Ah, crap... Faith sighed heavily. He had to be handsome and hot and sweet?
“What?”
She just shook her head.
“Too proud?”
“What?” she asked.
“Are you too proud to accept help?” he asked.
She pressed her lips together.
He laughed, nodded. “I sorta figured that one out the night we met.”
“Shut up.”
Tying off the last strand of lights, he tossed them into a pile. He got to his feet, waited for Faith to finish her strand, then offered a hand to help her up.
She took it and immediately regretted it. He was big and strong and warm. And the intimacy of the simple touch crushed another barrier between them. Then he pulled her to her feet with enough force to tip her off balance and she fell into him with a squeak. Her chest hit his, their thighs bumped. She pulled in a shocked breath and tried to ease away with a hand against his chest, but he’d already slipped his arm around her waist and held her tight. Her bellies pressed. Their hips aligned.
“Grant...”
Grant what? Her mind told her to tell him to let her go. But her body didn’t want to have anything to do with that idea.
“Still have my number?” he asked.
But the words didn’t register in Faith’s head. All she could focus on was every point where their bodies connected. The way his forearm felt low on her back. The heat of his hand curved around her waist. The way a few of his fingers touched flesh where her shirt had ridden up. The thickness of his thigh between hers.
“Faith?”
She glanced up. Oh, shit—wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He was looking down at her, his lips right there. Right. There.
Faith had forgotten how to breathe.
She watched his lips as he spoke again. “Do you still have my number?”
“No.” She forced herself to at least sound like she was in control. “I threw it out.”
His lips kicked up in a lopsided grin and his straight, white teeth contrasted with his tanned skin. He released her hand and reached around to his back pocket, but still held her tight against his body. Then his hand came back, stroking her hip, rounding behind her, and sliding over her ass.
Tingles seared her skin. Heat flooded every inch of her body below the waist. She sucked a breath. “Grant—“
“There,” he said, pulling his hand from her pocket and loosening the arm around her waist. “Now you have it again.”
He released her, but let his hand rest on her hip an extra second before leaning away. Just when Faith thought she had her feet back under her, he lifted a hand and brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, then tucked it behind her ear.
Faith’s eyes closed. She couldn’t help it.
His knuckles grazed her cheekbone before he murmured, “Call me, beautiful. We’ll get your video made. Get you back on your feet.”
She swallowed and shored up her strength before she opened her eyes again.
Just in time to see him turn the corner out of the aisle and disappear.
Five
Grant pulled into a parking spot at the end of the street and watched customers come and go from St. Nicholas Hardware. It had been four days since he’d almost kissed Faith, right there in the middle of her damned store. Not only hadn’t she called him to help with her pet project, but she continued to treat him as if the scorching heat between them was a figment of his imagination.