He looks up at me — those blue eyes too raw, too open, too devastating.
“If there was a place I could go every day and see you, I’d go,” he says quietly. “Even if the pancakes were shit.”
He’s joking.
But not really.
He never jokes when it matters.
“You’re leaving in less than a month,” I remind him, my voice light, my chest anything but. “You won’t even remember my name by the time your boots hit the sand.”
He pushes his plate away and stands, moving toward me with slow, precise steps.
Like he’s choosing each footfall carefully. Like each one carries a truth he’s terrified to say.
“You think you’re that fucking forgettable?”
I swallow. Hard. “No.”
“Then stop pretending we don’t both know this is more than whatever we’re calling it.”
I stare up at him — big, broken, beautiful man — and I don’t know how to breathe, let alone speak.
He leans down, presses his forehead to mine.
“I will finish the pancakes,” he murmurs. “But first, I need to do this.”
He kisses me.
His lips brush mine—once, twice—before settling. Time suspends. My heartbeat stutters, then races beneath my ribs liketrapped wings. His hand slides to cradle the back of my neck, thumb tracing my jawline. The world narrows to just this—his breath mingling with mine, the slight tremble in his fingers, the way his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks when he pulls back just enough to look at me before diving back in.
Then he pulls back and stands in my kitchen, shirtless, flour smudged across his hands, the ghost of last night still carved into the lines of his mouth, batter clinging to his thumb as he licks it off with a slow, deliberate drag of his tongue.
He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“You ever tasted this?” he asks, offering the bowl like a sin.
I step closer.
He dips his finger again, holds it up — and pulls it back just before I touch it.
“Uh uh. Come here.”
“You’re a menace,” I murmur.
“I’m your menace.”
It shouldn’t feel soft.
But it does.
I step between his knees and he smears batter slowly across my bottom lip, dragging his fingertip with a tenderness that contradicts the wicked gleam in his eyes.
“Now lick it,” he says. Voice low. Filthy. “Nice and slow.”
I shouldn’t obey.
But I do.
