“Ninety percent of the population of Autre leaves their back doors unlocked,” Zeke informed her. “And Zander just came over? And asked if you needed anything?”
She looked up at him and seemed to fully focus on him rather than the alligator for the first time.
“He did. Brought me homemade apple butter and biscuits. Seems he heard that I like peanut butter and jelly and thought that might be a nice alternative some morning.”
His fucking brother. Zeke couldn’t remember specifically telling Zander that Jill liked peanut butter and jelly, but he also wasn’t shocked to find out that she had come up in conversation over the last few days.
“You know he didn’t make the apple butter or the biscuits, right?”
She grinned. “I didn’t think that you made the bread, peanut butter, or jelly you brought me, but I still thought it was very sweet.”
Fucking Zander.
“I would’ve brought you anything you wanted. All you had to do was ask.”
“I know that, Zeke,” Jill told him, moving the laundry basket to balance it on her hip now.
Which moved the one thing between his gaze and her body dressed only in that tiny tank and panties. It also pulled the tank up slightly, showing a bare strip of skin on her belly.
He didn’t even pretend not to look.
“I’m just teasing you. And I’m totally on to Zander. He brought me the apple butter and biscuits so that I would let him come out to look at the penguins.”
“He told you that?”
“It was obvious. The most interesting thing about me, even to tough guys who wear a badge and carry a gun, are the penguins. It’s kind of always been that way.”
Zeke took the opportunity to step closer and reach up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “That wasn’t what I was first interested in.”
“And you get big brownie points for that,” she told him with a little smile.
“I’m all about brownie points. So when I do what I’m about to do, I want you to think about how many brownie points I’m going to get for it.”
“What are you going to do?”
Her gaze dropped to his lips and for a moment, Zeke thought about giving her the kiss she was clearly expecting. He loved that she was anticipating that and clearly wanted it. But he wanted to give her something she needed even more right now. And he wasn’t really in the business of giving women things beyond kisses—and all the stuff that went with those—very often. So he went with it.
He bent, hooked an arm around her back, the other behind her knees, and scooped her up into his arms.
“Zeke!” She gasped.
“Hang onto your basket.”
He turned and carried her down the rickety steps and across their joint yards to his house. She didn’t wiggle or give a single word of protest.
“What are you doing?” she finally asked as he managed to open the front door while still holding onto her.
“Coming to your rescue. The way you did for me the first night when I crashed my bike in front of your motel… Oh wait, you came to the rescue of a goat, not me.”
She laughed. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
He carried her to the kitchen before he swung her legs to the floor and set her down. “You’re not.”“
“Even now that you know I don’t have the first clue how to treat a human and that my focus is always on animals? I mean, honestly, the goat is lucky I even noticed him since he’s not a penguin.”
“Nope. And you’re going to feel even worse when I tell you that I just carried you across the yard so the gator wouldn’t get you even after dislocating my shoulder three days ago.”
She frowned. “You dislocated your shoulder?”
“Yep, happens periodically.” He rotated his left arm. “I dislocated it the first time in football in high school. Now it slides in and out pretty easily. The other day I was up on some scaffolding and misjudged a step and ended up on the floor from several feet up. Shoulder popped out and my brother and Michael had to put it back in.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Did it hurt?”
“Like a son of a bitch.”
“You should probably be more careful with it.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Not even a thank you for sacrificing to carry you in here?”
“Well, if it hurts, or would’ve been detrimental, I’m going to assume you wouldn’t have done it.”
“You’re going to assume I always make the right choices?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to assume you understand there are consequences when you make decisions, good or bad. You’re a grown up, after all.”
That was fair enough. So, she wasn’t overly worried. Hell, he’d known from the very first night that she wasn’t actually the nurturing type. Unless he was black and white and had feathers, he wasn’t getting too much TLC from this woman.
She looked around his kitchen. “So why am I over here? I really need to do laundry.”
“So use my washer and dryer.”
Her eyes widened. “You have a washer and dryer?”
“Yes, Jill, I have a washer and dryer.”
“Surely you can understand why I might be surprised by that.”
“Because my mother did laundry for me once?”
“Once?”
“Okay, she does it for me periodically. But yes, I have a washer and dryer and even use them occasionally.” He leaned in. “Which means that you will no longer be using my brother’s. Or anything else of his. You don’t need to be going to my brother’s house at all.”
“What if I need butter? You don’t even have butter in your fridge.”
“Do you need butter? Because I’ll fucking get a barrel of it.”
“I don’t need butter.”
“So stop pushing me.”
She tipped her head, studying him. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Do we have a relationship that would make it appropriate for you to be jealous?”
“Is that how jealousy works? It only happens when it’s appropriate and reasonable?”
“Okay, good point.”
“But yes, I think it’s reasonable in this case. We’re sleeping together. He’s my brother. He looks just like me, so he’s obviously pretty fucking hot. It would make sense that you might be attracted to him. Except, of course, he’s an asshole.”
“Funny, he said the same thing about you.”
“Did he? Well, you ask around. If it’s between me and Zander, he’s definitely more of an asshole.”
“And we’re sleeping together?”
“Not as regularly as I would like, but yes.”
“We haven’t seen each other in a few days. I thought maybe you’d lost interest.”
“Definitely not. I’ve been thinking about you every night when I’m jerking off in bed.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t seem scandalized so much as turned on.
“You said you needed some time with your penguins. And honestly, at this point, I’m hoping to see some baby penguin chicks waddling around in that habitat really soon. And I’m hoping that when there’s a couple eggs in those nests that I helped you put together, you’re gonna want to have some celebratory nookie.”