Page 26 of Tempted By the Safety

I brace for the lecture, but none comes. Instead, he turns back to the stove, humming, flipping a pancake with a flick of the wrist. If anything, he looks lighter than I’ve seen him look since I moved in.

A plate lands in front of me a minute later, three pancakes stacked, edges golden, and he sets butter and a bottle of maple syrup down beside it before he goes back for his own plate.

I look at the food. Then at him. Then at the food again.

“How did you make this?” I ask slowly. “We needed groceries. I was supposed to buy them this morning.”

“I went early,” he says, plating his own stack.

“You went grocery shopping?”

“Yeah. Around eight.” He rounds the island and sits across from me. “Eat before they get cold. Unless you don’t like them. I can make something else, though I’m not as good at this as you are.”

“They’re fine,” I say, picking up my fork and cutting into the stack. I put a bite in my mouth mostly so I don’t have to figure out what my face is doing. They’re really good, better than they have any right to be from a man who eats chicken and rice five days out of seven. I chew, swallow, and throw him a look.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“What happened last night?” I ask instead of answering.

He studies me for a second. “How much do you remember?”

“Up until the car, when you buckled my seatbelt. After that it’s just static.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I set my fork down. “That’s it? Aren’t you pissed at me? I ruined your date.”

“It wasn’t going well anyway.”

I blink. “It wasn’t?”

“No.” He goes back to his pancakes, unbothered, as if he’s discussing the weather. “I was distracted the whole time.”

“Distracted.” I turn the word over. “By what?”

He sets his fork down and looks at his plate instead of me. “I’m sorry I asked you to buy the condoms yesterday. That was…” He exhales through his nose, a short, frustrated sound. “I don’t know. Some kind of power move. Reestablishing control, or trying to. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” I say, which is true, technically. There’s a different word, but I don’t hand it over.

“So,” I say instead, aiming for light, “are you gonna reschedule the date?”

“I don’t think so.” He picks his fork back up, cuts a bite, eats it before he finishes the thought. “Paige and I have always been casual. But I don’t think that’s going to work anymore.”

“Oh?” I wait for more, but he doesn’t give it to me.

He finishes what’s left on his plate in a few efficient bites, stands, and carries our plates to the sink. I watch the muscles in his forearms work and hate how much I like watching.

“What were you distracted with?” I ask his back.

He stops and sets the dish towel aside, folding it once over the oven handle, and then he turns around and leans against the counter, arms crossing.

“I was distracted by a certain infuriating and bratty PA.” He’s moving before I can find a single word to put after that, coming around the island without hurrying.

He stops right in front of me, so close my knees have nowhere to go but apart, and he steps into the space I make for him.

I can feel my own pulse in my throat as he leans down, one hand braced on the island behind my back. His mouth comes level with my ear, his breath warm against my skin.

“Tell me the truth, Milo,” he says patiently, as if he already knows the answer and just needs to hear me say it out loud. “Did you really finish yourself off with your hand covered in my cum?”