Julian
“Morning,”I told Daniel as I arrived at his cabin the next morning. “I brought provisions.” I hefted the large brown shopping bags I carried in eachhand.
Daniel held the screen door open so I could walk past him into the living room and smothered a yawn with his arm. He lookedgood. I mean, he was always sexy as fuck, but it wasn’t often I got to see him like this, all sleep-mussed and scruffy, wearing nothing but a pair of flannel sleep pants that hung low on his hips and a fadedt-shirt that saidI’m Silently Correcting YourGrammar.
“It definitely looks like morning,” he agreed in a rough, sexy rumble. “But it’s not officially morning until I’ve hadcoffee.”
Shit, I was in a bad way. That voice, combined with the pajamas, had sure as fuck wokenmeup… in all kinds of ways I should not beup.
Honoria trotted over to greet me and immediately threw herself down on the floor on her back, presenting her stomach forrubs.
“Wow.” I set my bags on the floor and knelt obediently to ruffle the dog’s fur. “Look at you two. This raucous partying has got tostop.”
Daniel grinned and stretched, lifting his hands to the ceiling. His t-shirt rode up to expose a few inches of firm abs dusted with golden hair, and I nearly swallowed my tongue.I wouldn’t mind givinghimstomach rubs, either,I thought, before forcing my gaze down to the floor, away from all the sexygoodness.
It didn’t help, though, because looking down meant I ended up staring at his bare feet and… Okay, look, I swear I’d never had a thing for feet before—like, at all—but his were huge and just a tiny bit hairyand…
Jesus, I really needed to get laid before I managed to talk myself into a foot fetish.Down, Jules. Badboy.
I sucked in a deep breath, like I was about to swim underwater—through a deep pool of lust—and busied myself collecting mybags.
“Yesterday, you said nine o’clock for the Bribery Bakeathon,” I reminded him. “If you wanted me to come later, you just had to call.” Not that he’d ever called me. I was pretty sure he didn’t even carry hisphone.
“It’s fine.” But he yawned again and scratched his chest as he shut the front door and headed for the kitchen. “I got carried away working last night and stayed up toolate.”
“Oh yeah?” I trailed behind him, and Honoria trotted after me. “Working onwhat?”
He paused with his hand on the knob of the cabinet where he kept his coffee and shrugged very deliberately. “Just random stuff. Nothing important. So did you bring mebreakfast?”
I fought a pang of disappointment at his deliberate subject change as I put my bags on the counter. Yesterday at the bakery, he’d seemed to be opening up a little. He’d lived in the city! He’d had friends who were coffee snobs! It was such trivial information, and it almost felt like he was talking about a different Daniel, one I’d never met before, but I’d hoarded every nugget like dragon treasure, and now I wantedmore.
“Nope. But you still had half a dozen tartlets when you left my apartment yesterday. Have one ofthose.”
Daniel cleared his throat and turned from the stove, where he was fiddling with his dark-ages manual coffee pot. “Aboutthat…”
I blinked at him. “You ateallofthem?”
“They were in lieu of dinner,” he saidreasonably.
I shook my head as I unloaded the bags onto the counter—baking dishes, bags of apples, canned pumpkin, flour, sugar, and spices, since I was pretty sure he hadnothinghere. “If there were ever a sign that you’re not gay, it would be that. My head explodes just thinking of the carbcontent.”
Daniel turned and his gaze raked me from my fitted, black long-sleeved t-shirt, down over my jeans, and all the way to my hiking boots. His eyes met mine. “You have nothing to worryabout.”
I felt my cheeks heat. The carb thing had been half-joking. I did know way too much about shit like that, but I’d always been on the skinny side of slender, and I was hardly a fitness nut—not that O’Leary actually boasted a gym anyway, other than a few pieces of ancient equipment in the basement of the rec center attached to the library. But the way Daniel’s eyes tracked over me, it felt like he wasn’t seeing me as the scrawniest Ross brother, butas…
As afriend, dumbass. Since he is yourfriend. And he isstraight.
“Uh, thanks,” Isaid.
“And I don’t think I need to cut carbs either,” he said. He patted his flat stomach. “What do you think, Honoria?” He looked down at the dog, who was sitting on the rug near the back door and whipped his shirt over his head. “Do I look fine? What do youthink?”
Honoria barked happily, and I very nearly did, too.Holy fuck. I’d seen him without a shirt before, but never when I was so far down Lust River. This felt like an extra special level of torture from the universe. His nipples honest-to-God pebbled in the chilly air and I found myself staring at this little constellation of freckles—three brown dots in an acute triangle, pointing the way to his heart. I had the bizarre thought that geometry would have been much more fun if I’d learned it in relation toDaniel.
“She thinks you’d better put your shirt back on before you get a chill,” I saidwaspishly.
Holy fuck.I’d become mymother.
But Daniel just laughed, set his shirt on the counter, and grabbed a pair of mugs from anothercabinet.
