Dawn’s first light shone through the sheers in the dining room. Even though Mike had been gone for almost five years, his place setting remained as always—including the beveled glass into which Consuela always poured his tomato juice at breakfast time.

I forced my eyelids open wide and snapped on the kitchen light. Tuesday morning already. All I’d managed since leaving Jack was wearing out batteries and watching the changing patterns of the red digits on the clock’s display for the past four and a half hours. The hair clips yielded to my pinches and came loose. My still-damp hair teased down my back and swished against my ass and I tossed the tortoiseshell accessories onto the kitchen table. Bathed in the subtle yellow light, I shuffled over to the fridge and shoved my head inside. A carton of limeade sat so close to the orange juice I fully expected a tongue-curling experience upon opening either and swigging down some of the contents. Make no mistake. We of human extraction knew nothing of what went on behind the closed refrigerator door.

The eggs might even prefer mingling with the mustard on occasion.

With a carton of milk in one hand and a pink foam carton of eggs in the other, I bumped the fridge door closed with my hip. Consuela had already placed a mint green ceramic bowl of buckwheat flour on the counter. I set the milk and eggs beside it and counted down the numerous drawers housing every utensil known to kitchen witches and culinary artistes.

“Want me to show you how to make the best pancakes?” Jack entered the kitchen and swatted my ass. Not yet dawn and already one sexy man was likely rising in more ways than one.

How long had he been watching me? I spun around and my left pink fuzzy slipper skidded underneath the kitchen table. “Sure, Jack. Show me what you want to eat this morning.”

Boy, I had to lose sleep more often. My inhibitions were down and off faster than Angela Morris’ panties during halftime at the high school football games.

Two drawers down from where I stood wearing one slipper and keeping my lips closed to prevent salivation, Jack removed a set of beaters. “You’ll need these to get everything together the way it should be.”

Huh? What I was cooking up at the moment hardly required crazy loops of metal and buckwheat flour. “I’ll warn you in advance. Cooking isn’t one of my strong points.”

“Neither is eating.” He slapped the eggbeater’s handle and the curved blades spun around a couple times. “That nice body of yours won’t stay that way if you starve it. Spent more time playing with your food at the diner than eating it last night.”

He set down the implement, cracked open the new carton of milk and poured liberally over the bowl. Drawing back his tanned arm, he put the open flap up to his mouth and tossed back a long swallow. I drifted my gaze over his bare tanned chest. Golden hairs coiled around each pink nipple. Over his belly a sparser thatch sprouted and trailed to the waistband of his sapphire blue and white striped pajama bottoms. Lord but I could feed on him for every meal and not mind the ravages of starvation whatsoever.

The tie ends dangled over his crotch and underneath the fly lay a bulge my fingers were obligated to uncover before any batter hit Sue’s griddle. The burning in my belly competed with the hammering in my head.

Strip him bare. Do him on the kitchen floor. Tear that carton out of his hands and put them to better use.
“Care for some?” He passed me the carton.

I grabbed it from his grip and plunked it beside the mixing bowl. Cut the crap. “We both know what we want this morning.”

He twirled the one pajama bottom tie around his finger but not enough to separate the flap opening. “Yeah. I always have a bigger appetite about this time of day.”

The right slipper joined the left and I closed the distance between Mister-oh-so-hot-I-could-scramble-the-eggs-right-on-him and myself.

At touching his left biceps my fingers tingled. “Care to show me how to make your morning the best it can be?”

A grin parted his kissable lips and revealed the straight teeth underneath. His long tongue swiped along the lower lip before disappearing back inside. He immersed the beaters in the mix and stirred them around. Not a drop of battered milk splashed out.

“Crack two eggs in here and that’ll get things going.”