Appetite for Passion
A Ravenous Romance™ Modern Love™ Original Publication
Jesse Blair Kensington
A Ravenous Romance™ Original Publication
www.ravenousromance.com
Appetite for Passion
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2008 by Jesse Blair Kensington
Ravenous Romance™
100 Cummings Center
Suite 125G
Beverly, MA 01915
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
ISBN: 978-1-60777-064-0
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter One
Megan checked her clock – almost time for Ben. She grated the carrot, hoping he’d be here in time to add the durian into the stew. Cooking was a lot like sex – timing was everything. Sex was definitely on her mind – she was working so hard that there was never any time for it. She was always hearing about Ben’s exploits, half of which she did not believe. She was a little miffed with him because even though his connections came through on the hard-to-find durian root, he seemed to be teasing her with it.
“Meg, I got the powdered substance we need for the soup,” he e-mailed her about a week ago.
“Okay. Bring it over.”
“Can’t do it tonight. Have a hot date.”
“You? Hard to believe. Just drop it off and I’ll try it myself.”
“No way. We agreed. We both try it.”
He was exasperating sometimes.
“When?” she asked.
No response.
Megan sighed. It took him a few days to get back to her. So finally, tonight, they would try out the soup with the fresh powdered durian root together.
About a month ago, Megan and Ben met their friend Suri at a local Indian restaurant and mentioned that they were writing a cookbook about aphrodisiacs. Surprisingly, Suri offered an old family recipe for “love potion” soup.
“You might think this is crazy,” Suri said, her dark eyes lit up with excitement. “But I am telling you, this is powerful stuff. Be careful with it.”
“Well, let’s give it a go,” Ben said with a grin.
The only hurdle to overcome was finding the precious durian root they needed – a particular subgenus of the fruit only grown on Ramsha Mountain in India. But between Ben’s foodie connections and Suri’s family connections, they rounded up a source.
Now, Megan lifted the pot and smelled the onions and garlic. She scraped in the carrots in and stirred the brew with a huge wooden spoon.
“Never use a metal spoon while brewing a love potion,” Suri told her. “It messes with the balance.”
The smell of hearty stew filled Megan with memories of an old Afghani restaurant she used to frequent. Was it the cumin? Or just the right combination of curry and garlic? She took another deep whiff and decided to find some music to go with their Eastern feast. She thought a silent prayer of gratitude that she did not have to concern herself with cleaning up for Ben’s visit. If anything, he was more of a slob than she was, and she knew she didn’t have to impress him. She glanced around at the piles of magazines, mail, and books, and vowed to clean up this weekend before leaving for London for a week of research, interviews, and a lot of sex with Joel. God, she hadn’t had sex in months, and she missed him.
Joel and Megan met in a yoga class ten years ago, had coffee one night after class, and the rest, as they say, was history – perverse, lustful, decadent history. There was something about seeing Joel, a well-off proper English art historian, lose control in bed, which he did regularly. She never felt like she was particularly attractive, but somehow this man made her feel beautiful. When he moved back to London, they decided to keep seeing each other as often as they could, but see other people as well. They were both too practical, and knew each other too well, to think they would be able to keep any vow of celibacy. Truthfully, Megan was already eyeing up the yoga instructor at the time of Joel’s departure, but he turned out to be gay. “Darling, you are beautiful. It’s not you. I am just not into women,” he told her gently. So, that wasn’t too embarrassing. How did she not know that?
****
As she was digging through the CDs looking for music, her doorbell rang.
“C’mon in,” she yelled.
The door swung open. “Hey,” she heard Ben say, as she fiddled with the CD player-- finally music, soft bongos and Eastern rhythms. Soft humming, moaning voices.
“Hello,” She turned to face him.
“Got the stuff, man,” he said in his best impression of a drug dealer.
“Okay, okay. This is getting old, Ben,” Megan said. “Hand it over.”
He handed her one of his paper sacks and they walked to the kitchen counter together. He walked with a maddening strut that made her want to smack him.
“Smells good,” he said, lifting the lid on the stew, steam pouring from it. “But it smells nothing like sex.”
“Guess not,” said Megan, laughing, and she poured the powder into a wooden bowl. Powdered golden yellow and almost shimmering, the stuff formed a yellowish cloud that she breathed in, and she went almost dizzy from the stench.
