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Damn, did it feel good to watch him fall on his ass.
Twice.
I’m glad he muddied up his fancy outfit.
Looking at him, you couldn’t even tell he’s from here.
But I liked getting to rub his face in the dirt of Heart’s Edge.
Just a reminder that he can’t wash away who he is that easy.
“—ibby?”
It takes me a minute to realize Felicity’s still talking. Whoops.
I’d zoned out, staring at her hands while she cleaned glasses without really seeing her, or much of anything but that devil’s bourbon-gold eyes.
“Libby.”
“Huh?” I shake myself, blinking, focusing on her face. “Sorry, what’s up, Fel?”
“You’re what’s up,” she says, eyeing me. “Your face is red as a tomato. What’s on your mind?”
“Have you ever noticed,” I say, almost before she can even finish the question, “how some guys think they know everything? Like, they can’t fathom that maybe they’re wrong. Maybe they’re just not going to get their way, not with my land and not with me.”
Felicity arches a brow, an amused smile teasing at her lips, just a glint of teeth she’s trying to hide. “What man’s trying to have his way with you? ’Cause if I didn’t know better, I’d think Holt Silverton was getting under your skin.”
“Like fricking snake venom,” I spit back. “And nothing good comes from getting bit.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I can think of a lot of good things you get from biting,” she muses with mock-innocence. “A lot of long, thick, slithering thi—”
“Felicity!” Half wheezing, half laughing, I push myself up on the rungs of the stool, snatch her wet towel right out of her hands, and fling it at her face.
Giggling, she sets the mug she’d been cleaning down and grabs at the towel, pulling it down and blowing her mussed brown hair out of her face.
“And there you are. Welcome back.” She grins wickedly. “You’re blushing like a schoolgirl in denial, y’know.”
“I’m not in denial of shit.” Grumbling, I flump back down on the stool and take a long cold sip of my mocha latte, then lick a little whipped cream off the top. “Listen, if he goes missing any time in the next week, I’ll deny knowing where the body is. And you’ll back me up.”
“I mean…if you really want to kill him that bad, here’s your chance.” Felicity smirks at me knowingly, her eyes cutting over my shoulder. “Surprise. He’s been watching you for the last five minutes.”
Oh, crap. My heart stops.
“What?”
I don’t want to turn around.
I just can’t freaking help myself.
Wide-eyed, I peer over my shoulder.
Right to where Holt sits at a corner table, sprawled out, looking like pure sin in a tidy package.
Only, he ain’t that tidy at all right now.
He sure as blazes doesn’t look like the polished city suit I met the other day.
Today, he’s actually kinda filthy. I don’t think anybody’s ever made filth look this good—wearing nothing but a pair of construction coveralls in battered, dirty dark grey.
They’re unzipped at the top and rolled down with the sleeves tied around his narrow hips, the white A-shirt underneath so sweaty it might as well just paint the way the fabric clings to his mountain of muscle.
God, I can see everything.
From the dark curl of black chest hair crinkling around his pecs right down to the tiniest sculpted detail of his abs.
Mercy.
Those ripples of tight muscle wind on like waves, starting at his ribs and pouring around to his back. He’s got arms like cut steel, pure chisel and nothing else, and he’s streaked in sweat and grease and grime that just makes you want to rub up against him to get a little of his bad self all over you.
Worst of all, he’s looking dead at me.
Practically blinding me with those intense, sultry hazel devil eyes.
A grin plastered on his gorgeously red mouth says he knows exactly what I’m thinking when my eyes dip down over his chest, trailing to the way his wide-spread thighs push against the baggy coverall pants in curves of hard muscle.
“Libby,” Felicity says mildly, “put your tongue back in your mouth.”
I whip back around to face her with my cheeks lighting up like flaming cherries. “My tongue wasn’t—I didn’t—don’t bring my tongue into this!”
Oh my God.
Oh my God, I’m dead.
I can’t be having these thoughts.
Just because he’s gorgeous doesn’t change the fact that he’s bad news.
He still wants my land.
My home.
All the things Dad left me to protect.
“Lib-by,” Felicity sing-songs softly.
“No,” I snap.
“Liiiibby.”
I hunker down into my shoulders, folding my arms on the bartop and glowering down into my latte. “What?”
“I think,” she says, “our darling Holt would like to speak with you.”
“Well, too bad. I don’t wanna speak with him. Or anything else with him.”
“Never said you did.”
She’s chortling now.
Awesome.
Honestly, I’ve never heard any woman chortle before, never even knew what it sounded like, but now I do—it’s that sound when you’re trying to talk, but you’re trying not to laugh but you can’t help yourself, so these silly little hoo-hoo-hoo sounds come out around the words while you’re shaking yourself silly trying to hold it in.
