CHAPTER THREE
Poppy
The seed-sorting shed was small, windowless, and currently about ten degrees too warm. It smelled of aged wood and old earth, and corny as it sounded, new beginnings. Because that’s what seeds were—new beginnings.
Just like me, they were looking for a little kindness. Someone to nurture them, water them, and let the sun shine down on them.
It was my second day in the shed, and I’d been paired with a partner. A seventeen-year-old boy who was as inexperienced as I was. I don’t know why Cord had done this, but we were learning together.
Today, we were learning what to do when several trays of seeds were knocked off the table and mixed together. Seeds not of the same variety. I couldn’t very well say anything considering my seedling incident.
“Look, Tyler, we all make mistakes,” I said from my position, kneeling on the floor. “Now, let’s try and fix this one.”
“Of course, of course.” He was still standing, literally wringing his hand together and radiating enough guilt to power a small city.
“Help me pick up the seeds.” I finally said. I kept my voice bright and encouraging, the professional caretaker in me taking over, even as my knees ached against the hard floor.
I was mid-reach, sliding a piece of paper under a pile of seeds, when the door opened. The air in the shed didn’t just shift, it moved out of the way and the space suddenly felt half as large as it had seconds ago.
I looked up, pushing a stray lock of hair out of my face.
Cord stood there, his massive frame blocking out the sun.
He was wearing a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing forearms that looked like they could pick me up with no problem.
I had no idea where that thought had materialized.
Actually, that was a lie. I knew exactly where it came from.
I wanted to know what those thick, corded muscles would feel like wrapped around my waist, lifting me until I was level with that brooding mouth.
His eyes—that piercing, impossible green—swept over the mess before locking onto mine.
Even irritated, the man was unfairly gorgeous.
“Poppy.”
He just said my name, but the weight of it settled exactly where it shouldn’t have. Deep inside my core. It wasn’t a question. It was a rumble that made my pulse jump.
“It was me,” I blurted out, before Tyler could crumble. “I was reaching for a label and caught the edge of the tray. Tyler’s been a lifesaver helping me sort it out.”
Tyler looked like he wanted to vanish into the floorboards. Cord’s gaze shifted to the kid, then back to me. He didn’t say he didn’t believe me. He didn’t have to. The way his jaw ticked told me he saw right through my protection of his youngest hand.
“Tyler,” Cord growled. “Go check the water levels in Greenhouse Two. Top to bottom. Don’t come back until you have a full log.”
The kid vanished like he’d been shot out of a cannon.
Silence rushed back into the shed, thick and heavy.
Cord didn’t move for a long moment, just watched me.
I was on my hands and knees, my leggings stretched tight over my hips.
By ass was up in the air, and I resisted the impish urge to wiggle it.
His gaze tracked the line of my spine down to where my shirt had ridden up enough to expose a sliver of skin along the small of my back.
I felt the weight of his stare like a physical touch.
I knew what he was seeing—the flare of my hips, the curve of my bottom—and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to hide.
I wanted to arch my back and see what he would do.
Exciting, naughty thoughts ran through my mind.
Of him touching me. Kissing the sliver of skin. Biting it.
Of course, that was my fantasy self thinking that. The one who had already risen to her knees and pulled his head down for a hot, scorching kiss.
He finally moved, dropping to his haunches, his knees brushing mine. The friction of his rough work pants against my leggings sent a bolt of awareness straight to my core.
“You’re a terrible liar, Poppy Evans.” His voice held a hint of amusement.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, tossing my head a little defiantly. It was so unfair what this man did to me just by entering the room. It wasn’t that he was attractive, although he was, in the specific devastating way of men who had no idea and wouldn’t care if they did.
No, despite the broody man persona he wore like one of his flannel shirts, he had a caring attitude. He’d fed me, given me the morning off to go buy food, and he didn’t yell when something went wrong. Like now. Or the seedling disaster.
I knew what it looked like when someone took care of things.
I’d been doing it my whole life. I just hadn’t ever been on the receiving end.
I didn’t know if I was equipped to handle that.
Or him. He was a mountain man, rooted to this place like the pines surrounding it.
I was a woman who’d blown in on the wind.
And might blow back out just as quickly.
He picked up the piece of cardboard Tyler had abandoned and started helping.
We worked in a silence that should have been uncomfortable but somehow wasn’t.
I was overly conscious of how much space he took up—how much I took up.
I’d made peace with my curves a long time ago.
I was a big girl in a world that had opinions about that, and most days I walked through it without a second thought.
But there was something different about being in a small, warm shed with a man that size. The accidental touches were unavoidable. A brush of knuckles. A bump of the knee. Each one landed like a small, deliberate secret.
When the floor was finally clear, he stood up and offered me a hand. His palm was calloused and warm, his grip firm as he pulled me to my feet. He didn’t let go immediately. He kept my hand in his, his thumb tracing a slow, deliberate circle over my knuckles.
