He presses his mouth to my ear, and now I have goosebumps. "Strip," he says softly. "How's that for logistics?"
I manage to find my voice. "Pretty straight forward."
"I think that's what you're going to need while we try this or you're going to get too caught up in worrying about how we transition from pancakes to sex."
"I mean, yeah..."
Peter smirks at me. "I think it's a pretty natural transition, but I'm going to show you."
I take off my clothes, and notice the way Peter is watching me, holding still like he wants to grab me and put my back on the kitchen table and fuck me till I scream. That actually sounds nice, and I blush, because that's crazy. That's something that gets written into a script in a movie and not something that happens in real life. "What are you thinking?" he asks as I take off the last piece of my outfit.
"Nothing."
"Than why are you blushing?"
"I'm not."
Peter sighs, and pulls me to him, lifts me so that I'm sitting on the counter and he's standing between my legs. I can see that he's hard when I look down, his cock tenting those thin pants, and we're so close. Peter doesn't seem to notice how it easy it would be for him to just...slip inside. But then his fingers are on my chin, making me look at him. "Time out."
"From what?"
"From me being in charge for a second, because we need to talk about this."
“What? I didn't change my mind, you can still be in charge."
"No, Amber, the fact that you don't want to tell me things." He takes some chocolate chips and dumps a pile into the skillet without any batter. The stove is on a low heat, but they start to soften and shine as I look at them.
"It was just a thought."
"About sex?"
I nod.
"So why don't you want to say it?" I reach out and wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer, try to kiss him, force my breasts more firmly against his chest so that he'll be distracted. He doesn't buy it.
"I just didn't think it mattered."
Peter presses his forehead to mine, and I'm flashing back through time to all the times that we've done that before. The way it grounds us here together, in a moment, and I take a deep breath. "I know that it's going to take time," he says, "and that we're different, and that it's never going to be exactly the same, because it can't be. But we used to tell each other everything. There wasn't anything that happened in my life or mind that I didn't want to share with you, even after we separated. And I want you to know that hasn't changed for me. I don't care if it's a silly thought or a simple thought or a sexy thought. You don't have thoughts that I don't want to hear, Amber."
Then, finally, he kisses me, and it's filled with delicious, slow heat. When he finally pulls back and the world rushes back in, it feels new. Because that's so simple, and yet I can see it. I understand and I remember, and to make this work we're going to have to talk to each other. That's all there is to it. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah."
He nips my bottom lip. "Tell me what made you blush."
I glance away from him. "I saw you watching me undress, and it kind of looked like you wanted to grab me, throw me on the table and fuck me." I blush again, because saying these words out loud is harder than it feels like it should be. "Till I screamed. And I thought that might be nice."
"That's exactly what I wanted to do," he says. "Time in." My breath hitches as he reaches over to the pan of now melted chocolate and runs a finger through it. "That’s what I plan to do after I finish a couple of other things."
He spreads the chocolate across one of my nipples and leans down to suck it off. The chocolate is warm and sticky, and the way he has to work to clean it off my skin has me moaning. I like the way his tongue feels on me. I could have it that way forever.
Everywhere.
My hands are on his shoulders and I'm struggling not to try to force him closer, because that's not what we agreed, and it's kind of nice. He knows what I said I wanted, or thought about, and he said he wants that too, but I don't have to worry if he's going to do that. There's something in my mind that eases. Even if he doesn't take me on the table, I know that Peter is going to take care of me. He's going to make me feel good. And it's not something that I'll ever have to worry about.
It's like a little thing clicks in my brain. The other night when we talked about it, I couldn't help feeling guilty, like I was piling all the responsibility for both our pleasure on his head and it was going to be overwhelming. But now, thinking about our history together, it's always been like this. Peter's always taken care of me and given me what I needed. Has always somehow known how to get me out of my own head. But he can't do that if I don't talk to him. "Oh."
"Mmm?" The questioning sound vibrates through his mouth and onto my skin as he licks chocolate off my other nipple and sends sparks bounding downward to my pussy.
"I just had a realization, that's all."
His mouth is on mine and it's all chocolate. "Tell me."
"You always seemed to know what I needed...before. You knew when to calm me down and when to pin me down and distract me. But you did that because we were talking. Or I was talking. Or you saw something that helped you figure out what I needed even if I didn't say it exactly."
Peter laughs. "Yes. I'm not a mind reader, and I'll never be one. But if you talk to me, I'll always be there to help you. I might not always give you what you want," he says, "But I'll do my best to give you what you need."
It hadn't seemed fair to me, dumping it all on him. But he was doing it anyway, taking control and helping, I was just getting in the way. Not in the way, I was just making it harder for both of us. A weight falls off my shoulders, and I lean forward, my head on his shoulder, and he hugs me, hands sliding down my back. I'm not dumping some task that he doesn't want on his head, I'm letting him pick up the slack he already wanted. A task he was already trying to do. It seems so obvious.
"I think I get it now," I say into his skin. "Even if it still feels weird." It does. Just because I have a burst of clarity doesn't mean that it still doesn't feel strange to me.
Peter weaves his fingers in my hair and guides my head off his shoulder and tilts it back so I'm meeting his gaze. "What do you get?"
"That I'm not forcing this on you."
"No," he says, "you're not. You're asking me to do this for you, and I'm asking for you to let me."
"You want it too?"
He smiles, and tightens his fingers in my hair. "I've been thinking the past couple of days, too. I had the same realization that you did, that I was already trying to do this, but we didn't really have the ways to say it. We were quietly letting it happen, but because we didn't really have the life experience to say it, it wasn't working as well as it could."
I shake my head, and he lets my hair go and I reach over to grab another pancake. I kind of interrupted his promised sex and the fact that he was sucking on my nipples with my realization. "This isn't exactly the conversation I was expecting to have this morning."