Page 18

My gaze caresses his pecs and shoulders, round and sculpted. Strong. That raised arm is a fucking gun—the bicep is like a rock. A boulder. Stop it, Gwen. But I just…can’t. My hungry gaze slides down his chest: the curve of heavy pecs, the deep groove at the center of his eight-pack. God, his hips. I blink. My eyes jump from his chiseled hips to his happy trail, then back to his hips. They’re hewn in marble. Lord. They make that “V”…

I’m lit up like a light bulb when I feel his gaze on my face.

Shit!

I lift my eyes to his, my cheeks burning with shame, and find a tiny, amused smile. I hold my breath for a half a heartbeat, waiting for the little not-quite-smile to turn into a smirk, but he just stands there, looking like a wounded Mr. Autumn pinup, still impeding my breathing.

“Splinter?” I blink and square my shoulders in hopes of steadying myself.

The corners of his lips twitch. “Yeah.”

“The one from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

He nods.

I smile.

Maybe he’s not an asshole.

Shut up, Gwen. Who cares?

His hand, holding the wadded shirt, clenches—and I feel ill with embarrassment and guilt.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, again.” I step a little closer, one hand out, because I want to help but don’t know how. “I saw you and I thought…I thought I saw someone on my cameras the other day, so when I saw you I freaked. Is your head okay?”

I have to look up to see his face. He’s so tall. I feel small and nervous, like a peasant in the presence of a king. It’s a new feeling for me, so foreign that when he speaks again, the feeling plus my throat-throbbing reaction to his rumbly voice make it hard for me to focus.

“I had a scar,” he says quietly. “I think it split open.”

His face relaxes just a little as he takes a deep breath, but the echo of a wince still clings to his features. I can see the careful, achy squint of his eyes.

“Can I look?”

“It’s okay.” The words—and all the other ones I’ve heard from him—have an honest sort of quality, as if he’s speaking in a voice that’s rough because his throat is tight with big emotion. As if he cares about me in some way, though of course he doesn’t.

You’re ridiculous.

I swallow hard and stand up straighter. “I am so, so sorry,” I say in my best just-a-normal-friendly-and-concerned-neighbor tone.

Then I blink a few times, to dispel the feeling that my eyes are stuck to his like magnets.

“Come to my house,” I hear myself tell him. My voice sounds shaky, so I swallow. “Let me look at it. I’ll drive you if you need to go somewhere.”

I’m pleased; my voice sounds clear and normal. Just an ordinary neighbor. So I’m surprised when his face shutters, his mouth tightens, and he shakes his head: no.

“Thanks—but I’ll be okay.”

His voice sounds rough and tired, and that’s the last thought I have before he turns and takes a stride away from me, back toward the Haywood land. His land. My eyes, again, get hung up on his body:

the broad, strong shoulders and that carved-from-marble back, inked with emblems I can’t make out, flexing, tossing shadows as he moves.

Wait!

As if he hears the thought, he turns. “Gwenna?” The word, my name, shoots through me like an arrow.

“Yeah?” I whisper.

His eyes narrow into troubled slits. “Be careful out here.”