“Let me make you breakfast.” Apparently she did mean. Interesting. “Here, sit down.” She wrapped a hand around his elbow, and Jacob jolted like he’d been shocked. Shit. She snatched her hand away. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Er, sorry. Do you not like to be—I shouldn’t have—”

“Bruises,” he lied through gritted teeth. Because he couldn’t exactly say, It appears physical contact with you has an atypical effect on my nervous system. And yet, it did. An effect that made him hyperaware of the flimsy jersey pajama pants he currently wore, pants that did nothing to hide an erection.

Not that he had an erection. That would be ridiculous. That would be obscene.

He was just a little bit worried that he might eventually get one, perhaps, for some reason. Who knew? You could never be too careful about these things.

“I’m going back upstairs,” he blurted, striding toward the door. “Going upstairs to . . . change. And things. Later. I’ll come down later. To . . . test you. Erm . . . keep up the barely acceptable work.”

“Barely acceptable?!”

“That’s what I said,” Jacob sniffed, and then he made good his escape.

Chapter Seven

It took Jacob so long to come back, Eve was almost convinced he’d forgotten about her.

Almost.

But a man with that level of dogged focus probably didn’t forget much. Except, apparently, for the little chat they’d had last night, while he’d been curled up in bed like the world’s most adorable wolf. Because she had a feeling that if he’d remembered that, he would’ve ramped up the arsehole behavior by at least 50 percent this morning.

As it was, he’d been practically cordial.

Eve was waving off the last of the guests with a smile when the kitchen door swung open behind her. Her tentative glow of success faded like sunlight behind a cloud, because the snick of that door handle brought her earlier challenge flying back like Thor’s hammer.

You wanted to trial me. So trial me. Let me make you breakfast.

A test. She had volunteered herself for a test—also known as her number one weakness and natural enemy.

For fuck’s sake, she didn’t even want this job. What in God’s name had she been thinking?!

That everyone assuming you’re useless and incapable is starting to get old.

Hm. Well. There was that.

Still, she was already feeling the familiar high-pressure jitters that accompanied formal judgment of any kind. Her palms were clammy. Her pulse vibrated in her veins. Had she always produced this much spit? Slowly, she turned around to face the man she knew was waiting.

And almost dropped down dead when she laid eyes on him. “Good Lord,” she murmured.

Jacob—or rather, Super Jacob, because that’s how he looked—arched a pale eyebrow. “Pardon me?”

If he was any other man, this would be the point where she made a comment about his outrageous hotness.

After his earlier disheveled appearance, which had honestly been—gag—cute, Jacob had clearly decided to remind the world exactly how put together he could be. The razor precision of his close shave displayed those unholy cheekbones to unfair advantage. The bladelike part of his blond hair somehow emphasized the sharp line of his jaw, the unfair symmetry of his face, the angular shape of those pale, wolflike eyes. He’d managed to put on a crisp, gray shirt despite his cast, the right sleeve folded up around his biceps. And the jeans he wore hugged his lower half in a way she could only call subtly obscene. One probably wouldn’t notice the slight outline of his massive fucking package, unless you were looking (and Eve had no idea why she’d been looking), in which case, you really couldn’t un-notice it.