Yeah, he was someone she could easily become addicted to. Probably already was since she hadn’t even considered sending him home when he’d pulled up in her driveway. Not to mention, she’d ensured even more time together when she’d shamelessly flirted so he would agree to let her drive his baby.
Mae would’ve laughed and called her a hussy, but that was only because she didn’t understand the irresistible lure of the classics. She built things new. Tore down the old and replaced with new. Restoration wasn’t her thing.
“You draw?” Asher asked from across the room.
“Some. Mostly I sketch out my cake designs,” she answered absently.
Then it dawned on her what had prompted his question, and she jerked her head up in alarm. Her sketch pad was wide open on the coffee table.
Her heart stuttered in her chest, heat flaring in her cheeks as he set down his beer and reached for the book. She’d been working on a client’s cake earlier in the day, but the sketch of him sprawled in bed was only a few pages back. Granted, his body had been drawn based purely on the memory of being pressed against him during that kiss that still pleasured her dreams, but his face…well, there was no way he wouldn’t recognize himself.
“Um…” She hurried around the kitchen island when he sat back on the couch, sketch book pulled onto his lap. He slouched down into the cushions, braced one booted foot on her coffee table, and leaned the book on his thigh to turn the page.
Thank God he was paging forward, not back.
Honor halted a few steps from the couch, bottom caught lip between her teeth, fists clenched at her sides. If she was lucky, he’d get tired of looking at drawings of cakes and set the book aside when he got to the front, or sooner. But if he didn’t stop there, she didn’t want to be sitting face to face when he saw the proof she’d been imagining him in bed naked, save for the sheet draped over his hips.
She spun on the ball of her foot and went back to her fondant flowers.
“I have been addicted to your cakes from the first wedding I ever tasted one.”
She shot a quick glance at the top of his head, visible over the back of the couch. “How’d you know it was mine?”
“When I photographed the cake, I noticed the double H on the back. I like how you always incorporate that into each design without it being too obvious.”
He’d noticed her initials? She could count on one hand the brides that had noticed her signature. It was something she did for herself, so she never felt the need to point it out. “How long ago was that?”
“Umm…I think about three years ago.”
“Funny we never met before I moved across the street.” She set another finished petal cutout aside to dry and started the next one.
Three more lined the drying rack when Asher’s voice came from the couch again. “Technically, we met at Shawn and Meisha’s wedding.”
“If you’re getting technical, that’s only half-true. I didn’t know who you were until your parents’ anniversary party.”
Paper rustled as he turned another page.
Please stay to the front.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he agreed.
He sounded tired, and she glanced at the clock to see it was almost ten-thirty. If he had been up since his three a.m. wake-up call, plus a full day of climbing, she understood the rasp of exhaustion in his voice. She’d probably sound the same after working late tonight and getting up early to deliver the cupcakes to Roxanna’s shop by eight. But the flowers had to dry before she could paint them, and she had fifty to complete before she could call it a night.
As she envisioned the cake in her mind and the next steps to complete tomorrow, the only sound was the crinkle of turning pages every two or three completed flowers. Then she realized even that had stopped.
“I didn’t want to meet you, you know.”
Asher’s low, mumbled words stilled her hands. She lifted her head to watch the top of his. “Because of my multiple fiancés?”
“Nope.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she prompted, “Then why didn’t you want to meet me?”
“’Cause.”
She gave him a moment before saying, “’Cause is the worst reason why in the history of all reasons why, Asher.”
After another prolonged moment, he said, “Your cakes are so fucking awesome, I knew if you weren’t some little ol‘ grandma, you were going to star in every one of my erotic fantasies wearing nothing but an apron.”