Page 55 of Tempting Wyatt

“And I don’t recall needing your permission to care,” I fire back.

My breath comes fast, uneven, but I refuse to back down this time. I’ve seen how much his family worries. And he’s lucky to have a family that gives a shit.

“Bet you worked through lunch already.”

I backed down about Caleb. I’m not backing down tonight.

Wyatt makes a sound—part groan, part growl—before running a hand down his face. He’s still vibrating withfrustration, but there’s something else there too—something darker, something that makes my pulse trip over itself.

I should leave. Walk out the way I came and let him stew in his own damn emotions. He’s a big boy. He doesn’t have to eat dinner with his family. But instead, I reach out. My fingers brush his forearm—just barely, just enough to feel the tension coiled beneath his skin.

His head snaps up, and suddenly, we’re too close. His chest rises and falls like he’s still coming down from a fight. But he doesn’t seem mad anymore.

Not really.

Wyatt’s gaze drops to my mouth. “I don’t have time for?—”

“Dinner?” I cut in, tilting my face upward and further closing the gap between us. “You don’t have time to eat with your family? The family who loves you and worries about you?”

His jaw flexes, his throat bobbing with a swallow. “There’s still work to do.”

“There’s always work to do,” I counter, softer this time. “It will be here tomorrow. But if you keep carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders all by yourself, Wyatt, you’re going to break.”

His nostrils flare, his breathing heavy, like he’s just barely keeping it together. I should back off, let him work himself into the ground like he clearly intends to. But I don’t.

“I’m not going to break,” he murmurs. But he doesn’t sound convinced.

His eyes flash to where I touched him, then back to my face.

I step in closer, slow and deliberate, until I can feel the heat radiating off him, until my chest rests against his.

“Maybe not,” I say, keeping my face angled up towardhis. “But that doesn’t mean you have to carry everything alone.”

His eyes drop to my mouth again. We’re so close that we’re breathing the same air. I can practically taste him.

Iwantto taste him. Badly.

His chest rises and falls, brushing my now hard nipples. A thrill shoots through me.

He’s affected by me. I’m not the only one who feels this—whatever it is—between us. But he’s much more pissed off about it, judging from the glare I’m getting.

“What do you want from me?”

I chew my lower lip gently and glance at the kitten, who has now made herself comfortable on his workbench behind him. “Hmm, well, I came in here, hoping you’d scratch behind my ears and call me a good girl, but it looks like that position is already filled.”

His eyes burn into mine as his mouth quirks up, but he fights the grin. “You got an itch you need scratched, Hollywood?”

“You’d be so much prettier if you smiled more,” I tease.

“You’re fucking trouble—you know that?”

I shrug. Brush an invisible speck of dirt from his shirt. Let my hands drift over his broad chest.

“Maybe. What do you plan to do about it?”

He grips my wrist, stopping me before I fully cover the broad landscape of his chest. A surprised breath escapes my lips.

“It just occurred to me that I’ve never had sex in a barn before.” The words slip out like I ingested truth serum. I glance around at the few available surfaces.