“Eww, God, that’s awful. It smells like rotten Limburger,” she cried, reaching for her glass of wine.
“That’s interesting. I love the smell of it. I guess it’s something you have to get used to. Hey, do you think the soup is boiling yet? Let’s pour some in.”
Megan loved to watch Ben’s hands and fingers dance over any food they made together. A schooled chef and an artist with food, his long fingers seemed to be made for the craft of cooking. So strong, and somehow he had one of the gentlest touches she had ever seen. He let food be itself, not forcing it into being something it wasn’t. Let An Asparagus BE was the title of their first book together.
He grabbed a handful of the foul-smelling powder and dropped it into the soup. Then he licked his fingers. “Want a try?” he said, holding up his middle finger and grinning sheepishly at her. For a moment, she thought of licking it, just to freak him out. Then she decided to ignore him.
She handed him a paper towel. “Wipe your hands off, idiot.”
He rolled up his sleeves, revealing his chiseled cook’s forearms, and splashed water over them, wiping them off with a paper towel.
Megan glanced at the clock. “Okay, we have fifteen minutes.”
“The music is cool.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you get your check today?”
“No. Did you?”
“No.”
“All two hundred dollars of it or something,” Megan said and rolled her eyes. Their last book together wasn’t their best, and it was not outselling their first one – that one was still on the bestseller list. She was amazed they landed this new incredible book deal about aphrodisiacs – a dream contract she knew any of her colleagues would give an appendage to have. It did not hurt, she supposed, that her partner was just voted the sexiest chef in America, which she did not understand at all. Weirdly enough, she’d recently had a sexy dream about him, though in her waking life she had never thought of him that way. If people only knew how childish he was most of the time, acting like a fool, hard to settle down and focus. Ben was really a twelve-year-old boy, masquerading as a talented thirty-two-year-old man.
They were both excited about the new opportunity. She could really sink her teeth into this project as a writer and a researcher, and he thought that he could get creative with some of the ingredients and come up with great new dishes. The publisher thought it had great sales potential because of the sex hook, but both Meg and Ben were skeptical about any aphrodisiac affects of anything other than maybe wine. “If I was aroused every time I ate something that was supposed to be an aphrodisiac, I’d be walking around with a boner, like, all the time,” he’d told her once over coffee. She’d almost choked, but she knew she’d have to break down that wall with Ben. They would be writing about sex and food and she needed to be comfortable with it. Since then, they’d had several conversations about sex.
“Which one of your boyfriends is that?” Ben wanted to know, pointing at a picture on her table, next to the overstuffed couch.
“Oh, that’s Joel. The guy I told you about who lives in London now.”
“Are you going to see him this week?”
“Oh sure, probably,” she said, stirring the pot, a brief thought of Joel’s ass flashing in her mind. Joel was a wild man in bed, letting go of all inhibitions as soon as he saw her breasts fall out of her bra. She loved a man who appreciated her breasts, who knew how to look at them, touch them, and kiss them. And she loved the way Joel lost his mind over them, rubbing his face between them, sticking his—
“Hey,” Ben interrupted her thoughts. “ I think it’s time.”
She poured the soup in two huge cobalt blue bowls – the yellow color of the soup looked spectacular against the blue. Plump chunks of potatoes and onion, garlic and celery, steamed. She inhaled the fragrant steam – it was dizzying.
“You know, you’re a food writer. You should probably have a table and chairs, like a dining set or something,” Ben said, as he walked to the couch, and gingerly sat on it so as not to spill the soup.
“I know. But where would I put them?”
“I guess you’d have to get rid of something or maybe move. You can afford a house. I know what you earn,” he said, taking a slurp of soup. “Hmmm,” he moaned. “I think it needs something. What do you think?”
Yes, he did know what she earned. Money was becoming no object for her, and certainly not for him. But both of them were squirreling away their money until they got a breather in their schedules. He wanted to shop for a home in the city. She was uncertain.
Megan took a bite of the stew and agreed it was wanting. “Maybe lemon?”
He was on his third or fourth bite. “Mmm. No. Eat more. It gets better with each bite.”
