Page 67 of Rosie and the Beast Next Door

One piece of hair was draped over his forehead and tangled with his eyelashes, and I lightly brushed it away from his face. His hair was softer than I anticipated. I ran my fingers through it again, just to make sure that one tendril hadn’t been an outlier. Nope. They were all soft.

I pulled my hand away, but Dylan said, “Don’t stop.” His eyes were still closed, and he hadn’t moved an inch.

“You like having your head petted?” I teased him, though my stomach fluttered. “You’re so like Lizzy.”

“In this one way—I’ll agree,” he mumbled. I hesitated, but since his eyes were closed, it was easier to touch his hair and be close to him like this. Besides, wasn’t this the whole point of what we were doing? Pretending to be in a relationship?

He relaxed even more as I scratched his scalp and drew my fingers through his shoulder-length hair. The familiar scent of my shampoo reached my nose as I lifted the hair by his ears.

He let out a low hum—basically a purr—that went straight to my gut. We weren’t doing anything inappropriate. At all. So why were my cheeks suddenly so hot? Maybe because people were starting to take notice. I caught some smiles and whispers and suddenly had a vision of an entire town of matchmakers. I shuddered. It was a good thing we were already fake dating.

“I can’t remember the last time someone did this.” He sounded half-asleep. Me touching him was clearly not causing the same reaction in his body as it was having on mine. I felt wound so tightly, I could pop like a firework any second.

Since I was already in this with both feet, I trailed my fingers over his forehead, across his eyebrows—lingering on the scarred one. I let them drift down to the shell of his ear and over the tendon of his neck. Goosebumps erupted along his arms.

Maybe he wasn’t so unaffected, after all.

The lines of stress and grief in his face disappeared as he relaxed into my touch. I trailed my finger over the bridge of his nose, the dip above his mouth, and lightly across his lips. His breath caught, and it took all my self-discipline not to yank my hand back in embarrassment. His beard was softer than I expected. I continued to let my fingers trail down his neck, past the neckline of his shirt, and toward those pectorals he’d been parading around all day in this tight shirt.

His hand shot up and grabbed my wrist to stop the trajectory of my light touch. His eyes were open and stared heatedly at me.

“If I didn’t know better,” he said, his voice sounding more gravelly than I’d heard it before, “I’d say you were … nurturing me.”

It took me a second for his words to get past the blood rushing through my ears. Wait. Nurturing?

I yanked my hand away and smacked him on one of those rock-hard pecs. I’d show him nurture. He sat up and grinned unabashedly at me as he took my hand and slipped his fingers through mine. He kissed my knuckles, then used our clasped hands to hide his mouth as he murmured against my skin, “Mrs. Bennet, you were about to start something you were not going to want to finish in public.”

My cheeks flushed hotly as I remembered we were at the park on Main Street with most of the town. When I’d been touching Dylan, it had been just the two of us in an idyllic sea of grass on a beautiful summer day.

“I amnotMrs. Bennet,” I hissed.

“You just keep believing that.” He patted the top of our held hands condescendingly.

Ugh. This man. I huffed and yanked my hand from his. “I’m going to go see what the hold up for dinner is.” I walked away to the sound of his chuckling.

Chapter 26

Dylan

Bennett and Charlie hadbrought back a pizza and drinks for everyone to share, but Rosie was nowhere in sight. I didn’t need to be worried—this was a small town,hersmall town—and she was fine. Probably caught up in a marathon conversation with Mrs. Mabel about literature. Or Max, who wasn’t anywhere to be seen either, had wised up and cornered her to confess his love. Of course, he’d have to learn her real name first.

There was that man, though. The one I’d seen lurking around the store a few times.

My appetite fled.

Hudson approached just as I stood, dumping my pizza onto the blanket.

“Everything okay?” he asked. His shoulders tensed like he was ready to jump into whatever I was about to get myself into, just like always, as if no time had passed at all. How had I gone so many months without talking to Hudson?

“I don’t know.” I took off in the direction I’d last seen Rosie go, Hudson right at my heels. It felt like having a teammate again.A friend. It hadn’t been that long since I was on the ice with my team, but it had been a while since I’d actually allowed them to have my back.

There’s nothing to worry about. Repeating it over and over in my head didn’t help me to actually believe it. We passed the Icy Asp pizza tent, and I paused to scan the crowds of people, looking for her bright orange shirt. I caught a flash of orange behind the bookstore. That was definitely Rosie’s auburn hair, but I couldn’t see who she was talking to yet.

Most likely, Max was making his move, and our plan was working. For some reason, the thought didn’t give me any relief. And not just because she deserved someone so much better than Max.

I kicked up my walk to a jog as I crossed the street and came around the bookstore, behind whoever Rosie was talking to.

Rosie looked up at the noise of mine and Hudson’s footsteps, and her face went pale. She snagged the man’s arm and whispered something to him. He didn’t turn around to look at us before he began to walk away. I glanced in Hudson’s direction and didn’t have to say a word. Hudson darted after the man and grabbed his arm to bring him to a stop.

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