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“It’s weird.”

“I called you a carrot the other day,” he pointed out.

“That was less weird.”

“Come on,” he said, beckoning her into the house. She followed, and, with the full intent of being a condescending asshole, he got out the bottle of sunscreen that he used every day and put a measure on his palm.Then he swiped at it with his fingertips and put some on her nose, rubbing it across to her cheek, and then again to the other cheek.

She only looked at him, her eyes filled with a mixture of anger and...

Shit. He’d made a mistake.

Her skin was soft, and being this close to her was dangerous.

She smelled like flower petals and sleep. Like coffee. Like the kind of morning he never had with women.

Well. And coconuts. But that was the sunscreen. And because he was a stubborn asshole, he put his other hand on her face and rubbed from both sides, getting the cream worked into her skin, because he wasn’t backing down now, even though he knew that he was doing an idiotic thing.

It was too late to turn back, so he might as well be in with both feet. Both thumbs.

Whatever.

Lord Almighty.

Her lips parted, and they were pink and soft looking, and far too lovely for his own good.

That was the problem with Quinn Sullivan; she had been too lovely for his own good from the moment she showed up on his doorstep.

He didn’t have time for this. He didn’t need it.

He didn’t like what she did to him. What she did to his life.

And he had no room for anyone else in his world.

He was done. Done helping people. Taking care of them. He’d done it. He was living for himself now.

And Camilla was hovering around and Quinn was here, and none of it was fair. He still had to worry about fucking Dylan, who was out in the middle of the desert, and... At least Jessie was with Damien.

As weird as he had found that whole thing, at least his middle sister was with a man that he trusted, so he knew that she was all right day to day.

He could not say the same for his other siblings, and he didn’t like it. Because he wanted all of this to be over. He had been under the strain of needing to take care of everybody else from the time he was eighteen years old. Hell, really from the time he was sixteen.

He hadn’t asked to be a parent.

He had just wanted to be a kid.

And he didn’t harbor any fantasies about having a second adolescence or anything like that, but he definitely wanted a little bit more freedom.

And that did not include being tangled up in Quinn Sullivan in any regard. None whatsoever.

“Levi...” she whispered.

That was when he knew. She felt it, too.

That was the most dangerous realization he could have had.

And he took a step back, and he pretended that he hadn’t noticed anything. Pretended like nothing had just passed between them. Like there was no electrical current, like he hadn’t been looking at her the same way she had been looking at him. Like her skin wasn’t a revelation, like flower petals in springtime. Like she wasn’t making him think poetry.

Yeah. Like that.