She set him in the enclosure, and he wiggled his butt with his beak in the air. I’ve never seen a clearer look of disdain on an animal, and I’d met Shaw’s cat.
I couldn’t hold in the laughter, and I wasn’t the only one. Most of the people standing around had seen the show. Chloe took a bow, then stomped over and snatched my shirt from my limp hand.
“Thanks. I could use a wardrobe change since I think we’re here for another couple of hours while they go through all the heats.”
I pressed my lips together to try to smother my reaction, but my shaking shoulders gave me away.
Chloe narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t you have a race to run?”
People had started lining up behind her, including Mac, who was hard to miss in his ridiculous shorts, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Her eyes widened as I drew closer. I touched the bottom of her chin, tilting her head up.
The tip of her tongue came out to wet her lips, and hunger burst to life inside me—feral and completely inappropriate. For an agonizingly short moment, I saw the same wild need on her face, but just as quickly, she hid it behind her sunny mask.
I wiped a bit of dirt from her cheek, lingering longer than strictly necessary.
