Soren chuckled. “So prickly.”
Tobias began to pull the ingredients he needed for his dinner, already knowing he’d make enough for the two of them, regardless of whether Soren opted to eat or not.
He wasn’t used to people in his space, didn’t know how to deal with the presence of another person in his kitchen. He should have showered and put on some dress pants and a sweater. Then he would’ve been prepared. But this...it was like somebody had shoved him out on stage naked. The glasses, the work clothes—they were his costume, his armor. Standing in his kitchen in nothing but a pair of athletic shorts was far too intimate for Tobias.
Maybe that was why he didn’t notice Soren was no longer across the room but close enough to touch, so close they were almost nose to nose when Tobias turned around. Both his hands were full, but he could have moved him, lowered his shoulder and shoved just enough to move Soren. But just like the other night, he froze. There was just something about sharing space with this infuriatingly casual man that shook Tobias to his core. All his wires crossed in Soren’s presence, and Tobias could do nothing but wait for Soren to do something—anything—to break his hold over him.
“Let me help you with that, Doc.”
Tobias stood rooted in place as Soren’s fingers brushed his, taking the tomato, pesto, and cheese and setting them on the countertop. Maybe Tobias should have gotten some experience being sexually intimate with another human, maybe then Soren’s every touch wouldn’t affect him so much. But he hadn’t and it did, so this was where he was and where he would stay, suspended in the air like a marionette until Soren cut his strings.
Tobias cleared his throat. “If you’re not going to call me Dr. Eastman, at least call me Tobias.”
Soren grinned, revealing perfectly white teeth as he stepped back, breaking his hold over Tobias. “Can I call you Toby?” The accompanying grin said he was being deliberately provocative.
“God, no.” Tobias shuddered. What a ridiculous nickname that would be.
“Aw.” Soren’s face fell, his voice just one octave above a whine, like a kid whose mother had just said no to a present in the store.
It shouldn’t have wormed its way under Tobias’s skin, but it did. “Why are you here?”
“Why are any of us here, Toby?” Soren leaned against the counter across the room. “In the grand scheme of things, I mean.”
Tobias flinched at the casual moniker but refused to correct him again. “Why are you in my kitchen, Soren?”
Taking a knife from the drawer, Tobias tested its weight before setting the tomato on the cutting board and enjoying the feel of the knife cutting through the flesh. Something about the skin giving way to the softness within made Tobias tingle.
“Oh, that.” Soren chuckled. “I’ve decided to accept your offer.”
Tobias hissed in pain as the knife veered off course, cutting through his thumb. “Shit.”
He moved to the sink and flipped on the cold water, running his thumb beneath the stream. Despite the fire of its sting, there was only a small gash.
Tobias’s heartbeat fell off-kilter as Soren pressed against him from behind, his rough calloused palm sliding over Tobias’s forearm to his hand and holding it under the water, as if Tobias needed help. He did now. He was having trouble breathing.
“Maybe knives aren’t your thing, Toby?” Soren murmured against his ear, his amusement evident.
“I don’t have a thing,” Tobias snapped before huffing out a breath through his nose.
He needed to pull it together. He couldn’t let this infuriating ass know he was getting to him, but it was impossible with Soren so close, the heat of his body bleeding through the thin cotton of his t-shirt into Tobias’s bare skin, his body the perfect height for Soren’s pelvis to fit snugly against the curve of his ass. He was grateful for the sharp edge of the countertop digging into the flesh above his shorts, giving him something to focus on other than the feel of Soren practically on top of him.
The thought made him shiver. What was wrong with him? Tobias didn’t care about sex or touching or people. He cared about order over chaos. Control. Restraint. At least, he had. He’d built his whole world around it. But now, he couldn’t seem to pull himself together. Killing Paddy Killeen had cut the anchor on his perfectly put-together persona and, somehow, he’d drifted wildly off course, directly into the storm that was Soren. A deceptively calm storm, the eye of the storm, tricking Tobias into forgetting about what happened when the eye passed and he was sucked into hurricane force winds.
He fucking hated metaphors.
“Knives are most certainly my thing.” Tobias pushed back against Soren, breaking free of his hold to grab a paper towel and wrap it around his thumb. “I’m just not used to cooking with an audience.”
Soren retreated, but not far, choosing the counter directly behind Tobias, leaving barely a foot of space between them. When he crossed his arms, Tobias did his best not to notice the way his biceps bulged.
“You were ‘cooking’ alone with Killeen. What happened then?”
Ugh, another fucking metaphor.
Tobias clenched his jaw until he was certain his teeth might crack from the pressure, then grabbed a baking dish from beneath the counter. He slammed the cabinet door with more force than necessary before setting the oven temperature and watching as the pre-heat timer began to tick down, hoping his heart rate would drop with it, that some sense of peace would take root.
It didn’t work. Tobias hated being corrected, but he hated needing to be corrected even more. He was the one who’d asked Soren for help. He couldn’t very well be angry now that he’d taken him up on his offer. “I didn’t anticipate Killeen seeing me coming. He caught my reflection in the glass and turned before I could slit his throat.”
Soren nodded. “Yeah, guns are far more efficient. You can keep distance between you and your target.”
