“Evie, you were drunk. You weren’t in a place where you could give clear consent. Don’t believe for one moment that if things had been different, I wouldn’t have taken you up on the offer, because I would have in a heartbeat.”
With that, with Evie still stunned by his words, he kissed her on the cheek, rose, and saw himself out.
Well, butter her buns and call her a bagel!
The following evening,Evie was still preoccupied with the unexpected interlude with Gabe as she was going through the delivery orders with Shepherd.
“Are you okay, Evie?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
“Oh, um, sure. Just got a lot on my mind,” she replied with a one-shouldered shrug. Wasn’t that the truth!
“Evie…”
She looked up to find he’d gone completely still. The air between them almost seemed to crackle. Sugar, was she projecting again? She really had to stop doing that.
“You’ve got…” he trailed off and reached out his hand. Evie waited, her breath caught in her chest, for him to cup her cheek, to feel the warmth of his palm on her face…
Shepherd brushed a smudge of something off her cheekbone, and Evie ducked her head.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Did she never learn?
Except then he crooked his finger under her chin and forced her to look at him, and she was drowning in his dark chocolate eyes all over again.
“Chocolate,” he murmured, drawing his thumb across her top lip.
Fudge brownies! Had she said that out loud?
He showed her the smear of chocolate that had transferred to his thumb before he put it in his mouth and sucked it off.
Sweet, crumbling croissants, that shouldn’t be so sexy!
He was standing so close. Inadvertently, Evie swayed towards him, her eyes on his lips, and the air around themseemed to be electrified… but then, she’d been in this exact same scenario before with Shepherd and completely misread the situation.
Forcing in some breath, which seemed to have abandoned her lungs, she blinked to clear her mind, but still Shepherd watched her with that dark, moody gaze of his and Evie was drawn in by his warmth and the intoxicating scent of coffee and spice that clung to him. For a moment, she let herself imagine closing that final distance between them, feeling his lips on hers...
But no. She couldn't risk making things awkward again when they’d finally gotten comfortable, so Evie forced herself to take a step back, breaking the spell.
"I should, um, finish up here," she said, gesturing vaguely at the stack of delivery orders on the counter. Her voice sounded breathless even to her own ears.
Shepherd blinked, as if coming out of a daze, but before she could move away, he caught hold of her wrist.
“That night…” he started, causing heat to bloom on her cheeks. Evie looked away, but she didn’t pretend she didn’t know what night he was talking about.
Shepherd cupped her cheek, sending a shiver of awareness tingling through her veins. “I didn’t avoid you afterwards because I didn’t want you,” he murmured.
She did look at him then. Searched his melted chocolate eyes but saw nothing but honesty.
“I ran because I was scared.”
Evie might have scoffed at that if he didn’t look so serious.
“Because you caused a response in me I wasn’t prepared for.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” Evie replied past the lump in her throat. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”
Shepherd shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “I think I do,” he disagreed. “Not many people know, but I was married before I moved here.”
