Page 30 of The Dating Dare

“Um. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on the other side of the booth?” She cursed her pale skin as heat spread on her face.

“No, I’m perfectly comfortable here,” he said with a knowing grin.

Damn him.She caved and inched away from the warmth of his body, mumbling something about personal space.

“I need to sit beside you so we can share my laptop,” he explained, his eyes still sparkling with humor.

“You’re right. This is much more practical,” Tara agreed in a no-nonsense voice. She refused to let him see how much she wanted to jump on his lap and call him Santa baby.

Shit. I need my head examined.

Seth failed to mention that he came to Comfort Zone on the off chance that Tara might be there. There was no need to weird her out. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all day. Sohe’d packed up his laptop and come to the bakery with the intent of camping out as long as he could. That sounded desperate even to his own ears.

But he wasn’t really desperate. He just wanted to spend more time with her, because he’d had such a good time when they hung out. With her to distract him, he wouldn’t be impatiently counting down the days until he could finally go to Paris. That was why he’d celebrated with a mental fist pump when she offered to help him with the website.

Sitting so close to her with her tantalizing scent assailing his senses was delicious torture. He wanted to do so much more than sit demurely next to her. Though she didn’t act like it, he would like to think that she was as affected by their proximity as he was. Or were her cheeks always so rosy? He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The curl of her long lashes, the tip of her pert nose, and the lower lip snagged by her teeth as she peered into the laptop screen. Poor lower lip. He should lick it better.

“You really meant what you said about focusing on the photographs.” She glanced sideways at him. “You’ve basically registered the domain name and created a landing page.”

“We still have close to a month left. I thought it important to have all the content well prepared before I started,” he said. “Plus, I was procrastinating.”

Tara snorted. “Lazy ass.”

Before he could respond, Justine came to their booth and placed a plate of fresh-baked cherry-almond cookies on the table.

“Hey, Seth,” the baker said with a welcoming smile.

“He’s here… that is… with me… so we could work on Landon’s website together,” Tara blurted, looking like her teacher caught her drawing a caricature of him. “I have a degree in graphic design.”

“Okay. Cool.” Justine smiled at Tara and turned back to Seth. He straightened his features to hide his amusement. “Don’t tell me you already finished all those goodies you picked up yesterday.”

“We did finish it all,” he said. Tara kicked him in the ankle. “I mean,Ifinished it all. You know I can’t get enough of Comfort Zone’s desserts.”

“I don’t know where you put it all, but I’m glad we have such a loyal customer.” Justine looked askance at Tara. “Are you sure this will be enough? I don’t think he’ll leave you any.”

“Don’t worry. I can hold my own,” Tara said, pretending to size him up. To better accommodate her perusal, he opened up his chest and flexed subtly. “Nobodymesses with my dessert. Not even Cookie Monster here.”

“As she just made clear, those arehercookies.” Seth watched Tara tug the plate of cookies closer to her. He wanted to kiss the adorable woman right then and there. “I’ll take a half-dozen brownie cookies.”

When Justine walked back into the kitchen, he turned to face Tara. “What? No salted caramel brownie?”

To his satisfaction, Tara blushed to the top of her roots. And her eyes dropped to his lips and stayed there. Oh, she remembered the kiss all right. His heart pumped at his own memory, and his blood rushed south.

“It was a bit too sweet for my taste.” Tara paused and met his gaze. “I like a little more… bite.”

It was Seth’s turn to blush. He was so fucking turned on. If she wanted a bite, he could give her a bite. In fact, he wanted to bite her plush lips and earlobes and scrape his tongue across… He needed to get a grip. Jumping on her at Comfort Zone would be equivalentto making a town-wide announcement that the two of them were dating.

He cleared his throat and stared hard at the computer screen. “Where do you want to start?”

“The beginning, obviously.” Tara let him change the subject, probably putting a tally mark by her name on the scoreboard. “What were you picturing for the website? Do you have a theme for it?”

“It’ll be easier if I showed you some of the pictures I took.” Seth turned the laptop toward him and opened up the photo album for the restaurant. “This is one of the pictures I took today. I wanted to capture the warm, welcoming air of the restaurant without giving it a blurry, rounded-out look. It was important to keep the photo sharp and focused like life heightened. The website symbolizes Landon’s dream but shouldn’t have a dreamy affect. I want his dream to feel real and alive.”

“Wow. These are amazing, Seth. And the restaurant is coming along so beautifully. Oh, I love the new floors.” Tara continued scrolling through his pictures, and his chest puffed out with pride. It felt damn good to have her compliment his work. Why did everything she did feel so… extra? “I’m getting a feel for what you’re saying. You show the restaurant in its best light. It doesn’t have a sleepy feeling. Instead, it pops and feels edgy through your lens, and that’s what the website should look like.”

“You got it on the nose. We make a good team.” He reached over and took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm. I love Americano.”

“Hey, get your own.” When he set the mug down in front of her, she wrapped both her hands around it and gave him a sideways glare.

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