“You don’t find it annoying?” she echoed skeptically, one eyebrow arched.
“That’s what I said.” Jacob paused, considering his next words. He wasn’t sure if he should say them; after all, this woman wasn’t his business, not in the way he wanted her to be. Restless, he even pulled out his phone, hoping for a distraction that would stop him from speaking. No new notifications. Nothing particularly interesting on his live video feed of the cottage. Fine.
He put his phone away, and next thing he knew, the question he’d been avoiding slipped out. “Have you ever heard of stimming?”
She kicked a twig onto the grassy path beside them, then tipped back her head to squint at the low-hanging sun. “I don’t know. Maybe. Remind me what it is?”
Jacob allowed himself a moment to watch the fall of her hair, the way one fine lavender braid caught and coiled in the soft space between her neck and her shoulder, before dragging his gaze away. “It’s a kind of . . . repetitive action, to find comfort or focus or self-stimulate. Lots of autistic people do it.”
“Oh,” she said. There was a pause. “Well, if you want to . . . stim, go for it. I don’t mind. I’m never going to mind.”
Jacob blinked, then narrowed his eyes. She thought—she was giving him permission to—? He didn’t know whether to be pleased or pissed.
Not pleased. Pleased is not allowed.
Fine, then: pissed. “I don’t need permission to be myself, nor would I ever ask you for it.” He’d grown out of that the hard way.
She huffed. Folded her arms. Flicked Jacob an utterly unreadable look. “So—do you think—” She broke off, pressing her lips together. “Then why did you bring it up?”
Good fucking question. His feelings for her must be causing some kind of brain hemorrhage, because this conversation wasn’t his to have. You couldn’t just tell a woman that she often behaved in a way you read as autistic. Not if you weren’t said woman’s behavioral therapist. There were rules—or—ethical boundaries, or—something. Or maybe there weren’t; Jacob didn’t fucking know. He’d only been twelve when Aunt Lucy had told him they were just going to the doctor’s to sort something out, and really, the something didn’t matter, except school might be easier if people knew what she already suspected, that was all.
So he didn’t really know how this stuff worked for adults. He did know that he could very easily be wrong, and that he’d already crossed enough lines with this woman, so he should stop while he was ahead.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said finally. “Just—don’t worry about it.”
She seemed to deflate, though he didn’t understand why. “Okay. Whatever.” A moment later, he watched as her odd mood drifted away like clouds from the sun—because she was Eve, and Eve was never one thing for long. She turned the golden ray of her attention upward as they wandered down an avenue of old oak trees. The sunlight through the verdant leaves sent dappled patterns across her skin and brought out the ocher in her dark eyes. She released a sigh that thrust him right back to last weekend, to her shaky breath when he’d kissed between her thighs.
He wrenched himself back to the present before his dick could start to react. Wandering down the streets of Skybriar with a hard-on wouldn’t do his reputation much good, professional or otherwise.
“Oh look,” she said, pointing. “A gingerbread sign.”
Jacob eyed the banner advertising the Gingerbread Festival, and instead of his usual anxiety to get said festival absolutely right, all he felt was a quiet confidence in Eve. Which wasn’t a feeling conducive to caring about her less, so he squashed it down and simply grunted.
“This is such a lovely town,” she murmured. “I don’t know how you manage to stay so grumpy when you live here.”
“Through great force of will,” he replied.
“I’ve never seen this street before. It’s pretty.”
“Never seen—?” But no, he supposed she wouldn’t have. He knew that Eve had gone shopping, and that she made trips to the supermarket, but aside from that, well.
“There’s not much time for exploring,” she said. The words were light and even, a simple statement of fact, but they hit him like a hammer made of guilt. Christ. The more he thought about it, the more Castell Cottage looked like some kind of labor camp, lately.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. And it was the truth. As a child, he’d caught a butterfly in a jar, and though he’d given it air holes and fed it as advised by the quick facts section of his insect encyclopedia, it had still died.
Aunt Lucy had told him butterflies needed somewhere to flutter about. Just like Eve.
Eve, who was looking at him with a hint of surprise, probably because he never apologized more than three times per annum. “That’s okay,” she said. “I could explore, if I wanted to, after tea, or—”
“Except you’re usually bone-tired because I work you like a dog.”
She laughed out loud. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Jacob, you’re wrong.”
“Things will be different when my wrist is healed. In four weeks, your workload will be greatly reduced, I promise.”
She turned and flashed him another look he couldn’t decipher—one completely devoid of levity or even sarcasm. “Right,” she said softly. “Just four weeks.” Then she swallowed, and turned away, skipping ahead of him. “I bet you make sweet promises to all the indentured servants.”
He snorted, then caught a familiar movement up above. Wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her back against him without even thinking. The instant her soft, round arse pressed into his thighs, bird shit splattered on the pavement where she’d stood.
Eve, predictably, screamed. It was only a little scream, but really. “Jesus, woman,” he muttered.
“Poop!”
“Yes. Welcome to the countryside. What were you saying about lovely towns?”
“Fuck you,” she laughed.
He found his own mouth curling into a smile, an automatic response. Then he ruthlessly corralled it back into a straight line, because he’d read many books over the years, and one of those books had been about how not to break under torture. Your tormentors would start with little things, easy concessions to get you used to cooperating with them. If he allowed himself to smile when Eve was lovely—and she was often lovely—next thing he knew he’d be laughing with her, and talking to her properly—and surely the next step was dragging her up to his room and fucking her into the mattress. He could even imagine the sounds she’d make, the way her hands would glide over his skin as if just the feel of him turned her on. He could imagine, when he allowed himself to do so, everything.
Hence why he could give no quarter when it came to smiles.
He rolled his eyes at her instead, and let her go. Well, almost. Two of his fingers snagged the belt loop at the back of her jeans, hooking around the fabric, staying there. But only, he told himself, because someone needed to guide her around. This was unknown terrain. There was bird poop about. It was his responsibility to hold on to her like this.