Love In Secrets (Love Distilled #3) - Scarlett Cole Page 0,25

suds, she remembered how when she’d been fourteen and Jake had been twelve, she’d avoided him in high school like the plague. He’d been too busy shouting quotes from the Shrek movies to pay her any mind. She’d been too busy crushing on Ashton Maddison to remember Jake even existed.

And as she soaped her body, she remembered turning twenty-one. Her father had thrown her a huge party at their home for friends and family. Jake had been nineteen and forced to attend by his father. It had clashed with another party his friend had thrown and he hadn’t cared at all about her milestone. She recalled he’d left a little before eleven when one of his friends had driven by in a clunker of an old car and picked him up, and she hadn’t missed him.

As the water washed away the soap and last remnants of sleep, she realized that, at twenty-nine and thirty-one, they’d found their rhythm. Two days earlier, when he’d pulled her into his arms and held on to her with more . . . urgh. Forty-eight hours later and she still couldn’t describe it. Passion wasn’t right. Or maybe it was. There was a definite undercurrent. Listening to his slow and steady heartbeat had calmed her own. His warmth had cut through the chill of her bones. His vibrancy had somehow filled her up as if she’d been plugged into a charging station, leaving her with enough energy to see her dad and deal with the pleading look in his eyes, even though he didn’t bring up his request to stay again.

He hadn’t asked her about it yesterday, either. She’d stopped by the hospital after spending the morning at one of his job sites, and the afternoon at another.

Jake was right. Her father was in a mess.

She’d dealt with the most urgent issues at each site, usually relating to supplies or manpower. It had given her the same usual thrill to see the threads of the project get stitched together, but she’d merely scratched the surface.

It was the reason she was up so darn early today. She needed to catch a ride to the distillery with Jake so she could check out its progress firsthand. There was the site foreman to meet with, and she wanted to do that before construction kicked in for the day, while the site was still silent.

And Jake had been so good to her, she’d wanted to shower first so she could make breakfast for them both before they left.

Reluctantly, she turned the tap off and squeezed the water out of her hair. It took ages to dry, but she planned to simply braid it while it was wet. She grabbed the towel, bent forward, and wrapped the towel around her hair before flicking her head back up.

As she did so, the door opened and Jake walked in, one hand scratching abs she really shouldn’t be looking at. The other pushing the wild mess of his hair out of his eyes.

“Jake,” she squealed.

Half-awake, Jake looked and then did a double-take when he noticed she was standing there without a towel beyond the one holding her hair.

“Shit. Sorry.” He lifted his hand to block the view from his gaze. As he turned, he slammed face first into the edge of the door. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Jake reached for the bathroom counter with one hand to steady himself.

Cassie grimaced as she grabbed the bath towel she’d hung on the hook next to the shower and wrapped it around herself, securing it tightly above her breasts. “Are you okay?” she asked, placing her hand on his bicep.

“Fucking peachy,” Jake muttered, wincing.

Fortunately, his nose wasn’t bleeding, but there was a red mark on the bridge and on his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “I wanted to get up first so I could make breakfast. I bought the fixings for breakfast burritos.”

Jake looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Unless you planned to ambush me naked in my shower, you don’t need to apologize.”

“Definitely not. I planned to ambush you in the kitchen with feta and salsa and eggs.”

“Guacamole?”

“Obviously.”

Jake rubbed his face once more, then stood to his full height. With his eyes fixed on hers, he reached for her shoulder and traced a trickle of water with his fingertip. “They’d better be really good burritos,” he said huskily.

His words reverberated through her core. It would take nothing for him to slip his fingers beneath her towel and ease the ache that had been