Page 31 of Passion Restored

“I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

He tilted his head over at his lawn. “I was on my knees over there, working on the front bed, so you probably didn’t see me when you looked out.” And at the mention of knees, an image of Liz on her knees in front of him while she sucked him off filled his brain, and he did his best to push it away. Holy hell, that was one image he wanted to make real, but only if she came to him first.

Only then.

He wouldn’t push her, not again, but damn it, he wanted her, and not just for that smoking body of hers.

Danger, Owen Gallagher, danger.

Sometimes, his brain was a little off-kilter.

“Well, I’m sorry my outburst distracted you,” Liz said after a moment, her eyes darkening the longer the two of them stared at each other. He’d done his best to keep a reasonable distance between them, but it would only take one step, one touch of skin against skin to have them practically on top of one another.

“You didn’t,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just working slowly since I was bored as hell in my house.” He nodded toward the plant. “Having an issue?”

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s fine.”

He gave the yellow plant a sad look. “It’s dead.”

She huffed out a breath. “It can’t be. We just moved in. I can’t have killed a plant after just moving in. It’s not possible.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t make a mistake and touch her. “It could have been on its way out before you moved in. Plants die for all sorts of reasons, and the people renting the house before you didn’t really take care of anything.”

She closed her eyes and groaned. “I know. That’s why Tessa and I bought the house for what we did. The previous tenants, and probably the tenants before them, treated the house like shit. The plan was for Tessa and me to clean it up and upgrade it over time, but it’s looking to be more of a challenge than we’d thought considering plants are outright committing suicide before I even get a chance to figure out how to take care of them.”

Hell, she and Tessa had even more on their plate than he’d thought. And though he’d soon be working all hours of the night on the new project, he knew he couldn’t just stay away.

“You do realize that my brothers and I own a business that deals with all of this, right? We can help.”

Her eyes flared, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “We can do it on our own. We always have.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I’m not paying you to do something we can do, Owen.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t mention compensation.”

Now she looked even angrier. “And I’m not getting the work done for free, damn it. What kind of woman do you think I am?”

“You said you weren’t getting the work done at all. And there are other ways to pay for help.”

He should have expected the punch to the gut, only it took more wind out of him than he’d expected.

“Shit! I forgot. Oh my God. I’ve never hit anyone in my life, and I just hit a man with an open wound.”

Owen waved her off, and she tugged at his shirt. His breathing was a little better now. “I’m not bleeding or anything. And you hit the other side of my body where there wasn’t bruising and where there hadn’t been an incision. I’m fine, and from the way my words sounded, I totally deserved it.”

“I hit you.” Her eyes were wide, her face pale, and he took her hands in his, stopping her from pulling his shirt off in broad daylight.

“And if you thought I was talking about payment with your body, then I deserved it. I was actually saying that we could trade off on things, or give you a discount since you’re my neighbor. Or even just find a way to make it work by showing you how to do things so you can do it yourself. I know you’re independent, Liz, and I wouldn’t ever take that away from you.”

She still looked too pale, and he wasn’t sure if she understood what he was trying to say. He hated that he’d said what he did that way, and though his side wasn’t hurting from her fairly weak punch, he probably should have been hit harder.

“Come inside with me and let me check you out.”

He raised a brow but didn’t say anything as she pulled him into her house. He was really okay, but if she was that worried, he wasn’t going to stop her, not when it meant that he got to have her hands on him.

He really was a bastard sometimes.

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