Page 23

“I did.”

She went for the paint can. I got there first, and she got me anyway, a handprint right on my shoulder. Then I had her by the waist, and she was shrieking and laughing, and there was paint on her cheek and in her hair and all down my arms. She ducked under my elbow and caught me across the jaw with two orange fingers. I caught her wrists, both of them, before she could do it again.

She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. I was laughing too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like that.

I backed her up against the workbench with her wrists in my hands. She stopped struggling. She was still breathing hard, and so was I. There was paint on her nose and her chin and her bottom lip.

The laughing stopped.

The radio was still playing. Neither of us moved.

I let go of her wrists. She didn’t put her hands down. She put them on my chest instead, right over the paint she’d flicked on me.

“I haven’t wanted anything in six years,” I said. My voice came out rough. “I built my whole life around not wanting anything. And then you showed up on my mountain and hip-checked that car door, and I haven’t been able to stop.”

Her eyes went bright. “Shepherd.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“I know.” Her fingers curled into my flannel. “I’m falling for you. I think I’ve been falling for you since you said I wouldn’t last the season.”

“I fell first,” I said. “The day I fixed your car door.”

She laughed, a small, wet sound. Then she went up on her toes, and I was already leaning down, and her mouth found mine.

She tasted like paint and cider. I pulled her in against me, and she wrapped her arms around my neck, and I kissed her until neither of us could breathe.

When I lifted my head, she took my hand. She stepped back, holding on, and then took another step, walking backward toward the stairs. She didn’t look away from my face once.

At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped on the first step. Eye to eye.

“You said if you came up these stairs,” she said softly, “you weren’t leaving.”

“I’m not.”

I put my hands on her hips and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around my waist and laughed into my neck, and I carried her up.

We’d cleared that apartment out together the night she arrived. She’d hauled boxes down those stairs. I’d never once thought about how small the bed was until I was setting her down on it.

She’d left the lamp on by the window. The light was soft and gold, and she was sitting on the edge of the mattress with paint in her hair, looking up at me. Her chest was rising and falling fast.

I knelt in front of her. She reached for the buttons on my flannel, and her hands were shaking a little. I put my hands over hers.

“Slow,” I said. “I’ve waited weeks. I want to take my time.”

She let out a breath and nodded.

I undid the buttons myself, one at a time, while she watched. Her eyes followed my fingers down. When I shrugged the flannel off my shoulders, she reached out and put both palms flat on my bare chest.

Her hands were cool. She slid them slowly over my chest and across my shoulders and down my arms, like she was memorizing me. She traced the line of my collarbone with one fingertip. Then she leaned forward and pressed her open mouth to the center of my chest, right over my heart, and I had to close my eyes and grip the edge of the mattress.

“You’re so warm,” she murmured against my skin.

“Hazel.”

“You said slow.” She looked up at me through her lashes, and there was a little wickedness in her smile. “I’m taking my time too.”

She kissed her way across my chest. She dragged her mouth over one nipple, and my whole body jerked, and she did it again on purpose. Her hands slid down my stomach and stopped at my belt. She let her fingers rest there, light, just above the buckle, and looked up at me.