Nerves smashed into me as I made it outside, then climbed into my Porsche Boxter. I ran my hands over my jeans and glanced in the rearview mirror, but nothing had changed since two minutes ago. I blew out a long breath and started the engine, grinning as she purred. I opened my phone and started the map app that would lead me to Micah’s house because I still didn’t know all the suburbs yet.
On the way to Micah’s my stomach clenched and my hands slipped with sweat on the steering wheel. I was more than a little shocked at the way I was feeling, but I couldn’t stop smiling. My heart did a weird thing where it felt like it was going a hundred miles per hour for a few minutes while I took a trip down memory lane. I relived him crawling to me because he wanted my dick.
“Fuck,” I said with a laugh. “I’m excited.” I adjusted my semi so it wasn’t stuck at an uncomfortable angle in my pants.
The night pressed in on me as I navigated into a small cul-de-sac with a decorative pond in the center, then pulled the Boxter into the driveway of a very tiny house. I would be surprised if there was more than one bedroom. The place had an interesting, angular masculine design with a slanted metal roof and a lot of large square windows with curtains pulled across them. The exterior might be made of dark wood, though I couldn’t be sure in the gloom, and the design was modern, which was unusual for the area. I’d thought with Micah teaching history, he might be in a dusty old house, but the longer I stared at the quirky building, the more it fit him.
The motif was very sleek, and he would be the same way naked.
I got out of my car and walked up a small cement footpath, and on either side solar lights glowed, interspersed between plants, in what I thought was a small herb garden. I wasn’t sure why the idea of Micah out here picking leaves to add to his dinner made me happy, but I was smiling when I knocked on the front door.
About a minute dragged past.
Frowning, I knocked again, and when no one answered, I checked my phone. Yes, the numbers on the small golden plaque attached to the side of the house matched the address I’d been given. I was in the right spot. I glanced around. There was a car in the driveway, so I assumed Micah was home. I knocked again, and a loud clatter inside had my hair standing on end. The noise just had that sound like it had led to a spectacular fucking mess. I tried the doorknob and pushed, and when the door moved, I shot inside.
Off to my left Micah stood with horror etched onto his face. I blinked against the brightness of the inside of the house. The man didn’t know about mood lighting, apparently, because it was like stepping into the center of the sun. The delicious scent of barbecue was in the air, but I tried to tell my mouth to stop watering because at his feet was a smashed glass baking dish, sauce, and ribs. Wicked looking glass shards glittered everywhere. He blinked up at me, and I closed the door, then rushed in his direction. The gray wooden floor had a blast radius of sauce that started about five feet away from him and seemed to have gone in every direction.
“Are you hurt?”
He shook his head, but his face flushed red and his gray eyes grew shiny, like maybe he wanted to cry. His shoulders hunched. I carefully made my way around the mess—well, as much as I could—before taking the oven mitts off his hands. That was when I noticed the food on the floor was still steaming.
“Are you sure you’re not burned?” I frowned up at his face.
He nodded, but I didn’t like the way he’d gone stiff. I clasped his hands, and he jerked them away but finally stared at me and seemed to really see me for the first time since I’d arrived.
“You’re certain you’re okay?” My stomach sank as his bottom lip wobbled.
Micah gestured toward the floor. “I wanted this to be nice. I’m sorry.”
Grunting, I looked him over. Somehow his socks had missed getting coated with food, or he might’ve been hurt. “It’s fine. Shit happens. Such is life.”
He crossed his arms over his middle and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared forlornly around at the mess that had crawled up the sides of the gray breakfast bar to my right and counters to my left. The fact that this was an open-plan living space had really let the mess spread far and wide.
“Micah, are you sure you’re okay?” He didn’t seem as if he was really hearing me. “All right. This is fine. We’ll fix it,” I said with a smile.
He glanced at me and his eyebrows furrowed as he hunched farther in on himself. Holding up my hands, I rested them lightly on his, even though they were tight to his arms, and this time he allowed me to touch him. I pried one of his hands up, then snatched a white dish towel off the breakfast bar. He groaned when I used the cloth to wipe a path clear for him through the explosion, the white material staining a reddish brown that reminded me of blood, and he stepped toward me.
“Careful. You don’t have shoes on. Stay where I cleaned the glass away.”
He nodded and walked to the other side of me, staring at the ruined food like he couldn’t comprehend the mess. It was fucking epic, I had to hand it to him.
“What happened?” I straightened and tossed the dish towel back on the floor.
He shrugged. “The oven mitt had a hole in it. The pan burned me, and I panicked.”
Frowning, I flipped his hand over. “I don’t see a mark?”
He sighed and red crawled up his neck and made the blush on his face even deeper. “It just startled me.”
I tugged on his hand and my chest felt warm as he let me lead him away from the mess and deeper into the house. Everything was clean lines. The walls were white and spotless. In fact, it almost felt like a model of a house that no one spent much time in. It wasn’t a very big place and there was a laptop set up on a coffee table across from a couch, and beyond that there was a gas fireplace with flames flickering low. There were only two doors, but they were next to each other, so I led him in that direction, and he moved to the one on the right.
Micah stopped and stared at me, chewing on his bottom lip. His fingers curled around mine, and I squeezed back. “I wanted to cook for you because when I was in school, I was always broke and could never afford anything—”
“I don’t have that issue,” I said, patting his shoulder. “If you’re fine, I’m fine.”
“But I wanted this to be nice.”
Nodding, I stared into his eyes, and he seemed so lost. That emotion living inside him tugged at something deep in my core. I wanted to make whatever was wrong in his life better. “It was a perfect idea. There was just an accident. Why don’t you go get cleaned up. Er....” I spotted some sauce that had gotten into his curls and flashed him a smile. “You need to shower.” I tapped the top of his head, and he groaned. “You’re messy.”
