Page 21 of Lost in the Moonlight

“Maybe you should start visiting after work instead of before?” I suggested dryly.

“The real question is what was Poco doing there at two in the morning with a shovel?”

I frowned. I hadn’t seen a shovel. “You’ve never seen him there before?”

She shook her head.

“Do you think he was stalking you? Watching your house?”

“No.”

“I have cameras surrounding my house. I’ll reposition some so they face the cottage,” I offered.

“We have our system too. You don’t have—” she stopped herself. “Thanks, that would be really kind of you.”

It wasn’t a good idea for me to drag my dark around her light. Given my track record with relationships, the likelihood of things ending well was almost nil if I pursued the longing for her growing exponentially by the minute. And yet, I knew it wasn’t just my desire to protect her that had me saying, “I’d like to walk you to work for a while.”

Her brows raised. “At two-thirty?” She shook her head again, moonlight strands swinging about her. “I don’t think so.”

“Just for a few days,” I pressed. “I can guarantee I won’t be asleep.”

Even though she hadn’t been moving, it still felt like her entire being froze before she slowly breathed out, “Because of me?”

The answer was complicated. But I kept the demons of my past to myself because I knew what happened when you let them out. “For many reasons, of which you’ll be one.”

“Lincoln, I’m fine. I don’t know how to convince you that nothing is going to happen.”

She couldn’t guarantee it. But then again, neither could I. A change of tactics was required in order to get her to agree, so I tried a teasing taunt instead of a demand. “We’ll start a club. We’ll call itNight Risers Unite.”

Her laugh was enticingly merry, a song I wanted to dance to, and it brought the beaming smile back to her face. The one so dazzling it flung aside the natural dimness of the cottage.

“It sounds like a vampire book,” she snickered. “I’d be decidedly out of place.” She glanced down at her pink-and-white outfit, and my gaze followed hers. The skirt she wore was graceful. Gauzy and dreamy. Angelic even.

“As a proverbial vampire, I can guarantee you are exactly what would attract one. It isn’t the dark of their world that draws them. It’s the light they hunger to absorb.”

She blushed prettily. The pink skimmed her cheeks, blending with the freckles and amplifying the attraction humming through my veins. Desire seemed to wrap a string around us, knotting and tightening until it felt as if the counter was no longer between us. Until it felt as if our bodies were slammed together.

I stepped back. Afraid if I didn’t leave, I might actually try to take a bite of her.

As I headed for the door, the knot that had drawn itself around me seemed to tighten further. Rather than snapping, the string grew tauter, tethering me to her with an unyielding bond.

It was uncomfortable. Troubling. But instead of breaking it, I did the opposite and drew it closer by saying, “Tell me what time to meet you in the morning.”

As she joined me at the door, I sensed rather than saw her hesitation, and I just continued as if she’d already agreed. “I’d say text me when you’re ready to leave the house, but I’m notorious for losing my phone. Just tell me what time to meet you.”

“As I don’t have your number, it would be impossible for me to text you anyway.” She started to laugh before it turned into a garbled choke. “That wasn’t me hinting at wanting it. I wasn’t flirting…”

As her voice disappeared, the color on her cheeks deepened, enticing me all over again. It drew me to her sweetness as much as her light. I shoved my fists into my pockets so I wouldn’t slide a finger along the fascinating bloom.

“Nothing wrong with flirting, Willow.” I caressed her with my voice the way I longed to with my hands. “It’s a delightful little dance, and I thoroughly enjoy dancing.”

Her pale irises the color of clouds drifting across a shimmery sky expanded, and I wondered just how stormy they would get in the throes of passion.

We stood at the door, desire wafting between us. Her gaze slipped to my mouth, and it only increased my ache to taste hers. To savor every inch of her.

She was temptation and inspiration and damnation.

I cleared my throat. “What time?”

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