“Calm the fuck down, Lance,” Trent snarls, “you’re scaring her.” He grabs a piece of a mirror from the other guy. “This could have belonged to the shed. Where’d you find it?”
“Inside. In the corner,” the guy admits and Trent shrugs his big shoulders.
“See,” he tells his colleagues and his eyes go to mine and he seems to be touching something in the pocket of his jacket. “She had nothing to do with it.”
I swallow.
“Can I go now?” I murmur, only to see Trent’s eyes darken.
“Can’t let you go, until I talk to you in private.”
His colleagues look at him in surprise, but they don’t say anything. I don’t protest either and when Trent gestures for me to follow him I do. Walking over to a big rock, away from prying eyes, Trent takes off his jacket and spreads it over the stone.
Putting a hand over my mouth, I gasp. He’s not wearing anything underneath his jacket, his bronzed torso bare, only covered in red straps that hold up his pants.
I’ve never seen a man like him. Never seen something so full of...force. I just stand there, trying not to stare at his intricate stomach muscles and he nudges his head as if it’s not a big deal that he’s half naked.
“Sit down.”
His words make me nervous and I give myself a little pep talk in my head. He just wants to speak to me. In private. There’s nothing to worry about.
But the way he looks at me, like he plans to eat me later tells me that maybe I shouldn’t be so sure.
Taking a deep breath, I brush my palms against my shorts and sit down, crossing my legs at my ankles and he throws them a quick glance before sitting down beside me.
Not too close but close enough for me to see the fine hairs on his chest, down his navel and a burst of heat explodes in my belly. It happens a lot around him. I’ve never felt it before and I’m not sure what it is.
Maybe I’m getting sick.
“Where do you live, Raye?” he asks, running a big hand through his hair, shaking it like a big, yellow wolf. It loosens up my anxious muscles like he’s flipped a switch. There’s something so engaging about him. Welcoming and warm.
Except for that slight edge, that flicker that sometimes shows in his eyes. And that flicker is all savage.
It makes a shiver of anticipation and anxiousness run down my spine and I pull my legs under me.
“Not far from here,” I answer and he scowls, so I decide to tell him the street.
Clearing his voice, he sounds watchful when he says, “Alone?” His eyes roam over my body as if I better live alone and I nod because it’s the truth.
“My aunt still lives back in New Mexico. I moved to Cove when I was sixteen and a half.”
He rubs his neck, a wrinkle of annoyance forming between his brows as if he doesn’t like the sound of that. The idea of such a young girl on her own like that, which is an idea that most people share but I don’t.
“I’ve always been tough,” I say proudly and his head jerks up, his eyes hitting against mine with something calculating that makes me hold my breath.
“A little troublemaker then?”
Licking my lips I murmur, “Never said that.”
He bends forward a little and I try not to eye the stream of sweat running between his pecs.
“You a good girl?” he says and for some reason he sounds like he wouldn’t believe me whatever my answer is.
“Yes,” I respond, swallowing hard and he nods but I still have a feeling he doesn’t believe me.
“Where do you work?” he asks.
“At a bar, as a waitress. Actually...” I reach over, grabbing the watch on his wrist to look at the time but maybe I shouldn’t have done that because his hips automatically jolt upward at the touch of my fingertips.