The alarm clock had inconveniently been knocked out of reach. I struggled to sit up, crawling the length of the bed and fumbling on the floor to find the obnoxious electronic box.
Sebastian tried to bite my ass, which didn’t really help my coordination.
“We need to get up!” I moaned.
He didn’t reply.
“Up!”
“I am up,” he mumbled against my skin.
Again? Oh, my God!
“Time for a shower. Go! Now!”
He grumbled a bit more but eventually rolled off the bed, allowing me to get up and pull on my robe. I glanced around to see him stumble into the bathroom. It was true: he was up.
Smiling to myself, I headed down to the kitchen and rummaged around in the refrigerator. As he hadn’t managed to express a preference, I decided to make a cheese omelet with bacon on the side.
I was still grilling the bacon when I heard him running down the stairs. There was a huge thud and I guessed he’d jumped the last three or four steps. His exuberance made me smile. And where the hell did he get all that energy?
He wrapped his arms around my waist without hesitation and nuzzled my neck. I nearly dropped the spatula.
“What can I do?” he said.
I was surprised. No man had ever said that to me in my kitchen before. I turned and smirked at him.
“Just sit there and look decorative.”
He threw me an amused look and stretched his long legs under the kitchen table, rocking the chair back on two legs, just like he had last night.
To have him sitting at my breakfast table felt wonderfully new and wonderfully natural, all at the same time.
When I served up the food, I put most of the omelet on his plate and four out of five of the pieces of bacon. He didn’t even seem to notice the uneven distribution; he was so intent on getting the food into his stomach in the shortest time possible.
I was still chewing when he pushed his plate away. He glanced around to see if there was anything else to eat. Really: his appetites were enormous in all sorts of ways. The last ten hours had been a revelation.
“Toast?”
“Please!” he said happily.
I cut four slices off a new loaf and shoved them all in the toaster. “Do you want jelly?”
He pulled a face. “Nah, just butter, please.”
“Don’t you have a sweet tooth?”
“Only for you.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Where do you stand on chocolate? I’m serious! It’s an important question!”
“You like chocolate, Caro? What sort?”
I could see what he was thinking: sometimes he was so easy to read.
“I don’t want you to buy me any, Sebastian.”
“Why not?”
He pouted and I wanted to laugh.
“Because we’re saving our money for more important things.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Mind you,” I said, slyly, “I wouldn’t mind licking some melted chocolate off you: I bet that would taste really good.”
For a moment he looked a little shocked, then a huge grin spread across his face.
“Yeah! That sounds hot!”
“I’ll see what I can do for tonight.”
He groaned.
“What?”
“I’ll have that image in my head all day now! I’ll be a walking hard-on!”
“It’s one way of increasing tips at work,” I said, laughing at him.
He shook his head and looked embarrassed. He was so easy to tease. I really wasn’t being very fair.
I glanced at my watch. It was nearly ten o’clock.
“Time to go,” I said, trying not to sound too bereft.
He scowled.
“I’ll call in sick.”
“You can’t do that,” I said patiently. “For a start, Ches will be knocking on your door in about 20 minutes; and secondly, word is sure to get back to your mom – do you really want her asking awkward questions about where you’ve been?”
He sighed. “I guess not.”