Someone knocked on my window and I screamed.

Declan blinked back at me, his hands held up in apology. I stared into his eyes while my brain came back online. They were the color of root beer, something I’d never really considered sexy until right this moment. His lips curved up at the edges as if his welcome was uncertain. Since I was white-knuckling the steering wheel, I didn’t blame him for thinking that.

He had an exceptionally masculine face, but probably the softest-looking mouth I’d ever seen. Like if I could shrink down, that would be where I’d curl up and sleep. I’d make myself at home in that plush place where the edge of his mouth met that little furrow we all had that I always forgot the name of. Which now that I thought about it, was probably a weird thing to think.

I shouldn’t stare at his mouth.

I apparently couldn’t stop staring at his mouth.

I wondered what it would feel like if he—I quickly packaged that thought up and booted it into space. But I was still staring. The soft mouth was turning down, as were his eyebrows. Declan popped my door open. “Are you okay?”

I was still staring at him, but at least now it was in the eyes and not hyper focused on his lips. “I don’t usually startle easily, but today…” I blew out a breath. “Today I’m a mage on the edge, I guess.”

“Okay, okay, no need to take it out on your steering wheel.” He squatted down, until he was below my eye level. I’d spent enough time with animals to understand exactly what he was doing—making himself small, not exactly submissive, but signaling that he wasn’t a threat.

Declan hesitated, then peeled my hands from the steering wheel. He murmured soothing nonsense to me in that gravelly voice of his, and for a second I was tempted to ask him to read to me. A story, a recipe, a freaking grocery list—I just wanted to hear that soothing rumble, and so far, Declan hadn’t shown himself to be especially chatty.

In fact, he’d made himself so invisible in our house that if I didn’t know better, I would have thought we were being haunted by a sexy ghost.

He rubbed my hands, smoothing his thumbs along the pressure points. “I’m sorry.”

I felt my heart rate slow, my breathing normalize, and the whole time we never broke eye contact. Which was hot. Why was that hot? Normally, extended eye contact made me fidget. “It’s okay. Probably would have been fine if I wasn’t exhausted and hangry. I overdid it today.”

Another hesitant quirk of lips, like he found me funny, but only in a reluctant sort of way. “Still, I didn’t intend to startle you. I just wanted to ask if you needed help.”

His hands still rubbed mine and I couldn’t help it, I glanced down. He seemed to notice what he was doing and dropped my hands like they’d suddenly become red-hot chainsaws.