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I pointed the scissors at his stupid face. “Move.”
Jax swatted my hand away. “No. Let me take care of this for you.”
You know what was horrible? When your traitor brain and traitor hormones felt a swell of skin-tingling attraction at really inopportune times. It was like a warm, prickling wave from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. All ten toes. All the hairs on my head too.
“This kind of overbearing caveman bullshit isn’t cute,” I whispered fiercely, but there was a slightly breathless quality to my voice that gave me away.
That was a traitor too.
“It’s not meant to be cute,” he said. “You’re tired. I can see it in your face. You need to sit.”
I tossed the scissors onto the counter, where they clattered uselessly to the floor, then I wrapped both hands around the unforgiving muscle of his arm and pulled. Hard. He set his jaw, the muscle bunching at the edge, unfolding his arms to gently pluck my hands off him.
I deflated. “This is ridiculous.” I gestured to the scissors a mile away on the ground. “And now I have to bend over. Youhave no idea how hard that’s getting already because your giant, somersaulting baby has wrecked my center of gravity.”
Jax’s lips twitched, like he was fighting a smile, and with a slight eye roll, he stepped forward to snag the scissors off the floor.
“Ha,” I yelled, edging through the opening he left and darting into the laundry room.
He muttered a curse under his breath. I snatched the scissors from his hand before he could yank them away, sliced the box open, and pulled out the first laundry detergent container.
My hand curled around the cabinet knob of the door farthest to the right, and Jax slammed his hand on the edge. I turned, gaping up at him.
“Whatis the matter with you?”
His jaw was still tight, and gawd, with the way heloomedover me, I felt positively engulfed by heat and the crisp clean smell, the highest hint of fresh cut grass from whatever he was doing outside. Looking down at me, his eyes were hard, yes, but there was a slightly panicked edge that had me dropping my hand. “Just let me do it,” he said.
“No,” I said—again, with the breathy thing. I was so annoyed with myself I could scream. “This is insane.”
The only logical reaction to that kind of insanity was measured violence. It was either that or I was going to whirl in place and do something really stupid like press my nose against his chest and just … inhale him. I jammed my elbow into his stomach, and he dropped his arm with a shocked gust of air.
Wrenching open the cabinet, I felt a sick thrill of victory, but my hand froze in midair, then slowly lowered until the detergent sat on the counter.
“What…” I whispered.
The cabinet was full already—perfectly organized bins with printed labels on the front of each. Mouth hanging open,my eyes scanned over the brand new items that I recognized from the cart next to him at the hardware store. The cart he’d walked away from, so I assumed it was someone else’s.
Jax stepped back, the loss of his body heat almost immediate.
“What is all this?” I asked.
One of his hands hung off the back of his neck, and he could hardly make eye contact. “It’s just … I kept thinking about how you’d be alone. And I know everyone is close, but when the weather is bad or something happens, you can’t always wait for help, you know.”
His cheeks were slightly pink, and my heart turned over in my chest—a slow, unsteady roll.
“Why didn’t you want me to see it?” I asked.
Jax clenched his jaw again, his thumb tapping rapidly against the countertop. The thick line of his throat worked on a swallow, the light in his eyes so hot and intense that I could hardly breathe. He licked at his bottom lip, and that small, insignificant movement drew my eyes to his mouth.
This was so wrong. Knowing how wrong it was didn’t stop it from feeling so incredibly right either. Like he wrapped his hand around my spine and pulled, I felt the tug toward his body, and I swayed as my eyes fluttered shut.
A knock on the front door had me yanking back. Jax backed up a step too, but the look on his face didn’t move a single centimeter. The blazing heat, the staggering desire I saw in his face had my pulse tearing sky high.
“Poppy?”
My mom’s voice had me blinking down at the ground. “Back here,” I called.
“The kids and I decided to bring some sustenance.”