“Your hands are dirty,” I said, wanting to tell him to move his hands higher. To touch me harder.
“Occupational hazard.”
“It suits you.”
He released me after a beat too long and nodded toward the sorting machine. “You know how to run this?”
“Not yet. I was getting to it.”
“Sit.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Made in that deep velvet tone, it was a command that I didn’t mind obeying. My nipples hardened thinking about other commands he could give me that I would be more than willing to obey.
I scrambled onto the high wooden stool, and Cord stepped in behind me. He didn’t just reach around me. He caged me in. His massive arms were on either side of my waist, his chest pressing firmly against my back. I could feel the hard planes of his muscles, the steady, heavy beat of his heart.
That movie scene flashed through my mind. Wet clay, close bodies. Of course, that had been a figment of that’s woman’s imagination too.
Was I imagining what was happening?
“Top screen is for the debris.” His breath fanned across the shell of my ear as he poured out part of the seeds. “The middle ones are for the sorted seeds.”
He reached for the hand crank, his arm brushing against mine. “You control the speed. It’s all about the rhythm, Poppy. You can’t rush it.”
He began to turn the handle. The vibration of the machine hummed through the bench and straight into my thighs.
With every rotation, he pressed closer. I could feel the heavy ridge of him pressing into my back, a silent promise of what he was capable of.
I throbbed, a heavy, wet weight between my legs that made me want to turn around.
“Now you try,” he commanded again.
I placed my hand on the handle, turning it slowly.
“Faster, Poppy,” he directed. I turned it faster, but apparently not fast enough. He placed his hand over mine, guiding my arm in slow, rhythmic circles. The sound of the seeds sliding through the metal screens was hypnotic. With every rotation, he seemed to press closer, making it hard to breathe.
I turned to tell him I had the hang of it, but I’d forgotten how close he was. He hadn’t moved back. He was right there, his face inches from mine. The handle went still in my hand.
The heat in his eyes was no longer just professional focus. It was a raw, intense hunger. He reached up, his fingers resting at my jaw—just the tips, grazing my skin with a gentleness that was far more dangerous than his growl.
He turned me on the stool until I was facing him.
My legs parted to accommodate him as he stepped between my thighs.
He slid his hands from the stool to my waist, his fingers digging into my hips as he pulled me to the very edge of the stool.
I felt the delicious friction of the rough denim of his fly against me.
“You’re shaking, Poppy,” he murmured his gaze dropping to my lips.
“It’s.. it’s the shed. It’s too hot in here.”
I gazed at his mouth—firm, sculpted, and so close I could almost taste him.
Every part of me, every instinct I’d tried to bury, screamed at me to lean in.
To find out if he was as hard and unyielding as he looked.
I wanted to feel that beard scratching against my skin, wanted to feel those large hands exploring every inch of my curves.
“It’s not the shed.” He leaned in, his nose brushing mine. I could see the raw possessive hunger in his eyes that made him look less like a mountain farmer and more like a conqueror. “You’ve been running since you got here. You don’t have to run from me, Poppy.”
I want to wrap my legs around him and feel all the power against me.
I wanted to feel that brooding mouth on mine.
I wanted it so badly. My body clenched just thinking about it.
His thumb brushed my lower lip, pulling it down just a fraction, and the world seemed to narrow down to the space between our mouths.
But the reality of where I was—and who he was—slammed back into me. I was his employee. I was a runner, a girl hiding from a life that had tried to swallow her whole. I didn’t know how to do this. To open up like one of the flowers I’d seen in his greenhouse. That had been cared for and nurtured.
I scooted back but the loss of contact felt wrong.
“I can’t,” I said, my voice sounding thin and fragile in the small space. “I... I’m sorry. This isn’t a good idea, Cord.”
Every part of me disagreed with my mouth. There was nothing wrong with me being in his arms, his mouth on mine. Except… there was.
Cord went perfectly still. He didn’t move toward me, didn’t try to close the distance. He just watched me with those steady, green eyes, his expression unreadable once more. The heat dying and curling into something dark and frustrated.
“Okay,” he said finally.
The word was flat. No anger, no rejection—no emotion of any kind. He stepped back, giving me the room I’d asked for, his presence receding like a tide. “Finish the sort.”
“Right,” I said, my throat tight. “I will.”
He walked to the door, his boots heavy on the wood. He didn’t look back as the door swung shut, leaving me alone in the dim, earth-scented quiet.
I turned back to the sorting machine and placed my hand on the handle. I started to turn it, but the rhythm was gone. I’d done the safe thing. The reliable thing. The same damn thing I’d done my entire life.
But as I watched the seeds move through the metal, I really, really wished I’d said to hell with everything else and let him kiss me. Actually, I wished I’d asked him to do more than just kissed me.