Page 91 of Her Wicker Guardian

“Yes.”

“You’ll tell me if it isn’t?”

“Yes.”

Hearing him answer twice makes it easier to stop second-guessing the contact. I lean against him again, slower this time, and rest my head against his shoulder.

I expect scratchy. Instead, the woven surface beneath my cheek is warm and unexpectedly yielding. The thicker willow gives just enough under my weight, while the finer growth between the strands is soft against my skin. He looks like resting against him should feel like leaning on a basket.

It doesn’t. It feels ridiculously good.

My hand has landed on his forearm. I could move it, but I don’t. Instead, curiosity gets the better of me and I run my thumb once over the finer fibers between the woven strands.

Locke’s arm tightens beneath my hand.

I stop immediately and lift my head. “Still okay?”

“Yes.”

He looks at my hand, then at me. For a second neither of us says anything.

Then Locke says, “Again.”

Heat curls low in my stomach.

I stroke my thumb over the same place once more, slower this time. The fine weave seems to respond beneath my thumb, more something I feel than see.

“Does that feel good?”

“Yes.”

The word is quiet, but there’s nothing uncertain about it.

And that’s exactly when I realize I need to stop.

Not because he’s done anything wrong. Because I know what that heat low in my stomach means, and I’m not sure he does.

Locke knows he likes the way my hand feels on him. He knows he wants me to do it again. But I’m the one who understands where “again” can lead, and right now there are too many things about this world he’s still learning from me. I let my hand rest on his arm for another second, then lift my head.

“Let’s pause it.”

Locke looks at the television. “Why?”

“Popcorn.” I say it as though the one word explains everything.

He looks back at me.

“It’s a movie tradition.”

That earns me the faintly suspicious look he gives anything I claim is normal human behavior.

“I’m serious.”

I take the remote and pause the movie before getting to my feet. In the kitchen, I pull a bag of microwave popcorn from the cabinet and stand there listening to it pop and waiting for my pulse to settle. It takes its time.

I can still feel the give of that fine weave under my thumb. My imagination keeps going where my hand didn’t. His mouth, which I’ve never touched, and whether it’s as soft as his arm. What sound he’d make if I kissed the side of his throat where those small leaves grow. Whether “again” is a word he’d say about that too.

I brace both hands on the counter until the microwave beeps.