Page 17 of Dump Tackle My Heart
Like I’m not screaming internally at the thought of getting that close to him again.
Like my camera isn’t trembling in my hand.
Tank just looks at me.
His dark eyes glitter like coals in the firelight.
He licks his bottom lip—slow and unhurried—like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
The jerk.
My knees wobble.
Predictably.
And God help me, I feel like I might faint like a Victorian heroine in a corset.
Then he nods. Just a little.
“Yeah. Sure. I can do that, Sweetheart.”
Relief floods through me. For about two seconds.
Because then he walks into the kitchen, grabs the apron from the hook near the stove, and—pulls his shirt off.
I blink.
Twice.
“What are you?—?”
“Don’t wanna get raw poultry all over my kit,” he says, like that explains everything.
He slides the apron over his bare chest—well, bare is relative, Tank is decked out in muscles and tattoos, because of fucking course he is—and he ties it casually behind his back.
Then, he turns to face me.
The apron saysLet’s Get Basted.
I might die.
He’s massive.
All muscle and ink and heat.
His abs look like something airbrushed onto a Marvel movie poster, and his biceps flex just from opening the damn drawer for a spoon.
And I’m supposed to just function normally?
I’m supposed to film this like I don’t know how every inch of him feels pressed against me?
“Right,” I manage, snapping my eyes back to the ingredients like they personally betrayed me.
“Okay. So we’re going to start by making the brine.”
I know I’m repeating myself, but can you blame me?
I rattle off the measurements, trying not to squeak every time he brushes past me in the small kitchen.
