Page 54 of Where You're Planted

“You’ve seen how I am at those.”

“What Iseeis that this place is special. Because, that day in the creek, youshowedit to me. And before that, at the taco truck, you explained it very clearly—why your work here matters, why it’s more than just a bunch of trees and flowers and photo ops.”

He didn’t have a response to this one. In fact, something softened in his eyes, relieved by her words. Tansy suddenly sensed that coming in here after him was reckless somehow, another choice she hadn’t thought through.

“How’s the nausea?” she asked.

“Gone.”

She let go of his wrists, and when he shot her a confused look, she explained, “There’s a pressure point in your wrist that helps with nausea. That’s why I was holding you.”

He huffed a laugh. “So you just managed me like a fucking baby?”

“Well, you weren’t going to do what I told you, and you seem like the kind of guy who doesn’tbelievein acupressure.”

To her surprise, he said, “Thank you.” And instead of taking advantage of their broken contact to retreat like he’d wanted to do this whole time, Jack took a small step closer, the toe of one boot scuffing up against one of her flats. “But don’t expect me to do a grounding exercise next.”

Somehow, that tiny move, an almost imperceptible narrowing between them, made it feel like the warmth and humidity in the greenhouse had just been dialed way up. Tansy’s hands found the security of a table behind her back, and she leaned against it. “I won’t,” she breathed. “Seems like you’re coming back down anyway.”

He didn’t move into the space she’d reasserted between them, but he didn’t move back either, and the secondsstretched while he just looked at her, each one elongating like the moments between a flash of lightning and the answer of thunder, the air crackling with an electric charge.

Now. Or now. Or now.

When he moved, they both watched his hand reaching for her waist. His touch was confident, his hand broad and warm through her cotton dress. She didn’t stop him, pretended not to notice the questioning lift of his eyebrows. He crowded into her space, watchful and steady, invading the last inches, pressing his other hand to her other hip, his temple to hers, his mouth near her ear, where he whispered, “I think…” He swallowed. “I’m still feeling pretty worked up, actually.”

The hairs on the back of Tansy’s neck and arms stood on end. She swayed involuntarily forward, no longer braced back against the table but leaning into every point of contact with him, scraping her cheek across his stubbly beard and bringing her mouth right to the corner of his.

“Tansy,” he said on a sigh.

Shefeltwhat he wanted. And suddenly, their roles were flipped, and he was steady and calm whileshewas vibrating within her skin, so on edge now, so aware of the pull of their mouths, of his strong hands on her body. Sheachedto give in.

On the count of three, she would step back. She would say the right things. On three, she would extract herself from this greenhouse and from another almost-terrible decision.

One.She looked him in the eye.

Two.She put her hand on the center of his chest, over his pounding heart.

On three, Tansy did not press Jack away from her. Instead, she found purchase in the front of his shirt and yanked his body, finally, urgently, into hers.

His hand pushed roughly from her waist to her neck,fingers catching in her hair and tilting her face up to his. As his mouth crashed greedily over hers, his other arm banded tightly around her back. He groaned into the kiss, and her hips stuttered forward, chasing the pressure of his body and any way to make him make that sound again.

Jack nudged her backward until she met the table. Then he grabbed her thighs and hoisted her onto it.

16

Jack

Jack pushed into the open bracket of Tansy’s legs, and she immediately hooked her ankles around him, tugging him so damn close to her. He pressed his palms to her warm thighs, trying to steady himself as an all-consumingriotbarreled through his bloodstream. Any calm he’d regained from her gentle direction was out the window now, but in a way that felt like flying instead of falling. He barely refrained from answering the ache to drive his hips into her. If he let himself, he would go from zero to sixty in two seconds.

Tansy apparently had no such concern. Her teeth caught his lip, sending a jolt down his spine, and then her tongue swept into his mouth. Jack’s restraint snapped. He shoved his hands under her dress, slipping between the table and her thighs and pulling her to where he was already hard for her.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, breaking from the kiss.

He dipped his mouth to her bare clavicle. “Tell me if it’s not okay,” he said before sucking at her skin.

“It’s not justokay,” she panted. “It’s— I want—” She captured his face in both hands to pull him back up and kissed him again, messy and hard and desperate.

Jack didn’t know which was hotter—how viciously she kissed, or her utter inability to string together a sentence. Her nails scraped up the back of his neck and into his hair, and a moan escaped him.

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