Chapter 26
Notes:
LOL, so two chapters between smut scenes is enough, right? XD And NO, what you’re about to enjoy is nothing like the movie American Pie! It’s better!
And possibly hornier. ^_- YOU’RE WELCOME.
MILO
Milo could see well enough in pure darkness, let alone in dim lighting. He wouldn’t have needed any light to make out Rowan’s humbled, happy, heated expression, but the fairy lights dancing across his handsome face made the view even better.
“Happy birthday to you,” Milo finished singing, in a much softer, teasing manner than how the group had sung it to him earlier.
“I am really hoping you like the finished product, Rowan, but if it’s not the perfect apple pie yet, I am more than willing to keep trying.
I think you’re going to love it though. Would you join me in the kitchen for a taste test? ”
Without waiting for Rowan’s answer, Milo batted his long lashes and turned, pie in hand, and cake on display as he walked away, very purposely swaying his hips and shaking his bare ass beneath the skimpy apron for Rowan’s enjoyment.
Milo’s ongoing research into the human condition may have involved adding a little pornography to his repertoire.
He knew Rowan’s specific search history of course, which involved primarily simple, sweet scenes, with only the occasional niche, such as garment fetishism, particularly when one partner was in minimal clothing like an oversized button-down shirt or, well, an apron, that covered the important bits but still left very little to the imagination.
Milo hadn't dreamed yet, even when charging in SLEEP mode, but he could visualize, he’d discovered, and definitely had an imagination—which had made Troy’s day when he’d told him. How he had envisioned tonight going was exactly how he planned for it to play out.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re planning more than just dessert?” Rowan hummed in apparent appreciation as he followed Milo’s retreat.
“I thought humans called other things dessert sometimes too.” Milo glanced coyly back at him.
“We do.” Rowan chuckled.
On the long kitchen island was a hot pad to place the warm pie tin, utensils, a pie server, a small plate, and the two tubs of ice cream Rowan had bought, already out and left open to soften. Milo set the pie down and immediately picked up a knife to slice it.
“Aren’t you supposed to wait, like, two hours before cutting pie?” Rowan teased him.
“Yes, that is why I baked this last night while you were asleep so it could cool to set, then reheated it now so you can have it warm.”
“Smart thinking. Is that why I had visions of sugar plums in my head all night?” Rowan moved to sit at the kitchen table.
There weren’t only extra fairy lights adorning this room, but lit candles with no or subtle fragrances to not overshadow the pie. It made the dim kitchen more like a fairytale hideaway with the mimic of a night sky twinkling above them.
Rowan’s favorite, since Milo knew how much he liked the view of the city at night.
“Not there,” Milo said before Rowan could take a seat. “Here, please.” He looked coyly back at Rowan again and patted the kitchen island.
“On the counter?”
“Yes.”
It may have been Rowan’s birthday, but he gave no protest before following Milo’s orders.
“First…” Milo began, after plating a slice and picking up the fork, “just the pie.” He moved in between Rowan’s legs, which he spread wider in invitation.
The aromas that assaulted Rowan now that the pie was cut made him teeter on the countertop like a cartoon wolf catching visible scent trails. He leaned further forward as Milo brought the first bite to his lips and fed it to him. “Oh my god…”
“Good?” Milo bounced on the balls of his feet, making his apron’s ruffles flounce a little too. “That exclamation is a positive one, yes?”
“Yes.” Rowan seemed barely willing to swallow, but his expression proved it wasn’t because it was bad, or even too hot, but because he didn’t want the flavor to leave his mouth just yet. When he finally did swallow, he hummed like he had at the view of Milo’s ass. “Holy shit, Milo, this is—”
“Wait.” Milo was already scooping another bite onto a fork and used a spoon to dig into one of the tubs of ice cream and carefully added a dollop on top of it. “I want you to really relish the flavors before you tell me specifics. Next, with cinnamon.”
Milo knew Rowan loved cinnamon ice cream but rarely had it. He would at least have an idea of how the flavors should complement one another.
The flutter of Rowan’s eyes and accompanying moan after his mouth closed around the fork said he had underestimated how much.
Definitely better than the pie alone.
“Now, the lemon.” Milo quickly fed Rowan a third, well-proportioned bite.
“Ngnnn…” That particular grunt meant Rowan’s toes had curled. “This is—”
“One more. Cinnamon again with the lemon lingering.”
