Page 21 of Wild Fixation
Seth’s hand retreats, like the invitation made his supportive touch too intimate to bear. “I’m fine.”
I shake my head, another movement I come to regret. “You stayed here all night. I was such a mess. Please at least let me feed you. I’ll feel terrible if I don’t.”
“It’s my job.”
Those words should throw up a wall between us, but I’m too raw and aching and miserable to abide that sort of thing this morning.
“It’s not your job to sleep in a chair all night watching over me, Seth, and you know it. Let me give you some food. Otherwise I’ll have to find a different way to repay you.”
He goes very still, like the surface of the ocean before a storm churns it into chaos. The water is too opaque for me to see through. Whatever is going on in those depths, it remains a mystery, but eventually Seth nods.
“Great,” I say with all the enthusiasm I can muster in my current state. “Let me take a quick shower first. I feel completely disgusting.”
I hop out of bed, and only then notice that I’m not wearing any pants. Seth puts his back to me even though I’m wearing boxer briefs. Does this mean he took my pants off last night? God, I wish I could remember that. I finally had my knight in shining armor undressing me in my bed and I was too drunk to realize it. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for that.
I relieve Seth by hurrying to the bathroom and throwing myself in the shower. The bathroom is enormous, including the shower. Seth could wash at the same time and we’d barely bump into each other, but unfortunately he leaves me to complete the task alone. I let the hot water hit me in the face and hopefully slap some sense into me. It helps with the lingering skein of grossness coating my skin and even with the headache, but not with my wandering thoughts. I claw through my hazy memories of the previous night, searching for the moments when Seth must have carried me to bed and undressed me, those big, careful hands peeling each layer of clothing off. I’ll never know if his touch lingered a beat too long, if his gaze flickered over my body, if he whispered something candid in the dark.
Most likely he didn’t, of course. The man hasn’t said anything about his sexuality, leaving me to reach the most obvious conclusion: my pining goes one way, and always will.
I sigh at myself as I shut off the water and towel myself dry. I feel a little more human when I throw on clean clothes and heap the dirty ones in a laundry basket, but as I pad out of my room, I stop short.
Seth is standing at the stove in an apron.
He has his back to me as he uses a spatula to fiddle with something on the stove. The food hisses and crackles, the scent of rich, greasy fat sliding down my throat. My stomach grumbles, but it’s not the body part I’m most concerned about. I didn’t intend for Seth to cook for me when I invited him to have food with me this morning, and the sight of him in my kitchen twists something inside me. This place is enormous, the kitchen flowing seamlessly into a living room backed by a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city. It isn’t an apartment so much as a palace, complete with cold white furnishings and stainless steel.
Seth makes it feel a little smaller, a little warmer, a little less empty.
I creep closer, settling on a stool at the huge, granite-topped island in the center of the kitchen. From closer, the smell slaps me in the face, digging into my stomach like claws, yet I sit back and watch the broad set of Seth’s shoulders, the slight shifts of the muscle under his customary black T-shirt as he pushes something around in a pan. The ties of the apron around his waist accentuate the way his body tapers smoothly from broad shoulders to slim hips.
He sets the spatula down and swings toward me with a cup of coffee. He sets it before me, adding creamer.
“Found the creamer in the fridge,” he says. “I’m not sure exactly how you take your coffee so this is my best guess. Drink it. You’ll feel better.”
I don’t disagree, especially not with my heart fluttering up into my throat. Has God himself ever designed a more perfect man that this? I sip, hoping to calm myself, but in a few minutes Seth turns to the island once again, this time holding two plates heaped with scrambled eggs and bacon.
He sets one in front of me, and sits across from me at the island with the other. He takes off the apron, leaving it on the stool beside him.
“Wasn’t sure how you take your eggs either,” he says. “There’s salt and pepper on them.”
“That’s perfect,” I say.
My stomach can’t wait another moment. I dig in, relinquishing a moan when I bite into perfectly chewy bacon. The grease slides down my chin. The fat fills my aching stomach after one bite. I don’t realize I’ve closed my eyes in bliss until I open them and find Seth watching me.
“Sorry,” I mutter, wiping the grease off with a napkin.
He says nothing, putting his head down and tucking into his own meal. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was staring in a very un-heterosexual way, but he’s probably just grossed out. Not only was I a sloppy drunk last night, but now I’m moaning over bacon.
“You know,” I say around a mouthful of egg, “when I invited you to eat, I didn’t mean that I expected you to cook for me. Pretty sure that falls outside your job description.”
He shrugs his big shoulders, still not looking at me. “It’s okay. You probably need the fat right now. It’ll make you feel better, and I didn’t mind.”
“Yeah, but I could have ordered us something.”
Seth shakes his head, finally meeting my eyes. “It’s alright. It’s my job to take care of you. So I did.”
Our forks freeze in place. Seth holds my gaze as my stomach tumbles around, my whole body light and fluttery. Is it just a job? I’ve never heard of a bodyguard who tucks you in at night and cooks you breakfast in the morning. Combined with the multiple times he’s physically carried me away from danger, I’d have to be made of stone not to fall for this man. It doesn’t hurt that even after sleeping in a chair all night, he’s ruggedly gorgeous with his tight beard and keen eyes, those big hands that can move so delicately and decisively all at once.
Seth clears his throat, and I realize I’ve been staring. We both put our heads down and eat, but I yearn to speak again, to find something, anything, to say. My head is too muddled for cleverness this morning. Frankly, I’m lucky to make it through the meal without moaning about the bacon again.
