Page 46 of Mixed Signals
The material against my chest begins to loosen. I’m more turned on than if he’d slipped his hand inside my shirt.
“What do you want?” I ask, voice catching.
His other hand cups my neck. He brushes his mouth lower against my jaw, and then back further, right against my pulse. Not quite a kiss. Just his lips grazing soft skin. His sigh tickles the delicate skin there, a low sound of appreciation under his breath. My knees go weak.
“I want some of those shortbread cookies,” he whispers into my ear.
I groan and drop my forehead to his chest. He laughs in the quiet of my kitchen, rich and loud and deep. I tip my head back so I can glare at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a tease?”
He shakes his head, both of his arms looped low around my waist now. He rocks us back and forth and I can’t help but smile, too. I like every version of himself that he shows me—the full spectrum of Caleb Alvarez. “Nope. You’d be the first.”
“Lucky me.” I rap my knuckles against his collarbone and push away, intent on getting a solid slab of countertop between us. I don’t know when I started thinking about kissing Caleb, just that I have been. Incessantly. It’s a buzzing under my skin and an echo in my blood.
Maybe it was at the roller rink, when I hauled him off the floor with both of my arms wrapped around his, cursing under his breath as we struggled together. Maybe it was in the escape room when he wrapped his arms around my hips and tugged me off that table.
Or maybe it was that first night at the bar, with his stupid Hawaiian shirt and messy hair, humidity making everything sticky and hot.
When he looked at me like he saw me.
I don’t know. I only know that I want his mouth on mine. I want that smile of his that edges sharper on one side pressed into my skin. Greedy hands and those dimples winking to life. I want to unravel Caleb like one of my apron strings.
It’s confusing. Surprising.
Wildly distracting.
“What’re you thinking about?” he murmurs.
I’m thinking about how he’d taste after one of these shortbread cookies. Whether he’s had his coffee yet and if I’d be able to taste that, too.
I smile to myself. If he only knew.
I poke him in the chest and then spin away. “Something delicious.”
TEN
CALEB
I thinkI pushed too hard with Layla.
After our moment in the bakery, she’s been different. Not upset. Just—muted, I think.
She still gives me a grin that feels like it’s only for me and her touch still lingers over my knuckles or wrist when I stop by for my coffee and croissant. We have plans for tomorrow night and she’s responded to every single one of my text messages. But she feels far away.
“Tal vez deberías besarla, osezno.”
To be clear, I did not ask my grandmother for advice.
She just took one look at me sitting at the tiny, rickety wooden table in her kitchen and decided to bestow it upon me. Along with an entire container of chilaquiles.
I came to her house for exactly one of those things.
“Do you have any hot sauce?”
She smacks me in the ear with her spoon.
“It does not need hot sauce. It is perfect as it is.” She mumbles something in Spanish under her breath that sounds vaguely likespoiledandhot sauce.I decide to keep my mouth shut.
“Where are you taking her tomorrow?” she asks.
