Chapter Eight #3
Bastian’s grin turned conspiratorial, another look that Kian had never imagined he’d see on Bastian’s face.
“Neither do I.” He looked skyward, like he was thanking God or maybe even the Devil.
It was hard to say with Bastian. “I probably should, but I don’t.
I can’t. It’s been so long coming.” He hesitated. “You want something to eat?”
Kian had never turned down food in his life, and definitely not food prepared by Bastian Aquino, in a post-sex haze.
“Sure,” he said.
“And then we can do that again, but better,” Bastian promised as they headed towards the kitchen.
Kian raised an eyebrow. “Better?”
“I mean, that was pretty fucking mind-blowing,” Bastian said, “but I think we can do better, don’t you?”
Kian had never been so eager to try in his whole life, so he nodded.
“Laundry’s just down the hall,” he said, “if you wanted to wash your shirt.”
Bastian had moved towards the kitchen but hadn’t made any move to put clothes on. He was just as powerfully built as Kian had always imagined, staring at him in his loose chef’s whites. His thighs and arms looked like they could snap Kian in half, and he sort of wanted Bastian to try.
Kian gathered up his clothes and figured what the hell. He’d already stripped in front of him, what was staying naked a little longer?
And, he thought, as he headed down the hallway, it would definitely wrench the tension that still simmered between them a little tighter.
Bastian stood in front of his fridge, staring at the contents, but not really seeing them, as the cold air rushed over the cooling sweat on his body.
Normally, he’d be much more decisive, but the normal structure of his mind had just been entirely decimated by Kian.
The feel of his bare skin under his fingertips, Kian’s hand stroking his cock, every single kiss, but most of all, the sheer bliss of giving in and not thinking at all.
At some point, they’d need to sit down and decide what all this meant for them, and definitely at some point, Bastian would need to reciprocate the three little words that Kian had said a few weeks before.
And, he added, he absolutely owed Kian an apology. Or ten.
But he was still enjoying not thinking, so instead, he let himself get lost in the contents of his fridge.
A few minutes passed, and Bastian heard Kian walk into the kitchen behind him.
“Cooking naked, while very sexy,” Kian said, “isn’t very safe.” Bastian turned slightly as Kian tossed him a t-shirt and his pair of briefs.
He’d put his jeans back on, but he was shirtless, and for a second, Bastian wanted to forget all about the food, and instead trace the line of every muscle, every tendon, every inch of skin.
He’d wanted this for so long, and it seemed insane to be cooking instead of touching, when all they’d done for two years was cook.
But, he rationed, they needed to eat. They needed to carb load, probably, because now that Kian was in his bed, Bastian had no intention of leaving it for the next twelve hours.
Tomorrow was supposed to be one of their test kitchen Sundays, but there was no pressing reason not to postpone it until later. They could sleep in. Bastian could make them breakfast and they could even eat it in bed.
But all that energy was going to need to come from somewhere.
Pasta, maybe? Bastian considered, pulling on the clothes Kian had brought him. Rice? He could make a stir-fry. He had chicken, he had lots of vegetables.
The mushrooms in particular were calling to him, and as he plucked them from the shelf, he realized just how dull his normally sharp mental acuity was tonight. He’d make risotto, with roasted wild mushrooms. Carbs and comfort food, all in one.
Kian had settled at one of the barstools and watched as Bastian pulled out the mushrooms, an onion, garlic, butter, and a clear plastic container of stock from the freezer that he dumped into a pot to thaw.
“Risotto?” Kian questioned as Bastian fetched the arborio rice from the pantry. “Are we trying to carb load?”
Bastian peeled the onion and began to dice it finely.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” he asked, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
He couldn’t stop smiling, it was obviously a symptom of the Kian disease that had completely overrun his immune system.
“I said I thought we could do better. Better is going to require practice.”
“And you’re a perfectionist,” Kian finished for him.
His hair was rumpled, and Bastian’s fingers itched.
He wished he remembered exactly when he’d run them through the golden strands, the feel of them sliding through his fingers.
It had all gone so quickly, once Kian had started taking his clothes off.
Bastian’s mind had just flipped off, and he’d switched right onto autopilot.
It was a shock he hadn’t kissed him the first moment he’d seen him next to his front door, looking frustrated and cutely disgruntled.
“I’m a perfectionist,” Bastian agreed. I made you, didn’t I?
“I think,” Kian mused, “that this is the very first time you’ve ever cooked for me.”
Bastian was about to say that Terroir certainly counted, because Kian had eaten lots of things he’d cooked. Hundreds of dishes, probably.
Kian rolled his eyes. “And Terroir doesn’t count. That was work. This isn’t . . . work.”
It was difficult not to notice that Kian didn’t define what was going on, just that it wasn’t solely professional anymore, and since Bastian was still reeling from their earlier encounter, he thought that was okay for now.
They meant something to each other, they’d crossed over that strictly platonic line, and it was fine not to understand what that looked like or was defined as right away.
The one thing Bastian did know was that now that the line had been crossed, he wasn’t nearly so restricted in what he could say.
“I wanted to, you know,” Bastian said, glancing up. Kian’s eyes on him were soft. “I’d lie awake at night and dream of inviting you here, of what I’d serve you, of what we’d do afterwards.”
“What’s that?” Kian asked, raising an eyebrow.
Bastian shot him a somewhat incredulous look. “Do you need it described to you? Because you didn’t seem to need directions earlier.”
“I meant,” Kian corrected slowly, “what would you serve me?”
“Something simple. Something delicious. Something irresistible.”
“Well yes.” Kian sounded amused. “I already assumed it would be all those things.”
In his mind, Bastian was pulling out the heavy-bottomed pot and setting it on the stove, melting a big fat pat of butter in it, and starting to sauté the onion and garlic.
