click here to listen to part 2

He arrived just as I slid the casserole dish into the oven.

From where I stood, I could hear the front door click open, then shoes slipping off feet to be lined neatly next to one another on the welcome mat.

“Hello?”

“Heyyyy,” I sang back. “I’m in the kitchen.”

I deliberately kept my back to him as he walked in to find me languidly stirring the contents of the pot on the stovetop. I wanted to feel him before I looked.

Reading me just right, he palmed my hip with his free hand as he sidled up to me from behind. 

“Wow, smells amazing,” he said hooking his chin over my shoulder.

“Thanks,” I leaned my cheek into his, “so do you. And clean-shaven today too? What’s the occasion?”

“Hot date tonight.”

“Good for you. You think they’ll put out?”

“I’m kinda hoping so.”

Without pulling away, I turned to face him then, wrapping my arms loosely around his neck. The bottle of rose in his hand was cool on my thigh as he urged me in closer for a soft kiss hello, to which I responded with a slight but full-body swoon. Then we exchanged verbal greetings with the same level of nauseating cuteness that happens when you wake up and find the person you like still lying next to you:

“Hey.” — “Hey.” — and another kiss, but slower this time.

“So can I help you with anything?” We were still nose to nose when he asked. I could smell the sharp freshness of mouthwash still lingering on his breath.

“Nope,” I stole another quick peck and turned my attention back to the steaming saucepan. “You just sit down and do the most important job of all.” His eyebrows asked the silent question for him. “Look pretty for me,” I explained.

“Of course.” He batted his eyes at me and offered me a little bow. “I graciously accept this mission, my lady.”

In his violet-grey button-down shirt—with the sleeves expertly folded to the crook of his elbow, exposing his lovely forearms, a fitted grey vest that cut his lines at all the right angles, and dark slim-fitting jeans cinched with a smart leather belt, he was already off to a good start.

“Oh, and open that wine,” I added.

“Yes, ma’am. I am on it.”

While I shucked basil leaves from their stalks and sliced them into thin strips, I heard the clink of glasses being dragged from the cupboard, the crack of the bottle, the glug of the first pour, then the second. Just as I dropped the aromatic leaf bits into the rich, tomatoey sauce, he was behind me again, wrapping his arm past my midsection to place my glass next to the cutting board.

“Thank you.”

I shivered; he nipped softly at my neck as our glasses clinked. 

“Soooo, how—” 

“Hold that thought,” I said pulling away to stir the pot once again. I dragged the wooden spoon through the bright red sauce and scooped up a bit on the end, blowing softly to cool it just enough before slipping it into my mouth.

“Ohhh, fuck, dude... Damn, I'm good. Come here and taste this.”

As I turned around with a scoop for him, one cupped hand under the bell of the spoon just in case, he kissed me first.

“Not me, silly. The sauce.”

“Oh right, sorry.”

---

We’d been seeing each other fairly steadily for a while by then. Though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where our story started. We’d worked pretty closely alongside each other for a couple years as servers at the same restaurant, but it will be forever unclear as to what the spark was. The thing that invited us to make the transition from friends to lovers, I mean. Whatever it was, I’m definitely not mad about it.

Then there were the several months of ‘hanging out’ before we realized just how much effort we had been putting into seeing each other on a regular basis. Once we got over respective insecurities about what starting a new ‘relationship’ should look like, we finally settled into whatever this nice thing we have going on here is.

And it was really nice.

---

He kept his fiery eyes on me as he dragged his lips over the weathered wood, stripping the sauce from the spoon. “Damn, that is good. It’s got some kick, hey?”

“Thank you, that’s the point of a good arrabbiata. She’s supposed to be a little angry.”

“Trying to give Chef Chuck a run for his money or what?”

I scoffed as I turned the heat down on the burner.

“I have zero intention of transitioning to Back of House, I assure you.”

“Good, because I think business at the restaurant would take a serious hit if you started coming in wearing baggy kitchen whites instead of that cute all-black-everything you’re usually rocking.”

He clasped the back of my neck and dragged his hand down my spine to palm my hip once more before pulling away. I looked over my shoulder and watched him take a seat on one of the bar stools at my island.

“Damn, dude.” I scrunched my face at him like I was appreciating a particularly greasy guitar riff. “You do that well.”

“What?” he asked in earnest.

Wine in hand, I crossed the kitchen to stand across from him at the island and very seriously said, “Look hella fine.”

He chuckled and averted his gaze with a hint of bashfulness before finding my face again. He was so adorable sometimes, it was painful. “Why, thank you. You’re not too bad yourself.”

“What, this?” I said raising both arms in presentation like a magician’s assistant. “I just woke up like this.”

