“You know,” Damion mutters, stacking pancakes on the plate in front of me, “it’sreallybothered me that you’ve not once eaten with me.” He cuts what might be an entire tablespoon of butter off a stick and lays it atop my pancake stack. Next, he popsthe cap on a bottle of pure maple syrup and begins drowning the cakes, while holding my gaze, firmly. “Con.Bigcon. Hate it. Despise it, really.”
I gulp, twisting my hands in his shirt, which I’m wearing, as I sit at the kitchen table and watch a moat of syrup appear in the deep-dish plate of pancakes that I did not make. Even though meals are my job. A job I am paid very well to do. A job with a work agreement that outlines my specific tasks and nowhere on it says,sleep with boss.
My toes curl as I shift in my seat.
The cap snapping back into place makes me jump before the legs of the chair beside me being slid across the tile floor makes me wince.
Damion drops heavily onto the wood.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I…I’m so sorry. I—” I swallow. “—I don’t know what came over me. It won’t happen again. I’ll… I’ll be good.”
He arches a brow and snatches the fork from my place setting before sawing into the stack of pancakes and perching a morsel upon the prongs. “You’llbegood?”
Fervently, I nod.
“Youaregood, Mirabelle.” He holds the dripping bite up, above the plate. “Eat.”
My lips part as I lean forward and obey.
“See?” he murmurs. “Obedient.” His gaze skates over me, in his shirt. “Doing exactly as you’re told.” He wets his lips. “Good.”
Heat floods me, and I have never been more attracted to a man in mylife.
He cuts another piece and stuffs it in his own mouth, using the same fork.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I haveneverbeen this attracted to a man before.Never.
Not even last night.
Oh my stars and stripes.
Parched, I watch him chew, swallow, cut another piece.
Dangling it for me, he says, “Why are you getting so high off this, Mirabelle?”
I freeze with my mouth open for the pancake.
Confident and attentive, he sits there, beside me, head propped in his palm. Unsmiling. Severe. Steady. Possibly angry…but I don’t think so. I don’t think so, because he was petting my stuffed pig less than an hour ago and going on about howveryyy farrrawayI lived. He woke me up and threw me into this whirlwind ofI am desperate to have youas speckled by a slew of jokes. And now he’s being very clear with his expectations. And I… I am eating it up.
I can’t even put into words what is rampaging through my brain and body right now.
I was helpless last night.
I was stupid.
I was vulnerable.
He could have doneanythingto me, but he didn’t. He didn’t take advantage of me. He stayed with me—atop the comforter of his own bed.
He bounces the fork, and I return my attention to it before I accept the bite from the same prongs he just used. Something very near predatory glints in his eye. “Answer me,” he commands, low, steady, rough. “Why are you getting so high off this, Mirabelle?”
Reaching for a napkin, I drop my gaze off him and very primly…shrug.
He hums around another forkful for himself. “I want you to do your very best to put that answer into words, precious.”