Megan demurely took another, but watched her partner in amazement. Why had she never noticed the way he ate before? He ate like he was insatiable. His enjoyment of the food seemed to wash over him; blood ran to his face, giving his skin a peach-like glow.
Megan took another bite. Yes. It was luscious. She drank her Chablis to try to cleanse her palate. The soup was good, but it was rich, creamy, earthy-tasting all at once. She wasn’t sure what she tasted. Every bite unfolded into a different flavor.
She was mesmerized by it and focused on her bowl of the brew, thinking of the vibrant colors, and trying to separate the flavors – potato with cumin, carrots with onions, that, that root…
She looked up from her soup and found Ben looking at her, his eyes glazed.
“What?”
“You look happy.”
“It’s very good. I never would have imagined it from the smell of that stuff.”
“Let’s have more,” Ben said, grabbing her bowl.
“Okay. More wine, too?”
“Sure. You know me. “
Megan kicked her shoes off and grabbed her pen and notebook, after pouring more Chablis.
“I’d say earthy and rich,” he emphasized rich, bringing the bowls over to her and sitting on the floor beside the coffee table. “Like us, darling.”
“Cheers to that,” she said, raised her glass joining him on the floor, and laughed. “Sweet, creamy, yet earthy. How can that be? It’s almost perfume-like…I can’t quite…”
Her mind was a bit muddled – she couldn’t think of the right words to describe the stew. Writer’s block? She scoffed at the idea. She was close to thirty and the mythology of writer’s block had never entered her practice.
“Yes, you can,” Ben said. “If anybody can, you can. Hotshot wordsmith,” he said taunting her about something a reviewer had written about her. “Really. Seriously, I am grateful for you, Meg. I’d never be here without those words of yours.”
He was unusually serious. Megan looked at him, her suspicions once again aroused about Ben – there was more to him, somewhere deep down inside. She glimpsed it every now and then. She knew that people who were like Ben – sarcastic, class-clownish – were often hiding something deep and something painful. She wondered who Ben really was.
“Hey. Nice toenails. Pink. Wow,” he said abruptly.
She laughed. “Compliments of my five-year-old niece in Virginia.”
Carly and her insistence of painting toenails brought a smile to Megan’s face as she remembered the Virginia landscape in front of her, her brother and sister-in-law grilling, feeling the sun on her skin, and Carly’s smile getting bigger as she painted her auntie’s toes. Gosh, was it only a week ago that she took a few days off to go home? The nail polish still had not faded.
****
Ben could not help staring at her toes. Why did she take her shoes off? He was already feeling warmed by the soup and slightly buzzed from the wine – at least, that’s what he told himself. This aphrodisiac stuff was nonsense, of course. Still, he had to admit that he was a bit horny. After all, it had been at least a week since he last got laid.
Megan? She was a gorgeous hunk of a woman – all curves – but he never had thought seriously about making it with her because he didn’t want to mess up their partnership. His food and her words were a perfect fit. She was such a strong and smart woman and he’d only seen hints of her sexuality – no slightly see-through blouses showing off a lacy bra, or plunging necklines revealing bits of cleavage. She was all business with him. Often, she even pinned her honey-brown hair up in a bun. Her pink toenails revealed an intriguing hint of femininity, one that she usually kept closeted from him and the editors and agents they worked with.
But there was that time he’d walked into a restaurant and saw her, dressed in red with a deep plunging neckline with half her cleavage showing, looking deeply into a man’s eyes, drinking wine, and kissing him. He wasn’t able to get the image of her parted lips, and the way her cheek sank in, out of his head for days.
He watched her full lips curve around the spoon as she stared intently into the bowl and imagined them around his cock. She was not paying one ounce of attention to him, so he let his eyes linger on her toes. They were just perfect toes, topped off with a splash of bright feminine pink, and her feet looked porcelain smooth and inviting. But he held back. They worked together and had a deadline looming. So, he held his breath, while his heart raced, but kept his eyes on her feet and slurped the stew.
****
Megan thought Ben was looking at her toes. She felt flush, warm and woozy, kind of embarrassed. Her feet, for chrissake. The way he looked at her, well, it was almost appealing, almost even sexy. But this was Ben, her partner, her best friend who had a string of lovers, probably longer than hers.
“What are you doing, Ben?” She took another bite.
“Eating soup and, ah, looking at your toes. They, ah, look really good,” he saidy.
