Page 57 of The Professor's Wife

And I didn’t care.

I had never done this before. Lived among this much nature, breathing in the scent of it, feeling the breeze move beneath my shirt.

If I had to walk barefoot, I would have.

Out here, nothing could touch me.

We passed a group of men coming from the opposite direction. Four of them, loud and sunburned, carrying cans despite the early hour.

Their conversation quieted when they saw me.

I felt their eyes before I looked up. They moved over my bare ankles, up my bare legs, lingering where Tristan’s oversized shirt hung over my thighs. One of them glanced at the others with a grin that made my skin tighten.

Tristan noticed.

His hand settled against my lower back, firm but gentle, guiding me to the inside of the trail. Then he moved closer, his body cutting off most of their view without breaking stride.

It happened so naturally I almost wondered whether he had done it on purpose.

Until one of the men looked back.

Tristan looked back, too.

He didn’t say anything. There was no challenge in his posture or ridiculous display of masculinity. Just a hard stillness in his face that hadn’t been there seconds before.

The man turned around.

Tristan’s hand remained against my back until we had passed them.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Were you about to fight four men over my legs?”

His jaw shifted. “No.”

“No?”

“I was about to make sure they kept walking.”

I looked up at him. “That sounds suspiciously similar.”

“It isn’t.” His gaze dropped briefly to the bare stretch of skin above my flip-flops before returning to my face. Something darker moved through his eyes. “I don’t blame them for looking.”

My cheeks heated.

“I just don’t have to make it easy for them.”

There was something possessive in the way he said it, but he hadn’t touched me like I belonged to him. He hadn’t told me to cover myself or made their staring my fault.

He had simply put himself between me and something that made me uncomfortable.

I moved closer until my arm brushed his.

His expression softened immediately.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yes.”