I stood quietly to his right as he went about making my cup of coffee. I found myself paying more attention to the way his shoulders tensed and stomach clenched than how many spoonfuls he dumped and the way he stirred. I’m sure I can figure it out, I thought, as I allowed myself the guilty pleasure of watching him undeterred.

“So…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I was just looking for something, anything to fill the silence that descended. Only the sound of boiling water amplified in those few moments in which I tried to organize my thoughts clearly enough to remember how to act around him. I didn’t know what frazzled my thoughts more—the fact that I slept with a stranger that I was now stuck with, or that I found myself wanting to sleep with him again.

“Here.”

He filtered the coffee from the grounds, pouring the black liquid into the same mug he used to measure the water, and dropped the pot back on the burner before handing me my fresh cup of coffee. I poured a splash of soy milk in the cup and lifted the mug beneath my nose, taking a lungful of the fresh aroma. The strong scent seemed to relax every pent-up muscle in my body, dissolving my tangled thoughts. When I opened my eyes to take a small sip, I saw Joel’s face over the rim of the cup, watching my movements like a lion tracking a gazelle. A look I was becoming all too used to.

“You can take a seat at the table, and I’ll get us a couple plates of muffins,” he said as he scratched lazily across his chest, drawing my attention to the light smattering of hair that swayed with each stroke of his fingers. The hair trailed down the center of his abs and disappeared beneath his briefs, and I wanted nothing more than to follow the path with my fingers to see if the hair danced the same beneath my touch. His cock twitched, and it was that movement that alerted me to the place where my eyes had trailed to, once again. Shocked by my own obvious lack of control, I nearly spilled my coffee trying to regain composure.

When he turned to get our plates, I swore I saw a quirk in his lip as if he’d caught my wandering eyes and was amused by my attraction to him. Honestly, I didn’t know what the big deal was. He knew I was obviously attracted to him, otherwise we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in.

My seat at the table was the best spot in the dining room, with a perfect view of the living room to the right and the hallway leading to the bedrooms on my left. I sat smack-dab in the center of the house with a view of every direction. Except the one view I hadn’t anticipated was seeing Joel walk in the room carrying two dainty bread plates with blueberry muffins, clad in only his underwear. It was quite the juxtaposition. Just like it was hard to picture him cooking and fitting a sheet to the couch, seeing him carrying these little plates seemed out of place.

He set the plates down before taking the seat to my left. The dining room was small. The back of my chair sat pressed against the wall at my back, leaving a couple inches between me and the table. The other three chairs left just as little space. Joel definitely wouldn’t be able to sit there without the slab of wood cutting into his abs. A view I didn’t mind having with breakfast—those abs served up like something else for my mouth to feast on.

I watched Joel break apart the muffin like a kid peeling off the crust of a sandwich—his thick fingers digging right to the center of the pastry.

“Is there something wrong with the outside?”

“No, it’s just softer on the inside,” he replied, picking off bits of the muffin between his thumb and forefinger before placing them on his tongue. His mouth closed around those fingers, subsequently licking off every crumb that had latched on. Typically, I was repulsed by watching people eat, but something was so erotic about watching the way those fingers disappeared between those full lips that were as succulent as freshly picked fruit bursting on your tongue, showering your mouth with the essence of the sun. I decided before I’d even tasted those muffins that they were the best thing I’d ever baked, ever made.

            I liked the way he looked at my table, in my house, doing something as simple as picking at a muffin. He belonged there, as if that were just an ordinary day plucked from our lives. I didn’t let myself think about that long enough to become unsettled by how comfortable he seemed to fit into my home. Instead, I began picking at my muffin, too.

“What would you like to do today?” he asked me, still fumbling with the remaining bits of muffin that peppered his plate.

“Well, let’s see here. We can’t go outside, we don’t have any electricity, and it’s dark. Hmm, doesn’t seem like we have a lot of options.”

“No, but I’m sure I could think of some things to keep us busy.”

“I’m sure you could, but I think I’ll pass for now. I think I’ll do some yoga and then take a shower, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you work out?”

The pieces of muffin between my fingers were milled to dust as I tried to contain the heat emanating from between my legs at all the ways we could keep busy. He didn’t immediately answer, but I could feel him watching me, waiting for my eyes to meet his, to point out the obvious. Joel made me feel things that I not only didn’t anticipate, but wasn’t exactly welcome in my life—where work was number one. I didn’t have time for distractions, didn’t want to open myself up to the possibility of this becoming anything more.

Repeat sex leads to relationships. Well it did as far as I knew.

After a beat, I looked up to find him watching me with that devilish smile lighting up his face. The one that didn’t help with that ember that was morphing into a roaring inferno inside me. It seemed to be a super power of his.

“Why, Blaire, if I didn’t know any better, I would think that was a pickup line.”

I plucked a piece off my muffin and threw it at him. He feigned mock anger, throwing his hand up to divert the crumb’s trajectory. It bounced off his palm and fell somewhere beyond where he was sitting. He looked around the floor before turning back to me.

“Hey, we can’t waste our valuable resources. You should be treating those crumbs like gold—every ounce counts, dammit.”

“Says the man who refuses to eat the outside of the muffin.”

“Maybe I was saving those for dire times.”

“Whatever,” I said, rising from the table. I collected both of our plates and deposited them in the kitchen sink. Joel was still sitting in the dining room chair when I was making my way to the office to do my yoga.

I made it to the room, pulling my mat from the office closet and set it down by the wall closest to the door before getting in position. Damn, he never answered my question. It was hard to clear my mind when every time I closed my eyes I kept imagining Joel’s shirt dripping wet with sweat, smelling his natural manly scent mixed with the saltiness that would make my mouth water.

My concentration was stretched beyond its limit when the shower kicked on. I imagined those strong hands rubbing lazily across his pecs and down his chest. His hand dipping between those legs, soaping up a place that made me salivate when I saw him in nothing but those little briefs that did almost nothing to conceal him.

When I moved to change positions, I loosened those thoughts, questioning what it would feel like to touch him. I mostly did a good job, until the shower turned off and I could hear him rustling around. Hopefully he was putting some clothes on. The sound of his feet padding across the floor marked the end of my yoga session, and I put everything back feeling even tenser than I was before.

I hopped in the shower, hoping to wash away all thoughts of Joel. Warm water pelted down on my head, and I tipped my neck back letting it rush over me. My senses were hyper-aware of everything. Every pass of my hands across my skin seemed to feel like a brush of electricity, sending little shocks through my system that made goosebumps prickle despite the heat bathing me. I tried focusing on the soap that slid between my palms creating a lather so thick it covered my hands like gloves. The soap slipped, dropping against the shower floor with a loud thud. A sound that couldn’t mask the very distinct creak of the bathroom door being opened.