“Maybe you need some coffee, Ben,” Megan said, trying to ignore the smoldering look in his eyes.
“Sorry, I just never knew that you had such pretty feet,” he said and smiled.
Oh, this is ridiculous, she thought, is he trying to mess with me?
“We work together,” Ben stammered. “You know, I should never have mentioned how pretty you feet are. Or how pretty you are, period.”
“You think I’m pretty?” She rubbed her chin, suddenly feeling a bit awkward, and usually she was comfortable with Ben.
He looked quickly down at his soup. “Yeah,” he murmured into it.
Megan felt herself blushing and, yet, intrigued by the suddenly less confident chef of a partner. She had never heard him stammer or seem so unsure. He looked hungrily at her toes again.
“You know, I’d kind of like to touch them,” he said, with more confidence, after drinking another sip of wine.
Just how much wine had Ben devoured?
She met his eyes, still certain her face was red. A memory of him rubbing chicken breasts popped into her head. She watched him intently that day, as he taught that class. His fingers were beautiful and the way he moved them was absorbing. She rolled her eyes at the women in the class, so obvious in their flirtations. She’d be damned if she’d bow down to a man like that. Any man.
She had not blushed in years, but now she felt heat creeping on to her face.
“Why?” she said, goading him.
He shrugged and cleared his throat. “Well, I thought maybe your feet were tired. You’ve been standing on them cooking. I always like to get a good foot massage after cooking.”
“Well,” she said. “In that case. Yeah, sure. You can rub them.” She felt warm and slightly tipsy from the wine and was intrigued by the idea of a foot massage – which she never had before, even if it was just Ben giving it to her.
But he made no move, yet. He was still finishing his soup, holding the bowl up to his mouth to drink the last drop, his tongue licking his lips in utter abandonment.
“Well? Aren’t you going to rub them?” she finally said, after a long stretch of silence.
“I want to,” he said.
“So?
“Well, I hesitate because…”
“What is it, Ben?”
“It’s my fingers,” he said half seriously. “They are a burden and a curse.” He smiled. “I have the touch, you know?”
Those fingers! Meg focused on them immediately. The only feature she had ever found appealing about him – until tonight, when she realized that Ben had soft blue, almost violet eyes. The cobalt blue bowls seemed to bring out the color even more. Had she ever really looked at him before? She’d always focused on what he was doing with his hands, getting to know how he worked and thought.
“What do you mean?” she asked, perplexed.
“I mean,” he said, moving his face closer to hers, while they were still sitting on he floor. “If I touch you, there will be no denying me.”
At first, Meg wanted to laugh, then felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She could feel his warm breath, smell the soup on it. She moved in closer.
“Really,” she said, never been one to shy away from any hint of a sexual challenge, coworker or not. She touched his hot, slightly sweaty face, looked into his blue eyes. “Ben, touch me. I think I can handle it,” she said, mockingly, laughed, though she felt butterflies soaring in her stomach.
He took her hand off his face and pulled away from her, so he could reach her feet.
“Here, grab a pillow, make yourself comfortable.”
Meg laid her head and back on some pillows and laid back, closed her eyes. She wiggled her toes. “Okay, Ben. I am ready. Let’s see what happens with these magic fingers of yours.”
She used a nonchalant in her tone, hoping to assuage her sudden nervousness and to hide from him. Who did he think he was? No denying him? Ha.
He laughed, softly, and grabbed her feet. Each one of her feet fit in a hand, but he placed one on a brown-checked pillow. He made a mental note to talk to her about her really bad taste in pillows, which should be one color and muted, perhaps silky. What was this country-gingham bullshit?
Ben’s hands felt slippery and warm and Megan realized that he had olive oil on them. Megan felt herself sinking into the pillows. He worked his way rubbing with the perfect amount of pressure between her toes, then to the ball of her feet, then, to her arch, where it tickled, yet burned with each pulse of his fingers. She had to stop herself from squealing in delight and moving her hips – her first inclination when she felt such intense pleasure. But this wasn’t sex, she reminded herself, even though she could feel a loosening and moistening between her legs. The rubbing, the fingers, those fingers on her feet. Rubbing her heel, moving away from the spot – she was poised between agony and ecstasy. If he rubbed her arch anymore, she was afraid of what she would do. Could she really be getting this hot because of a foot rub? And from her writing partner?
