“Minus fifty-six.”
“What?” I breathe.
“Negative numbers. Go.”
My mind wrestles with the problem as Malcolm lifts my hand and tugs on the glove I’m wearing, because I’m still not comfortable enough to leave my apartment without gloves, even if I’m only going to his. And that’s stupid. And I’m stupid. And—
“Too hard?” Malcolm interrupts my thoughts while he takes his sweet time pulling on the fingers of my glove.
“N-no.” I refocus, on the equation at hand. It’s not difficult math, to be sure, but heading into the negative tweaks my brain in an uncomfortable way, and…
I stare at Malcolm.
Something fills his eyes as centimeter after centimeter of my glove slips off at his beckoning. The way he melts captivates me, then his mouth settles on the bare skin of my knuckles, and my body squeezes.
“Forty-four,” I whisper.
“Wrong.” He holds my palm to his cheek, against his stubble, and his living room falls away around us. There’s something so adoring in the action it’s practically as though he thinks himself blessed. And I know, with acute awareness, that if this were it—if I could never go farther—he would love me still. He would treasure justthis.
And just this would be enough for him.
Absently, I say, “Fifty-six minus twelve is forty-four. I’m certain of it.”
“Yes, well. That is something to be certain of. I asked for twelve minus fifty-six, though.”
“Oh.” I forgot about the negative numbers. “Negativeforty-four.”
“Correct.” He kisses my palm. “Now add a hundred fifty to it”
“One-O-six.”
He pauses. “That hardly took you a breath.”
“It was too easy.”
“Divide by four, then.”
My lashes flutter as I blink. “Is that even a round number?”
“You tell me.” He nibbles at my wrist, and my heart patters.
Setting up for long division in my brain, I watch him trail tiny, rough kisses up my arm.
How many times does four go into ten… Twice. Two left over. Twenty-six is next, then.
His nose runs across my inner elbow, and the sensitive skin protests against his stubble, sending a shiver through me.
Six times. Four goes into twenty-six six times.
So I have two six, and another two leftover, and now I’m in decimals and bringing down a zero, but that’s just a twenty, and that’s easy. “Twenty-six point five.”
Malcolm smiles, tangles our fingers, and pushes me down into his couch. “Need something harder, dove?”
“I’m glad your couch isn’t leather.”
“Disgusting material. All these covers come off, and I have them put through the wash regularly.”
I can tell. There’s a fresh scent wafting off them that mixes and melds with the bright, masculine pine surrounding Malcolm. I’m pillowed in clean. Even though I’m not pillowed in white. Even though humans aren’t really ever trulyclean.
