She stopped that line of thinking immediately.
Or tried to.
Her pulse had already taken the information and run with it, quickening, betraying her in small, sharp beats she was certain he could feel through the thin space between them.
And still, he hadn’t moved.
He was close. Closer than he’d been all afternoon. Close enough that she could see the shift in his focus as his gaze dropped to her mouth. Would he be disappointed that only her lower lip was full? Or maybe he'd find that convenient as she'd be easy to devour.
Oh boy, did Ivy want to be devoured by this man. She wanted him to make a meal of her. Savor every bite with those two full lips of his and that sharp tongue that debated her everything thought, her every move.
Finn still hadn't moved. His thumb stayed there, warm against her skin, as if he’d forgotten the original purpose of the touch. Or remembered something else.
Then, slowly—slow enough that she felt every millimeter of it—he drew his thumb down and away from her cheek. The absence of it was immediate.
He turned his hand and brought his thumb to his mouth. Tasted.
Ivy watched. She couldn’t not.
His thumb came to rest against his lower lip first. Then his upper lip closed over it, trapping it there. His lips tightened; a soft pull as he drew his thumb in, tasting the sauce with slow focus.
Thank goodness he didn't hum. Ivy didn't think she would've remained standing for that sound.
Her own lips pressed into a thin line, as if that might contain something; her reaction, her thoughts, the sudden, sharp awareness moving through her.
It didn’t.
Finn eased his thumb free. It came away clean.
"How is it? " she asked, because that was safer than asking anything else.
Finn’s gaze lifted back to hers. "It’s very, very sweet. " A beat. "The sweetest thing I’ve tasted in years. "
"You should try my cupcakes. "
Ivy's brain had short-circuited. That was the only explanation she was prepared to give for the words that tumbled out of her mouth. Heat rushed up her neck into her cheeks. "I mean—the—those are—separate from—” She broke off, turning back to the pot with sudden, intense focus. "The cupcakes. That I bake. Not…"
She heard it then. The grin. Oh yes, she could hear a grin. The spread of those full lips. The scraping of his teeth against each other. The slight chuckle that escaped his throat.
When she did glance up, it wasn't his grin that caught her off guard. It was her phone propped against the flour tin. Recording.
Finn followed her gaze. Then looked back at her. “You caught that.”
"I caught that, " she echoed.
"You should post it. "
He was right. Her sauce. His taste test. Her flustered. It would be social media gold.
Ivy hesitated. Usually she was gungho to share what happened in the kitchen with her followers. But she was feeling increasingly possessive of her time with Finn. Which was absurd because what was between them wasn't real. Right?
Then—because she was apparently not in full control of her own decision-making anymore—she reached for her phone and turned it off.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Finn arrived at The Millstone at six-fifty and was on his second water when Ivy came through the door at seven.
This had become a pattern: him early, her on time, the ten minutes of setup in which he arranged his notes and she arranged herself, and they arrived at the same starting point from different directions. He'd stopped noting it as a variable and started noting it as a constant. Within the span of a couple of weeks, she had become a constant in his life.
