The Way He Looks at Me

Brielle spent the entire morning pretending she wasn’t thinking about Jaxon.

She cleaned the shop’s storage room.

She reorganized an entire display shelf.

She restocked candles she didn’t even sell at her mother’s shop.

But none of it stopped her brain from replaying the same moment Jaxon’s hand on her knee.

The soft, startled heat in his eyes afterward.

The way he said, “That wasn’t nothing.”

By the time Tuesday rolled around, she had worked herself into an anxiety scented frenzy.

Standing outside Jaxon’s place didn’t help.

His house was too warm. Too inviting. Too him. Soft yellow lights glowed through the windows. Music hummed low from inside something slow with a beat she could feel in her ribs.

Brielle took a breath, raised her fist, and knocked.

The door swung open almost instantly.

Jaxon leaned against the frame, one hand up above his head, as if he’d been waiting right behind it.

And oh he looked good.

Dark T-shirt. Rolled sleeves. Messy hair. Barefoot.

“Hey,” he said, voice warm enough to melt a glacier.

“Hi.” She cleared her throat. “I brought the layout sketches.”

He didn’t take them.

He didn’t even look at them.

He looked at her.

Like she was the thing he’d been waiting to see all day.

“Come in,” he said quietly.

She stepped inside, heat curling low in her stomach. The living room smelled like cedar and something earthy something undeniably him.

His table was set up with graph paper, colored pens, and two mugs.

“You made tea?” she asked, surprised.

“Coffee keeps you up,” he said, shrugging. “Didn’t want you tired.”

Her eyes flicked to his.

There was meaning there.

Too much meaning.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

They sat close closer than a normal work distance. Their chairs brushed every time one of them shifted.

Brielle tried to focus on the garden sketches, but Jaxon’s presence pressed at her senses, warm and steady and impossible to ignore.

“So,” she began, “we need to finalize the center walkway.”

“The brick path?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He scooted closer to see her diagram, and his knee knocked against hers under the table.

They both froze.

Neither moved away.

His voice dropped. “You okay?”

She nodded, though her pulse disagreed. “Fine.”

He leaned in more, shoulder brushing hers. “You sure?”

She swallowed. “You keep asking me that.”

“That’s because…” He exhaled slowly. “Never mind.”

“No,” she said softly. “Say it.”

His eyes flicked to her lips just a second but it was enough to make the room tilt.

“That’s because you get quiet in a very specific way around me,” he murmured. “A way you never used to.”

Her breath stopped short.

“I don’t get quiet,” she said.

“You do. And your breathing changes.”

“It does not.”

“Brie,” he said, smiling with maddening confidence, “I can literally hear it.”

Her face warmed.

She. Was. Not. Doing. This.

“We should finish the walkway plan,” she said too quickly.

“Right.” But he didn’t move back, even as they returned to the sketches. If anything, he leaned in further, their shoulders now fully touching.

She tried to draw lines, but her fingers trembled, the pencil skidding slightly.

He laughed under his breath.

“Relax. I don’t bite.”

She dared to glance at him.

He was watching her with that look again that impossible, unbearable look that said he wanted to understand every inch of her.

“You’re staring,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said, unapologetically. “I am.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t figure you out.” He traced the edge of her paper with a slow fingertip. “You act like you want nothing to do with me, but then you look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying not to fall.”

Her chest tightened.

She dropped her gaze, but he gently nudged her chin up with two fingers.

His touch was soft, soft enough to undo her.

“You don’t have to pretend around me,” he said quietly.

Her breath came uneven now.

He was too close.

Too warm.

Too… honest.

“Jaxon…”

He waited.

Like he had all night.

She didn’t know what scared her more pulling away or closing the distance.

The air between them thickened.

Careful, charged, intimate.

He leaned in just a fraction.

Enough for her to feel the heat of him.

Enough for her heart to kick hard against her ribs.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.

She couldn’t.

She didn’t want to.

And he could see that. God, he could see everything.

But then...

A loud buzz rattled his phone on the table, snapping the moment in half. Brielle pulled back instantly, breath unsteady.

Jaxon clenched his jaw, glanced at the screen, and groaned.

“Work emergency.”

“Go,” she said, though her chest was still fluttering.

He grabbed his keys, then paused at the door, turning back to her with a look that made her knees weaken.

“This isn’t over.”

She swallowed. “It was nothing.”

He held her gaze.

“No. It wasn’t.”

Then he left, door shutting behind him, leaving her in the quiet, heart racing, breath completely out of control.

And for once, she didn’t pretend she didn’t know why.