Megan had never been shy about her sexuality, but this was an awkward situation. She felt free to explore with many partners. She often took the initiative and had never been turned down, except for the yoga teacher. She’d never bought into the whole belief that women only wanted love, that sex was nothing more than a part of love for women, that it was only men that could sleep with a woman a get up and walk away never calling, never feeling anything. She had done that many times, more times than she wanted to admit. Megan did not want a relationship that tied her down. She only wanted to write and to experience life. She fought the sinking hot feeling in the pit of herself when she closed her eyes and her partner’s hands touched her feet.
“Oh,” finally bubbled from her mouth. “This is heavenly.”
“Good,” he said, sounding breathless.
He moved on to the other foot…oh God, the other foot. He started slowly again, moving between her toes, moving with a faster rhythm to the ball of her feet, she anticipated the arch-rub so much that she held her breath. It escaped with an audible sigh when he started rubbing. She felt the wetness between her thighs increase and she was afraid that soon she would have to leave the room and change because she was getting so swollen against the seam of her jeans, and so moist just from his fingers rubbing her feet. There was a part of her that felt like this was a dream, that it was not really happening. She was embarrassed for him see her this way. Really, he was her colleague. She needed to get control of herself. How much further could she let this go?
She sank further into the cushions, feeling more relaxed than she had in months. The book tour was hideously stressful, the reviews so lukewarm, and the new book proposal taking days and days of work, then negotiations. She was relaxed, but parts of her were lit. It was getting hard to deny – she was feeling turned on by Ben and his foot rubbing.
****
Ben focused intently on each toe, on each crevice between them, gentle, gentle, hard, harder. Circular rubbing. His fingers found their rhythm. He was touching her feet. He could feel the heat coming from them, could almost feel tingling in his fingers, like they were ablaze with energy. She was responding to each and every move he made, now.
She leaned her head back, almost arching her back, revealing cleavage. He could see the outline of an erect nipple. Was she as turned on as he was? How could this be? They had worked together for years, had been friends, listened to one another’s love life problems, knew one another so well – and yet never a real attraction between them. It must be the stew. Was it really an aphrodisiac? They had both scoffed at the possibility. But, he felt a familiar heat rise between his thighs. He was getting hard. Usually not one shy away from a potential of getting laid, this time his first emotion was fear. What if she turned him down? How humiliating would that be? How could they work together?
What if she didn’t turn him down?
“I, ah, better go,” he said, standing so quickly that he almost knocked over the bottle of olive oil next to him. “Oh, what a klutz. Shit. I’m sorry.”
When he stood, Megan saw a huge swell in his pants. It had been so long since she had seen anything like that, let alone felt this intense wave of pleasure. She had been working so hard that she rarely went out to meet anyone, let alone sex.
“What’s wrong?” Megan asked him, sitting up and taking another sip of wine. “What’s going on?”
“I just think I better leave before, before—“ he said, sitting back down on the floor, placing a pillow over his crotch, looking so vulnerable, so steamy.
Somehow in their clumsy awkward struggle, Megan found her foot on his crotch, so warm and hard. He gasped.
“Megan, I don’t think—“
She removed her foot from him, seeing his embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. I lost control. I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said breathlessly, sitting up.
They now sat side by side on the couch. She touched his face. “Ben, why do I feel like this?” She was sweltering, her heart palpitating. “All of a sudden, I feel—“
“Me, too. It must be the durian,” he said, looking deeply into her amber eyes. It was as if those words gave him permission to do what he really wanted. What the fuck, he thought, it was worth a try. He would not be a man if he didn’t at least give it a try. The next moment, he pulled her closer to him, grabbed her face, and kissed her. Megan met his kiss with a shocking passion, a swiveling tongue, which sent him reeling.
“Okay,” she whispered, her heart racing, but feeling like suddenly this felt right – surprisingly, so right.
Ben held her, filled his arms with her, exploring every piece of her that he could while still clothed. They necked on her couch like two teenagers as the room darkened with the night, only a dim sliver of light coming through the window.
Megan reached for his zipper. His fly came down and out came the most magnificent cock she had ever seen – long, hot, and throbbing, standing high, curved just so. Her breath caught in her throat.
