Page 27 of Starved

“Hey,” he said, his early morning voice like velvet over gravel, and yawned. He’d pulled on jeans but nothing else, and he’d left the jeans unfastened. The sight made Colin’s mouth water in a way that had nothing to do with his rumbling stomach.

“Hey.” He added a thick pat of butter to the pan he had heating on the stove, filling the kitchen with the sweet scent. “There’s coffee if you want it.”

“That’s what woke me up,” Evan admitted and crossed the kitchen for a cup. “I thought I was making breakfast.”

“I was up first.” Colin picked up the pan to swirl the melting butter around. “And I’m out of Pop-Tarts.”

Evan gulped his coffee. “You know that was a joke, right?”

Colin just looked at him, one eyebrow arched in question.

“Okay, it was half a joke,” Evan admitted.

“That’s what I figured.” Since the butter had melted, Colin swirled the pan to spread it around and added the beaten eggs.

Evan sipped his coffee. “Anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” Colin decided, and setting the spatula down, reached out to dip his hand into the open waistband of Evan’s jeans. He grabbed a fistful of material, reveled in the little thrill the brush of pubic hair against his fingers provided, and gave a solid yank so Evan stumbled forward, his chest bumping against Colin’s. “You can give me a kiss.”

Evan was grinning when his mouth met Colin’s. He tasted like coffee and morning, a combination Colin had always avoided with past lovers, but with Evan, he just didn’t give a shit. He wanted the kiss, and he wasn’t going to wait for minty freshness to get it.

He was rougher than he’d intended, fed by the sight of sleepy, sexy Evan in nothing but a pair of jeans held up only by a dick and a prayer, and he worried for a moment it would be too much. But Evan met him beat for feral beat, and when they finally pulled apart they were both panting.

“You can make some toast, too,” Colin said, and with a last little nip on that plump lower lip, eased back to rescue the eggs.

“Toast,” Evan repeated, his chest heaving, and let out a whistling breath. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Bread’s on the counter,” Colin pointed out, unaccountably pleased when Evan just stared at it with a bemused look on his face. “You know, for the toast.”

“Right.” Evan reached for the bread, then realized he still held the coffee cup. He set it down. “Shit, Col.”

Torn between embarrassment and amusement, Colin stirred the eggs. “Sorry. I got carried away.”

“Don’t apologize.” Evan shoved four pieces of bread in the toaster, picked up his coffee cup, and staggered back to lean against the counter. “You can kiss me like that anytime.”

“I’ll remember that.” Colin reached for the aged Gouda he’d taken out of the fridge. “You okay with cheese in the eggs?”

“Sure,” Evan said. “You okay with your dick in my mouth?”

Colin scraped his knuckles on the cheese grater. Ignoring the throbbing in his hand, he stared at Evan. “Now?”

“Maybe when you’re not working with sharp objects. You okay?”

“I’ll live.” But he set down the cheese grater.

“Sorry,” Evan said, but the chuckle didn’t sound at all contrite. “You just look so domestic, cooking us breakfast. It’s sexy.”

Flustered, Colin turned down the flame under the eggs. “Domestic is sexy?”

“Maybe domestic isn’t the right word. Competent,” Evan decided. “That’s what it is. Competency porn.”

Colin wasn’t unfamiliar with the term, but he’d never imagined it applied to himself. It embarrassed him a little, and it pleased him.

“Probably got a couple of meetings, so you dress up a little, even though they can’t see all of you over Zoom,” Evan said, gesturing to the charcoal slacks and pale blue button-down Colin wore. “And you don’t want to spill egg or butter or whatever on yourself, so you put on the apron—which is the cleanest apron I’ve ever seen, by the way.”

Colin glanced down at the crisp white cotton canvas, heat flooding his cheeks. “I got mustard on it last week, so I washed it.”

“You’ve got your tidy apron and your neat clothes and your sexy as fuck glasses—”

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