But apparently, Killian was finished admiring—or judging—my salt and pepper shakers. While I stood there with my arms crossed, watching him—to make sure he didn’t do anything funny to the food—he cracked eggs into a huge bowl I’d left in the dish rack days ago and forgotten to put away, then whisked them with a fork. He turned on the stove and poured some oil into the pan. He looked at home in my kitchen.
I couldn’t decide if I liked that or not. I also couldn’t decide if I should let him continue to parade around topless. The morning sun shone over his body, making him glow like an angel…except I knew he was no angel. Maybe one of the fallen variety at best. And his forearm tats shifted as he moved. The entire effect wasn’t exactly giving me the calmness I wanted to achieve.
“You should put on a shirt,” I said.
“Why?”
“That oil might spatter and burn you.” And what a shame would that be on such a fine torso. Not that I’d ever say it out loud.
“Still drying my chest hair, remember? Oil and water don’t mix. It can’t hurt me.”
Must be some type of man logic, because it made zero sense. Probably the same sort of thinking that made men do stupid stuff. “Don’t sue me if you get hurt.”
“I won’t. Now go away and let me work my magic. I’m a pretty decent cook.”
That remained to be seen, although if it tasted half as good as it smelled, it’d be all right. I sat at the island and pretended to fiddle with my phone, although I watched him surreptitiously. I told myself it was for self-preservation, because my presence might discourage him from sprinkling arsenic all over my eggs. The fact that I noticed how broad his shoulders were…how hot it was to see his back muscles flex… Well, all that was just going to be there, no matter what. Very much like the irritating side effects you had to put up with while taking a life-preserving drug.
As he started to place omelets on plates, I took out a couple of icy lemon-flavored sweet teas from the fridge, because first, I needed one, and second, he probably wouldn’t complain, since it was that or water. Even I thought it was too early for beer, even if it was Hop Hop Hooray. When he brought the omelets and forks to the dining table, I quietly switched our plates.
“What’s that about?” he asked, sitting down.
“Yours looked bigger,” I lied, not wanting to tell him about my suspicions. I’d been watching him, but there was that distracting bare torso. I might’ve missed something.
“I made them the same size.”
“Why?” Didn’t guys usually want to have more food?
“Because you don’t seem like the type who’ll stop to eat lunch or dinner.”
“You don’t know that.”
He gave me a look. “I’ve seen your fridge. And your cart at Sunny’s.”
I shrugged. “Eating is overrated.”
“It’s essential for survival, but go ahead and humor me. Do the overrated activity.” He gestured with his fork.
Ha! Sarcastic bastard. I bit into the omelet. Holy cow. It was good—fluffy and gooey, with melted cheese in the center. The man knew how to cook. And with the first bite in my mouth, I suddenly realized I was starving.
“How’d that taste? Overrated?” he asked after I’d swallowed.
“Good,” I said. The man already knew it. There was no point in lying.
“So. Mind if I borrow the rest of your books?”
I regarded him, wondering what he was really getting at. “Why?”
“I liked the one I read.”
I looked at him, stunned. Since he’d brought the one from yesterday back so fast, I assumed he hadn’t been able to read more than a few pages. “You did?”
“Yeah,” he said, shoveling down food.
“What did you like about it?” Men sometimes said that they liked my books after they’d found out what I did for living in order to hook up. Killian could avail himself of my shower, but he wasn’t availing himself of my vagina.
“The humor, mainly. And the emphasis on community and people just being decent and good to each other. Oh, and the glitter bomb Erika sent her boss at the end.” Killian grinned. “That was hilarious.”
“So you really did read it,” I said, surprised and pleased. Those were the reasons I loved that book, too. And I appreciated that here was the first man I’d met who not only read one of my books but understood what I wanted to convey in my writing world: good people finishing first and living happily ever after. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
“Of course. I wouldn’t lie about it, not when I’d get found out in a second.” He washed down his latest bite with the tea. “Could’ve used more sex, though.”
I almost choked on my eggs. Should’ve known he’d go there.
“But the three sex scenes it did have were hot as hell. Erika came ‘over five times’”—he was making air quotes with his fingers—“in the first one. How many times did she really come, though? It wasn’t clear from the text.”
I bit my lip to contain a laugh. Of course he remembered that detail and wanted to know more. It was such a guy thing!
“If the book didn’t say, it means you don’t need to know.” I tried to say it with a touch of prim asperity but the truth was that I didn’t recall every detail of the story. It’d been months since I’d finished it, and right now, my mind was focused on Molly and Ryan’s romance.
He grunted. “Too bad. Your readers would definitely want to know that level of detail. So tell me, do you write the kind of sex you want to have?”
Here we go. I inhaled deeply so as not to lose patience. For some reason, every time people learned I wrote sex scenes, they considered it completely acceptable to ask personal, sex-related questions. Even my now-former dentist had asked me how much “research” I did while getting his tools ready and having me inhale laughing gas.
At least Killian had cooked me an excellent breakfast. And he wasn’t being overtly condescending—or asking with an unhealthy leer, like the dentist. “Are you going to ask me if I research them in person, too?”
“Do you?” His blue eyes sparked, a smile curving his lips. The dimple popped on his cheek, and he looked more tempting than a ripe strawberry dipped in chocolate. “If so”—he raised a hand—“I volunteer as tribute!”
I burst out laughing at his homage to The Hunger Games. His questions were predictable, but he just seemed curious. And I liked the way he’d made a joke with my question.
“Tribute? As in the Roman sense? Like a slave?”
“Hey, whatever you’re into. I’m an equal-opportunity kind of guy.” The smile went up about two thousand kilowatts.
I laughed again, the exchange lightening my mood. I took a swig of tea and looked at him speculatively. The sex scenes in my books weren’t necessarily my fantasy. The kind of sex my characters had largely depended on their personalities and the couple’s dynamics. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun to research some of them in person for the first time in my life, especially if the partner was as fine as Killian.
On the other hand, he was very aware he was just oozing sex appeal, and men like that were bad bets for relationships. Exhibit one: my father. He charmed the panties off every pretty twenty-something he ran into. It was gross and humiliating.