Page 28 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

“I’m hungry,” he said.

She startled and turned. She was looking at him as if he had grown a second head. It was possible that he was being rude.

“I made dinner,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, those words felt so foreign to him, and yet he had found himself saying them to her often.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

She was staring at him. He couldn’t quite work out why.

“Are you well?”

“Perfectly,” she said.

She stood up, and attempted what he could only describe as a scurry when she went past him. He reached out and took her arm. Forcing her to face him. Her eyes connected with his, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. And suddenly he remembered.

He had kissed her. He had pulled her down onto the bed, and he had...

He let go of her and took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he said. Those words really were foreign on his lips. He never said them. He never had occasion to. He was never wrong.

But this had been wrong. He had been half out of his mind, he hadn’t made sure that she evenwantedto kiss him, he had held her to him, and then she had run away. She had spilled the tea. That was what had happened.

The touching had not been comforting, it had, in fact, been sexual and while he felt like a brute for how it must have occurred there was something placating in the realization that it was sexual, and familiar to him for that reason.

It wasn’t different.

It wasn’t singular.

“I was... Not thinking.”

“Oh, I know,” she said.

“No, I mean... I had a fever and I...”

“I know,” she practically wailed. “And I feel terrible.”

“You feel terrible?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was wrong with me to do that. I took advantage of you.”

He barked out a helpless laugh. “You took advantage of me?”

“Yes.”

“You are tiny. And the first time I saw you, you were dressed as a deer. You are hardly a seductive siren. I am the one that took advantage.”

“Now you’re insulting me on top of everything else.”

“Nothing that I said was an insult, it was simply true.”

“Well, it was bracing,” she said. “And not fair.”

“What do you not find fair about it, little one?”

“It’s... Okay. Maybe it’s true. Maybe I’m not a seductive siren. But I knew what I was doing. I mean, I meant to kiss you. You didn’t force me to. But you clearly wouldn’t have chosen to kiss me if you weren’t out of your mind.”

“That is categorically untrue,” he said, feeling the danger rise up inside of him. Feeling the warning. He shouldn’t be saying this, he shouldn’t be drawing closer to her, none of this should be happening right now.

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