Ben knew there was no turning back now. As he looked at Megan, felt her all over him, he knew he could not stop what was about to happen. He didn’t want to.
She sighed. It was all she could do; words escaped her, she could not talk anymore. She wanted him on her feet, between her breasts, in her mouth, and shoved inside her deep. She knew she should be worried about making it with her colleague. She muffled the voice in her head. The salivating voice between her thighs was much stronger.
Megan leaned back reached for it with her feet, rubbing it with her feet, her hands. The next thing she knew, Ben coaxed off her shirt, he was rubbing it on her breasts, pushing himself between them, her mouth begging to taste him – and did, briefly.
But he had yet to touch her where she needed him to. She placed his hand on her crotch, she was wet through her jeans, which he took off with one swoop off his strong arms, as she lifted her hips.
He knew where she wanted him, but he liked her straddled on the edge of ecstasy. He could see her craving in the smokiness of her eyes, the opening of her lips, the movements in her hips. He taunted her, touching all around her hot spots, rubbing the inside of her thick, muscular thighs, moving back up to her breasts – so delicious, with their pink mulberry nipples swirling around in gentle, jiggling movements. He lightly bit one, sending her into writhing frenzy.
“Ben, please,” she panted. “I’m on the pill…it’s safe…” Oh, why didn’t he just touch her, fuck her, or something?
Finally, he touched her pulsing, juicy mound with those fingers, she responded in orgasmic waves. Sweet relief. Then, Ben filled her with himself, with such rhythm and tenderness, until he burst inside her and collapsed next to her on the couch.
****
Megan dozed off, only to awaken a few hours later to Ben’s caresses and his hot, hard cock rubbing up against her. All that and he wanted more.
His mouth found hers and he kissed her with such tenderness and hunger that she was hot once again. His long, beautiful fingers, wrapped themselves around her breasts, and then dipped into her. His mouth took in her breasts, and then kissed her stomach. Lifting her legs above his head, lowering his face into her, sucking her until she lost control of her body once more. They were swept away, both feeling like they were nothing more than the pleasure of their body parts. He was everywhere on her, in her. She rolled on top of him, wanting control. Holding his arms down, she straddled him and rode him, sending him to a pulsing mess.
“Oh, the way…you move…”
She just wanted him inside her. That gorgeous long, wide piece of manhood she could feel reaching the end of her. When he came again, it was one of most intense spasms Megan had ever felt.
She draped herself over him and they fell asleep cradled in each other’s arms.
One thought Megan had before drifting off in a sticky mess: What exactly happened here? Was this passion the potion? Was it more than that?
She realized she didn’t care. She only wanted more.
Chapter Two
When Megan woke up the next day on her floor, sunlight streaming in through her blinds, she pulled herself away from Ben, still sleeping soundly. She wanted a shower and stole away to the bathroom.
The water made her skin tingle and as she soaped herself, it felt like she was still on fire from yesterday. Every move, every touch was intensified. What the fuck was in that stuff? And more importantly, was it the durian that made them so hot?
Megan had heard about office relationships, but their partnership didn’t take place in an office. They usually wrote together in his place or her place, or in a café or restaurant. So, even their business relationship was a little unusual. Sometimes, they might not see each other for weeks. She worked in her home, and him in his. She never fantasized about America’s “sexiest chef.” But she did admit she was curious about what other women had seen in him. He was not even handsome – well, at least not in any traditional sense. His eyes were a beautiful shade of blue, but they were really deep set and way too close together, which always bothered her until last night. He had a strong, square jaw, which she had always found unappealing, until…last night. Now, the slightly dimple, square jaw was firmly, deliciously planted in her mind.
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, smelling something cooking in her kitchen. She threw a robe on. Ben was standing at the stove, flipping pancakes. He looked at her, smiled. “Good morning,” he said.
She smiled. “What are you making?”
“Pancakes, with stew.”
“The stew?
“Yes, I thought would be interesting to have it on top of pancakes.”
“Hmmm. Maybe,” she conceded, reaching for a towel to wipe off the counter and brushing up against him.
“Don’t distract me,” he scolded her.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”
“You always do,” he said, flipping a pancake, pouring another. “Bet you didn’t know that.”