Chapter 13 #2
I flip the pancake and pretend that this is normal. That we are normal. That two people who broke and burned and bled in each other’s arms can stand in a kitchen and joke about breakfast.
But we aren’t a couple.
And the countdown ticks louder every time I look at him.
Thirty days.
No — twenty-six.
Twenty-six mornings left.
If that.
“You okay?” he murmurs, voice soft enough it almost breaks me.
I nod. Then lie. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t call me on it.
Just presses a slow kiss to my neck, lingering, inhaling, like he’s trying to memorise me in case memory is all he gets to keep.
I hate that it makes me want to be memorised.
I slide the pancakes onto a plate with a hand that shakes more than I want to admit.
“Eat,” I say too brightly. Too falsely. Too everything.
He studies me, but sits.
He devours the first bite like he’s starving — like it’s the first real thing he’s tasted in days, like he hasn’t already consumed every part of me that mattered.
“You should open a café,” he says, mouth full. “Call it Butterfly Bakes.”
I snort. “Pretty sure trauma doesn’t make great branding.”
His smile falters. Softens.
“I’d eat there every day.”
My hand freezes mid-pour.
“What?”
He looks up at me — those blue eyes too raw, too open, too devastating.
“If there was a place I could go every day and see you, I’d go,” he says quietly. “Even if the pancakes were shit.”
He’s joking.
But not really.
He never jokes when it matters.
“You’re leaving in less than a month,” I remind him, my voice light, my chest anything but. “You won’t even remember my name by the time your boots hit the sand.”
He pushes his plate away and stands, moving toward me with slow, precise steps.
Like he’s choosing each footfall carefully. Like each one carries a truth he’s terrified to say.
“You think you’re that fucking forgettable?”
I swallow. Hard. “No.”
“Then stop pretending we don’t both know this is more than whatever we’re calling it.”
I stare up at him — big, broken, beautiful man — and I don’t know how to breathe, let alone speak.
He leans down, presses his forehead to mine.
“I will finish the pancakes,” he murmurs. “But first, I need to do this.”
He kisses me.
His lips brush mine—once, twice—before settling.
Time suspends. My heartbeat stutters, then races beneath my ribs like trapped wings.
His hand slides to cradle the back of my neck, thumb tracing my jawline.
The world narrows to just this—his breath mingling with mine, the slight tremble in his fingers, the way his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks when he pulls back just enough to look at me before diving back in.
Then he pulls back and stands in my kitchen, shirtless, flour smudged across his hands, the ghost of last night still carved into the lines of his mouth, batter clinging to his thumb as he licks it off with a slow, deliberate drag of his tongue.
He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“You ever tasted this?” he asks, offering the bowl like a sin.
I step closer.
He dips his finger again, holds it up — and pulls it back just before I touch it.
“Uh uh. Come here.”
“You’re a menace,” I murmur.
“I’m your menace.”
It shouldn’t feel soft.
But it does.
I step between his knees and he smears batter slowly across my bottom lip, dragging his fingertip with a tenderness that contradicts the wicked gleam in his eyes.
“Now lick it,” he says. Voice low. Filthy. “Nice and slow.”
I shouldn’t obey.
But I do.
I close my lips around his finger and drag my tongue along the length of it, tasting sugar and heat and him, watching his jaw tighten and his breath stutter like I’ve knocked the wind out of him.
He mutters something — fuck — and in a blink the bowl is gone and his hands are on my hips, gripping tight, grounding or claiming or both.
“Do you know what I thought about,” he whispers, voice dark and dangerous, “while I tried to fall asleep last night?”
“What?” My voice is barely a breath.
“That mouth.”
His thumb brushes the corner of my lips.
“That tongue.”
His hand slips lower, slow, deliberate, claiming its territory inch by inch.
“And how sweet you’d taste,” he murmurs, leaning in, lips brushing mine, “if I pushed you up on this counter and had my way with you.”
Heat floods my cheeks. My chest. My thighs. My every breath.
“Dax…”
“You ever been fucked in a kitchen, butterfly?”
I shake my head.
He groans — like that answer did something to him.
“Good,” he says, backing me toward the counter. “Then I get to be the first.”
My ass hits the edge, and he lifts me with a growl like he can’t help himself anymore — like his control’s finally snapped. He spreads my legs and steps between them, and it’s everything — his hands, his mouth, the way he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing that’s ever tasted good.
“I should take you slow,” he mutters against my skin, dragging kisses along my jaw, my throat, lower. “But every time you moan, every time you say my name, I forget how to be gentle.”