Instead, he was leaning against the counter, his knife forgotten on the cutting board, and staring at the man just across it.
He couldn’t see his own expression, but he knew it was sappy sweet.
If anyone he knew at Terroir could see him right now, they wouldn’t believe it.
He’d never acted this way with anyone in his whole life; and that made sense, because in his whole life, he’d never felt this way about anyone.
“I wanted to apologize to you, after we had that . . .” Bastian didn’t know what to call it.
He didn’t want to call it an argument, because that assumed both sides had made their opinion and their feelings known.
Instead he’d said something stupid and Kian had been justifiably and understandably pissed at him, and he’d shut him out.
“When you said I couldn’t possibly know what I wanted?
” Kian’s stare challenged Bastian in every way, which was just one of the things he loved about him.
That, on top of the apology he’d just given Kian, was definitely something he should also be saying, but he’d never told anyone but his mother that he loved them.
Shouldn’t the words be given a little more gravitas than tossed casually over a kitchen counter while Bastian cooked them dinner?
“I was trying to make you angry so that you’d stop trying to change my mind,” Bastian admitted. He picked his knife back up and continued dicing his onion.
“Yeah, I figured that out. Just . . . not right away,” Kian said. “I was pretty pissed off at you.”
Bastian wanted to roll his eyes—how could Kian have ever believed that he really meant that—but then he remembered what Celeste had said to him. And it uncomfortably echoed what Kian had said to him before, after he’d started stripping all his clothes off.
Of course you get a say, you can tell me to fuck off.
They both knew Bastian was never going to tell Kian to fuck off.
He tossed the onion in, followed by the garlic, stirring around the aromatics with a wooden spoon. “You were within your rights to be pissed off,” Bastian said apologetically.
“Does this make me the person you’ve apologized to most in your whole life?” Kian wondered.
Bastian laughed; he really couldn’t help it. “Other than my mother, definitely,” he said.
“Not to Luc?” Kian questioned so innocently, Bastian might have actually believed it if he hadn’t witnessed just how annoyed Kian had been over his ex-lover.
“I never felt the need to apologize to Luc,” Bastian said as he stirred in the rice, letting it toast in the butter, “because the only thing I ever did to him was make the mistake of sleeping with him.
“I meant it, you know. You’re nothing like Luc,” Bastian continued steadily, even though he was quaking inside. Kian had helped tear some of his walls down, but the foundations were so solidly well-established, it was going to take more than an incredible orgasm to demolish them entirely.
“I believed you,” Kian said. “I believed you even more when we came back to Terroir and you promoted Xander.”
It was hardly the worst decision Bastian had ever made—though it would probably make the top ten—but Kian kept bringing it up, like it still stung. Or maybe he was fishing for the job, still.
It was a risk, but Bastian had to ask, had to know. “Is that why you came here? To convince me to give you sous chef?”
Kian looked shocked, like he couldn’t quite believe the question for a second, and Bastian braced for the worst, and opened his mouth to apologize but shut it again.
Kian got up from the barstool, sauntered around the counter, casual but so purposeful, and crowded right into Bastian’s space.
Putting a hand on Bastian’s shoulder, he pulled him in even closer, and kissed him.
It was still new enough, still fresh enough, that each and every kiss felt revelatory. He could do this now, it was allowed, and not only that fact blew his mind, but the passion Kian poured into the kiss finished off the rest of it.
Kian released him and Bastian nearly staggered backwards. He tried grabbing for Kian—because one of those kisses would never be enough—but he’d already gone back to his seat.
“That’s why I’m here,” Kian said steadily. “I’m not here to get a job. If I want a job, and I deserve a job, we’ll talk about it. But it’ll be separate from this, and preferably at the restaurant.”
Bastian was speechless, and a little flabbergasted that Kian wasn’t more speechless. “Why not here?” he asked and was embarrassingly aware of how stupid he sounded.
As he shrugged, Kian’s tough exterior wavered enough that Bastian could see what the charade was costing him. “Because of that,” Kian said firmly. “Here is for that, and a whole lot more, I hope, and the restaurant is for work. They need to stay separate.”
“I’m glad you think so.” And Bastian was. He didn’t want to be the one to dictate the terms of their relationship, because he’d already done such a shitty job so far—and the perfectionist in him was more than a little humiliated by all that failure.
“Why didn’t we do this a year ago?” he asked, checking the mushrooms that were roasting in the oven. Then he walked over to the wine fridge and selected a nice white, opening it with a few economical movements. He deglazed the pan and then pulled down two wine glasses, pouring them each a glass.
“We weren’t ready,” Kian said, swirling his wine like an expert with the sexiest twist of his fingers.
There were a few very good reasons to actually finish dinner.
One, he’d never actually stopped cooking to have sex before, and doing so now would set a dangerous precedent.
Two, they were absolutely going to need the energy, and once they went to bed, Bastian had no intention of leaving it anytime soon.
“I was definitely ready,” Bastian argued.
Kian rolled his eyes. “I’m not talking about your dick.”
Bastian’s hand, stirring another ladleful of broth into the risotto, stilled. “If you say that again, you’re never going to eat this meal.”
“What am I going to eat instead?” Kian asked slyly, the curl of his upper lip nearly irresistible.
How had Bastian ever resisted him in the first place?
He couldn’t even remember; the memories of his willpower obliterated by Kian’s skin and his cock and his hands. The naughty gleam in his blue eyes.
“We,” Bastian argued, “are going to sit down and eat this risotto like civilized people, then we’re going to go to bed.” He paused. “And then we aren’t going to be civilized at all. So behave yourself before I drag you off to the bedroom like a caveman with a particularly tasty carcass.”
Kian leaned forward and licked his lips. “Is that a promise?”