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“Looking for you,” Milo answers, his hands still gripping the front of Chet’s jacket. “You doubled back when you saw me, so I walked around the building and found this little shit with his hands on you. Did he hurt you?”
I would love nothing more than to watch Milo pummel the shit out of Chet right now. But he didn’t actually physically hurt me. “No, just acted like a fool.”
“Fat lip or busted nose? Your choice, Cecily.”
“None of the above. But I will be reporting him for assault to the campus police, to administration, and to the entire student body when I write my next editorial.”
Milo grudgingly lets Chet go, and my assailant mutters some weak trash talk and slinks away.
“Let’s go. Now,” Milo says.
“I can’t. I have a final exam tonight and a staff meeting in five minutes.”
Milo shrugs. “Cancel the staff meeting and let me feed you. You need sustenance for your exam.”
I don’t know whether it’s because I’m hungry and grateful, or still in shock that he subdued a would-be attacker, or if I genuinely just want to kiss the guy. But none of that seems to matter when I fist the front of Milo’s sweater, roll up on my toes, and press our lips together.
There’s nothing on the staff meeting agenda that can’t be addressed over email.
When our faces come apart, Milo looks as surprised at me as I feel.
His pleased expression quickly grows heated, and he bends down again to kiss me back. His kiss is sweet as he brushes his lips over mine once, twice, then captures my bottom lip between both of his. I feel his arms slide around my back, tugging me close into his solid frame, and my backpack slides off my shoulder and hits the ground. I’m suddenly feeling light as air, and I fear the butterflies might make me fly away.
“Wow,” I say, breathless when we pull apart with a loud smacking noise. “You might half-ass desserts but not kissing.”
“Let’s go,” he growls, stalking over to pick up my things that have fallen to the ground.
“I don’t have anything to wear to your fancy restaurant. That dress I wore the other night is the only nice thing I own.”
Milo threads his fingers through mine and insists on carrying my bag.
“You won’t have to worry about what to wear.”
I like having him walk next to me instead of behind me.
Once we arrive at Urban Fruit, Milo has to unlock the door, and I recall now that he’s closed on Mondays.
“Wait. There’s no staff here today.”
Milo looks at me with a mischievous grin and gestures me inside into the darkened dining room. “Is this the part where you stab me? Because I carry pepper spray, and I kick like a mule. I was about to castrate Chet when you showed up.”
He says nothing, but when I step inside, there is a booth in the corner laid out with a fine linen tablecloth, water goblets, and candles.
“Oh my god. You really did read my article.” He went to a lot of trouble for this, not knowing for sure if I would agree to dinner.
He gets five stars for a giant set of balls.
Milo leads me past the dining room into the kitchen, where we move through a labyrinth of workstations. He gestures to a barstool near an enormous commercial gas stove that would make my sister Cherise salivate. Wordlessly he begins to perform his magic, and I begin to understand.
Before I’d actually met him, I’d wanted to nibble on his belly. Right now, watching him prepare food while my belly rumbles? I sort of want him to hold me down and nibble on me. After I eat.
Get control of yourself, Cecily. Just because he can win you over with food doesn’t mean he’s not a playboy.
“You need to know something. I appreciate you, Milo. But whatever it is that you’re after? It’s not going to happen. I’m not the kind of woman you’re used to dating.”
“What sort of woman do you think I’m used to dating?” He sautées, stirs and flips. Why in the world he has multiple pots and pans going on the flame for two dinners, I have no idea.
“Princesses. People who hang out on yachts. People who are…experienced?”
