He doesn’t touch me. He reaches for a side towel, folds it once, holds it out. “Here.”
I take it, wipe. “Better?”
“Almost.” His mouth twitches. “You’ll live.”
I set the towel aside, push the plate back an inch. “The perils of fresh pasta.”
“Three more,” he says.
I squint at him. “Are you always this controlling?”
“Yes,” he says, not sorry.
I take three more bites out of spite and because I want them.
He watches, not hovering, just there, like a wall of heat at my side. The kitchen isn’t small, but it feels small with him in it.
“I have to start getting dessert ready,” I say.
“Your ten minutes isn’t up,” he says simply.
He doesn’t move. Neither do I. The clock over the door ticks steadily.
Heat crawls up my neck. I stand, slowly, the stool scraping quietly on the tile. We’re close enough that the stainless steel behind him reflects us in the same strip of shine—his shoulder, my cheek, the space between.
“You said fruit in fifteen,” I remind him, uselessly, breathlessly.
“Four left,” he says, voice lower. “Use them.”
“For what?”
His gaze dips to my mouth, then back. “Whatever you want.”
I should step around him. I don’t. He lifts his hand and stops half an inch from my face.
“Still there,” he says softly. “Flour.”
I don’t feel anything. “Where.”
He doesn’t reach for a towel this time. He closes that half inch and skims his thumb across my cheekbone, slow. It’s nothing. It’s everything. He doesn’t press, just traces, then rests there.
“Gone,” he says.
I breathe out. It shudders. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“I’m exactly where I should be,” he says simply.
My hands are on the edge of the table, knuckles white. I make them loosen.
He leans in, not enough to touch anywhere else, enough that I can feel his breath at my temple. “Say no and I’ll walk out right now.”
I turn my head a fraction. We’re sharing the same breath of air. His eyes are on mine, not a dare. A request.
“Don’t play with me,” I say, quiet.
“I don’t,” he says. “Not about this.”
The last of my excuses burn off like alcohol in a pan. I tip my chin up. It’s small. It’s yes.
