Page 21 of Knot Baked Out For This
For one brutal second, everything else disappears. It's just me, Rowan, the heat flooding my face, and the coffee mug trembling in my traitorous hands.
Look at him. Really look.
Wrecked isn't the right word, but exhausted fits. Like someone who's been fighting fires with his bare hands and came out victorious but not unscathed. His hair—dark chestnut, thick and deliberately unkempt—catches the pumpkin lights, that new silver streak at his temple marking time I wasn't there to witness. The jaw that could cut glass is shadowed with stubble, the kind that would burn against skin, leave marks that last for days.
His black t-shirt clings in all the wrong ways, OAKRIDGE FIREHOUSE stretched across his chest like a warning label. He fills the doorway, eclipse in human form, blocking out everything that isn't him.
"Hazel—" he says finally, and my name in his mouth after three years is a key turning in a lock I thought I'd changed.
I freeze.
Which means when I go to take another sip of coffee, my hand spasms.
The mug tips.
Coffee—scalding, pumpkin-spiced, and vindictive—cascades across the front of Rowan's shirt, right across where LIEUTENANT marks him as someone who saves people. Someone who didn't save me.
The silence that follows is so complete I can hear my dignity's death rattle.
Coffee streams down his abs in brown rivers, soaking into cotton that's seen better days. Steam rises from his chest like I've just attempted murder by beverage.
His eyes go wide—not angry, just surprised. Like he forgot I could still affect him.
"Shit!" The word rips out of me as I grab napkins, boundaries and self-preservation abandoned.
For a moment, we're frozen. Then I'm pressing paper towels to his chest—fuck, that's my palm against Rowan's pecs—solid muscle beneath worn cotton and now pumpkin coffee. I'm basically petting him in public, dabbing at his sternum like that could erase three years of history along with the coffee stains.
He lets me. Which is either very kind or very cruel.
His scent doubles—Alpha pheromones mixing with embarrassment, surprise, and something warmer I refuse to name. It cuts through coffee steam and pumpkin-everything, marking the air ashis.
Heat crawls up my neck, sets my hair follicles on fire. Every cell in my body switches to panic mode:Deflect, joke, dissociate, maybe just die right here.
"Hey," he manages, voice rough like he's been swallowing smoke. Then softer, "Hazel. Didn't mean to scare you."
"Scare?" I'm ninety percent mortification, ten percent wishing for death.
"Didn't expect you," I mumble into the napkins. "You're, um, early."
He blinks, then gives a low laugh that vibrates through where my hand still rests on his chest.
"Guess I should've called ahead. Maybe the coffee would've stayed in the cup."
God, his voice.
Deep enough to feel in your bones, steady even when surprised. Like expensive bourbon poured slow, or gravel under bare feet, or every bad decision I've ever wanted to make. My pulse hammers against my throat. My scent—fuck—is definitely spiking. Cinnamon smoke and vanilla, but underneath that, the honey-sweet note that saysinterestedeven when I'm not.
I realize I'm still rubbing circles on his chest. Right over his?—
I jerk my hand back so fast I nearly take out the cookie display.
Abort. Hide. Become one with the floor.
"Sorry," I fumble, shoving coffee-soaked napkins into my mug. "Reflex. I have a thing about messes."
To prove it, I aggressively realign the pumpkin scone basket, determined to look anywhere but at him.
He grins—crooked, dangerous, the kind they put on book covers with warnings about explicit content.
