Page 53

“Maybe.” Luca shrugs one muscled shoulder. “I didn’t sleep last night to get here as fast as I could.”

Reckless fool.

I cross my arms. “You’re serious about safety, huh?”

He fully opens his eyes. “For other people. Not particularly when it comes to me.”

I frown, dragging off my gardening gloves. “You said that you’d be here before noon.”

“It is before noon. I’m not late.”

“I meant,” I toss down my gloves and tap my watch, “that it’s quarter to seven in the damn morning. What if I’d still been in bed?”

“Then I would have broken in through a window and found you in your bedroom, obviously.”

He sits up, adjusting his collar casually like he hasn’t just given off major stalker vibes.

I stab my finger at him. “That’s not what I⁠—”

“And I’d have learned,” Luca steeples his fingers in front of him, “that you’re a lazy Omega, who my Angel will need to make breakfast in bed for in the mornings. Now I know that you like getting up early like I do, we can enjoy the dawn together out here with the birds, insects, and sun. Do you want to go for a morning walk in the forest behind your inn each day? What about at sunset?”

I am caught off guard by Luca’s enthusiasm. It melts him, when before he’d been like ice.

“I’d like that,” I reply.

I’ve had no one to go on walks with for so long. Being out in the fresh air today, surrounded by birdsong and flowers, has already brightened my spirits.

When Luca leans closer, my heart speeds up.

The back of my neck prickles, having him this close. His pheromones wash over me. They feel dark and electric.

This close, Luca’s sharp scent of white carnations is crisp and peppery. It makes me shiver.

It holds an edge of spiky coldness, just as he does, as if it is a shield to keep people away or to protect himself.

Yet underneath its floral bite lies a heavy, intoxicating base of dark, damp soil, which makes my eyelids become heavy.

I lean closer to his unexpected warmth.

Is he trying to kiss me?

Do I want him to?

Shocked, my heart pounds. My lips tingle in expectation.

Instead of kissing me, however, Luca reaches past me, tracing his finger over the E & P initials that are carved into the Dream Tree. “P? Does that stand for Paige? What about the E? What was his name?”

I turn my head, studying the outline of Luca’s face.

His brow is creased, and he is studying the carving intently, while twirling his long hair around his finger.

I think that even if there was an earthquake he wouldn’t be distracted.

What would it feel like to have all that focus on me?

Except, is that what’s happening right now?

I don’t answer for a moment, and he doesn’t press me.