through her clothes. Bubbles soaked into the seat of her pyjamas, and she didn’t even mind. Her underwear was already wet.
“Ask me what?” Ruth whispered. Now they were face-to-face. She allowed herself, for a moment, to float into the sky of his eyes.
He leaned in, his hands resting on the counter either side of her. She held her breath as he lowered his head to her throat, his nose grazing her racing pulse. “You always smell like chocolate,” he said. His beard tickled, and so did his whisper. “Chocolate and coconut. Why is that?”
“Is that what you want to ask me?”
“No. I’m just curious.” He shifted closer, and she opened her thighs, and he slid between them like it was home.
Ruth swallowed. “It’s cocoa butter. And coconut oil.”
“What does that mean?”
“Evan,” she repeated, her hands gripping the edge of the sink. “Ask me what?”
He relented, a smile teasing his lips. “I wanted to ask if I could kiss you.”
She didn’t reply. It seemed both difficult and unnecessary. Instead, Ruth raised her hands to his face, sliding her fingers into that rugged, blonde beard. Holding him in place. She didn’t want to fuck this up, because this was Evan, and somehow, Evan was everything.
She leaned forward, inch by inch, until she could see the silver-gold of his eyelashes. He was so still that, if she hadn’t felt his gentle breath against her lips, she might’ve thought he’d stopped breathing at all.
And then, because he was Evan, he spoke.
“I think,” he murmured, “you’re supposed to close your eyes.”
She whispered, “You first.”
“Would that make you feel better?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes. “Can I touch you?”
Fuck. Why did he have to ask that? Why did he have to be the kind of man who needed an answer, who needed to know what she wanted?
Because he was Evan, and he cared, and that was why she liked him in the first place. Ruth knew that. But it didn’t stop the panic clawing at her chest, and suddenly she realised with startling clarity that the panic never really left, and she was absolutely fucking sick of it.
He was right there, and he was beautiful, and he wanted her, and she wanted—
A bell rang.
Ruth yelped and fell into the sink.
“Shit,” Evan laughed. His eyes were open now. His face was calm and lovely and barely intimidatingly sexy at all. Except for all the ways in which it was.
But Ruth didn’t have time to think about that, because she was dying of embarrassment.
“What the fuck was that?” she gasped, clapping a hand over her heaving chest.
He gave her a strange look, even as he pulled her gently from the sink. Just the firm grasp of his hands around her biceps made her breath hitch. How embarrassing.
“It was your doorbell,” he said when she was safely on two feet, her backside dripping.
Oh. Right. The doorbell. Ruth had kind of forgotten how that sounded.
“Um…” She looked down, as if a code of conduct was written on the kitchen lino.
Evan pushed her chin up gently, until she looked at him. She shouldn’t be as aroused by the sweetness of his smile as she had been by his touch, but somehow she was. “Want me to get it?”
“Oh, would you?”
He went without another word, and Ruth sagged in relief. It was silly. She knew it was silly. After all, she hadn’t always been so… anxious. She’d grown up confident. With a mother and sister like hers, how could she not be?
Then again, all it had taken to destroy that confidence was one hard knock. So maybe she’d been faking all along.
With a sigh, Ruth hurried off to her room. If she was quick, she could change her pyjamas.
14
The man at Ruth’s door wore a deep green uniform with gold lettering that read: Weston Floral.
But the enormous bouquet in his arms spelled out his purpose clear enough.
“Ruth Ka…” the man squinted at the clipboard balanced in his hand. “Ruth Kab…”
“Ruth Kabbah,” Evan snapped.
The man shrugged, then dumped the crystal vase of red roses and tiny white flowers into Evan’s arms. “There you are mate,” he said, ticking something off on his clipboard. “Ta-ta.”
Evan kicked the door shut with his foot. Then he stood in Ruth’s hallway and stared at the flowers.
Her flowers.
Who the hell was sending Ruth flowers?
The flare of bitterness in his chest was unnerving. He’d never been jealous before.
Surely, if she was seeing someone, Ruth wouldn’t have had dinner with him every night for weeks. Then again, they hadn’t been dates exactly.