“Well, whatever you’re doing in your sleep, keep doing it.”

I let my smile get the best of me that time and sighed freely. “Where did I find you?” I said raising my glass to him.

We cheersed once more, staring each other down with a little more ferocity this time as we sipped.

“Uhh…” he wiped a droplet of wine from the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb while he pretended to think. “Well, I think you targeted me after we made eyes at each other at one of Noah’s parties.”

“Targeted? Really? Come on.” I feigned offense, but I was also preening. “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Oh no?” he said. “Let me jog your memory then.” 

I pressed my palms to the counter behind me and bit the inside of my cheek, silently urging him to continue with this tale I already knew too well. Like a kid having their parents read their favorite book for the 17th time that night; I could listen to it at least once more.

“You were hanging around the fridge like kitchen lurker that you are.”

“What?” I mock-gasped and perched myself up on the counter’s edge, letting my feet dangle playfully. “Ample lean space, snacks and drinks in abundance, a constant revolving door of new faces coming straight to you? It’s clearly the most prime real estate at any house party!”

He got up then and made his way around to my side of the island.

“And you got sassy with me about my choice of beer,” he said wedging himself between my legs and resting his perpetually warm palms on my thighs.

“Mmm, yeah, you could have done better on that one, it’s true.”

“Being the low-key beer nerd that I am, I had no choice but to defend my honor. But that’s what you were banking on, wasn’t it?” He fiddled with the hem of my skirt between his thumb and forefinger. “You knew exactly what you were doing and had your claws dug in before I knew what was happening.”

He squeezed the dips of my waist with both hands; I leaned in and buried my face into his neck. Breathing him in, he smelled the same now as he did that night. “Mmm, maybe…” I conceded with a soft giggle.

“I was helpless…” 

Damn, he was good. His faux-bemoaning almost sounded genuine.

I jerked back to look him in the face again. “Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“Obviously not, since I asked you out on a proper date the very next night.”

“Ha! ‘Proper date.’ Is that what we’re call grabbing a beer after our shift and then you not so subtly inviting me back to your place to, uh, ‘continue our conversation’?” 

I said that last part in a deliberately bastardized rendition of his baritone voice.

He ignored my jab and kept going.

“And then when we got back to mine,” he kissed my neck and I shivered, “we both played coy because as hot as we were for each other, we were both a little unsure of how it would all work out at work the next day.” He nibbled my earlobe and I caught myself somewhere between a snicker and a swoon. “Not to mention we were probably both freaking out about being rejected, even though we knew that there was no other way we were going to go down.”

I pretended to push him away and said, “Ugh, who are you? I feel so seen right now,” but he just leaned in closer and slid his hand up my inner thigh, under my skirt.

“And then…” he said, his words coming more slowly now as he ran his knuckles along the crotch of my underwear. “Hmm… I think I’m drawing a blank now.”

It was with some difficulty that I tried to take over the narrative. 

“Well,—ohh—I think—mmmfuck—I might have made a joke about—hmm-mygod—wanting to make out with you but you—(sharp inhale)—you just kept rambling about how much you liked that new bar-back.”

“The one you hooked up with at the staff wine night, right?”

“Mmm,” I bit down on my lip to diffuse the moan oozing out of me. “Yeah, that's the one."

“Too bad he couldn’t have stuck around through the winter…” His taunting had fallen nearly to a whisper as he slid his fingers past my panties, rubbing slowly, up and down the length of flesh just beyond them. “I miss that guy too… He worked… really hard back there…” I groaned when he paused to press his knuckle to my rim of puckered muscle. “And then what?”

“Huh?”

“Keep going. What happened next?”

“Umm…” I was already drunk off his touch. “Wait, where were we?”

“Me rambling about the hot bar-back you hooked up with after the wine training seminar.” He pressed his whole palm to the curve of my mound for emphasis.

“Unhhhh,” I carded my fingers through his close-cropped hair; my lower back arched on its own. “And then, you got sassy and told me that I should probably find some way to shut you up.”

“Mm, right… And then you—”

He cut himself off by kissing me, much deeper than before, at the same time as he slid one finger past my threshold. My grip on his hair tightened with every painfully slow thrust of his hand. I bit his lip for him that time.

“Fuuuuck, yes, keep going just like that.”

“Just like that?” he teased. “Or maybe a little more?” He kissed along my neck as he slid a second finger inside. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” I panted. “That’s perfect.”

The laugh roiling at the bottom of his exhale was diabolical. “And then right after that, I seem to remember you crawling on top of me, like a mountain lion going in for the kill bite.”

