Page 27

I rolled my eyes, laughing. I adored this playful side of him. Which was dangerous. Adoration was nothing I should be feeling for a coworker. Especially when it could cost me my job. But with Tyler? I couldn’t help it. He had this aura of joy around him, and I wanted to bask in the glow.
Which was exactly why I needed to leave, and fast. I reached for the door handle to get out, but he said, “Wait.”
I gave him a curious look, and he added, “Let me get that for you.”
“That’s not necessary. It’s not like you were my date.” Although Houston certainly wouldn’t have opened the door for me.
The quiet before his response unsettled me, but then he said, “I want you to see how you deserve to be treated.”
My heart was a puddle on his truck floor.
Without waiting for my response, he opened his door, passing through the headlights to my side. I allowed myself a moment to watch him, the way his arms pulled around his muscles. The strong profile of his face. The contrast of his dark brown hair to his tanned white skin.
But then my door was opening, and he was waiting with one arm up, showing a tattoo on the inside of his bicep. He followed my gaze to the black ink swirling around his muscular arm.
“Is there a story for the tattoo?” I asked, wishing it wasn’t midnight. Wishing that he had been the one to ask me on the date. Wishing that the walk to my house was miles instead of minutes.
“A long one,” he replied, extending his hand to help me down.
I slipped my hand into his, my heart speeding just as it had when we’d danced before. But now there was no loud music, no other couples to distract me from the heady rush of this man in front of me. Only the pale glow of the streetlights and the soft summer breeze caressing my skin.
He walked beside me to the sidewalk lined with tulips my mom carefully planted from bulbs each year. “Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” he asked.
“I’ve thought about it. There’s just never been anything I wanted to look at for the rest of my life.”
“So perhaps one on your back?” He winked.
I laughed, gently shoving his arm.
My front porch was approaching way too quickly. We were close enough now to read the embroidery on the porch swing’s decorative pillow.Home Sweet Home.
Desperate to keep him here a little longer, I asked, “What would a gentleman do on a date now?”
His eyes looked golden in our porch light as he reached for my hands. He held both of them in his, gently pressing my fingertips with his thumbs. “On a proper date, he’d tell you what a great time he had.”
The breeze picked up, circling our porch and freeing a strand of hair from behind my ear. He reached up and gently pressed it back.
Between the wind and his touch and the look in his eyes, my breath was gone.
His voice was honey, just as sweet as his words. “This is when a regular guy would lean in and kiss you goodnight.”
Involuntarily, I swallowed, flicking my gaze to his lips.
“But you don’t want a regular guy,” he finished.
“I don’t?” I breathed. Because right now, nothing sounded better than a kiss goodnight from Tyler Griffen.
He shook his head, resolute. “You deserve a hero. Someone who would take care of you, even though you’re capable of caring for yourself.”
My lips parted. Was he saying...
“A hero would lean in, kiss your forehead, and walk away, because, with a girl like you, he’d know the best is yet to come.”
Tyler stepped closer, pressing his lips to my forehead, and with one final sweep of his eyes over me, he turned and walked away.
Shivers prickled down my skin as I turned to the door, fingers shaking on my keys as I pushed them into the deadbolt lock.
Feeling eyes on me, I looked over my shoulder, seeing Tyler smiling at me—me—before he opened his pickup door and got inside.