Page 32 of Star-Crossed
“You have your hands full,” she said, a little in awe of what this man had to put up with.
“Wouldn’t know how to live otherwise.” He crinkled his eyes in a smile and stepped aside, giving her ample room to pass.
“Oh darling, there you are!” Vee said when she found her way back to the kitchen. She was piling ice into a professional-grade blender and bustling around for drink ingredients. “Be a love and pop into the hothouse for me? I have some edible hibiscus that would go great with dessert.”
“Sure thing.” Lyra swept out of the house to the deck, making her way across the expansive lawn toward the grove of trees surrounding the vintage greenhouse partially shrouded by the dense forest beyond the lawn.
Dessert? Did a pancake-laden breakfast really require dessert? Probably not. But it seemed like this dessert was going to be of the alcoholic variety.
Phew… Was she down to drink like the locals on a Sunday? TBD.
Head on a swivel, she checked for Cy, but he remained conspicuously absent.
Surrounding the greenhouse were raised garden beds with every kind of fruit and vegetable native to the PNW. Crops were rotated for seasons, and now the tilled earth was laden with pumpkins, squash, stalks of brussels sprouts, and late-blooming lavender. Surrounding the beds was a black wrought-iron fence tall enough to keep out demons.
Or, more accurately, the bouncy deer who made a meal of any unguarded garden.
The greenhouse was hot and humid, the air thick with the cloying scents of loamy soil and exotic blooms. The sterile smell of metal and glass permeated everything else, but Lyra could detect the sharp hint of tomato plants and the distinctive perfume of tea roses.
Her head bowed, she walked down a row lined by containers so overflowing with flowers that their white petals spilled onto the floor. Luminous green leaves from fat, healthy trees rustled gently overhead, dripping long stems with orchid-like blossoms that swayed despite the absence of a breeze.
A scrape and a grunt planted her feet to the floor, just in time for her to see Cy dragging an entire ass potted tree across the cement on the other side of the greenhouse.
Jerking to stand, he turned as if she’d made a sound to startle him.
She watched as his gaze traveled up her body, from her loose hair to the peaches-and-cream sundress. The hunger emanating from him was palpable—she could feel it as thick as the humidity in the air.
He straightened then, his broad shoulders square, looming like a predator about to leap into a sprint to catch his prey.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Cy said, his voice deep and lethally serious.
“Vee sent me for… Um…hibiscus eating—er, edible blossoms...” She drifted off lamely when a dangerous heat ignited in his eyes and made her forget what she was sent here for in the first place.
“Did you follow me?” he continued like he hadn’t heard her, slowly stalking up the aisle as if fully intending to give her a head start.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she scoffed, though her sarcasm was weak before the magnitude of pure, primal pheromones that rolled off him in waves.
He advanced closer, carnal intent advertised in every sleek move of his body as he pulled his work gloves from his hands and discarded them on the floor.
Those hands. She’d never forget how they felt on her skin.
She was pretty sure he meant to put them on her now.
“Are you trying to drive me wild, Lyra? Is that how you’ll get your revenge?”
Lyra blinked. “Revenge?” Jesus, she was really getting a ton of use out of those speech classes she took in law school.
He stopped in front of her, eyes half lidded, muscles rigid and chest heaving, as if keeping a lethal beast in check. He towered over her in a way that was devoid of intimidation but terrified her all the same.
Lyra could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. The intensity of Cy’s gaze made her feel like he was seeing right through her. She knew what he was capable of and couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking right now. Tension thickened the air between them, and the silence pulsed with unspoken desire.
Her heart thumped unevenly, and her mind raced with thoughts and emotions she couldn’t identify, let alone put into words. Cy was close enough for her to smell the earthy scent of his sweat. His raw masculinity made her stomach clench with an intensity that was almost painful.
His breath was hot on her cheek, eliciting an electric shiver down her spine. He was so close, she could feel the heat emanating from his skin, feel the intensity of his attention as if it was a living, breathing thing.
“I’m not after revenge,” she managed, lifting her chin to meet his hungry gaze.
“No?” His jaw worked to the side as if she’d said the one thing he hadn’t wanted to hear. “Then you shouldn’t have worn that fucking dress.”
