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When I come into sight, his gray eyes find mine immediately. And I know—I justknow—that he can tell exactly what I was thinking about in that shower. Every paranoid glance at the unlocked door. Every shameful flutter of anticipation.
It might as well be painted on my face.
His mouth curves, just the tiniest bit. “Sleep well?” he asks.
I resume my descent down the stairs before I answer. “Fine, thanks.”
I stop a few stairs shy of the bottom, which puts me at eye level with him for once. It’s a strange sensation, looking directly into those gunmetal eyes without having to crane my neck. Almost like we’re equals.
Not that I’d ever be so silly as to think he’d allow that.
“You changed,” I observe, nodding at his casual attire.
“So did you.” His gaze flicks down to the sundress, then back up. “The peach flatters you.”
“Thanks. I picked it out myself.” I pause, then add sarcastically, “Oh, wait. No, I didn’t.”
There’s that ghost of a non-smile again. “You’re welcome.”
I cross my arms. “So what’s the plan here? You mentioned dinner, but I don’t see a staff, and unless there’s a Michelin-starred restaurant hiding behind those grapevines, I’m not sure how?—”
“I cooked.”
I blink. “You… you what?”
“Cooked.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “The meal is waiting on the veranda.”
I gawk at him. “You’re telling me,” I say slowly, “that you made dinner. With your own hands. In a kitchen.”
“That is typically where cooking occurs, yes.” He cocks his head to the side. “Why the shock?”
“I just didn’t expect that… that you… that…”
When I’m still mid-sentence about what precisely I didn’t expect—the list of which could fill several long books—Lukas reaches out.
His fingers find the strap of my sundress, which has slipped slightly off my shoulder. He adjusts it like someone correcting a tilt in a painting they love more than life itself. His knuckles brush my collarbone in the process. It’s just a whisper of contact, yet somehow more intimate than if he’d swept me off my feet and kissed the life out of me.
Hefixesme. Like I’m his to fix.
My breath promptly dies.
Lukas notices. His eyes linger over my parted lips, then reluctantly back up. “How long has it been?” he asks in a tectonic growl.
I swallow. “How long since what?”
“Since a man touched you,” he says, “andmeantit.”
My face ignites. I can feel the heat spreading down my neck, blooming across my chest like a forest fire run amok. I’d love to deflect, to lie, to say something clever and dismissive—butthere’s nothing I could possibly say to defuse this moment, and he knows it.
Lukas watches the flush travel. He does that thing again, where not one solitary millimeter of his face changes in any discernible way, but I’m so sure that he’s laughing.
Then he turns away.
“This way,” he says, and leads me toward the veranda.
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