I couldn’t help but laugh then; I felt myself clench even harder around my fingers. “You make me sound like a real predator, you know that.”

“Am I that far off?” He paused with his fingers still inside me. “You can be intimidating as fuck. Hot, yes, but also kind of scary. I didn’t stand a chance.”

“You still don’t.” 

He teased me by curling his fingers inside me a little more, making we writhe around him, before saying, “Lucky for you, I like a challenge.”

“Mm, lucky me, indeed.”

“Like, I know I do alright.” He gestured up and down at himself with his free hand to return to his original point. “But look at you.” I shuddered when he withdrew from me to use both hands then to gesture at me. “You can’t blame a guy for clamming up a bit with all of this literally pouncing on him.”

My cheeks flushed for real then. “Stop. You’re obviously a babe.”

He tucked my hair behind one ear and massaged the edge of my jaw with his thumb. “I kno—fuck me…” I didn’t wait for him to finish for me to grab his other hand and lick his wet fingers clean. He cleared his throat and started again, “I know. You’ve told me me literally every time I’ve seen you since that night.”

I released his fingers with a pop. “Be less of a babe and maybe I’ll stop.”

“My point is… All you did was show up, scan that party, point at me, and basically went, ‘You. You’re coming with me.’ And I knew that I’d nod along to whatever you said because apparently I’m powerless to your crippling charm.” He pulled away just enough to reach back and to retrieve my wine glass, and hand it to me. “Or maybe I was just scared that you would go full lady praying mantis on my ass if I didn’t.”

“Holy shit, you are trifling!” I said, accepting my glass but giving him a little swat on his arm all the same. “Going a little heavy on the butter tonight, hey? What kind of kinky shit are we getting into that needs this much pre-greasing?”

Ironically enough, it was me who probably should have been doing the pre-greasing. But I figured we’d just cross that bridge when we came on it.

Meanwhile, he was doing another tour of the island. I took the opportunity to check my sauce and give it a quick stir. When he came back to me, he had his stool with him and positioned it right in front of me. The way he nudged me around made it clear what he needed from me—I braced myself on the counter, raised my hips, and let him slide my underwear right off. As I rested myself back down on the counter, he took up his perch on the stool and looked up at me from between my legs with a wild glint in his eye.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But I’m sure we can figure something out.”

And then he and that very capable mouth of his were under the tent of my skirt doing beautifully filthy things to what he found down there.

He always started out gently. Heavy breaths first, then kisses and soft licks along the crook of my groin, teasing out streams of shivers and shudders that made my lower back spasm and my hips quake. He gradually made his way closer and closer to my center until finally, he pried me open with that first long stroke from perineum to clit. 

My knuckles blanched as I gripped down harder on the countertop with each swipe. Thank god I’d done the dishes earlier because my ass nearly slipped into the sink. After a few long flourishes with the flat of his tongue, he homed in on my clit, tracing wet, concentrated circles around it as I continued to harden for him. With that, I could take more and more of what he had to offer, which he knew almost as well as I did by then.

“Your fingers,” I gasped. “Can I—”

Before I could finish my sentence, he was obligingly thrusting two, then three back into the slick between my labia, stretching me just a little more, while his tongue grew more voracious, but steady as ever.

I wanted to grab hold of his head, but I feared that if I let go of the counter, I’d take us both out. Words and a little hip thrust would have to do. “Oh, fuck, that is so good.”

He curled his fingers up into me on every down stroke, dragging full-body tremors from me with every other pull. Delicious tension was building in my gut, around my tailbone, in my throat. When I regained awareness of my tongue, I realized how out of control it was, lolling around inside my mouth. I had to resist the urge to clench my thighs too tightly around his beautiful face because I wanted to see it again when he was done. Throughout all my wriggling and squirming, he never wavered on me. 

Not until the stove timer chimed and I reluctantly made him stop. As hungry as I was for more of him, not starting a kitchen fire took priority.

“Hey, hey, hey… I need… Can you… Just…” 

Between everything he was doing down there and the timer still crying out, I could barely form simple words; I tapped him urgently on the shoulder to get the message across. 

He pulled his glistening face out from under my skirt and flashed a wicked smile at me. 

“Too much?” he asked.

“Not even close.” I grabbed him by the edges of his vest and pulled him to his feet to taste myself on his lips. “It’s just time for the main course.” 

I hopped off the counter, smoothed down my skirt, and took a deep breath that turned into soft laughter as I silenced the stove timer. As he stood with me, he pulled me by the hand and scooped me up for another wet kiss. I almost let him suck me back in too, but this night was far from over and we’d need our energy.

“No! Eat first,” I said as sternly as I could muster. “Then we can come back to dessert.”