Page 61 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“Morning,” I mumble out, ripping my eyes off the wide expanse of his shoulders as he turns around.

The mug he’s holding hits the floor.

Not dramatically—it doesn’t shatter—it just slips from his hand and hits the tile and coffee goes everywhere and Cal goes absolutely nowhere. He takes one step back until he’s against the cabinet.

I fast walk to the other side of the island before he can move and reach for a towel lying across the counter beside him, whirling around to start wiping up the mess. I bend down and glance up at him long enough to see his eyes bounce from me and point up. Directly up. Ceiling. Fixed there.

Both hands raised, palms out like he’s been stopped at a checkpoint.

I look at the spreading puddle of coffee.

I look at him.

I look at the coffee.

I squat down and start trying to wipe it into a contained lake to keep it from spreading along the white of the tile where it bleeds into the grout.

“Cal—”

“I’m fine.”

“The coffee is—”

“I’maware.”

“It’s still—”

“I know.”

I stand, my back to him, and reach across the island for a roll of paper towels. I stand up on my tiptoes and feel the shirt glide up my thighs before my fingers reach the roll. I lean down and continue mopping at the coffee with the dish towel and paper towels.

Cal stays exactly where he is. Eyes up.

I’m directly in front of him. Crouched down. I stand up again and reach for another towel across the island, vaguely aware of the t-shirt riding up.

“Max.” His voice has a quality I haven’t heard before. Very controlled. Very deliberate, but gravelly. “If you want me to be capable of moving, you need to stop bending over in front of me,” I hear him swallow, “in my t-shirt.”

I stop.

I lower myself back down to my heels and I can feel myself go very still.

I spin around slowly, realizing my ass was probably just on full display.

He’s looking at the ceiling still, hands still slightly raised, and there is a flush of pink high on his cheeks that I have not seen on him before. His hair is completely ridiculous, curls facing every direction. And the dark lines of him standing out in the bright room paired with the blush is fucking gorgeous. His jaw is set. He looks like a man holding a very thin line with significant effort.

I realize something about this is deeply satisfying to me, and I beam.

I set the dish towel on the counter. I look at him and place both hands on my hips.

“So let me understand this,” I say it low, and take one step closer to him. “You can stand in the elevator with your hand on my back doing small circles for weeks. You can look at me the way you look at me approximately forty times a day—don’t think I don’t see it. And you can tell me you came back for me, specifically, on a plane at thirty thousand feet.” I pause, taking another step forward, the edges of my chest brushing the cotton of the dark shirt he is wearing. “You can appreciate me in your t-shirt. But you can’t kiss me. All of which is wild, Cal, because you’re still actively not cleaning up this coffeeyou spilled—and my eyes aren’t up there.”

He looks down. Just his eyes, then the rest of his face.

He takes me in. Slowly. All of it. His expression changes from caught to calm, to appreciative, and God does it do something to my insides.

He drops his hands, and his eyes take stock of every inch of me, and heat rises every place they touch—my toes, my thighs, his eyes graze up my body and back to my eyes, briefly pausing at my lips.

He shakes his head, just slightly, and laughs—a short incredulous sound—and puts his hands on my hips, where I swear they burn permanent marks, and moves me gently two feet to the left so he can get to the cabinet under the sink. He crouches down himself, gets the cleaning things, and starts on the floor.