Vicky
I bitmy lip as I stared at Mike across my kitchen island. He was in only his thermal becauseIwas wearing his flannel shirt.
I had no idea if it was okay to continue to steal his clothing, but when he’d been brushing his teeth this morning, I’d picked it up and tried it on, wanting to be surrounded by the woodsy Mike smell and feel the soft material against my skin.
He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, when I started to take it off, he’d yanked it back up onto my shoulders and buttoned the front, telling me he liked me in his clothes.
Then, before I could put my leggings on, he’d grabbed my hand and taken me downstairs. So here I was, in just my knickers and a huge flannel shirt, watching the most beautiful man I’d ever seen prowl around my kitchen.
“I want to cook for you, love, but you appear to be missing a toaster?”
I slipped off the stool he’d put me on and pulled open the cupboard doors that my toaster and kettle lived behind.
His eyebrows went up, and he smiled.
“You hide your appliances?” His tone was teasing.
Lottie had helped me to identify when someone was teasing and when they were being mean. I wasn’t always that great at it, but I was much more proficient than I used to be at telling the difference.
“I really don’t like clutter.” This was an understatement, but I didn’t want to elaborate more than I had to.
He turned away from the toaster and stepped into my space, giving the brief pause he always did in order to warn me, then gathering me in his arms and kissing my nose.
“I kind of realised that when I came back to bed last night, and my clothes were folded on your chair, socks too.”
“I can be a bit obsessive,” I whispered. The socks had definitely given me away. I just hoped that discovering all my quirks all at once wasn’t enough to put him off.
He shrugged. “Me too. Maybe not about socks and toasters, but definitely when I’m working on a piece. Obsessed is putting it lightly. Right, let me make you food, woman. How do you like your eggs?”
I bit my lip again. “Mike, I’m really specific about eggs. It’s… complicated.”
His arms gave me a squeeze, and his voice softened. “How about you show me, and then I’m ready for next time.”
At the mention of a next time, I stared up at him and smiled a huge smile.
An almost fierce expression crossed his features before he gave me a brief, hard kiss, another arm squeeze, and then let me go to start the eggs.
As I was getting everything out for them, I asked Mike howhewanted his eggs, and he just told me he’d have them the same as me.
That level of flexibility always intrigued me.
He didn’t even know how I was going to cook my eggs: how runny the yolk would be, how brown I’d toast the bread.Ihadto have poached eggs. Theyneededto be cooked for exactly two minutes and thirty-five seconds. The breadhadto be wholemeal, but not seeded, and toasted for one minute and ten seconds, exactly, in a pre-heated toaster.
“Hold on, let me write this down,” Mike said as I rattled off what I was doing. “And what do you mean by a pre-heated toaster?”
My face felt hot, and I ducked my head to avoid his eyes. “I turn it on for thirty seconds so that it’s hot when the toast goes in.”
I continued avoiding eye contact as I bustled around the kitchen. When I eventually presented him with poached eggs on toast and sat next to him on the kitchen stool, I just stared down at my plate, my appetite gone now that I felt weird.
Was pre-heating your toaster weird?
“Hey.” I glanced at Mike who was now turned fully towards me, but then ducked my head again, allowing my hair to block him from view. But in typical Mike fashion, he just put his hand on the back of my stool and turned me to face him by spinning the seat, then used his other hand to tuck my hair behind my ear. “What’s up? Why aren’t you eating?”
“I’m a little bit… specific about food,” I said. “It’s not an ice princess thing. It’s not me being spoiled or deliberately awkward. I just?—”
“Vicky, you’re makingyourbreakfast inyourkitchen,” he said. “You can be as specific as you like.” His voice softened then. “And baby, I’m sorry I called you a princess. I didn’t know you then, and I made assumptions. You know I don’t think that now, right?”
He paused for a moment as an expression I couldn’t read crossed his face.
