“Best way I’ve ever been stuck,” Theo said, raising his head to look at me. The only light in the room was what filtered in through my flimsy curtains and glowed from the alarm clock, so neither of us could really see each other.
All the same, I could feel the way he was smiling at me.
“I’m never getting back to sleep if you keep talking to me,” he said, and now I could hear the smile in his voice.
“I can shut up,” I offered.
Theo hummed, shifting again. His hand found my cheek on the first try, thumb running along my cheek. He wriggled, somehow, even closer, wrapping his thighs around me.
“I have a better idea,” he said, pushing against my shoulder to roll me onto my back. “It’s my turn to be on top.”
I madepancakes in the morning. Double chocolate chip, Theo’s favorite.
“I can finally tell you how hot it is when you do that,” Theo said from the breakfast bar. I glanced over to see him leaning on the counter, chin in his hand, morning light falling over him and catching all the wisps of his hair so he looked like he was glowing.
“Do what?” I asked, pushing my glasses back up my nose.
“Flip the pancakes like that,” Theo said, a smile playing around his lips. “It’s very competent. Competence is sexy.”
I laughed. “I’ll have to take you to work with me. Wait until you see what I can do with a catalogue.”
“We’d ruin at least one manuscript,” Theo said. “I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
Heat rose up the back of my neck. That didn’t stop me flipping the next pancake with a flourish, knowing Theo was watching.
“Hot,” he called from behind me. “Keep that up and breakfast’ll get cold.”
My ears were burning by now, but I couldn’t help smiling. I’d never imagined Theo finding me attractive before, but he had shown me—and shown me, andshown me—that I was wrong about that. He’d whisperedbeautifulinto my skin often enough that it was starting to sink in that, whateverIthought, he believed it.
“Start eating,” I said, passing over the stack of pancakes I’d made so far. “Then it won’t.”
“You spoil me,” Theo said, already reaching for one of the mismatched plates.
“So I’m told.” By everyone, constantly.
That was fine, though. If this was spoiling, it clearly wasn’t doing any harm.
I poured another half-cup of batter into the pan and swirled it around with the same familiar, automatic motion I always had, the back of my neck only prickling a little now that I knew Theo was watching me do it with lust in his heart.
“Are you free tonight?” Theo asked, muffled by his mouth being partly full.
“Oh, gee,” I said with a laugh. “Might need to check my busy schedule. I think I had zoning out in front of the TV penciled in, but if you’ve got something important then I could probably move it to later in the week.”
Theo huffed, and I turned just in time to see him licking pancake crumbs off his thumb. “Well, I was thinking... I mean...”
He glanced away. A tiny coil of anxiety pinched at the pit of my stomach, but the color streaked along his cheekbones eased it a little.
“Historically, I’m extremely unlikely to say no to you,” I pointed out.
“I know,” Theo said, a wry smile tugging up the corner of his lips. “I try to be careful about what I ask you.”
“You never ask me for anything I wouldn’t do. I trust you. Consider this a yes in advance unless you ask me something physically impossible.”
Theo wet his lips as I turned the stove burner off, sliding the last pancake directly on top of the stack in front of him and extracting one of my own from the bottom of the stack without bothering with a plate. I folded it in half and took my first bite, melted chocolate spilling luxuriously over my tongue.
He wasn’t going to ask the impossible. It was sweet that he worried about it, though. Most people didn’t.
“I was thinking, uh... I’d like to move back in.”
