Page 63 of Between the Lines
What a breakfast menu: pancakes and menty b’s! The Claire Benson Specialty.
I have nowhere left to hide, I realize, as I plop the last pancake onto the plate. When the smoke clears and the sizzling disappears, I swallow, and lift my gaze to his.
Nathan is painted in that rock-hard poise again. Straight-backed, hands clasped beneath his chin. The picture of elegance until you look deeper, revealing the whites of his knuckles, the bulge of his eyes, and the straining vein in his forehead.
I plate two pancakes, dust them with cinnamon, and slide breakfast over to him before taking my time and making myself a plate. It isn’t until I’m at the stool next to him, my tea now cooled to the perfect temperature between my palms, that he finally responds.
“Whatdoyou want?”
I have to swallow a lump the size of a Mack truck in order to give him the answer that I’m afraid of. It comes out in a whisper, disappearing with the last of the vapor rising from the griddle.
“I don’t know.”
twenty-six
nathan
She askedto table the discussion, but herI don’t knowhas been sitting like a pit in my stomach since we finished our breakfast.
Claire Benson doesn’t know what she wants because she was never given the chance to think for herself. She’s a prisoner within the four walls that are supposed to keep her the safest, her own parents throwing on the lock and tossing the keys between them like a racquetball. I shouldn’t have tension pounding between my eyes over it, but I can’t help it.
We’ve been reading together in my study for three hours, and I’ve made it through one chapter. Over the past twenty minutes, I’ve read the same paragraph seven times, and have maybe absorbed the articles.
I’m going stir crazy. This isexactlywhy I work myself to the bone—so that I never have to feel this feeling. But this is different—my discomfort is overherdiscomfort. I can’t feel content until I know that she is too.
“How’s your book?” I ask, breaking the silence that has been steadily soundtracked by the crackling of the fire and the rustle of Claire beneath her blanket cocoon. I clear my throat of its rasp before adding, “Have you made it to the next book in the series yet?”
Her cheeks pinken, and she lifts her Kindle to cover it. Now, I’m intrigued.
“Oh. No, I uh… Actually, I’m taking a break between books one and two. My favorite author just came out with a new book and I figured if I had the time here, I could probably knock it out in one sitting.”
The more she speaks, the further she buries herself beneath the blanket.
“What exactly are you reading over there, Ms. Benson?”
I have my answer the moment she slithers deeper in to the blanket cocoon, only her eyes and the tops of her shoulders visible. I can barely register her mumbled answer.
“What was that?”
“Filthy, smutty romance, okay! Sheesh! Can’t a girl fantasize a little?!”
I haven’t gotten used to these grins yet, the ones that seem to overtake my face like cheese on pizza dough. The ones that have awakened dormant muscles that I’ve had to relearn how to use. But Claire pulls them out of me, and I don’t want to suppress them.
“No shame in that,” I say, toying with the corner of my own page.
“There had better not be,” she says under her breath, hunching her shoulders up to her ears as she gets lost in the pages again.
I stand, swiping her mug from the side table and tilting my head in question. The frustration in her eyes softens as she bites her bottom lip and nods for the refill I offer. I’m almost to the door when her words have my pants suddenly feeling two sizes too small.
“Better not be making fun of my smut, Harding. PJ Layne is the reason I learned that trick with my tongue.”
“You changed.”
Claire has been here all day. We’ve had breakfast together, and ordered in a late lunch slash early dinner about an hour ago. She finished her romance right before, and is nowten-percent intoher latest fantasy. Meanwhile, watching her in my space has finally pushed my cock past its breathing point.
When I left to refill our mugs, I changed into joggers.
“Sitting in jeans all day was getting uncomfortable.”