both her arms and pulling her upright. Even though a layer of Merino wool separated her skin from his, the warmth and strength of his touch tingled right down to the soles of her feet. Her breathing hitched and behind the lenses of his glasses, his gaze narrowed.
“I knew perfecting the fencer’s lunge would come in handy one day.” This close heat pumped off him, waves of testosterone-infused radiation that could burn a woman from the inside out. “You okay?”
When she nodded, he released her and stepped back.
“I’m fine.”
But just for a second there she hadn’t been fine. Sav resisted the urge to rub her arms where his fingers had grabbed her. Five spots on either arm tingled from the memory of his touch. A good kind of tingle, not the ache of fingers dug into resisting flesh. Fingers that left bruises like petals from some hideous purple flower.
“I never quite grew out of my uncoordinated stage,” she muttered and dropped her gaze, which unfortunately landed on his chest. Again. Dammit.
And now she’d officially worn out her welcome.
“Thanks again for the milk. I’ll let you get back to your work.” She aimed herself toward the open door.
“Savannah?”
She turned, careful to make slow, steady movements because she really didn’t want to fall on her butt in front of him.
“My book’s high fantasy. The Lord of the Rings-ish if I was arrogant enough to make a comparison.”
Fantasy. Somehow it fit. A blink in time, a memory of a group of guys crammed in a living room with paper and dice and weird terminology she hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in deciphering… She strained, trying to pick out individual people, but the recollection was too vague, her ability to remember faces too sucky.
“I never read fiction.” Sav brushed the frustrating wisps of memory away and concentrated on stepping onto the deck without slipping. “There’s too much make-believe in my life already.”
“Fair enough.” Glen’s mouth curved, but his eyes were chips of polar ice. “Goodnight.”
And just like that, her enthusiasm for Operation Know Thy Enemy vanished, because she suspected Glen had learned just as much about her in their short exchange as she had about him.
Chapter 3
It felt as if rusty nails dipped in sulphuric acid jabbed into his head.
Glen lurched upright, his feet tangling with the bed sheet twisted around his ankles. Music blasted through his bedroom walls as if they were paper thin.
Really awful music.
Music that seemed to involve a hellish combination of violins, guitars and what sounded like an honest-to-God banjo. He cracked open an eye and snatched up his smartphone from the nightstand.
Six-o-bloody-clock?
He scrubbed a hand over his face, then glared at the blind-covered window. A guy was singing—a guy with a nasal twang that made his scalp crawl. He flopped back down, snatching the spare pillow from the other side of the queen-size bed and jamming it on his head. Every note of the banjo solo assaulted his eardrums. He clamped each end of the pillow over his face.
It didn’t help.
With a snarl, Glen rolled out of bed and grabbed yesterday’s jeans off the rocking chair in the corner.
“Would serve her right if I decided to show up bare assed at her door.” His voice sounded as rough as a pack-a-day smoker.
Serve her right, except glancing down at his bare-assed self, he’d be the one embarrassed. Bad enough he’d been awake for hours the night before thinking about how she smelled like juicy summer berries—the kind you couldn’t wait to sink your teeth into. Or the rounded curve of her bottom with no panty-line in sight as she’d bent over the caravan jacks the day before. Or the briefest spark of fear in her eyes as he’d grabbed her arm to prevent her falling on her butt.
That last thought effectively killed his ardor. Not that his morning wood was from dreaming about Savannah Payne…except it totally was, and he wasn’t happy about it.
He yanked on his jeans in record time, didn’t bother with the button, and shrugged on a long-sleeved flannel shirt.
Icy stars twinkled above as he threw open the back door and strode onto the deck. The first haze of dawn had lightened the horizon, and the abundance of native birds in the area chattered and called through the trees. He assumed the poor buggers were also pissed about the racket blasting out of Savannah’s caravan. Lights blazed rectangles on the chewed-up patch of lawn in front of the caravan, and Glen kept his eye on her