She flushed. Okay, yes, she’d been practicing her bed making on her own bed. She had to get good somehow. “Thanks.”
He grinned that wolfish grin and finally sat. Eve swallowed. The sofa bed had seemed a perfectly reasonable place for them both to sit, until Jacob had actually done so. Now it looked like a den of lascivious temptation. Possibly because he looked like a lascivious temptation.
He lounged comfortably among the blankets and pillows like a prince, his long, lean body taking up space unapologetically, spread out as if on display. The breadth of his chest was emphasized by that neatly buttoned shirt, the one she’d ironed for him because she’d caught him trying to do it himself and he’d almost set his bloody cast on fire. The length of his thighs was emphasized by those jeans she should find unattractive, because he ironed those, too, but actually found drool-worthy, because they clung to the slight curve of his muscles in a way that told her entirely too much about how he might look naked . . .
And now she was getting all hot between her thighs on their very first friendship date. Perfect. Just perfect. Thoroughly annoyed with herself, Eve sat down.
“What are we listening to?” Jacob asked, all calm and pleasant like a . . . calm . . . pleasant thing. Meanwhile, Eve’s eyes were glued to the shift of his jaw as he spoke, because Eve’s eyes were very badly behaved and had no consideration for her feelings or for the feelings of her vagina.
“I set up a queue,” she said, passing him her phone. “I thought, you know, we could both add to it as we went.”
“I get to add to the queue?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Me? Even though you called me a heathen for not liking Kate Bush?”
“You are a heathen for not liking Kate Bush. But I caught you humming along when I was singing ‘Honor to Us All’ the other day, so you do have some taste.”
In the dying light of the setting sun, his blush was deep and glowing. “Liam had a mild obsession with Disney princesses, growing up.”
“Oh, sure. Your cousin, definitely.”
“He really did. As for myself, that’s classified information.”
She laughed while he tapped through her music app and added who knew what to their queue. When he passed the phone back, the tip of his middle finger grazed the curve where her palm flowed into her wrist, and Eve had to clamp down on this outrageous full-body shiver. Friends, she told her nervous system firmly. We are friends.
Her blood continued to pulse hot and stormy through her veins, regardless. Good Lord. Jacob, poor, unaware soul, was leaning back against the cushions and cracking open a packet of crisps. Meanwhile, here she was feeling her knickers get damp. It was depraved. And also kind of hot. Wait, no—bad Eve.
“Hang on,” he said, going momentarily still. “Are those biscuits? Are there biscuits in the snack pile?”
“You like biscuits?” She hadn’t been sure.
“I fucking love biscuits. My first hotel job, I—” He broke off with an embarrassed little wince before pushing through with a grin. As if he was mortified, but he knew she’d like this, so he’d say it anyway. “I was sacked for eating the complimentary biscuits.”
“What?” Eve’s gasp was so mighty it probably drained half the oxygen from the room. “Jacob! I can’t believe you stole. I can’t believe you’ve been sacked, ever in your life.”
“It wasn’t stealing!” he said. “Well, it was, but I didn’t mean it to be stealing. I was fourteen!”
“You were working at fourteen?”
He shot her an arch look. “You’re doing that spoiled brat thing again.”
“Oh, yes, sorry.” She waved the question away. “You were morally bankrupt at fourteen?”
“Hey.”
“What? That’s what I heard.”
“Fuck off, Brown,” he grinned, and then he leaned forward to snag a biscuit. She let the rising beat of Ravyn Lenae’s “Sticky” bounce the happy bubbles in her tummy higher, while Jacob bit into a gingersnap, chewed with a slow frown, then examined the plate. Finally, he asked, “Where did you get these?” Because he was a man who noticed things, such as the lack of logo stamped into the biscuits and the crisper, more buttery taste that came from being freshly baked.
“I made them,” she said.
He looked at her sharply, his head held at the lupine angle that meant he was assessing or investigating. What, she wasn’t sure, until he took another bite out of the biscuit and said, “Well, fuck.”
“What?”
“It never occurred to me until now. I could’ve been forcing you to make biscuits all this time.”
“Oh, yes, add to my to-do list, you absolute slave driver.”
“Maybe we could serve these at the festival.”
“Not very breakfast-for-dinner-y,” she reminded him mildly, “and Pemberton might get a bit pissed off if we muscle in on their gingery turf.” But she was smiling because if Jacob wanted something of hers for the B&B, that meant he liked it. A lot.
“Oh. Yes. Hm. All entirely valid points,” he allowed. “I suppose the sugar is going to my head. But adding sweets to the menu—we should think about that. It may be breakfast for dinner, but it is still dinner . . .”
“And I make a gorgeous sponge cake, which is the sort of talent one should never waste,” Eve finished, nodding slowly. “Thank you for the compliment, darling.”
“Er, I don’t think I compli—”
“Cracking idea, really. I could bake a few cakes—they’re easy enough to finish in advance and they’d make for a pretty display. £2.50 per slice, and we draw in the pudding lovers and the foodies who’d rather snack from each station than commit to an entire meal.”
Jacob stared at her, looking mildly astonished. “I . . . well . . . yes. That’s a very sound strategy.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Try not to be so obvious about your surprise. I can be clever sometimes, you know.” The words felt slightly foreign in her mouth, more spur-of-the-moment bravado than actual belief—yet once they were out there, Eve found she didn’t want to laugh them off. In fact, they were sort of . . . true. She could be clever. She’d just proved it, hadn’t she?
Maybe. Gosh, what a thought.
Jacob, meanwhile, was rolling his eyes. “I know you can be clever,” he said in long-suffering tones. “I hired you, didn’t I?”
“Barely,” she snorted.
“You persuaded me into it, then. Which is more evidence of your cleverness.”
“Because you’re sooo difficult to outsmart,” she snickered, at which point Jacob picked up a pillow and whacked her with it. So she picked up a pillow and whacked him right back, and in the midst of all that delicious immaturity, she barely had time to glow over their conversation.
It still stuck with her, though.
Clever, clever me.
* * *
Hours after that sweet, surprise text, the sun had fully set and the moon had finally risen. The night sky was star-studded, the breeze through the open window smelled like cool grass, and Jacob felt a little drunk. But he’d felt this kind of drunk before—the spontaneous, can’t-stop-grinning kind where, for once, he didn’t care too much—and he knew what had caused it.