When we have sex, I want her willing, ready, and as eager to explore my body as I am to explore hers. I don’t want her to look at me with fear in her eyes. I want her to embrace sex—and me—with no hesitation about whether she’s doing the right thing.
“You want to have sex with me,” she says, her eyes wary but with enough heat in her gaze that she can’t quite hide.
I clasp her right hand, lifting it to my mouth to press a kiss at the center of her palm, smiling when her breath hitches. “I very much like the idea of sex with you, Maisie Lucas. You’re sexy and so damn beautiful, and I’d have to be half-blind and half-dead not to want to spend the night with you. But it isn’t just sex I want from you. I want you to feel safe around me, to want me as much as I want you, to share things with me because you trust me.”
“That sounds an awful lot like a relationship.”
“It does.” My hand slips from hers as I offer a handshake. “How about we try being friends first? If our bad habits don’t make us run screaming from each other, then I’d say that’s a good place to start, wouldn’t you?”
Her first wide smile has me wanting to rub a fist over my heart. The impact hits that hard. I don’t know how anyone could put their hands on this woman; she radiates a sweet innocence that makes me want to put myself between whatever thing wants to hurt her.
“I think I’d like that,” she says, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze.
“Good.” Relieved that this conversation went better than I expected, I push myself to my feet. “How about those pancakes?”
“Okay,” she says with a shy smile. “Can I help?”
I’d been hoping to impress her with my extremely limited cooking skills before Hunter swoops in and shows her how it’s done. But she looks excited to help, and I’ll agree to anything that puts her in close proximity to me.
Even in my mind, it sounds pathetic. I’m more than half in love with Maisie Lucas, so I don’t care all that much. I’ve had a month of quietly watching over her at the diner and making sure she gets home safe afterward, noting her quirks, her different smiles, the habit she has of tucking her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous or nibbling her lower lip when she’s deep in thought.
Fuck. I’m not a man half-in-love; I’m an alpha obsessed.
“Sure.” I offer her my palm. When she takes it, I help her to her feet and lead the way to the counter, walking slowly for the sole excuse to keep hold of her hand much longer than I need to. “How about you get started on the batter, and I’ll get the bacon out? Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and bacon sound pretty good to me.”
“Me too,” she agrees happily.
I get the bacon out, and when I spot the milk we need for the pancake mix, I grab it too and turn to give it to her. “Here.”
The egg she was about to tap on the side of the bowl slips from her hand and cracks against the floor.
My joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg, dies on my lips when I see her face.
She’s bone white and trembling as she backs away from me. Her eyes bounce from my face to the mess on the floor, and she’s too busy stuttering that she’ll clean it up for her to hear me when I tell her I’ll do it.
I reach out to her, and she flinches away from me.
I stop immediately, sensing I know what’s happening here.
“Maisie?” I soften my voice, but I keep my distance. She doesn’t respond, so I say her name again, a little louder this time. “Maisie?”
As if waking from a dream, she blinks twice and looks at me. Really looks at me.
“I’m sorry,” she stutters. “I’ll clean it up. Where are the paper towels?” She turns around.
They’re literally right in front of her face, which speaks to how frayed her nerves are.
“Forget about the paper towels.”
“But I?—”
I pick up an egg from the container and drop it on the floor.
Crack.
She stops looking for paper towels.
A tiny furrow forms between her brows as her eyes bounce from me to the mess on the floor. “Why’d you do that?”
