Page 53 of Carrick
I smirked and leaned in, close enough to catch the glint of sweat along her collarbone. “You think that was sexy, huh? What else do I do that you find sexy?”
She didn’t look up. Just wiped a streak of sweat from her brow with the back of her glove—in that slow, sensual way she did everything. Like her body knew it was being watched, and didn’t mind at all.
“Well,” she said, thinking, “you did growl at Jax last night for targeting my port.”
“He deserved it.”
“You were protective.”
“You were on my team.”
I hadn’t meant it as anything more than the truth, but the way she looked at me—soft, curious, with something warmer flickering behind her eyes—landed harder than I expected. Her mouth twitched, like she was fighting off a smartass comeback, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
There was something else there.
Not a smirk. Not even a smile. Just a flash of intimacy—quiet, unguarded, a little too close to real.
It felt like being seen. And worse… like she liked what she saw.
She turned back to the control box without a word, grounding a wire with that same calm precision she carried like a second skin. No pretense. No hesitation. Just a quiet competence that made my chest ache and my brain short-circuit.
“So,” she said lightly, “do I get to know what you’re fixing next, or is that classified?”
“Water pump behind the barn. It’s acting up.”
She rose to her feet, stretching just enough that her tank rode up and gave me a flash of skin above her waistband. Thenshe brushed her hands off on her thighs—two casual swipes that left perfect, dirty palm prints on the front ofmyoveralls.
And fuck me if that didn’t do something to me.
Somethingvisceral.
She caught me staring. Didn’t comment on it. Just tilted her head like she was waiting for me to pretend it didn’t wreck my ability to speak.
“I’ll carry the tool kit,” she offered.
“You sure?”
“I like being useful,” she said. “And I like the company.”
She said it like it didn’t matter. But it did.
That wasn’t a throwaway, or one of her clever deflections wrapped in humor. She meant it—and it landed in my chest like a fist.
She liked being here. With me.
We walked toward the pump shed, boots crunching in sync across the gravel. No chatter. No need. The silence fit us.
She looked good like this—loose, grounded, sun catching in the frizz of her curls where they’d slipped loose. The wind teased her sleeves. She didn’t fix them. She belonged out here—not behind reinforced walls or custody labels. Out where no one asked her to shrink.
And God help me, I wanted to be the reason she felt that free.
Which was a fucking problem. Because if I let myself want that softness—want her—I wasn’t stopping at banter this time.
The pump shed came into view, tucked behind the barn, half-swallowed by shade. Secluded. Out of earshot. Unless someone screamed.
Not that I was thinking about that.
Much.
