He was only defending his cousins, casually, but at heart she was a songwriter even more than a performer, someone who craved the right words for the right tune, and his words caught at her. “And you do?” Is your whole life trapped here?
He frowned a little, looking around at the roses that spilled below them, at the hills that framed them. “It’s my valley.”
She stepped back into the doorway, lured toward him just when she had thought to hide herself and her silly, extravagant feelings somewhere private and safe. Fascinated by this blend of responsibility, big, strong grumpiness, and the sweetness that was almost like a secret he was afraid to share. The man who roared…and then saved a cat. Or made a rose.
“If I show you what it’s like,” he said, rough and strong, his hands flexing by his sides in big fists that had no idea what to do with themselves, “maybe you’ll understand. Why it has to stay in the family.”
“And by ‘family’, you mean you?” she asked curiously.
“It’s my valley.”
“You’re the entire family?”
He scowled, folding his arms across his chest. “Do you want to come or not?”
“I do, actually,” she said quietly, and his face relaxed.
“Really?”
“Really.” It sounded like spending the day in the middle of a song.
In the fields, Matthieu helped her put on one of the apron-like things the harvesters wore as they moved down the rows—essentially a giant pocket that tied around the waist, into which the flowers were dropped. “When it gets filled up, dump it in the nearest burlap bag,” he said.
She reached for the first rose cautiously, afraid to do something wrong.
“Just press your thumb right in the center,” Matt said behind her, and his big hand curled gently around a rose near her hand, thumb pressing down on the little nub of yellow at the center of the loose, ruffly pink petals as his fingers cupped it. The rose looked absurdly small and delicate in that work-hardened palm.
Layla looked back at her own rose. Her fingertips were callused and strong, too, especially the left ones—a guitarist’s hands—and her hands, too, were bronze, for she had been born with skin that loved to soak up all that sun on festival stages. But her hands were much slimmer, and she would have assumed the pink rose would look more natural in her feminine hold.
She looked back at the big masculine palm cupping its delicate pink so surely, that thumb pressed so easily and firmly onto the nub at its center.
Oh…her mind just went somewhere…it really didn’t want to come back from.
It gave a whole new concept to what looked “natural”.
She stroked the petals of her own rose, only a few inches from his hand. Such exquisite texture. The rose bushes on either side of her came up to her shoulders, and the scent caressed everywhere.
“Be firm,” that deep voice said from just behind her, completely confident now, with no hint of the vulnerability he had almost revealed that morning. “Take control of it.”
She ducked her head to hide a smirk. One day she was going to quote those words right back at him when he was—whoa. Slow down.
You’re just passing through here. You’ve got an album to produce.
If you stay here a little while and concentrate, you might even be able to write some songs for it.
With a tiny, competent twist, the rose came off in his hand, and he dropped it into her apron pocket. His arm circled her body, brushing her own arm when he did it. Was that the heat of the sun or the heat of his body that she felt so keenly against her back? His chest wasn’t touching her. It must be the sun. But super-imposed over the roses before her was a vision of his naked torso from the day before, those broad shoulders and those hard abs and that fine V of dark hair aiming down a flat belly. It made her feel so small and vulnerable and oddly sheltered. Dangerously safe.
If she turned around, how much would it take for her to get that growl and blush to come back?
She turned. His gaze snapped up from somewhere lower on her body to her face. She smiled, feeling saucy. Feeling a really outrageous urge to flex her butt muscles a little bit in case that was where his gaze had been. “Let me know if you need help getting your T-shirt off,” she said. Be nice to make that vision of his naked torso come true.
Brown eyes locked on hers.
She grinned, pretty full of herself. Sometimes it was really fun to be outrageous. Besides, in comparison with all the other visions she’d been having of him—and them—that one was practically G-rated.
His voice lowered into that deep, deep register that just vibrated into her bones. “Any time.”