“By cooked, you mean…” Blaze starts.
I huff in annoyance. “I ordered it all from the single good restaurant in town, yes. But you could pretend!”
Asch is the first one to come up to me, his thumbs hooking under the straps of the dress as he strokes the skin. “Maybe we’ll all take cooking lessons when we get back home,” he says.
He does not sound like he cares about the cooking.
“Or we can just order in on Blaze’s dime,” River says. “We have better things to do than cook.” He approaches from my other side and leans down to steal a kiss. Or, y’know, take a freely given kiss. Nothing stolen here.
Blaze is the last to approach. He’s more careful about where he steps now, making sure to give the coffee table a wide enough berth not to bump his shin. “You look amazing, Pandora,” he says, stroking my bare thigh. “I’m not sure why this would make us panic, though.”
Well, if it was only sex, that’d be one thing.
Even though we haven’t really had a lot of sex since the explosion.
Blaze has been especially skittish, like he’s afraid his remaining eye will fall out if he moves wrong. River and Asch have kissed me and fucked me, but it’s never been… amazing.
It’s been soft.
Gentle.
I raise my bare foot up and rub along the inside of Blaze’s thigh. His breath hitches. “I thought we all deserved a romantic evening. A four person date. Happy Valentine’s day and all.”
Asch frowns, then says, “Wasn’t Valentine’s day last week?”
“Oh my god!” I slap Asch’s stomach. “Yes, it was last week, and we were all busy moping around. So we’ll do it now. It doesn’t matter when we do special romantic evenings, right?”
“We were not moping,” River says.
“You were moping,” I counter. “Anyway, that’s not the point. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I got you all a gift! Well, multiple gifts.”
Blaze lets out a loud huff. “Okay.NowI’m panicking. Can’t the sexy getup be gift enough?”
“Of course it’s enough of a gift,” Asch says. “But we didn’t get her anything.”
I clap my hands together, making all three of them slap to attention. “Hey! Sexy lady talking here! I didn’t get you presents because I wanted something myself.”
“Very sexy,” Blaze agrees. He moves to the couch, farther awayfrom me, and grabs a plate to serve himself from the tiny specialty sandwiches—all vegetarian, of course. The entire meal is vegetarian, and boy had the restaurant staff gotten snippy at me when I’d told them to replace all meat with mushrooms or substitutes.
“You know, I thought you were going to say you’re not hungry for food, and you’d rather skip to dessert,” I say with a pout.
“But you put so much thought into it,” Asch murmurs, brushing his lips against mine. “Besides, I like seeing you in this.” He pulls back so he can look me over again. “Definitely a good look for you.”
River nudges Asch aside. “Well, if the two of you want food, you can have food.Iwant dessert first.”
I sigh and take River’s hand.
His missing pinky seems really cold now. Panic flashes through me, knowing that his finger, my charm, is lost forever.
No, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that River is here, and he wants me.
I keep having to remind myself of that.
“No, go eat. Gaze upon me and think of all the ways you want to worship me.” I kiss his hand, then let go so he can grab food.
My stomach is churning.
Food and sex is the easy part.
