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“Wow, you must have been suffering. I couldn’t even tell.”
“Just assume going forward that I always want to do that.”
She bites her lip to keep from grinning wider. “Good to know.”
“I’m going to have to figure out a better method of restraining myself,” I sigh.
“Or not,” she says innocently. “I kind of like you unrestrained.”
“You make it very, very hard to be good.”
She presses up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Maybe you should be bad then.”
I have to close my eyes and think about something else just to keep from getting hard. This is absolutely not the time. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Never.” She untangles herself from me, patting my shoulder playfully. It’s amazing to me that one night could somehow eradicate all the tension between us. If I’d known this was the solution, I might have proposed it sooner. “Pretty sure you’re supposed to be getting ready for work.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “Gonna be a great night.”
“Maybe I should give you something to look forward to?”
It’s probably pathetic, the way I visibly perk up. “Oh?”
She comes closer, reaching to let her fingers trace the shape of my bottom lip. “Something to come home to.”
“It’s going to be late...”
She smiles sweetly then, reaching again, and I can feel my eyes closing in anticipation of her kiss. “It’s fine.” She presses her lips softly against mine, pulling away after and bringing her hand up to tap my nose. “I’ll just leave your piece of cake on the counter.”
She’s laughing as she skips away, and I’m left dumbfounded for a few seconds before it clicks what she’s said. I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose as I hear her start up the stairs after Sophie.
“She really is going to kill me,” I mutter to no one.
—
Work is hell, just as expected.
Two of my line cooks were out with a bug that’s apparently going around, and I had to send my sous-chef to thefucking hospital after an incident with a knife that required stitches. It’s like the universe decided to punish me for taking a night off.
I was so ready to leave by the end of the night that I hadn’t even bothered taking off my chef coat, only unbuttoning the top button as I step through the front door of the house and sighing with relief to be home. I hang my keys on the hook as always, stretching as I’m finally able to shake away the stress from tonight’s dinner service.
My eyes find Cassie’s closed bedroom door, a flicker of temptation sparking inside as I check my watch, but it’s nearly midnight.
“Damn,” I mutter.
Not that it would have been acceptable to wake her up just to touch her an hour ago, but still I can’t pretend I’m not thinking about it. I undo another button of my coat as I run my fingers through my hair, pushing the desire away and starting up the stairs as I resign myself to a shower and bed. I tell myself I can restrain myself for one night. I’ve been doing it for weeks, after all.
My decision means that it’s a complete surprise when I feel a tug at the back of my coat that pulls me backward into a now open door. It closes behind me as a smaller, softer body presses me against it, and then I’m met with a tempting smile lit by the nearby lamp.
“Cassie?”
“I told you I wanted to give you something to look forward to.”
Everything I’ve been trying to pack away starts trying to claw itself back to the surface. “What happened to the cake?”
“Oh, it was a huge success,” she assures me. “If that’s what you’d rather have, there’s still some upstairs...”
“Hardly.”
