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Tarley helped him skirt the fire. “My sister Brinna is looking forward to it. Not me. I’d rather not be reminded how far beneath them I am.”
When they got to the flap of the tent, Tarley lifted it and backed in, offering her shoulders as a means for his support. “Duck,” she said and looked up, making sure to keep her eyes on his face rather than the hand he used to cover himself.
He looked down at her.
“I promise, I’m not looking,” she said with an eye roll.
“What if I was hoping you would?” He smiled and chuckled. “See. Sorry. Irreverent and inappropriate.”
“You’re a rascal,” she said and hid her smile instead of growing indignant, then she sobered. What was she doing, encouraging him?
He laughed, then grimaced. “This really is strange.”
“You can say that again.” She shuffled a touch closer to him in the confines, trying to find a way to get him back in, only she’d forgotten about the blanket she’d thrown inside. Her foot got caught, and like a horrible dream, she lost her balance, toppling onto her back and dragging Ollie down.
She gasped as his weight landed on her.
He grunted as they hit the bedding, but somehow, he managed to keep from crushing her, stopping himself with his hands. “Oh fuck,” he groaned, his head falling forward as he breathed through the pain she could only imagine was a fire moving though him.
His brown hair teased her nose.
“Are you hurt?” She pushed his hair back off his forehead and searched his face, her hands framing his cheeks. “Oh stars, are you hurt? Worse?”
“I’m fine. Are you?” His eyes opened and connected with hers.
The sensation of being dragged in tugged at Tarley. A pulse of warmth, light, and knowing started in her belly like a tiny seed and sat there, but she didn’t understand it. Her heart expanded in her chest along with her breath, and in her mind she pictured Ollie standing near the tree on the green in Sevens, smiling at her, waiting for her.
With a blink, she returned to her body and tried to squirm out from under him, recalling, rather suddenly, his very naked body. Pressed. Against. Hers.
“Ollie. I. Can’t. Move.”
“Just having a bit of a… time.” He cleared his throat. “You know. With a pretty woman squirming under me.” He gave her a pained smile but didn’t open his eyes, releasing a slow breath through his nose.
Pretty? She certainly wasn’t pretty at the moment. She was dirty and would probably chase away a predator with how terrible she smelled. She made an incredulous snort. “Right,” she muttered.
“Stop. Moving. Tarley,” he said through his clenched jaw.
She recognized it then, his rigidity against her thigh, and she stilled, eyes widening.
His eyes opened once more, meeting hers, and he smirked with those infuriating dimples, completely at ease with the fact that … that … that …
Her breath rushed out. “It’s the tonic, probably–” She looked away. “Makes it hard to–”
His eyes widened. “Makes it hard?” He chuckled.
Flustered, she shook her head. “No, I mean, the tonic makes it difficult to control things.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the tonic.” His grin widened, his eyes skimming her face.
Tarley made a frustrated noise. Did he ever stop smiling? “Just roll a bit, and I’ll get out from under you.”
“Stop wiggling,” he said. “You’re making it worse. Unless that, too, is by design. Was our fall by design as well?”
Rattled, she stilled, her gaze meeting his. His eyes were darker now, greener, like the forest on a summer day. He was smiling, but it wasn’t exactly amusement on his face. He shifted to one side as much as he could in the cramped space, and she found herself free to slide out from under him.
But instead of moving, she stilled. She knew she should scramble out from under him straight away, except when her gaze dipped to his mouth, she wondered–
Move, she chastised herself.
