“Me too.” The huskiness of his voice made me curl my fingers into my palms. “But no, I’m just getting some custom work done on it at Dare’s shop. He gave me this loaner.” He opened the passenger door for me. “What do you think of it?”
“I love Jeeps, but if you get one, I hope you paint it neon green. Normal colors don’t seem to suit you.”
“They don’t?” He sounded inordinately pleased.
“Not anymore. I mean, when I first saw the grandpa sweater—” I couldn’t stop from giggling when he poked me in the side. “Very attractive grandpa.”
“That’s better.” He frowned. “How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Whew.”
“What about you?”
“Thirty in a few months.”
“Did you suddenly think I was barely legal? Little late to worry.”
He leaned in and spoke against my temple, ruffling my hair with his deliciously warm breath. “I’d have to take my luck with that sort of sin, since I can’t seem to stay away. Now get in.”
As I did what he asked, I realized I was shivering—and not from the cold.
My hottie artist hookup was dangerous. Not physically, but in every other possible way.
He didn’t tell me where we were going, and I didn’t say anything as he drove up one of the side roads that led around the lake.
Until he stopped at a hidden lane called Wolf Hollow Way and signaled to make the turn.
We were near the house. My house. I’d never gotten quite this close before because this was a private road surrounded by enough trees to make me think of all the scary movies I was only brave enough to watch with all the lights blazing and a big bucket of popcorn. He veered off and drove into a clearing that opened up near the lake, pulling to a stop close to the water.
I opened my door and stepped out, taking a deep breath of air tinged with the scent of the lake. The sun glistened off the cover of ice, nearly blinding me for the second it took to pull out my sunglasses from my jacket pocket.
“You’re going to get arrested for trespassing,” I warned instead of all the much nicer things that flitted through my brain.
Like…
How beautiful. Thank you for showing me this. How did you know I needed the water and the sunshine?
He didn’t blink as he walked around the Jeep to stand with me. I moved back and he shut my door. Always a gentleman.
I didn’t know how to share the sweeter parts of myself with him without being worried that he’d toss them back in my face.
For a moment, he shifted from foot to foot, as if he was weighing what to say. Then he went for broke.
“It’s not trespassing when you own the place.”
“You…I…what? Here? My favorite spot? Why?”
He turned to me, a smile curving his lips. “Turns out you have amazing taste.” He stepped forward and cupped my elbows, his touch easy. “I was supposed to invite you to a nice, casual lunch. Then I was supposed to get a haircut. So far, my day isn’t going as I planned at all.”
“I think I’m pregnant.”
In another situation, watching the color leech from his face might’ve been funny. Right now, it wasn’t. Not at all.
“Say that again.”
“I think I’m pregnant. I don’t know for sure. I haven’t taken a test. I’m just late, and I’m never late—Callum, put me down!” I screeched as he lifted me up in the air, spinning me around so fast I gripped his shoulders to keep from falling. But he held on to me securely, never letting go even when I slid down his body back to the ground.
He pushed my sunglasses on top of my head and cupped my face in his hands. “Can we go find out now?”
His gray eyes were filled with excitement and terror and what seemed like genuine pleasure. “Did you understand what I said? What it means?”
“Yes, I was there that day in health class. When sperm meets egg, you get a baby or babies—”
“Baby. Say it with me. B-a-b-y. As in one, singular. I don’t have the capacity for triplets.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised how elastic—”
I reached up to close his lips with my fingers. “Unless you want me to talk about how elastic your male body parts are, please don’t.”
He chuckled and nodded, so I dropped my hand. He immediately grabbed it and lifted it to his mouth to kiss my knuckles. “I was warned about Crescent Cove. I can’t say I really believed it, but it didn’t stop me from being with you. Nothing would. Not a hurricane or a blizzard or a Dear John note on the dresser when I was already on my way to falling in love with you.”
The words spun around dizzily in my head. I stumbled back to lean against the Jeep because the world was tilting, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was just because he was a gorgeous, wonderful, insane man.
He moved toward me instantly. “Are you all right? Do you want to sit down? I don’t have the keys yet, but there are chairs on the wraparound porch.”
I shook my head, pressing my lips together against a smile. Warmth bloomed inside me, the kind that even my logical mind couldn’t squash. “I didn’t even know the house was for sale.”
“Me either. My timing was just right. Guess it was fate.”
“Fate or not, you can’t fall in love in not even a day. It’s not possible.”
“Tell that to Ariadne, who fell in love with Theseus as soon as she saw him on the dock, which probably isn’t that dissimilar from a gazebo—why are you laughing?”
“I don’t know who those people are.”
“They’re from Greek mythology. I teach it at the community college. It’s not as fancy a position as Lennox has with his powerful law firm, or Finn with his architectural firm, but it suits me. I’m a good teacher.” Not so subtly, he moved closer to me. “I have patience and a love of the subject material.”
“You have good hands too,” I mused idly as he cupped my hips. Then I laughed again, feeling like the hugest fool who had ever lived. “You’re really a professor? I thought you were a flighty artist with an inconsistent income.”
“I really am a professor. And I can be flighty. And my income can be inconsistent, though less so in the past couple of years thanks to my paintings.” He rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. “But I’m exceptional at making promises. I don’t give my word unless I can keep it.”
“Callum,” I whispered, but I wasn’t strong enough to hold him off.
Not when I so badly wanted him to line up our mouths and kiss me like he’d missed me so much over the past six weeks. Just as I’d missed him.
He slid his fingers through my windswept hair, his lips gentle and persuasive with that undercurrent of need that had me rising to my tiptoes to meet his kiss. I wound my arms around his waist, nestling them under his long coat, and just allowed myself to sink into him. To enjoy for a moment without thinking about the next.
Breathless, we finally parted a few minutes later. He ran his fingertip between my breasts and kept on going, stopping just above my belly button. “Do you really think so?”
The wonder in his question made a lump form in my throat. “It’s a definite possibility.”