“Everything okay?”
Brandon paused and looked at her directly for the first time since lunch. There was that stranger in his gaze again, the man she didn’t know from their school days. “For the immediate moment, yeah. I’m sorry I haven’t been good company.”
His words, his tone, the set of his jaw—none of them gave her a hint as to what was going on beneath the surface. This was the facet of him she was still learning. And she might never actually know what he was capable of or what he’d do.
He was still her Brandon, considerate and caring without being overt about it. But he was more, with a sharp edge and a deeper potential for…darker things. Now that she thought about it, he’d never trained in front of her. Rojas, and sometimes Cruz, trained in the open adult classes at Revolution MMA. Brandon only ever trained in private.
There was still plenty for her to learn about him, and she could spend a lifetime doing it, she realized. But only if he let her in.
She shook her head. “Is there anything I can do?”
He pulled the chair opposite the settee around the low table to sit next to her. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and touched his forehead to hers. She closed her eyes a moment and savored his proximity, then she opened them and got a good look at his arms.
The position showcased his very nicely defined forearms.
Yum.
As he straightened, she bit her lip to hide the tiny loss she felt as he moved away. Silly, probably, but this was a new level of…whatever it was and she was savoring every moment.
“You’re doing exactly what I need right now.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided grin. “It’d be a lot harder to keep you safe if you were being difficult about it.”
She swept her hand out in a gesture to indicate the entire table covered in an impressive afternoon tea spread. “How can anyone be difficult when you feed them like this?”
He plucked a small tent card from the picnic basket. “There’s a selection of teas in here, too. It says all this should be enjoyed with the tea of your choice.”
“Our choice.” She hoped he’d join her. “Don’t tell me you’re going to leave me to try to eat my way through this alone?”
He’d been going out on irregular security sweeps. When he did, she was left in the empty cabin with her imagination and anxiety, wondering what the chances were that he’d encounter the threats he was guarding against. At least when he was present, she could pretend they were on a romantic getaway.
He snagged a few brown paper bags from the basket, individually labeled with tea descriptions. “White plum, peppermint, orange blossom and tangerine, Lady Grey, Darjeeling, and Early Grey.”
As she looked over the spread on the table, she spotted a small covered container. Leaning out she stretched her hand out to snag the container and peek inside. “And there are actual brown and white sugar cubes. Yes. Could we brew a pot of the Lady Grey, then, please?”
He tossed the rest of the packages back into the picnic basket. Turned the selected tea package in his hands. “Oh, cool. There’s actual, sensible instructions on the back of this.”
“You mean for the temperature of the water and how long to steep the tea?” She leaned as close as she could without tipping off the settee. This might be the first time he’d ever taken notice.
“Yeah. That’s a thing?”
She nodded. “That is actually a thing. The electric hot water kettle is high tech, too. It has buttons for different water temperatures with added labels for corresponding teas, like whether you’re heating water for white tea versus green tea or maybe oolong or black. So you should be able to fill the electric kettle and just hit a button, then go get the teapot to hang the tea bag into it.”
“Copy.” Brandon stood and grasped her shoulders gently, pressing her back onto the settee. He remained braced over her for a long minute, holding her gaze, then he kissed her. She was completely scrambled by the time he let her up for air, and he was already headed for the kitchen by the time her vision cleared. “Can you try one of the sandwiches and tell me what the heck they are?”
She was fairly certain the basket contained another card describing the food, if the chef had included a note about the tea. Still, he was prompting further conversation, and she was happy to talk about the food. Then again, he could be teasing her like this just to see what happened to her words when she got distracted.
If all his kisses were going to be that mind-blowing, she was okay with this particular game.
“There’s a couple of different kinds of finger sandwiches here.” She picked one up. “Ooh. This one is egg salad with thin slices of cucumber and microgreens.”