Page 79 of If Only In Our Dreams

The way I’d pushed against him when we were in bed together.

How tiny his cock looked in my fist.

How badly he wanted to touch me—because I’d denied him the first time.

My little bird needed a lesson in patience, and while I too was eager to get to the “good stuff” myself, I refused to ruin what we had by taking things too fast. Maybe it was sadistic of me, but I enjoyed the way he squirmed.

After cocoa, we went out for dinner this time—pizza—from the only pizza joint in Belleville.

Slice of Heaven was packed despite it being a Sunday, and Robin kept twitching every time our thighs bumped beneath the table. The girls sat across from us, prim and proper, little napkins tucked into their dresses as they stared seriously down at their pizza like they expected the cheese to jump up and bite them.

I slid my hand beneath the table and up Robin’s thigh, biting back a grin when he flinched, then groaned, sliding lower in his seat as he pressed into the touch. He peered up at me through his lashes again, his piercing clacking when he bit his lip.

“Eat your food,” I commanded, giving his thigh a gentle squeeze. Even his legs were small. My hand took up quite a bit of space. Enough so that my fingers bumped his inseam, and Iwas able to cup the top half of it entirely. My eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to me, “Did you eat lunch?”

Robin glanced away, sheepish.

“Breakfast?”

“Matilda cooked,” Robin blurted, obviously embarrassed.

“But did you eat it?”

“Yeees? Kinda.”

“How do youkindaeat breakfast?”

The girls gave Robin confused looks. “Why didn’t you eat?” Rosie asked. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to?”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Jane murmured quietly from beside her.

“If you don’t eat you’ll never grow,” Rosie told Robin. “You’ll stay likethat, forever.” She said the wordthatlike Robin’s current form was the most detestable thing she’d ever seen.

“Thanks for the advice.” Robin smiled at the two of them, then turned to me with an expression that begged forhelp.

I nudged him with my shoulder, squeezing his thigh again, this time in commiseration. Because there was no help I could give that would protect him from toddler-barbs. They were simply too good at sniffing out one’s weaknesses and stabbing right where they were squishiest.

“Maybe if you ate better you wouldn’t be so short,” Rosie continued, as if she hadn’t just said that exact thing in a different way.

“Or look like you died,” Jane added helpfully.

I snorted out a laugh and stepped in. “Robin looks tired because he’s got a very hectic job.”

“He doesn’t have a job,” Rosie pointed out. “All he does is walk around looking for you.”

Robin chuckled and shrugged a shoulder as if to say “touche”.

“He’s on vacation,” I corrected them.

Both girls eyed Robin curiously, as if learning that he did, in fact, have a job made him twenty times more interesting.

“Are you a emball-meer?” Rosie asked, because she’d recently learned about embalmers and now thought everyone should be one, as macabre as that sounded.

“A what?” Robin blinked. It took him a second, but then he laughed. “Ah, no. Nope.”

“What about a funeral parlor director?” Jane added, sounding the words out slow and careful.

“Or a grave digger,” Rosie chimed in.

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