Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(19)
He realized he’d taken only one spoonful of her fancy dessert and not said a word. “Mmm.” He quickly took another. Jesus, this stuff tasted dangerous. She could mess a man all up feeding him things like this as if his insides were tender and fancy and fragile. He’d found her a hell of a lot less terrifying when she was wielding chainsaws.
Her expression cooled. “Please don’t force yourself.” She held out her hand to take his glass back.
He tightened his hand on it. “No, I—really like it.” Like didn’t seem the right word, since the dessert scared the hell out of him, but he’d better not tell her that.
“Obviously.” Brown eyes flashed with temper.
“No, it’s delicious!” He shoved another spoonful into his mouth. “Yum!”
Lina’s eyes shot sparks. She pivoted on one low, chunky boot heel and looked at the other men. God, those jeans loved her ass.
Ian beamed at her. “Ma’am, this must be about the most delicious thing your humble servant has ever tasted.”
Oh, for God’s sake. Since when had Ian had a Southern drawl? Jake shot him a bird behind Lina’s back.
Ian just grinned and focused on Lina, whose chilly look had disappeared for him.
“Délicieux,” Elias said, which was just f*cking unfair. Everything sounded more flattering in French. You could cuss someone out in that language, and it sounded romantic. “Exceptionnel. Vraiment parfait.”
Of course, Jake spoke French, too, but it didn’t sound anything like Elias’s French when it came out of his mouth.
Lina smiled at Elias, too.
Maybe Jake would just beat up all the other guys in this room. Take them all together. That would be fun.
“It’s wonderful, ma’am,” Mark said, and he didn’t use his grilled-too-black voice with her. No, he was quiet and a little awkward, when he knew already she liked shy, geeky guys.
Seriously, Jake was going to kick all their asses. At once.
He ate his dessert, brooding over how delicious it was and how awkward he felt swallowing and the fact that he was the only man in the room whose compliments Lina didn’t lap up as if they were her due.
She packed up their empty glasses and headed out again, glancing up at him once more as she passed him in the doorway. Brown eyes met his for one moment, from too close.
Heat climbed up the back of his neck, but she probably couldn’t tell. He used to have the kind of freckles that showed blushes, but after so long in too much sun, the variations in his skin tone now looked more like a very pixelated tan.
Even more importantly, the rest of the team couldn’t tell, because they would ride him mercilessly if they could.
“It was really good,” he tried again. “Thank you.”
She pressed her lips together, pissed off, waved to the rest of the guys—Ian blew her a damn kiss—and turned on her heel, heading back down the corridor.
Elias started to laugh. Gripping the windowsill behind him, his teeth flashing white, green eyes gleaming, a low laugh but one he couldn’t stop. “Sorry.” He released the windowsill to press a tear from the corner of his eye. “But you guys are hilarious around women.”
Chapter 6
She kept getting the support too thin, that was the problem. She wanted the dragon to fly free on its own, but every time she made the base too narrow so that it seemed to be flying, the whole thing came crashing down. Lina dumped chunks of shattered ice dragon in the sink and came back out onto the main floor where she could peel off all those extra layers and warm up again.
Jake glanced at her immediately. “Can I see?”
“No,” Lina said between her teeth. “Damn dragon.”
“Ah.” Jake, who had been banished from observing her ice work half an hour ago, went back to prowling.
Should Lina just ignore him? Why did he even keep hanging out in her kitchens whenever she was there? Did he have to keep watch that compulsively?
He was by far the most enigmatic of Chase’s brothers in arms. Ian seemed pretty straightforward—he threw down his flirtation like a gauntlet and dared her to pick it up. Mark struck Lina as a philosopher-warrior, intellectually self-conscious about how he fit in the civilian world. But Jake watched calmly in the doorway when she brought them treats, unreadable.
The boxing thing had been almost brotherly. But at other moments, she thought he had that hint of flirtation there, so subtle that she wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it. She liked it better than Ian’s openness, though—liked the subtly intriguing, liked wondering rather than knowing. Liked being able to pretend it wasn’t there if she wanted, or respond if she chose.
Liked the way she could hold him in the center of her mind and let him block out all the violence and fear and blood. He looked at that fear and blood and violence, and it cringed down like a beta wolf before a pissed-off alpha and crawled backward.
Using sex as a crutch is not a good road to go down. Fight off the blood and violence yourself.
With her work. She focused on making a crèmeux chocolat noir, a dark chocolate cream she planned to layer into a dessert for Vi and the police officers and Chase and his team buddies.
Jake came to the opposite side of her counter and leaned on it, eyeing the chocolate cream sideways as if making sure it wouldn’t bite him.
Why he seemed to think her desserts were the apex predators in this situation was beyond her. “It’s not ready.” She kept whisking, a curl falling over her forehead. “Be patient.”