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My shoulders tighten right back up again at the sheer disbelief on his face. "It's actually a fun game. The person who completes a decent collection of wildflowers in the allotted time gets a seat at the table. The winner is the one with the prettiest bouquet."
He winces. "I know where to find an amazing field of fall wildflowers. We could have won that one if I'd bowed out of the contact-finding mission."
It's my turn to smirk as I gesture at the open field behind me. "It's not too late, Ranger. Go save your team." It's almost definitely too late.
He chuckles. "Yeah, I'm not falling for that one."
The confounding man pulls up a folding chair someone left behind and takes a seat, stretching out his long legs in front of him.
"What are you doing?"
He shrugs, entirely unconcerned. "I've got no tools, no strategy, and, honestly, no desire to find that contact. If you care about winning so much, who am I to interfere?"
I glare at him. I should leap for joy, but this is not how this was supposed to play out. "Beating you is meaningless if you don't care when you lose."
His eyes crinkling at the corners is the only indication of his amusement. "I thought you cared about saving face with your family? Why do you care how I react to losing?"
"I don't care." Damn it, that came out sounding like a petulant four-year-old.
"Especially when you don't even need the extra ten points, since it sounds like my team is losing the wildflower picking contest."
I. Hate. Him.
"It needs to be a landslide victory," I say, lying. "Or it doesn't count."
"Really? Because I heard Keating crowing about how he won a cannonball competition last year by one point."
"Keating is one step removed from a barbarian. He might be happy with a one point victory, but the rest of us need more." Yep, I'm telling a fairy tale now. My family would rag on me and my sisters about losing, but they welcome any and everyone to a competition and are firm believers in beginners' luck. A victory, no matter how hard won, will still be a victory.
It won't feel like a victory, though, unless Ranger feels it. Unless he's brought down a peg or ten seeing me and my sisters beat him at every turn.
He narrows his eyes, but his lips twitch. There's a lightness to him I haven't seen before and I hate how much I like it. Especially since he's definitely laughing at me. "I think you're lying. I don't think you care what your family thinks. You just want to beat me." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, face alight with interest. "Tell me, Dani. Do you think about me often? Do you fantasize about putting me in my place?"
His voice is husky, all the amusement gone. I hate the way I lean toward him, the way my body sizzles with an ache I suspect he could fill perfectly. I try to shake it off. I fail. "Trust me, Ranger. One terrible kiss isn't going to ignite any fantasies for me."
I return to my task of dumping water through the cheesecloth. Still no contact. I look up to find him right next to me, so close his yummy, woodsy scent fills my world. "That kiss was the best kiss of your life. Admit it."
I laugh, but it's a choked sound. He's not wrong, but he can never, ever know that. I stare at the cup as I dip it into the barrel. "I barely remember that kiss."
He snorts. "Then why are you shivering?"
His breath on my neck makes me shiver even more. I hate him. I hate him for making me feel this way, so out of control of my body and my mind. I just need to get him out of my system.
I drop the cup into the barrel and spin to face him, our bodies so close we're practically touching. "That kiss was a fluke. I can promise you won't get the same reaction out of me a second time."
"And I can promise I'll get an even bigger, more satisfying reaction out of you. I'll kiss you so damn good, you'll be begging for more."
I should laugh in his face. Who talks this way in real life? Instead, I step closer. "Or maybe I'll kiss you so damn good, you'll be here every morning so obsessed with me you can't sleep or eat or think of anything else. Maybe my magic extends beyond animals and that mark I already have on your soul will blossom into a curse you can never escape."
He smiles like I've whispered sweet nothings in his ear. "You need some work on the sexy talk."
"My sexy talk is the best sexy talk anyone with ears has ever heard." I have never spoken sexy to anyone in my life, unless you count the time I had to explain to my youngest sister how a man's penis could fit inside a woman's vagina when I was ten. I got it dreadfully wrong and she may well still believe that a man's penis can alter its shape to fit inside a woman.
He takes a step back and looks me up and down. "Dazzle me."
I stare, hoping he's not saying what I think he's saying.
"Give me some of that impressive sexy talk of yours."
