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He smirks. “Well, you were a little shit to me that night. Let’s just say you left an impression.”
I think about my reaction to seeing Jeb the first time and how unnerved I’d been at the attraction I felt for him.
I couldn’t have known that day how much that beautiful, cocky thief, who set off all my alarm bells off, would come to mean to me.
I rub my hands over Jeb’s chest, paying special attention to his nipples, which I’ve come to learn are super sensitive. “Want me to make it up to you?” I ask, my mouth watering at the idea of trying to give him the same pleasure he just gave me.
He captures my hands. “Later,” he promises. “Definitely later, but right now, we have a birthday to celebrate.”
“But I thought you just gave me your birthday present?”
Jeb brings my hands, which he still has clasped in his own, to his lips and kisses them. “That was just the first one.There’s a whole day of surprises left.”
I can’t believe that he’s gone to so much trouble planning to celebrate a day I’d barely remembered was coming up. Maybe that’s why I speak the first thought that enters my mind at his pronouncement. “I can’t imagine that any surprise could top the one you just gave me.”
I blush when I realize that I just voiced my internal dialogue. He tracks my blush with half-mast eyes and gives me a stare that seems to shimmer through my veins. “Baby, just you wait.”
* * *
After insisting on serving me French toast in bed, Jeb followed breakfast up with a long shower, where he treated me to an encore performance of his oral skills. After we were dressed, we walked to a modern-looking building on the north side of Chicago. When we get inside, there isn’t another person in sight. I look at Jeb a little nervously and he takes my hand and squeezes it. I hear the whirling of mechanical wheels, and then a gangly robot loosely designed to resemble a human rolls out and welcomes us to the Chicago Museum of Robots in its digitized voice.
I turn to Jeb,awed at the thoughtfulness of taking me somewhere that so perfectly keys into my interests and fits who I am as a person.
“I signed us up for a private guided tour, and then we get to build a tiny robot together.” Jeb shuffles his feet slightly, and a nervous smile comes to his face. “I know you’re probably way beyond everything they're gonna tell us here, and hell, for all I know, you’ve already built your own legion of robots, but I thought this might be something fun for us to do together for your birthday.”
I grab him by the neck of his Henley and pull him down to me so I can kiss away any doubts that this isn’t the most thoughtful birthday gift ever. “It’s perfect,” I tell him and kiss him again.
“Get a room,” the robot’s monotone voice says from behind us.
I pull back from the kiss to look at the robot in surprise. Jeb erupts into laughter.
“I almost forgot,” he says, blue eyes dancing with amusement. “When I signed up for the tour, they asked me if there was a personality type I’d prefer our tour guide to have. I told them ‘snarky’.” He teasingly bumps my side with his elbow. “I figured the robot should speak your language.”
“Very funny,” I reply, trying to form my face into a grimace. It doesn’t work. My smile escapes, and I can’t help mooning at Jeb as we follow the snarky robot into the next room to begin our tour. After an extensive tour of the museum that covered the history of robotics and new developments in the field, we are escorted to a room where we pick the robot we want, and put it together. We emerge from the museum four hours later with a small box that contains The Crawlex 3001, a small robot whose movements are meant to simulate those of a spider as it crawls across the floor. Jeb nicknamed it ‘Creepy’ and calls it our new pet.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“I am,” I say in surprise. Jeb’s insistence on feeding me regular meals has made it so that I actually notice hunger pains when I haven’t eaten in a while.
“I know just the spot.” He grabs me by the hand, and we catch the crosstown L. Once we get off at our station, we walk a few blocks until we reach a restaurant whose sign reads ‘Dolce’. Its outside wall is covered with a cool mural. I stop to admire it. There’s something familiar about the artwork.
Once inside, the host leads us to a large, round booth that could easily sit a party of ten. I expect Jeb to ask for one of the cozier tables by the bar, but he just gestures for me to slide into the booth.
“I take it you’ve been here before?” I remark, looking around at the restaurant’s interior, which seems to be an eclectic mix of various cultural influences.
“Never,” Jeb answers.
I look up at him. “If it isn’t one of your favorites, why did you want to come here so badly?” I ask curiously.
“He’s trying to impress you, honey.” My head swivels from Jeb to a youngish waiter sporting electric-blue hair with flaming-red tips. His eyes dance in amusement. “Your man is pulling out all the stops for you tonight.”
He sets down a pop for me and a rocks glass full of an amber-looking liquid for Jeb on the table. “If I were you, I’d thank him real nice.” The waiter runs an appreciative glance over Jeb. “He’s a keeper.”
I don’t like our sexy waiter’s attention on him. Jeb’s hand is resting on the table and I quickly cover it with my own.
The waiter arches his eyebrow at my obviously possessive move and laughs. “Ya don’t have to worry about me, hon. I got one of him at home.” He winks at me. “Except mine’s bigger.”
Jeb, who’s been watching our interaction with pure glee, clears his throat. “Eli, this is Dream. You met his partner, Jack Navarro, when he helped us with taking down the Reivers.”
