Mabel settled back in her seat, always glad to chat about her partnership with Dave. “Never. We were lucky and landed a great Florida market shortly after graduation, then moved here after that job… came to an end.”
Please don’t ask why, please don’t ask why, please don’t ask why.
But he merelyhmmed in response and dropped the subject, and she forced herself to remember every humiliating detail of her departure from the Florida station. It was getting far too easy to let herself imagine that it could be different with Jake.
When he put the Jeep in park outside the sprawling furniture warehouse, she fished a baseball cap out of her purse, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and settled the hat low on her brow.
“Are we undercover today?” he whispered, exaggeratedly looking left and right.
She laughed, glad that animated Jake had decided to rejoin their conversation.
“I sometimes try to keep a low profile in public,” she confessed.
He peered over the rim of his sunglasses. “Right, because you’re kind of a big deal.”
“No!” Mabel felt her cheeks warm. “It’s just that occasionally a fan notices me and posts about it on social media. I’ve had bad experiences with rumors when I’m with a guy, so—”
“Say no more, rock star. We’ll go incognito,” Jake said easily. “Let’s do this.”
But he didn’t make a move to leave the Jeep, and neither did she. The late summer heat intensified as Jake’s smell, that good, clean male smell, surrounded her. Without meaning to, she leaned toward him, wondering if she’d feel that jolt again if she touched his skin.
She inched closer to the hand resting on his gearshift, imagining what would happen if she slid her pinky against his. But at the last moment, he cleared his throat and popped his door open.
“So are we going to spend some money that doesn’t belong to us or what?”
The intimate mood broken, she swallowed and said brightly, “Absolutely. Lead the way.”
Thank God one of them was remembering to keep it professional.
Inside the store, Jake headed straight for the couches. “I’m thinking leather, something you filthy deejays with your long hippie hair and your disgusting coffee can’t ruin.”
“Hey, we all get our mandatory hose-downs once a week, whether we need it or not,” she said, matching his nonserious tone.
He laughed, then pointed at a plush blue sofa. “Sit. I want to make sure this one won’t leave a mark on your otherwise flawless skin.”
The breath whooshed from her lungs, and she plopped gracelessly on the cushions. The one-two punch of Jake’s commanding tone and the implication that he thought her skin was flawless—that he’d thought about her skin at all—was doing things to her insides.
“Nah, it’s too cushiony. Let’s try the next one,” he said, reaching down and hauling her up. He didn’t even grunt as he did it, which she took as a compliment, and the touch of his hand set off the jangle of nerves she was coming to expect when they made skin-to-skin contact. It made focusing on anything but him a chore.
Good thing he was apparently unruffled by it all and there to herd her through the store inventory. After a few tries, they decided on a black leather couch with just the right amount of firmness, and then they moved on to recliners because, as Jake explained, “Every room needs one.”
She snorted. “You’re such aguy.”
He extended his arms to his sides in an invitation for her to examine his decidedly masculine figure. “Thank you for noticing.”
Good God, had she. All afternoon, the only thing she could think about were those broad shoulders in that slim-cut button-down. She blinked a few times and pivoted sharply toward the recliner section. “Then you definitely need to make this decision.” She pushed him toward the row of identical-looking chairs and ignored her sudden desire to suck on his bottom lip.
This attraction was a problem. He was a problem. But she was in no hurry to cut their shopping trip short, especially when, with each model he tried, he shed a bit of the reserve he carried with him. By the time he made his final recliner selection, he was grinning like a kid.
“On to desks,” he said. “That one in the greenroom is a menace.”
When they reached the office section, he made her sit at each one and pretend to type so he could “assess the aesthetics.”
“Happy?” she asked when they’d settled on a finalist.
“Not quite. Hop up.”
She looked at him in confusion, so he put his hands on her waist and swung her up onto the desktop, then seated himself next to her.
