Page 46 of Double Dared
“There are spare toothbrushes in the top drawer under the sink,” I said.
Taylor lifted a thumb, then dropped his arm back on the bed, pulling the pillow closer as if to make me jealous that I was missing out on cuddles. It worked, damn him.
Smiling to myself, I left Taylor naked in the bed, cuddling a pillow, and looked through the cabinets in my kitchen. He was quick to follow, wearing only my sweatpants that had been left on the living room floor, his eyelashes wet after he’d washed his face, and a tiny bit of toothpaste left in the corner of his lips.
I grabbed a napkin and brought it to his face, wiping the corner of his mouth while he grinned. “That’s how I deserve to be treated.”
“Like a hyperactive toddler,” I said.
“In need of coffee,” he said.
I opened a can of roasted coffee beans and poured some into a manual burr grinder while Taylor sat at the dining table and folded his arms on its surface. He watched me with interest as I leaned against the kitchen counter and began to grind the beans.
“Do you do this every morning?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
He smiled and nodded. “And maybe you just do it to impress a date the morning after. It flexes your biceps.”
“It’s mostly forearm work, really,” I said. I ground the coffee while Taylor shamelessly drooled at the sight of my arms. Maybe I flexed them a little. Maybe I liked it when a boy liked me and wasn’t ashamed of it. It had been a long time since anyone was so liberal with liking me, with obsessing over me, with worshiping every inch of me the way Taylor had in the last twelve hours. And if that was all I took away withme from last night, then it was worth every effort and every pain that might follow.
It healed me. It repaired something broken and clanky inside of me. Wound and tightened something that had gone loose with neglect.
“What now?” Taylor asked innocently, eyes big like a child’s, absorbed in my work.
I set down the grinder and opened the container, where a coarse coffee powder had already released its aromatic scent. Elsewhere on the counter, I poured hot water into the bottom part of my pastel mint moka pot. I narrated in a soothing voice as I filled the basket with coffee, tapped it gently against the counter, and put the pot together. Then I lit the gas stove and set it to low heat, placing the coffee pot over the flames and waiting for the rich brown liquid to well up the tip and spill into the container. “It’s a delicate process,” I told Taylor. “You can easily burn your coffee and end up with a very bitter and sour flavor. Or you can speed it up and have a weak coffee as your punishment.”
“I like listening to you,” Taylor said. “But I’m never going to learn this.”
“You don’t need to,” I said. “I like making coffee for both of us.” Then it dawned on me that Taylor was the type of person who happily carried around filtered coffee, probably programmed to brew before he even opened his eyes. That was what he meant, right? That he had a simpler method.
I didn’t look at him after my lapse. Instead, I watched the coffee pour down and into the pot until itturned golden, then pale yellow, and I removed the entire moka pot from the heat to avoid it spitting everywhere and ruining the flavor besides spraying my tiles with coffee stains.
I stirred it, poured it into small espresso cups, and served us at the dining table, where the morning sun made Taylor’s warm olive skin glow. “Go on,” I said. “Try that.”
With a look of pure skepticism, Taylor lifted the cup, sniffed the coffee inside it, and held my gaze questioningly until he tasted my brew. He placed the cup on the table, then leaned all the way back and let his head hang. He let out a deep groan of pleasure, not unlike when he had come all over us the second time last night. “Fuck. Me.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “And I’ve been drinking that watery slop all my life.”
“Good things take time and effort.”
“I hate you for ruining coffee,” he replied, then drank some more.
“Maybe I can make it up to you,” I said, ignoring my coffee. Suddenly, it wasn’t nearly as appetizing as what my mind was able to conjure up.
“And how could you possibly do that?” he asked, holding my gaze steadily, daringly.
I moved from my chair and planted my hands on the armrests of Taylor’s, leaning down and kissing him deeply. He tasted like coffee, and I kissed him harder.
Whispering against his lips, I asked, “When do you have to go?”
I could feel his smile against my mouth as he kissed me back. “I have an hour or so.”
“Perfect,” I said in my most seductive voice, then pulled away from him. “I’ll make you breakfast.”
His bewildered look was endearing. “Is that it?”
But I was just messing with him. Glancing down, I found what I was hoping to see. He was hard already, so I lowered myself to my knees and pressed my lips against his chest, kissing his smooth, warm skin all the way between his pecs and down the center of his abs.
Taylor’s breath grew shallower as I descended to the waistband of my sweatpants he was wearing, and he throbbed hard when my chin touched his hard cock.
