I picked up the mug and took a sip. Exactly how I make mine.
“That’s the second time you’ve guessed correctly.” I leaned against the counter and watched him work. “Should I be concerned?”
“Concerned about my psychic pancake abilities? Absolutely.” He slid a golden circle onto a plate and held it out to me. “Eat. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I’m a firefighter. Close enough. We do the same amount of running into dangerous situations, except doctors get better parking.”
I took the plate because refusing seemed more effort than accepting. The pancake was the best I’d seen in months. My appetite had been nonexistent since the fire, but my stomach growled anyway.
Traitor.
Percy watched me take the first bite. When I chewed and swallowed and didn’t immediately spit it out, he pumped his fist.
“Yes. Nailed it!” He flipped another pancake, caught it midair, and slid it onto his own plate. “I’ve been practicing. My cooking used to be limited to things that came in cans. Solomon staged an intervention.”
“An intervention? For canned food?”
“There was a PowerPoint. Fourteen slides. He included nutritional data and a graph showing my projected lifespan if I continued eating sodium-preserved vegetables for every meal.” Percy shook his head, grinning. “The man is unhinged in the most boring way possible.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
The sound surprised me. It came out rusty, unused, and Percy’s whole expression changed when he heard it. His grin shifted into a warmer, more real emotion, and he looked at me for a long moment before turning back to the stove.
“There she is,” he said quietly.
“There who is?”
“Nothing. Just glad you’re eating.”
He grabbed his plate and dropped onto the stool beside me.
Close.I could feel the warmth radiating off his body, could smell the brown sugar scent more strongly now. His knee bumped mine under the counter.
Neither of us moved away.
The heat of his thigh against mine sent a jolt straight through my core. I shifted on the stool, keeping my legs together, suddenly very aware of how thin these borrowed sweatpants were, how little fabric separated his skin from mine.
A pulse started between my legs.
Shit. This was not happening.
I was not getting turned on by a knee bump. I had more self-respect than this. I had trauma and trust issues and approximately zero business thinking about what other parts of him might feel warm pressed against me. What his hands would feel like sliding up my thighs and what that tattooed body would look like without the shirt.
And yet…
My nipples tightened under his borrowed shirt.
Stupid traitors.Both of them.
His gaze traveled over me, lingering on the shirt I was still wearing.Hisshirt.
“You know,” he said, voice dropping lower, “that shirt’s never going to smell the same again.”
Heat flooded my face. And between my legs. Definitely between my legs. “I can wash it.”
“Don’t you dare.” His grin turned slightly wicked.
