I open my mouth to protest, on principle, obviously, but he shuts me up with a kiss. It’s effective. Bastard.
“Fine,” I say when he finally lets me breathe. “Only letting you get away with this because you look cute when you’re bossy,” I add, poking his chest just to watch him pretend he hates it.
I roll off the couch, heart doing weird things.
Two hours is a fucking eternity.
You’d think it’d be easy to kill time when you’ve survived witness protection, and that one week my period synced with a full moon. But no. Two hours with Dario on a mystery mission is enough to fray every nerve I have.
He’s pacing, making calls, sounding like he’s arranging a hit or a heist, and I’m left to my own devices, which means I do a lot of dramatic sighing and stare at my closet like it holds the secrets to surviving whatever he’s planning.
Eventually, I pull on jeans that make my ass look criminal, a sweater that used to be soft before the dryer got involved, and my hiking boots. The ones still caked with Colorado dust and at least one regrettable encounter with goose shit. No makeup, hairback in a ponytail, just me, raw and untamed and vibrating with anticipation.
I step out, find him all buttoned-up, sharp, too composed. He looks at me like he’s about to say something profound, so naturally I derail it.
“Well? Do I pass inspection, or am I about to get lectured on proper outdoor attire?”
He grins, too smooth for this world. “You look perfect.”
“Perfect for what? Sacrifice? Kidnapping? A breakfast that’s going to end with me arrested for public indecency?”
He laughs. Bastard. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be. Did you even sleep? Because you look like a man running on espresso and cookie crumbs.”
He leans in. “Had motivation.”
I arch an eyebrow, refusing to swoon, but, fuck, it’s hard. “Coffee motivation? Or are you about to say something sappy and ruin the last of my self-control?”
He goes for it, no hesitation. “I hadyoumotivation.”
And goddammit, my whole body goes warm. If he keeps this up, I’m going to ovulate before we ever leave town.
We end up at this bakery two towns over, quaint, rustic, aggressively charming. The croissants are good, but not as good as mine. I have to remind myself not to gloat, but honestly? Mine are better and we both know it. The coffee’s strong enough to wake the dead.
Sunlight catches in his hair and for a second, I feel almost normal. Like a woman who isn’t always looking over her shoulder or two seconds from mounting mobsters.
We sit, and I start babbling about The Blue Door, new recipes, expansion ideas, maybe hiring help so I can stop living like a sleep-deprived goblin.
He listens like every syllable matters. I ramble about pastry cream and laminated dough and all the nerdy shit that makes my heart race.
At some point, I realize he’s just… staring.
I pause, cock my head. “You know it’s considered rude to eye-fuck someone in public, right?”
He doesn’t even flinch. “You’ve been eye-fucking me since my restaurant.”
I snort. “I was making observations. Staring’s rude. Observing’s professional.”
He leans across the table, takes my hand, like he’s about to propose or kidnap me. I’d submit to either. “I’m not observing, I’m memorizing.”
For half a second, I forget how to breathe.
If this man keeps looking at me like I’m edible, I’m going to drag him behind the bakery and commit a felony with a bag of flour.
The drive up the mountain is forty minutes of me pretending I’m not vibrating out of my skin, watching Dario like he’s about to drop some top-secret mob-boss survival tip and I’m going to miss it if I blink.
He says he picked this trail for privacy, for the view, for the chance to have me all to himself with no witnesses, and yeah, mission fucking accomplished.
