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As he nodded, leaning toward me without seeming to think about it, I stroked his cheek and tried to decide what else to say. “I can think of a few things we should talk about and a few things that I’d like to talk about. But those might make you squirm again.”
That had him blushing even brighter but his cute glare said he wasn’t going to squirm too much. “Stop that. Making me…that’s cheating.”
He was so fucking cute.
“Not going to agree to that, pet.” I shrugged as I stood, brushing my lips against his as he huffed. “But if you’d like to distract me with your questions, I’ll allow it.”
That got another cute but dramatic groan as I went over and finished doctoring my coffee. He was poking at the remains of his pancakes, murdering the last few bites when I sat back down. “My first question is going to be whether or not you would like to leave now or hang around for a bit longer and leave closer to lunch.”
That got a smile on his face as he rolled his eyes. “It’s basically almost lunch now.”
Semantics.
“I think you’re just trying to distract me.” The ridiculous response had him shaking his head.
“I need to get some work done later, so eventually I will get up and get dressed to head back home, but I don’t have to do it now.” The simple way he could answer my question seemed to put him more at ease and he stopped squishing what had once been a beautiful pancake.
“Very logical. I have some cleaning to do and a few things like that to get ready for the week, so that’s a good plan.” With that out of the way, I leaned back in my chair and took a sip of my coffee to give him another second to collect his thoughts.
It could’ve been the wrong call, but after a moment he sat straighter and stopped fidgeting. “If we are boyfriends like you said this morning, then I think I need to stop avoiding Amanda’s questions at work.”
I could see why he’d been nervous.
“You don’t ever have to answer nosy people’s questions. It doesn’t matter who they are or what their relationship is to me. Got it?” He smiled but my response had him leaning his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands.
“What is your relationship with her?”
Hmm.
Hadn’t we talked about that?
Maybe not…he always distracted me by looking so damned cute.
“She’s always lived near my family and her grandfather owned the bookstore before she took over. When we were in high school, we technically claimed to be boyfriend and girlfriend in the loosest definition of those words, but that was just because she wasn’t ready to tell her family she was gay and I was still figuring a lot of shit out, so dating anyone sounded like a terrible idea.”
As he started slowly nodding, I continued. “That went absolutely nowhere, though, because she’s really not interested in men, and she’s a pain in the ass without a submissive bone in her body, so I wasn’t interested in her that way.”
Processing what I’d said, he straightened and I could see his brain starting to whirl. “But your family…and the ladies…hell, the neighborhood thinks you’re together.”
“Because they’re stupid. Amanda dated one of the waitresses at that fancy French place down the street for almost a year before she moved and that died out.” I had no idea how the dating rumor just kept getting spread around.
“Amanda isn’t shouting things from the rooftop but she’s been out since college. Even her family knows.” Payton was clearly trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness but it was hard, so I didn’t blame him. “We have lunch once in a while and sometimes go see movies when we’re not dating other people but it’s never been more than a friendship between us.”
I had the wrong parts for her and she wasn’t a pup or a sub and was annoying sometimes.
Payton coughed, trying to cover a laugh because he was probably thinking along the same lines. “Okay, that’s all good to know. I’m not going to hide dating you from her any longer because she doesn’t believe it anyway. But I’m not going to discuss the…the other stuff, like being your sub.”
Before I could say that was perfectly reasonable, he sat even straighter and looked delightfully serious. “And I don’t know if this is too much to ask but I would prefer if you not talk about my being your sub and your pup with her as well.”
He was so cute.
“Deal.” My easy agreement had him slouching into the seat and taking a breath. “You work for her and that would be weird and cross way too many boundaries for you.”
I had my own issues, so I wasn’t going to ignore his.
