The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(42)

She can do it herself next time.

But for now, the worst of it is feeling her eyes on me while I’m working.

She’s fallen quiet.

Remarkably quiet.

The same kind of quiet she went when I was helping show her how to move her seat and where her light switch was.

Making me sweat, if I’m being honest.

Boss-lady socialite Phoebe Lightly?

Completely resistible.

Human Phoebe Lightly?

Intriguing.

Phoebe Lightly trying to improve herself as a human being while looking at me with undisguised lust after brushing her arm against mine and leaning into my space and smelling like stardust and maple syrup?

There’s only so much a man can handle before his cock starts doing his thinking for him.

I’m tightening the last lug nut when she gasps. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Something moved.”

“It’s the woods. Something’s always moving. Or it’s the wind.”

“Oh my God.”

I give the wrench one last tug, rise, and turn to face her. “Phoebe. It’s nothing.”

“Don’t move,” she whispers. “It can see us.”

“What can see us?”

“Shh!” She flings an arm across my chest, staring into the wilderness. “Don’t you hear it?”

“All I hear is your ass getting into the passenger seat so we can get back home before—”

A crashing and rustling makes me break off, and then, yeah, I do see it.

There’s a deer running full-steam through the timber.

“Aaaaah!” Phoebe screams and leaps on me.

The deer pivots and lunges in the opposite direction, disappearing deeper into the woods.

I stumble back against the car. “Can you—”

“It’s going to eat me!”

“It’s not going to eat you!”

“You don’t know that!” She tries to climb me like a tree, legs and arms wrapped around me, wiggling while I stagger to get my balance, until she’s almost sitting on my shoulders while I twist and spin and reach for the car.

“Would you please—”

“Aaaah!”

“Dammit!”

I can’t do it.

I can’t stay upright.

We’re tumbling into the brush, my arms flailing, her with one leg hooked over my shoulder and another around my ribs while she smushes her breasts in my face, which should be a fantasy, but instead, it’s a nightmare of bramble scratches and trying to not land on her while we go down.

“Oof.”

“Ow ow ow!”

I can’t get out from under her because I’m somehow both trapped and also trapping her. “Are you hurt? What hurts?”

“My pride, Teague. I hurt my damn pride!”

Jesus. “Tell your damn pride to get over it!” Why can’t I get her leg off me? “And would you—oof.”

“Oh my God! Did I just punch you in the gut? I didn’t mean to do that. Can you please get off my foot?”

“I can’t get off your foot. Your body’s in the way.”

“Ow. Something just bit me!”

“Stop moving. You’re rolling in a damn sticker bush, and you’ll have things biting you in all the places you never knew things could bite you until kingdom come if you don’t stay still.”

Her gaze connects with mine, eyes wide, lips parted, as she finally stops her thrashing. “What’s a sticker bush?” she whispers.

“It’s a damn bush with burrs, and I’m gonna be picking them out of my ass for the next week,” I snap.

Her tongue darts out to swipe her lower lip. “Is that thing going to eat me?”

“The deer’s gone, Phoebe. You scared it more than it scared you.”

“A deer tried to eat my face off once when we went to the Hamptons when I was little.”

“It did not try to—”

She shoves my shoulder. “You weren’t there, Teague Miller. It did too. I was wearing a flower crown at this fair that my mother insisted we go to, and there was a petting zoo, and there was a deer, and it tried to eat my face off.”

“There was a deer at a petting zoo in the Hamptons.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “Of course there was. Money can buy anything.”

“It wasn’t a money thing. It’s always there, and anyone can go to it.”

“Anyone who can get to the Hamptons.”

“What’s your problem? Hm? I’m trying here. I’m trying so hard, and nothing’s good enough for you, because you think I can’t be rich and also be a better person today than I was yesterday. What, exactly, do I have to do to prove to you that I’m a woman doing her damn best in a situation that’s so far out of my element that I wake up every morning wondering what sort of torture awaits me today, but I still make myself get out of bed every day anyway in the hopes that it actually will make me into a better person?”

I freeze.

Hard freeze.

I know those words.

I know those words all too well. Maybe not in that order, and definitely not in the same setting, but the sentiment counts.

I swallow. The next words aren’t so easy, but they’re necessary. “I’m sorry.”