I agree, Ginger. I agree.

Lincoln held out a hand to me. “We need to talk.”

I stared at his capable fingers and neatly clipped nails like I’d never seen a hand before in my life. Let alone never let that hand do things to me that no man had ever done before. Things I liked. Way too much.

It was also the hand of the enemy.

“You won’t even touch me now?”

I swallowed again and flicked my gaze up to his before looking back down at the floor I’d mopped an hour ago. “I’m dirty. You’re . . .”

“A Riscoff. Which is why you ran this morning.” His deep voice carried just a hint of roughness, and all I could think of was the thing that voice had said to me last night.

Because I’m an idiot.

“I shouldn’t have left the bar with you.”

“But you did. And you didn’t have a single problem with it until you found out who I am. So, are you going to share with me what the hell made you run like you’d just discovered I had bodies hidden in the walls?”

My gaze darted up to his. “Do you?”

“What’s your name, Blue?”

That nickname. It slayed me. I wished he hadn’t said it, because now I wanted to tell him everything he wanted to know.

And . . . maybe telling him was the quickest way to get him to leave me alone.

I locked my stare with his, trying not to get lost in the green-and-gold depths, and told him. “Whitney Gable.”

I was expecting shock—a comical level of it, to be honest—but instead I got no reaction from him at all. Maybe stonewalling emotions was something Riscoffs were required to master by age ten or something. Wouldn’t surprise me since they were basically all spawned from the devil himself—Commodore Riscoff. The man who burned down my family’s homestead.

Instead of backing away like I was rabid, Lincoln moved his hand closer to me, and for some reason that, plus his continued silence, made me bolder.

“Did you not hear me? I’m a Gable. You’re sworn to hate me for life. So, it would be better for both of us if you’d turn around and walk your privileged Riscoff ass out the door and let me get on with my day before my aunt gets back and sees you here.”

Instead of doing what I told him, Lincoln squatted down until his face was only inches from mine. “I’m a Riscoff, which means I can do whatever the fuck I want, including not hating a Gable.”

Shock filtered through me.

“At least now I get why you ran this morning. Gotta say, that was a first for me.”

He reached down, bracketing my hips with both hands, and lifted me to my feet—and directly against his chest.

His heat soaked into my T-shirt that was micro thin from too many years of washing. My nipples hardened, and the jump of his Adam’s apple told me he felt the hard points poking through the barely there fabric of my bra.