Page 2

He has ink too, lots of it, but from here I can see it’s different to the tats most of my brother’s friends have. The dark lines curling round his brawny arms and slipping out of sight beneath his clothes are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’m intrigued.

No.

I’m enthralled as I’m drawn back to the man’s face. To his ready smile and a laugh I’m sure would light up my world if I could hear it. To a gaze that’s wide open and lacking the edge of the men around him.

He’s not one of them.

A biker from the Rebel Kings Motorcycle Club.

And yet…he’s not out of place either. He’s at ease, comfortable in his own skin, and there’s something so attractive about it I can’t look away as he tips his head back, laughs again, and the sensation of my stare draws his focus to me.

We lock eyes and his smile widens. Easy again. Warm. Infectious. I smile back and it feels familiar, even though I’ve never seen this dude before. Never been ensnared by a grin that seems to reach every cell in my body.

I should look away.

But I don’t. I let it stick, and get my reward in the form of him nodding to whoever he’s talking to, taking the little boy at his feet by the hand, and weaving through the crowd to where I stand with Ivy.

It’s not a fast process. Everyone reacts to his presence passing through their orbit. Everyone seems to love him as much as they love my brother, and it takes him a hot minute to reach me.

To reach us, as he gives Ivy his attention before me, taking the berry-topped cake from her to pass to the little boy. “Thank you, my little friend. Aras can eat it in the car or share it with his cousins.”

Simple words.

Nice words.

Kind.

I see them in the shape of his mouth and the angles of his big body. But it’s more than that. I can’t hear him, and yet a low rumble seems to shiver through my bones and I know it came from him. Just like I know with him this close, the air around me has changed direction and for whatever reason, it feels permanent.

Or maybe it’s the gin.

I haven’t drunk in a while. Who’s got the time? Not me, and it’s a moment where my gaze should stray to the fields beyond the farmhouse and the dozen-and-one jobs I have to do before I go to bed tonight.

But…yeah. Still can’t break away from this bloke. From his tanned skin and the hair that looks like he shoved it back with his big hands when he rolled out of bed this morning and never so much as glanced at it again. The cinnamon-brown eyes that lock onto me once more as he comes upright from negotiating the cake exchange with the little ones, and it hits that he has at least four inches on me, and…I’m not short.

Big hands.

Big feet.

Big smile.

His lips move. “Hello. You must be Ivy’s Uncle Poet.”

“What gave me away?”

“You are a farmer, not a biker, I think?”

The cadence of his speech throws me. Like my brother’s Russian friends. He’s not English. And that low rumble in his voice, it catches the little hearing I have left, settling somewhere deeper than it should. “You got me,” I confirm. “What does that make you?”

“Fisherman.” One of those big hands comes my way. “Oscar. Nice to meet you.”

I take his hand. Squeeze and shake it like I have so many new-to-me men tonight. But the second Oscar’s fingers close around mine and my grip tightens without permission, everything about the simple touch feels more than anyone else.

Warmer.

Sharper.

His thumb moves over my palm and it’s enough to drag a breath from me. To have me forgetting about the children at our feet and shooting an instinctive glance to his lush mouth. To his soulful eyes as he stares at me a beat too long. As if he’s felt it too and he’s as taken aback as I am.