Page 96 of Sugar Baby Mine

“You’re sure you don’t own half of this or something?” I ask, rolling my suitcase into the bedroom we’re staying in, almost weeping at the waterfront view outside the sliding glass doors.

“What would it change if I did?”

“I wouldn’t feel as bad making a mess of this room.”

He glides past me, settling his suitcase on the end of the bed and unzipping it. I follow, running my fingers along the fluffy, white duvet that would never survive a single day in my possession without getting messed up. As it is, I want to climb on and jump to see how bouncy the mattress is in comparison tothe one from Italy. If I asked, Ben would throw me onto it in a heartbeat.

“Just enjoy the weekend.”

I blow out a breath, throwing my suitcase open. It’s the same one I used for our trip to Italy, the colorful chaos of mine compared to the organized monochrome of Ben’s, and again I’m not sure how we even work together at all. I just want to stick my hand in his clothes and stir everything up for the fun of it, even when I wish I could be more like him. The best I’ve got is the wrinkled clothes that I picked up and folded from the clean pile of laundry that’s been sitting at the end of my bed for two weeks.

“I’ll try.”

His hand covers the pile of underwear I’ve just set down. “Won’t be needing these then.”

And he just—sweeps them off the side of the bed.

“Ben,” I whine. “I’m going to have to pick those back up.”

“You were going to have to pick them up off the floor eventually, anyway,” he says, the confidence in his tone swaying me on my feet.

“If I can’t wear underwear, neither can you.”

“Fine with me.”

I’m screaming inside, because he’s just set down a pair of gray sweatpants and they’re absolutely going to be my undoing.

“Whatever.”

When we’re done unpacking our clothes, it’s my stomach that breaks the strangely comfortable silence. A growl that betrays the way I’d just cooly crossed my arms.

“Hungry?”

“Mmmmm, I could eat.”

“Well,” Ben settles down into the bed, laying on his side as he scrolls through his phone, “there’s a lot of good restaurants that are pretty close. Or we could order something in, if you prefer.”

I bring a knee up onto the mattress, walking across the bedon my palms until I crawl over him and stick my face in his side when I can’t go any further. I breathe him in, the way the pure sensation of comfort spreads across my skin is cruel. My arms wrap around his middle, and he drops his arm around my shoulders as he tosses his phone down.

“Maybe I just want to eat you.”

“Funny,” he chides, a hand carding through my hair. “You forget to eat three meals a day enough, but not when I’m around.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a feeding kink?”

He chuckles, shifting until his back is pressed to the bed. I scoot up until I’m hovering over him. “I’m sure that I just like to see you healthy.”

“Boring,” I huff, leaning down until I can almost taste the cherry Twizzlers still lingering on his breath.

His fingertips graze my hips, head tilting to the side as he looks up at me. There’s that assessing quality to his gaze, but I can’t say I hate it when he looks at me so intensely. Even when I feel stripped bare beneath him, there’s a vulnerability reflected back at me that makes me safe. And when I would like nothing more than to let my decision paralysis either consume me or fall back on something old and familiar, he pulls me to the surface again.

“Why don’t we go out tonight, stay in tomorrow?”

My body feels looser, more relaxed as he curves his palms over the backs of my thighs. I drop down to my elbows, our chests pressing together as a little whoosh of breath lifts from him.

“Can we see the shops?” I ask, my thumb tracing over his lower lip.

He squeezes me tighter to him, making my hips rolling reflexively. He bites the end of my thumb hard enough for me to retract it.

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