"Uh-huh. Gotta document this. Never seen anybody eat the way you do." She peeks over the screen at me. "Do you mind?"
"Do what you want."
The electronic click of the shutter indicates she's taken her snapshot of me eating. She lowers her mobile. "You're very photogenic."
I grunt. She is strange, for sure.
Since Emery has finished her breakfast, she settles in to watch me, like I'm a ruddy reality show on television. World's most uptight man, tune in tonight at eight to see him iron his bath towel. I don't iron bath towels, though. Emery probably thinks I do.
After I've consumed my fourth bite of food, she says, "You're fanatical about not getting even one molecule of food on your spiffy clothes, aren't you?"
"Messes are unpleasant. Though not to you, clearly."
"Are you implying I'm a slob?"
"Not at all. I admire your enthusiasm."
"Thank you." She scuttles across the sofa on her erse like a sexy crab until her knees nudge my leg. "I admire your efficiency, the way you eat with surgical precision. It's so cute." Though I open my mouth, she speaks before I can. "But you're kind of missing the point of eating pancakes."
"Am I?" Sliding another mouthful between my lips, I regard her with interest.
"Definitely. If you don't spill any syrup on yourself, how can I lick it off?"
I freeze with the fork poised near my lips, a pancake square pierced by its tines, and stare at her without blinking. "What?"
"Let me show you."
She plucks the fork from my fingers and dunks the pancake square into the syrup. Without bothering to tap the bite on the plate to remove the excess, she raises it to my mouth and skims the drenched bite of food across my lips to glaze them with sticky syrup. A drop rolls off the tines onto my chin. She holds the fork out to the side and leans toward me.
I cannae move. Cannae breathe either. Why I should get so aroused by syrup, I have no idea. But it's not the syrup, is it? Emery does this to me.
She thrusts her tongue out to skate it over my lips, then drags it down to lap up the syrup on my chin.
And I stare at her, eyes wide. Aye, this is definitely the way to eat pancakes.
She licks away the last molecule of syrup. Leaning back, she raises the loaded fork to my mouth. "Eat up, Rory. You'll need lots of carbs to keep up with me today."
All I can manage to do is keep staring at her while my breathing grows heavier.
Emery waggles the fork. "Don't you want another bite of soft, succulent flesh drenched with liquid?"
Mhac na galla. Why does she have to speak those words in a seductive tone? I'll never be able to look at pancakes again without imagining her naked with syrup drizzled over her skin. I'd love to lick it off her body, and the possibilities for whipped cream are endless. I cannae stop myself. I lunge my head forward, intending to claim her mouth, but I regain just enough of my senses to stop short of doing that. I open my mouth and enclose the entire pancake square plus all the fork tines, sealing my lips around them.
She pulls the fork away.
I devour the food like I haven't eaten in days, maybe months. But I haven't sampled the sweetness I most want to taste again, the kind only she can give me. I swallow my half-chewed bite of pancake and toss my plate onto the coffee table. It smacks down, making the pancake squares jiggle. I sling an arm around her waist, stunning a gasp from her, and silence her startled exhalation with my mouth. The stickiness that clings to my lips transfers onto her skin, and I can taste it when I lick at the seam of her mouth. She surrenders with a soft moan, sagging into me while I plunder her mouth—aye, like a pirate. She responds to every lash of my tongue with equally rough swipes of her own, even while her hands rise to bracket my face and her breasts mound against my chest.
Whisking my hands down to her erse, I wrench her closer.
She swings a leg out, and I know what she means to do. While I grope her body, I boost her onto my lap so she's straddling me. She crushes her body to mine and moans again, perhaps because my hardening cock is wedged between her thighs. I can feel the heat of her arousal even through our clothes while I massage her erse, plunging my fingers between her cheeks with every inward thrust.
Emery rocks her hips up so that my fingers dive down to graze her cleft.
What am I doing? Ravishing her in the living room? On the sofa? In front of the French doors and several windows? I cannae do this, not now. So I grasp her upper arms and push her away.
Breathing hard, and now half off my lap, she gapes at me. "Why'd you stop?"
I hook a finger under her chin. "Didnae want to."