Even if he couldn’t possibly mean that the way it sounded, it still managed to be the sweetest thing any man had ever said to her.
Jeremy finally got the blue overalls on his legs, then scooched his bottom to pull them over his hips. Rolling to his hands and knees, he pushed himself up. While her brother put on the overalls, Will had reduced the distance between himself and Harper to two steps.
He was close enough to touch her now, but he didn’t. That in itself was another tease, something that Will was just too good at.
“Ready?” Will directed the question to Jeremy, who’d finally zipped up his overalls.
“Yes!” her brother yelled.
Then Will finally did what she’d been secretly dying for. He put his hand on her bare back between the straps of her tank top, guiding her toward the garage, making her acutely aware of him with the caress of his fingers above the line of the tank.
And, even if she shouldn’t, she couldn’t help but love every second of it.
*
Harper had pulled her hair up into a sexy, messy knot held by a butterfly clip. Loose tendrils flirted with her seductively bare shoulders. But it was the silver toe ring on the middle toe of her right foot that really got Will going.
It should have been unexpected. To anyone else, it might even seem out of character. But not to him. Because he already knew about the secret wildness inside her that was practically bursting to come out. Even if she clearly thought she needed to keep it firmly tamped down.
“Pile in.” He pointed to the golf cart parked just inside the roll-up door.
“Cool, I can’t believe we’re going to ride in that!” Everything excited Jeremy, from overalls to golf carts.
“Makes it easier to come back down the hill if I need something here.” Although Will had outfitted the barn with everything he could possibly need when he was building the Cobra, the golf cart and the path he’d built made it easier to travel back and forth.
“I almost forgot.” Harper backed off so that his hand fell away from the heat of her skin. “I brought lunch. And drinks. I hope you like peanut butter and jelly.”
He’d planned on having his housekeeper, Mrs. Taylor, bring up a tray around noon, but it was sweet that Harper had planned ahead. “My favorite,” he told her. He hadn’t eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich since Susan made them for lunch every day when she’d sent them all off to school, but back then it really had been his favorite. At least, when he hadn’t been getting into too much trouble to eat lunch.
“Climb into the backseat,” he told Jeremy, then jetted the golf cart out to Harper, swinging it around so that she could climb in beside him.
She carried a six-pack of water bottles and an insulated lunch bag. As soon as she was seated, he couldn’t resist reaching out to brush away a lock of hair from her gorgeous mouth. Once the strand was gone, however, he let his hand linger on her soft skin, appreciating the way her eyes dilated slightly with an awareness she couldn’t hide.
“Thank you for taking care of us, Harper. Guys working on cars don’t think to stop and eat. But we’re going to need our sustenance.” Then he added over his shoulder, “Isn’t that right, Jeremy?”
“Right, Will.”
He moved his hand from her cheek to rest lightly over hers as he whisked them up the hill, feeling Harper’s gaze on him.
“Stop teasing,” she said softly.
“Teasing?” He lifted one eyebrow. “I’m perfectly serious.”
And he was. He intended to make her crazy. As crazy for him as he already was for her. The prospect already had his blood rushing.
She tried to look stern. “You know what I mean.”
He knew exactly what she meant. And he had a lot more planned for her. Touching, teasing, flirting—anything that would remind her of every single wicked intention he’d whispered against her skin in her kitchen a week and a half ago.
He wanted the woman who’d grabbed his shirt and dragged his mouth down to hers out by the old aqueduct. And since something told him she was secretly dying for that, too, he’d do whatever he could to bring out that thrill-seeking side of her again.
*
With each zing of Will’s fingers on her arm and her shoulder and her back, Harper felt a little crazier. Resisting him was the rational choice—the safe choice—but staying rational around Will was one of the hardest things she’d ever tried to do.
“You’ve got quite a setup here,” she said, attempting to divert her focus away from how much she wanted him.
“I converted the barn when I was building the Cobra.”