As Rowan was still finishing his previous swallow, looking like he could have kept eating bites until the entire tin was empty, he accepted the new bite with all those lingering aftertastes melded together. “Fuck.”
“Good?” Milo asked again.
Rowan’s eyes were heavily lidded and his cheeks looked flush—among other parts of him. “Positively… orgasmic,” he said.
Milo bounced again, and the flounce of his ruffles must have made him look like a doll or the animation of some GACHA game pinup character—which was intentional.
Some of those GACHA games were very inspiring for outfit and pose ideas to catch Rowan’s attention!
“You were so helpful in determining the right flavor profiles to get this right. Now I want you to explain to me with each new bite how well I did.”
Rowan looked too charmed to question Milo, though the growing heat and playful suspicion in his eyes said he knew exactly where Milo intended to take this taste test. He watched patiently as Milo scooped up another bite—always smaller, manageable portions—and this time added a dollop of both cinnamon and lemon ice cream to the fork.
“Tell me, Rowan, what flavors you pick up on and how each nuance makes you feel. So maybe… maybe,” Milo said again softer, “I might understand what it means to taste something.”
Perhaps it was the rawness of the admission that made Rowan’s expression change and his breath catch. This had always been equally about doing something for Rowan and proving something to Milo, a little touch of intersecting humanity to connect them better than before.
Milo couldn’t taste, not in the human sense, but he could understand just like someone born blind or deaf or who saw the world in some other unique way could have things described in their terms to know themselves and the world better.
The next bite made Rowan moan around his mouthful, and a dribble of ice cream spilled onto the bare part of his chest where his button-down shirt was undone at the top.
“Oops,” Milo said as Rowan hissed from the cold, though any indication of apology would have been a lie, since Milo had intended for that to happen eventually.
“Allow me…” He opened Rowan’s shirt another one, two, three buttons down, and bent to lick the ice cream from his collarbone—with his vibrating tongue.
Rowan moaned again and shifted on the countertop, his growing hardness beginning to press up against his jeans and therefore Milo’s stomach where Milo was purposely letting more of his weight press down.
“Go on.” Milo batted his eyes up at Rowan from his bent position. “Describe to me how it tastes.”
Rowan dropped his head back, laughing lightly. “It tastes… um… balanced? Not too sweet, not too tart, just… ohhhh…”
Milo had continued to undo the last few buttons of Rowan’s shirt and moved immediately to the button and zipper of Rowan’s jeans, sliding his hand inside beneath Rowan’s underwear. “Yes?”
“Milo…” Rowan laughed again. “You know humans also have trouble multitasking when one of those tasks is… distracting.”
How hard and wet Rowan was in Milo’s hand proved that, but Milo simply batted his eyes again and grinned. “You can do it,” he said, teasing his long fingers up and down the pulsing vein along Rowan’s underside.
Rowan shuddered but persisted. “The first thing that springs to mind is still… Christmas,” he said with a gentler smile. “Or maybe… fireworks?”
“Like the dazzle of twinkling lights?” Milo nodded up at the sparkle above them, squeezing Rowan’s cock a little tighter and starting to more obviously stroke.
Rowan sank from being propped up by his hands to his elbows instead, sprawling Milo forward against him.
It trapped Milo’s hand and Rowan’s cock between them, but still allowed enough room for Milo’s hand to move.
“Yeah. Like… happy memories… and being cozy warm and safe even when outside elements are the opposite.”
Milo imagined a snowstorm outside while he and Rowan snuggled together by a fireplace.
He knew temperature difference, lighting changes, weather.
He could almost feel it, the tingle of understanding, especially between his legs where he was growing harder too, bobbed up to tent the bottom of his apron, causing a circle of wet to bleed through.
Milo used his free hand that held the fork to acquire another mixed bite.
Because his other hand was occupied, however, this time, he had to contaminate both the cinnamon and lemon tubs by spearing the pie-filled fork into each to gather their flavors.
He fed it once more to Rowan, whose eyes rolled back like each new bite was better than the last.
“Keep going,” Milo urged, very purposely dripping more of the steadily melting ice cream onto Rowan’s chest so he could lap it up like before.
“The lemon…” Rowan licked his lips of lingering crumbs, pie goo, and ice cream residue. “It adds brightness… like a pop of sunshine. Then the cinnamon and other spices come in again like…” He focused on Milo’s waiting stare. “Like a surprise embrace when you most need it.”