Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(84)

Girl. There was no question. In the dappled moonlight, he could make out curves beneath tight-fitting clothing. Slight ones, but nice ones. And even if his attention hadn’t been magnetized by the tight jut of her ass—fuck, he’d been a while without having a woman’s cheeks in his hands—the hair would have tipped him off. It was everywhere. Even the muted darkness couldn’t hide the wild, colorful nature of it. The mass of it fell to midback, interrupted every inch or so with a corkscrew curl or a braid or a ribbon. Her hair was schizophrenic. Looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a while, but maybe the lack of diligence had been on purpose.

Old Man chose that moment to make a sloff sound, which jolted the girl, sending her careening back against the building. She slid to the ground into the shadows before Aaron could get a good look at her face, and for some reason the delay made him anxious. What kind of a face went with hair like that?

“Hello?” She called, just above a whisper. “Please don’t be a bear. Again.”

That wish sparked so many questions—again?—Aaron didn’t grab Old Man’s collar in time and the furry bastard slinked toward the girl, totally ignoring Aaron’s sharp command to retreat. He lay down a few feet from the shadows where the girl was hiding, laying his face on two paws. Showing her he isn’t a threat?

Just when you think you know a dog.

The girl entered the moonlight again, this time on her knees, hands reaching out—palms up—to Old Man. And so the first time Aaron saw her face, it was washed over with pleasure. “Hi,” she breathed. “Hi, pretty…boy? Boy, I think. Thank you for not being a bear. Again.”

Aaron felt a twinge in his fingers and realized he’d been gripping the bark of the tree too hard. This is why I came into the woods. She’s why.

“That’s ridiculous,” he muttered, raking the sore hand down the side of his trousers. He was prowling around in the middle of the night on some misguided mission to get the lay of the land for tomorrow. Not to accidentally run into a girl with freak-show hair and an unrealistic fear of bears.

“Are you alone?” She asked Old Man, under her breath.

Aaron made a sound of disgust as the pooch turned his head, tongue lolling to the side like a drooling fool. He had no choice but to step out from behind the tree, but felt the need to put his hands up. So she would know he wasn’t a bear, for the love of God. “It’s just a human. You’re safe.”

The girl shot to her feet, her back coming up hard against the stucco building. Her eyes were as turbulent as her mane of braids and curls, but they seemed to calm when he halted his progress. “Humans are most dangerous of all,” she finally said. “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?”

O-kay. He had to be back in his cabin dreaming, right? “Excuse me?”

“It’s freezing and you’re wearing a T-shirt.”

Aaron looked down, as if he wasn’t fully aware of his attire. Come to think of it, he was pretty goddamn cold, but he’d been too distracted to notice. “I’m from California.”

She nodded gravely. “Are there bears in California?”

“We have one on our state flag.” He chanced a couple steps closer, but Old Man actually growled at him, cutting off his progress. Really?

“Your dog doesn’t seem to like you very much,” the girl remarked.

“Yeah, thanks for noticing. The feeling is mutual.” Aaron tilted his head, irrationally vexed that her face was half shaded by shadows again. “Hey, do you mind coming out here into the light?”

A beat passed. “Yes, I think I mind.”

Not what he’d been expecting, at all. Had he completely lost his touch with women? “Why do you mind?”

“Because you saw me climbing out of the window.” He could hear her swallow across the distance separating them. “I didn’t do anything wrong—not really—but if someone were to disagree and claim I did do something wrong, you could identify me.”

Aaron snorted. “I could pick your hair out of a thousand-person lineup.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, her hand reaching out of the darkness to scratch behind Old Man’s ears. “Yours is nice, too.”

“Are you talking to me or the dog?”

She laughed, the sound more solemn than he would have expected from someone with five hairstyles thrown into one. Maybe even a little sad. His desperation to catalogue her features shot up into the stratosphere. They would provide some type of answer to the riddle of her—and, honestly, why was he even confused? Even his confusion was confusing.

“What were you doing inside the school?” The question came out harsher than intended and he watched as her hand stilled on Old Man’s head. A movement that increase his suspicion, even though he kind of wanted to go on ignoring the elephant in the forest.

“What do you think I was doing?”

Her throaty answer caught him below the belt, thickening the flesh inside his briefs. Ten seconds earlier, they were just two people crossing paths in the woods, but with the issuance of those two questions, they were challengers. It didn’t help that the girl was still on her knees while Aaron stood at full height. The symbolic positions caused awareness to descend where it hadn’t been before. “You’re not a student inside that school, are you?” he asked because it seemed relevant, now that his cock had exhibited a hearty appreciation for her voice, her presence. “You’re not a high school student.”