Page 64 of Piece Us Together

“Good morning.” I gesture weakly to the coffee maker. “Coffee is almost ready.”

“Thank fuck.” He rubs a hand over his hair, then his face. He looks a little more awake after that. Awake enough to remember to check his surroundings, something I’ve noticed he always does in each new room. His eyes land on the window. I brace myself for anger or annoyance. Instead, his lips curl into a soft smile. “Ah, hell. Nolan is going to want to play in that.”

I can’t help but smile then too. “Probably.”

“Explains why it’s freezing in here.”

“That, and my furnace is awful. I can try to crank it higher to see if it’ll make a difference. I have a working fireplace too, but I’m kind of awful at using it. I have a lot of blankets though. I sort of went through a knitting phase a few years ago.”

Maison interrupts my nervous rambling with a cocked brow and a teasing, “Knitting phase?”

“It was dark times. Don’t judge.”

His amused smirk falters. “How dark? Are you okay?”

Something warm bubbles in my stomach. I ignore it. “I was just joking. Or, well, kind of joking. Iwasstruggling, which is why I took knitting up as a sort of coping mechanism. It helped to have something to do. I had finished my doctorate and applied to a ton of universities, so I was stuck just…waiting. At the same time, I’d just broken things off with my submissive.”

“Why’d you break things off?”

“We wanted different things.”

I can see it—the question ofwhat did you want?I can see him shove it down, his expression carefully turning blank, his eyes flicking away to stare at the window. I try not to feel crushed byit. He was curious, at least.Sure, he shut that curiosity down, but it was there for a second—that’s something, right?

God, I’m pathetic.

“Do you have plans today?” he asks.

“Just trying to stay warm. Maybe get some papers graded.”

He looks at me again. His expression is guarded. Controlled. “Probably not safe to drive on the roads…”

“No, probably not.” I eye him, wondering what he wants from me.Does he want to be stuck here, or does he want reassurance he can escape?“But I’m sure the plows will be out soon enough, if the two of you had plans.”

“No plans.” He peeks at me through his lashes, his voice soft, wavering. “We should probably stay. You know, to be safe.”

“Right. To be safe.”

“Just for a few hours. Maybe the afternoon. Not another night or anything.”

I let myself do something I try not to do with him. I let myself look at him like a dominant. I let myself analyze, assess, decide. Then I say, “I think it’d be nice if the two of you stayed another night. I know I’d like it, at least. Even if it was just some platonic time together.”

“Yeah?” he asks, his tilting voice giving away just how happy he is to be given the offer even if his expression has gone blank.

“Definitely.”

He rubs at his stubbled jaw before slowly nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. I mean, I have to ask Nol, but I’m sure he’ll want to. He likes being here.”

“I like him being here.” I turn my back, wanting to make him feel more comfortable before I add, “I like you being here, too.”

There’s a heavy silence as I start pouring the finished coffee into two mugs. I let us sit in it, not feeling a need to push the topic if he doesn’t want to participate in it, but not feeling the need to hurry us to something else either.

He swallows hard when I hand him his mug, his eyes not lifting to meet mine. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You drink it black, right?”

“Uh, yeah. I do.” He thumbs the rim of his mug, his eyebrows pulling together. “You notice a lot.”

“I do.”

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