Tillie.
Tillie was next in his line. She gave him a flirty grin and shook her head. “Elsie can go next. That’s fine.”
“No. Really.” I pointed to the other employee whose line I was in. “I can wait.”
“Get over here.” Kael patted the stool with his hand.
I gulped and started sweating in all the embarrassing places. My body cheered at the opportunity to be closer to him. My head wasn’t as excited. Wearing a sheepish grin for cutting in line, I weaved my way through the congestion to his stool, climbed onto it, and slipped off my jacket.
He took my jacket and purse and set it on the floor behind the table before smiling at me. He wasn’t allowed to “mess around” with Amber then give me that smile.
He just … wasn’t.
“What do you want me to do to you, Elsie?” His suggestive smile twitched.
“Doesn’t matter.” I averted my gaze over his shoulder to Tillie drooling over him with so much adoration in her eyes.
She gave me a smile—the isn’t-my-future-husband-awesome smile.
“Something wrong?” he murmured, dipping a brush in blue paint.
“Nope.”
“For someone who doesn’t like vague, you sure know how to dish it out.” He kept his voice low and his face close to mine, putting us in a little bubble where no one else could hear us over the Christmas music and chattering customers.
“If your ‘good old infatuation’ with me is over, then I expect to hear it from you, not from my daughter.”
He continued to paint my face, gaze on the brush, but his forehead wrinkled. “Not following.”
“She said you were ‘messing around’ with Amber,” I whispered. “And that’s fine. This isn’t love. I just cannot be with you like that if you’re messing around with a girl my daughter’s age. I’m sorry. I don’t have the mental capacity for that right now.” I shot Tillie a tiny smile as she leaned in to hear us. My smile made her back up again.
“The Epperly rumor mill.” He grunted a tiny laugh. “Do I really have to comment on it?” His gaze made a sudden shift to mine. It was a challenge.
What was I supposed to say? That I didn’t trust him? Say nothing and risk being the most gullible person in the town? It wasn’t fair of him to ask me that.
“I cleared their driveway the other morning.” He ripped his attention from mine, and it felt like a Band-Aid ripping away … leaving something raw.
I needed an answer, and he needed me to trust him. It sucked that we needed different things in that moment. But with twelve years between us, I wasn’t sure we would ever need the same thing at the same time unless it was an orgasm.
“When I got out to shovel the walk to their front door, she stepped outside and threw a snowball at me. I threw one back at her. So if that’s messing around … then I’m guilty.”
Amber lied. She intentionally led her friends to believe she had done something sexual with Kael. I was disappointed in her the way a mother would be disappointed in their child.
Kael seemed to be disappointed with me, but not like a parent frustrated with a child’s immaturity—more like a scorned lover.
“You’re shaking,” Kael whispered inches from my face as his brush slid across my forehead. “You need to hold still.”
I swallowed hard. “Sorry.”
A tiny grin pulled at his lips. He rested his left hand on my leg to still my bouncing knee. I felt it a little higher than my thigh. “Did you do something different with your hair?” He made small talk like Mike, but Mike didn’t draw my nipples into pointy weapons with just his voice.
Kael always surprised me. He sucked at holding grudges. He sucked at being anything but nice. Even his evil moments faded quickly into something irresistible. Of course Tillie looked at him like he hung the moon—he probably did.
“I washed it.” I smirked.
Kael chuckled and released my leg to change brushes, dipping the smaller brush in white paint.
Did the whole store see us? Did they see my red cheeks, erect nipples, and tiny, panting breaths rushing past my lips? I felt completely exposed, like he was seducing me in front of the whole town. I felt his anger and disappointment, but I also felt the chemistry between us, slowly building like it always did.
“I love your cheekbones … they’re perfection.” His brush ghosted over my cheek.
“Stop,” I whispered with a shaky voice.
“I will not,” he whispered—his words only for me as his minty breath infiltrated my nose, so close to my face. “I love this tiny dimple that comes out when you smile.”
“Kael …” My heart hammered in my chest. “Please stop.”
“And I love your lips.”
I knew no one could hear him, and that made the words even more intimate.