Page 90 of Icebound Hearts

“I’m starving,” she whispers. “Are you hungry?”

The thing I’m most hungry for is her, but since I’ve technically already eaten that meal tonight—twice—I figure she’s probably talking about real food.

“Yeah, I could go for a snack,” I answer, nodding.

She hums in response, then grabs a jar of pickles in the door. She slides them onto the island countertop, then crosses the kitchen to the pantry.

“What are you after?” I ask, watching her curiously.

“Peanut butter,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

My brows twitch upward. I know exactly what kind of peanut butter she likes, and what brand of pickles. I’ve been making sure the house stays stocked with them ever since she came to live here. But I didn’t know she liked to combine the two.

“Wait, you eat pickles… with peanut butter?”

She pops her head out of the pantry, shooting me a pitying look. “You’ve clearly been missing out on the finer things in life.”

“Or maybe you’re just a monster?” I tease, and she lets out a quiet laugh.

“Hey, don’t knock it ’til you try it,” she insists, then emerges from the pantry with a jar of smooth peanut butter a moment later.

She reaches back into the cabinets and pulls out a bowl, then scoops a healthy amount of peanut butter into it. Then she spears a pickle out of the jar with a fork and dips it in the peanut butter. She takes a bite and closes her eyes, an expression of bliss spreading across her features as she moans softly. The sound goes straight to my cock, making me think of all the other ways I’ve elicited that noise from her.

“Mmm, that’s delicious,” she says, opening her eyes again and grinning brightly.

“You really are a monster,” I say with a chuckle.

She gives me an innocent look. “What? It’s good!”

I arch a brow skeptically. “I’ll take your word for it. But I swear, the combinations of foods you love are wild. If I hadn’t had that vasectomy, I’d be convinced you’re pregnant.”

Violet laughs and dips the pickle wedge into the peanut butter again, then holds it out to me. “Like I said, it’s good! Want to try?”

I arch a brow at her, my nose wrinkled. “No thanks.”

She tilts her head to one side, pouting her lower lip a little as she looks up at me through her lashes. “Please?”

Jesus. I wonder if she knows the effect that single word has on me when it comes out of her mouth.

Rather than admitting that there’s no fucking way I could deny her anything when she looks at me like that, I give a grudging nod. “Alright, fine. I’ll try it.Onebite.”

“Brave man.”

She grins at me in a way that makes her look entirely too alluring, and I accept the proffered snack and take a tentativebite. Although the texture of the creamy peanut butter with the crunch of the pickle is a shock to my taste buds at first, the more I chew, the more I find that it’s not bad.

“Hm,” I say, and she must interpret the sound correctly as reluctant agreement, because she beams at me.

“See? It’s the sweet and sour thing. I know it sounds gross, but it makes such a good combo.”

She offers me another bite, so I take a bigger one this time and chew it, then pull her in to steal a kiss before she can take another bite herself. The sweet saltiness is still lingering on both our tongues, and I’m not really sure how, but tasting it on hers makes it even better.

“Delicious,” I say, licking my lips when we part, and Violet blushes. We quietly share a few more bites—and kisses—while we hang out in the kitchen. I can’t believe it, but I’m actually starting to like this weird combination.

“How do you discover all these… interesting foods anyway?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I just try stuff without thinking too hard about it. Some people make life way more complicated than it needs to be.”

“So, what, one day you just decided to dunk a pickle in peanut butter and see how it went?”

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