For such a hard-hearted arse, he certainly blushed a lot.

And for such a smart woman—because Eve was smart, she had decided—she sure made a lot of bad decisions around him.

I’m trying to admire your mouth? Why on earth had she said that? Was she high? Were there shrooms growing in that pond and had she managed to . . . to huff them, or whatever one did with such things?

Flushing with mortification, she scrambled backward and hopped to her feet, brushing the dirt off her knees. “Ha. You should see your face.”

A muscle in Jacob’s jaw ticked as he stood. “Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor is shit?”

“You have told me.”

“I was right.” He turned on his heel and stalked back toward the house.

“Where are you going?” she called, shifting awkwardly—and wetly—on the grass.

He shot a look over his shoulder. “To clean up.”

She waited.

He sighed and stopped walking. “You should probably come and drink some Coke at the very least. If you die of pond disease, my insurance will be even higher.”

“Coke?”

“To kill whatever was in that water you swallowed. It’s a thing,” he said stiffly, and started walking again.

Fighting a smile, she rushed after him. “You know, if you’re so worried about insurance, you should probably put a fence around that pond.”

“It doesn’t need a fence, Eve. Only you would fall in.”

Chapter Nine

They took turns in the shower.

Eve went first, of course. He wasn’t going to send her home soaking wet and filthy—and anyway, Jacob needed to think, and he couldn’t do that if she was roaming around unattended. Better to shove her into the bathroom, to hear the lock click, to lean against the door and quietly lose his mind while safe in the knowledge that Eve was contained to one room only. So that’s exactly what he did.

Of course, what he’d meant to lose his mind about was his current situation: shirtless, covered in algae, forced to share a bathroom with an employee he couldn’t stop staring at. So many layers of inappropriate and uncomfortable and just not right. He should’ve been turning this awful night over in his head for hours.

Instead, Jacob leaned against the bathroom door and heard the rush of water over what must be Eve’s naked body, and lost his mind in an entirely different way.

Admiring your mouth. Fuck. Fuck. He wanted to ask himself what that meant, but even to a serial overthinker there was only one possible answer. It was very straightforward, really. She liked his mouth. She’d claimed to be messing about, but Jacob didn’t believe her. He didn’t know why. He was hardly an expert in reading people—quite the fucking opposite.

But still, he didn’t believe her. He just didn’t.

So this, then, was the state of things: Eve liked his mouth, disliked the things that came out of it, and was currently naked in his shower.