“Fine,” she says, stiffening into a more stubborn pose. “Then I’ll just have to hire someone else to do it.” She turns and starts walking back toward where I assume her storeroom is located.
“Like who?” I follow her.
She rounds the worktable, and I go around the opposite side until we meet in the middle. She cuts her eyes to directly look into mine. “Someone.” She blinks twice. “Someone good at being sexy who can help me be sexy too.” Two more blinks. “Maybe a male escort.”
I whistle quietly. “A male escort? No way is Annie Walker going bad. Are you going to pay extra for the sex too?”
Her eyes flare ever so slightly, but then her chin lifts. “Absolutely I’m going to pay extra for the…sex.” She drops her voice to a whisper on the last word, making me laugh.
“I gotta see this. Promise me you’ll bring him around once you’ve hired him?”
“Oh, I doubt I will,” Annie says as she heads into the storeroom. I follow again and then stop abruptly in the doorway when, faster than I expected, she surfaces holding a small bouquet of prearranged flowers. We’re standing together, bookended by either side of the doorway. “We’ll be too busy for me to bring him by with him teaching me all kinds of things.”
I narrow my eyes and tip forward to lean my hand on the doorframe over her shoulder. “Just to clarify and make sure I understand the whole picture. You’re saying you’ll be too busy with your male escort?”
“Yes, with my…” She briefly glances at my forearm beside her head and then weakly finishes her sentence, “male escort.”
“Because he’ll be teaching you all sorts of things. Sexual things I’m assuming, but correct me if I’m wrong.”
Her nostrils flare and she sucks in a fortifying breath. It’s too much fun to mess with her. There’s no way Annie is any kind of serious. She’s just trying to ignite some sort of protective instinct in me, hoping that I’ll agree to be her coach.
“Probably. I mean, yes. Definitely lots and lots of…” she swallows, “sexy times on the horizon.”
“Wow, that’s going to be great. You’ll have a blast,” I say, enjoying this taunting way too much before noticing Annie’s eyes drop to my lips. And just like that, she steals the entire show again. All of my thunder is gone and I can’t think straight with her eyes fixed on my mouth like that.
I try to hold still because I know she’s thinking about kissing me right now, and I can’t let her. I want to—oh God, I want to—but I can’t. Every single one of my skin cells ache for me to step forward and press our bodies together. But I can’t do that because I’m scared what will become of me if I do.
But neither of us steps away, and somehow the knuckles of my free hand brush against hers. Her fingers respond and lightly move against mine. Our fingers never intertwine; we just let our skin brush a controlled fire against the other. How is this the most erotic thing that’s ever happened to me? And now, to hell with it, I have to kiss her. No, I have to do more than kiss her—I need to press her against this doorframe and feel our bodies collide.
She lifts her face and I lower my head and—
Outside the shop, a car door slams and makes both of us jolt, heads whirling guiltily toward the shop window.
“Oh, it’s James,” she says breathily. “He’s coming by for this bouquet.” The one she’s clutching to her chest with the hand that wasn’t just torturing mine. “He called and ordered it this morning.”
I nod absently—my lazy movement matching her lazy tone because we’re both stuck in a sensuous, unrelieved haze. My arm is still resting behind Annie as I turn my eyes to watch James round the large white truck with the logo for Huxley Farm on the side. From everything Amelia has told me, he owns the farm now after it became too much for his parents. Apparently, he’s Noah’s best friend and has pretty much grown up with the Walker siblings. I assume he’s like a brother to them.
Or maybe he isn’t…
“Oh wow,” Annie says, also watching James but sounding less hazy by the second. “He’s wearing a suit!”
Yeah, he is. And even I can admit the man looks good. It’s a nice suit that’s accentuating his farmer’s body. He’s tall, muscular, tan. And even more important, when I look down at Annie, she’s looking at him like she’s never seen him before. My pulse jumps angrily. Possessively.