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Finn glanced around the shack. “I hardly think anything in here will break the bank.” He leaned closer. “I would have preferred to take you to a boutique or something, but since this is an emergency, we’ll just have to make do.”
Jewel sucked in a breath. He was so close and he smelled so good.
Her usual discomfort gave way to something else, something equally unnerving but no less potent.
Jewel saw the softness in Finn’s eyes and her knees buckled. Rescuing her from a mugger was one thing. Shielding her from the rain and those tourists was another. But this…?
She couldn’t give in to it.
Her voice warbled as she said, “I get it. I get that I’m pathetic and pitiful and it’s easy to mistake your concern as something else, but I don’t need you.”
“Maybe I need you, Jewls.”
She froze.
He was staring at her, making her stomach flip and her heart thunder in her chest.
I’m insane.
Breathlessly, Jewel whispered, “Why aren’t you leaving Belize, Finn?”
He blinked, leaning even closer. “Why do you think?”
Jewel trembled. He was invading her personal space, filling her little bubble with his manly, visceral presence. His hazel eyes slammed past the cage her heart was locked in and left her rattled.
She wanted to touch him.
Her heart bucked.
Her? Jewel? Wanting a man? What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she learned anything from her years with Kross?
That desire, that heat… it was disgusting.
She took a giant step back. “I should… try on a few things. Just in case.”
“Take your time, Jewls.”
Jewel froze at the sound of her nickname tumbling from his firm, pink lips. It made their relationship feel more intimate, more personal, than it really was.
Finn pulled up a ratty plastic chair waiting by the barrels of clothes and settled in it. When he saw her staring at him, he smiled. “You need me to come with you?”
“No,” she blurted and hurried away.
The sound of his soft chuckles washed over her back, chasing her deeper into the store.
Jewel narrowly avoided skidding into the woman who was waiting for her in the recesses of the shack. She whispered an apology and brushed her shirt down to hide her heated face.
When she glanced up again, the woman was watching her with a big grin. She had a missing canine and another tooth wrapped in gold foil. A twinkle lit her glassy brown eyes.
“You got yourself a white boy,” she said with a note of approval.
“No, he’s not my boyfriend.”
“He’s handsome.”
Jewel shook her head, a little frustrated that the clerk didn’t believe her.
“Where did you meet?”
