Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)(42)

I turn, pulling her back in toward the center of the maze. “Running pretty hard for a woman playing a kid’s game, Red.”

She laughs, not taking me seriously—in typical fashion.

“And stop calling me that.”

“Why?” she asks breathlessly as I turn a corner before pressing my back into the hay, giving her a tug that has her stumbling into my chest.

She catches herself by splaying one hand on my pec. We both look down, transfixed by where she’s made contact. My shirt might as well not be there because it feels like she’s touching my bare skin.

My cock twitches, clearly not differentiating at all.

“Because I don’t like it,” I bite out. The nickname makes me feel creepy.

That just makes her smirk. “But I’m pretty sure you’re about to scold me like one.”

My brow furrows as I raise my chin to get lost in her emerald eyes. “Scold you?”

Her eyes roll. “Look, I know I shouldn’t have knocked that kid into the water, but I was really mad. He was just so mean. And not accidentally. I got picked on like that as a kid and it was always my brother who stepped in and saved me. But Luke doesn’t have a big brother to kick someone’s ass for him, and I just . . . snapped.”

I soak in the woman before me, a fucking knockout. “Why did you get picked on?”

“I’ll show you pictures sometime. Taller and skinnier than everyone. Big buck teeth. Crazy red hair. Can I blame assaulting a seven-year-old on my hair color? I’ve always flown off the handle kind of easily. Or like”—her lips roll together—“I don’t get mad easy, but when I do it’s really, really bad. And Bunny sucks. Eye-fucking you like that at a child’s party.”

I blink at her, frantically explaining herself like she’s in trouble with me when she’s not. The only people in trouble are the assholes who picked on her. I don’t care if it’s been a decade. I want names and addresses so I can set them straight.

She carries on, oblivious to the way I’m looking at her and the hard-on growing in my pants. Oblivious to the way her fingers absently stroke my chest.

“I know there’s this whole weird, small-town vibe happening where everyone knows everyone else’s business. And that bottle-blonde bitch was spitting mad. I imagine I’d be mad if I found out my kid was a raging loser too. But I don’t really care what she thinks of me, you know? So if you need to blame it on me to save face as the town’s grumpy prince, that’s fine. I won’t hold it against you.”

I just stare at her. She must think I’m a real dick if she’s assuming I wouldn’t come to her defense on this.

Her tongue darts out over her lips, wetting the full bottom one and making it shimmer in a way that I can’t peel my eyes away from.

“God. Why do you have to wear a backward cap too?” Her voice is softer now. Raspier. Breathier.

I swear she’s leaning closer.

“What?” She’s a confusing woman, talking a mile a minute. We’ve gone from a scolding to teenaged trauma to small-town drama to my hat in under a minute.

She really is kind of insane.

“The cowboy hat.” She groans and lets her eyes roll back in her head. “Is so good. I mean, I feel like I’m living in some made-for-TV movie with a hot cowboy. But then you clean up and style your hair, and you give these hot, debonair older-man vibes.”

I’m so confused.

“Sorry?”

Her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt, and I feel the scrape of her nails against my chest. I love the way it looks; her pale skin gripping at the black fabric. I imagine lying her down in my bed, getting lost between her pretty milky thighs, and making her come so hard that her fingers curl in the same way.

“But then, you go and turn a cap backward and give me the full rough-around-the-edges country-boy experience. Do you know how hot that is? I can’t even explain it.” She laughs lightly, like she didn’t just say something that broadsided me. “Hat forward. Cute.” Her free hand mimics grabbing the brim of a cap and turning it backward. “Hat backward? Game on. It’s like a switch.”

I shake my head at her, watching the blush in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes. The trace of shyness on her face.

“Well, that was altogether too much information. The backward cap is melting my brain cells. Gotta go!” She startles me when she pushes away and runs down the compressed path. I hear Luke’s voice taunting her, but he sounds far-off still. Her strides cover the ground but not the way mine do. The urge to chase her and hold her down consumes me. It has me feeling wild and untethered.

Which is why with one sharp turn, I capture her arm at her elbow and push her against the prickly hay. Pressing her into it firmly, my hips lined up with hers. My hard cock against her flat stomach.

“Game on?” I rasp out, as all my reservations about touching the nanny fly out the goddamn window. I don’t need them—definitely don’t want them. Not with the way she’s staring at me right now, eyes fixed on my lips while I grip her elbow and prop another hand against the wall of hay behind her.

Her lip is still wet when she whispers, “Game on.”

I want to shove her back and devour her—leave her struggling to breathe—but I hold that side of myself back.

Because more than that, I want to thank her.