“Yes?”
She hesitated for a beat, before blurting, “Abraham Lincoln had anxiety. Panic attacks ran in his family.”
His expression didn’t change, but he shifted slightly. “Where did you learn that?”
“Jeopardy!,” she answered, smirking.
A laugh crashed out of him. That was two in the space of one afternoon. She held it to her chest like a cozy sweater, sort of wishing she’d let go of her pride and kissed him after all. What was she going to do about her feelings for this man? “You watch?” he asked.
She turned and walked away, calling over her shoulder, “I’ve caught it once or twice.”
His chuckle was lower this time, but she could feel his gaze on her back, following her out of the vines.
* * *
Julian felt different when he walked into the guest room bathroom late that afternoon. Not bothering to turn on the light, he stopped in front of the mirror and observed himself streaked in dirt and sweat from hours spent harvesting grapes. The sun’s muffled shine through the frosted glass window backlit his body, so he could barely see his own shadowed expression. Only enough to know it was unfamiliar. A cross between satisfied at having sunk his fingers into the soil of the family land for the first time in years . . . and haggard with hunger.
“Hallie,” he said, floating her name into the silent bathroom.
He thickened so fast in his briefs that his dirt-caked hands curled into fists on the sink. Squeezed. With a jerky motion, he turned on the faucet, and after adding several pumps of soap, he scrubbed the earth from his palms, knuckles, forearms. But even watching the soil circle the drain reminded him of the gardener and her dirty knees. Hands that always looked fresh from planting something. The polka dot bra that remained pristine and protected inside of her shirt . . . and how she’d look stripping it off after a long day.
“Fuck. Not again.”
Even as he issued that denial, his teeth were clenched, his breaths coming faster and fogging up the mirror. His brain didn’t issue an order to shove down the waistband of his filthy sweatpants shorts, his hands simply knew beating off was inevitable when the polka dot bra came into play. God, the irony that something so frivolous could literally make him pant was galling—but his dick didn’t care. It strained free of his waistband, and he gripped it hard, biting off a moan.
Apparently Julian wasn’t half as evolved as he’d believed himself to be, because his fantasies about Hallie were increasingly sexist. In a way that was unforgivable. This time, she was stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and no idea how to change it. She almost definitely had that knowledge in real life. Did his dick want to hear it? Hell no.
It just wanted that reward of Hallie sighing in relief as he wrestled the spare tire out of her trunk and jacked up her vehicle, dogs and all.
No, wait, the dogs are at home. It’s quiet, except for the sound of him tightening the lug nuts. She leans against the truck in nothing but that polka dot bra and jean shorts, watching him work and smiling.
Christ, yes. She’s smiling.
Julian groaned while mentally picturing those unbelievable lips spreading into her cheerful grin, propping a forearm against the mirror and burying his face in the crook of his elbow, his opposite hand moving in hard strokes, the base of his spine already beginning to gather and jolt. It wasn’t even funny how hard he was going to come. How hard he climaxed every time he gave in to his infatuation with Hallie.
Infatuation.
That’s what this was.
Infatuation was why, in his fantasy, he imagined her running to him, throwing her arms around his neck and thanking him breathlessly, her tits barely contained inside the bra now. Just bare and bouncy against his chest, her hand exploring the front of his pants, her eyes widening with appreciation at the length of him, her frilly bra just kind of disintegrating into the ether of his daydream. Along with the jean shorts. Still smiling.
She was still smiling as he took those generous tits in his hands and guided them to his mouth, one at a time, sucking her hardening nipples and listening to her whimper his name, her fingers clumsily yanking down his zipper.
“Please, Julian,” she purred, jacking him off, mimicking his increasingly frantic movements over the bathroom sink. “Don’t make me wait for this.”
“As long as this isn’t out of gratitude for changing your tire,” he rasped back, making a pitiful attempt to prevent his fantasy self from ditching ethics altogether. “Only because you’re hot for it. Only because you want it.”
“I want it,” she moaned, arching her back against the truck. “No, I need you.”