Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(47)

And she had the oddest feeling that he did enjoy her rambling, after all.

*

Fifty minutes and two bedrooms later, all such wonderings about Jacob’s inner mind had ceased. Instead, Eve had started to fantasize about hitting him with her car again.

“Tighter,” he said, sounding bored out of his mind. “Eve. Seriously. Tighter.”

It turned out, making beds to Jacob’s ludicrously exacting standards was really fucking hard. Changing sheets? Even harder. Changing duvet covers? The single attempt she’d made would haunt her nightmares forever. Really, didn’t most sensible people accept that the duvet would always be a little bit bunched within its cover?

Apparently, not Jacob Wayne.

Then again, she had never believed him to be sensible.

“Tighter,” he repeated for the fifty thousandth time.

Tighter, she mouthed, scrunching her face into a scowl.

“I saw that.”

“No you didn’t!” she gasped, outraged. “You’re behind me!”

“There’s a mirror in front of you.”

“Oh.” Eve looked up, and so there was. Over the dresser, right there. She could see herself, bending awkwardly as she attempted the pristine hospital corners Jacob was still somehow capable of without his dominant hand—the corners she couldn’t seem to manage. They’d barely been at this tidying nonsense an hour, but Eve’s brand-new T-shirt—CERTIFIED HEROINE—was already clinging to her slight sheen of sweat, and her braids were spilling out of their ponytail. She looked a mess.

Jacob, meanwhile, was sitting comfortably in the wingback chair behind her, arching a sardonic eyebrow and looking generally villainous. Even the white cast on his arm could be mistaken for a white cat. Any moment now, he’d start stroking himself nefariously.

Heh. Stroking himself. Amusement struck her for a moment before the image of Jacob in that same chair, bare-chested and maybe a little wet, with one hand on his hard cock, wiped her smile away.

Gosh. Where on earth had that come from? She really needed to read less AO3 smut before bed.

Or possibly more.

Jacob’s reflection frowned at her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Good question. No dirty thoughts about your boss, Eve.

“I was thinking,” she said, pushing all illicit fantasies firmly away, “that your arse must be better. Because all you’ve done today is sit on it.”

She’d intended to annoy him with that comment, but instead, he grinned. His sharp, wolfish smile—with its turned-in incisors and the lines of pleasure fanning out from his pale eyes—made her think of sunlight beaming off fresh snow. “If you have enough energy to give me lip,” he said, “you have enough energy to pull that sheet tight.”

“Give you lip? You’re enjoying this far too much.”

“Of course I am.” He shifted back in the chair, sprawling like some indolent prince. “I am beginning to think I was born to boss people around.”

“You’re only beginning to think that?” she muttered.

“You’re right. I’ve always known.” He watched her struggle for a moment longer, then sighed and stood up. “But I think that’s enough torture for one day.”

“No,” Eve said, looking away. “It’s just a bed. I can do it.”

“You—”

“I can do it! Just give me a minute.” Except he’d already explained they were on a strict schedule due to check-in times, and Eve knew she’d made him slower today. “I’m supposed to be helping you, not making more work.”

“Eve.” He was standing beside her, looking down with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. One part frown, two parts something that might be tenderness. Or possibly the urge to tenderly strangle her.

“This is your first day on housekeeping,” he said slowly. “I’m teaching you things. You’re practicing. I do not need or expect you to get everything instantly right, and contrary to your mother hen instincts, help doesn’t mean doing everything for me.”

She huffed out a breath and straightened, inadequacy tangling around her limbs like vines. “I’m not a mother hen,” she mumbled, but she wasn’t really thinking about Jacob’s words. She was thinking about the vines.

Usually, when Eve experienced this feeling of not-good-enoughness, she did the sensible thing and got out. Gave in. Gave up. Anything to stop the inadequacy from dragging her down again. But this time, she refused to—because, for God’s sake, it was only a bloody bed. And because giving up on Jacob’s job would mean giving up on Jacob. It would mean letting him down. Which she didn’t want to do, since she, erm, owed him, or something.

Anyway, she kind of liked this job. She liked Castell Cottage. So. No giving up today.

“You are a mother hen,” Jacob was saying, “but luckily for both of us, I don’t care. Now, come here. Press down there for me, to keep the tension.” He pointed at a spot farther up the bed, then bent over to fold the sheet she’d just been wrestling with. Within seconds, he was making a perfect hospital corner. Left-handed. Eve hurriedly pressed down as instructed, slightly dazed by the sight of his long, dexterous fingers tugging and folding. And by the thought that he was bent over, and what a view she’d have if she were standing behind him. Tragically, though, she was standing in front.