“I don’t want gentle,” I breathe. “I want you.”
That does it.
He drops to his knees.
And fuck, when he looks up at me from between my legs, smirking like a devil with flour still dusted on his hands—I know I’m not walking away from this man.
Not now.
Not ever.
His breath is warm where it ghosts over my skin, just above where I need him most.
He spreads my thighs with hands that tremble like he’s fighting himself, like the beast inside him doesn’t want to wait. But he does. Fuck, he does. Because even when he’s on his knees, he’s still the one in control and I’m the one falling apart.
“Open wider for me, butterfly,” he murmurs, voice so low I feel it throb between my legs. “Let me see how wet you are just from watching me lick my fingers.”
I open for him like I was made to be worshipped by this man and when he groans — low and raw and reverent — it feels like sin and salvation all at once.
“Fuck,” he breathes, dragging his thumb through me, slow and filthy. “Look at you.”
I can’t even breathe but I feel it — the slow drag of his tongue, the way he licks me like he’s starving, like he’s waited his whole fucking life for this taste and he’s not going to waste a single second.
He moans into me, tongue flattening, teasing, curling — then pulling back, then going again, like he wants to torment me sweet and slow before he completely ruins me.
“Dax—” I gasp, my voice breaking. “Oh my god.”
“That’s it,” he growls, voice gone gravel. “Say my fucking name while I feast on you.”
He wraps his arms under my thighs, pulling me flush against his mouth. Every lick, every flick, every fucking swirl of his tongue sends me higher. My head drops back. I grip the edge of the counter like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded.
“You taste so fucking real,” he mutters against me, every word a kiss, a claim, a confession. “So fucking perfect. Like honey and sin.”
I whimper — legs shaking, thighs clamping around his head.
“Don’t hold back,” he says. “Give it to me, butterfly. Cum on my tongue.”
The pressure builds, unbearable and blinding and beautiful. And when it hits—I shatter.
My whole body arches off the counter as he licks me through it, not stopping, not slowing, holding me open and down and his as I fall apart in his mouth.
“God, Dax—fuck—”
“Yeah,” he whispers against me, kissing me through the aftershocks. “That’s it. That’s mine.”
I blink through the haze, pulling my eyes open to find him rising to his feet. His face is flushed. His lips are glistening. And his eyes—Those cold ocean eyes burn hotter than hellfire.
He kisses me, his tongue pushing past my lips while his fingers dig into my hair, and the taste hits me—tangy, musky, unmistakably mine—smeared across his mouth and chin, evidence of what he just did to me between my thighs.
“You okay?” he asks, forehead against mine, voice lower now. Rougher. More him.
I nod, breathless.
Then he grips my hips with both hands, fingers digging into my flesh, and drags me forward until I'm pressed against the thick outline of his cock straining against his boxers.
The thin cotton is the only barrier between us, already damp where he's leaking.
He grinds against my swollen, sensitive centre, the rough fabric creating a friction that makes me gasp and arch.
The hard ridge of him slides through my wetness, hitting every nerve ending, promising everything but giving nothing.
“You want me to fuck you on this counter?” he asks. “Or should I bend you over it and fuck you from behind?”
I swear I stop breathing.
“Choose, butterfly.”
“I want both,” I whisper, breath catching when he grins like the devil just handed him permission to sin.
His mouth brushes mine — soft, reverent, misleading — because his hands are anything but.
“Greedy little butterfly,” he murmurs, voice all praise and danger. “Let’s start sweet…”
I don’t expect him to turn back toward the counter.
I really don’t expect him to reach for the bowl.
“What are you—?”
“I said I’d make you breakfast,” he says, dipping his fingers into the leftover batter. “Didn’t say how.”
I watch, stunned and fucking soaked, as he dips his fingers back into the bowl.
The pancake batter drips thick and golden between his knuckles as he traces a slow, deliberate path across my collarbone, down between my breasts.
The cool liquid makes me gasp, my nipples hardening instantly as he paints figure eights around them, leaving them untouched, aching.
His eyes never leave mine—dark, possessive—as he decorates me like his own personal canvas.
When he finally lowers his head, his tongue is hot against the cooling batter, the contrast making me arch.
He takes his time, cleaning every drop with meticulous attention, teeth occasionally grazing sensitive skin, making me whimper and writhe beneath him.
“Jesus,” I gasp, head falling back as his tongue drags slow and hot across my skin.