Page 188 of Tall, Royal Hater
Unwelcomed.Welcomed. Annoying.Sexy as fuck. So stupid.Bloody adorable. It reminded me of all the reasons why I liked him. All the soft edges he’d only shown to other people. Until now. Now they were mine too. Or more so.
But I didn’t want to remember that when I still wasn’t yet in the mood to move on from what he’d done. If I forgave him and let it go so easily, how was I going to be sure he’d never insult me like that again? How was I going to know his damagedrelationship with his dad wasn’t going to continue to impact me negatively whenever there was an issue?
How did I stay mad without pushing him away or melting under the heat of his flirtation and seeming like a pushover but still drill my point home?
Basically, I was fucked.
My brows bunched closer together. “Stop grinning. I’m pissed.”
His smile softened under my scold. “I admit, considering the circumstances, I shouldn’t have. But I wanted to make you breakfast before you woke up. I wasn’t trying to undermine your privacy in any way, but if that’s how I’ve made you feel, I can leave.”
I can leave,I mimicked childishly in my head.Fucking idiot. No, you can’t.
“Those bloody pancakes better be the best you’ve ever made in your life,” I gritted out.
His teeth peeked out one corner of his mouth. “Of course, little menace.” He dropped his chin and pressed a gentle peck to my forehead. “Go wash up. I’ll have it ready by the time you come out.”
I scrunched my mouth to the side in muted annoyance, but Shehryar didn’t actually drop his hands from my face so I could go to the bathroom. “Got any plans to let go?”
“No,” he said so deeply and softly, yet confidently.
My heart hiccupped in instant understanding. “That’s not what I meant…”
He smiled but still held on to me quietly. His gaze kept growing heavier and darker and brighter by the second, weighing down on my belly. My mind screamed I was incredibly close to a danger zone of fluffy, bubbling clouds, so I cleared my throat and stepped out of his hands.
“There’s whipped cream in the fridge,” I managed to say. “Don’t forget to put it on me.”
His brows flew up. “What?”
That was the painful moment I realised what I’d accidently said.
Forget blush or flush or sting. My skin evaporated. Just poof, gone.
Mortification fired my blood so hot I found the vaporisation point of skin. And bones. And muscle. I was nothing but a pile of fried nerves, trembling on the floor, like unwoven wool in the wind.
Except the wind was a thousand degrees hot. And I was, unfortunately, still very much whole.
“Mine,” I corrected quickly and a little too loudly, angling my chin up with indifference I did not feel. “My pancakes. Don’t forget to put it onmy pancakes.”
Slowly,humiliatingly slowly, his mouth curled wider and bigger and smugger.
I couldn’t take the embarrassment. I spun away and stormed towards my bathroom.
Over the painfully hot ring in my ears, I was entirely sure I heard him whisper, “I can put cream on you too, my menace.”
And I would have gladly let him do it too.
Either cream.It didn’t matter.
“What were you planning to do today?” Shehryar asked, sipping his coffee in the chair on my right around my matte-grey dining table.
“Sleep,” I said over a mouthful of chocolate-covered pancakes, strawberries, and whipped cream.
Hair partially dried from my shower and wearing a matching tracksuit set, I stabbed my fork into the last of the stupidly good breakfast Shehryar had made and shamelessly rubbed the fluffy goodness in the trail of sauce and cream on my plate. He’d finished his chocolate and banana stack several mouthfuls ago, which he’d brought in the bag of groceries because I didn’t house bananas.
His brows pinched together. “Why? Did you not sleep well?”
“No, I slept fine.” I pointed my clean fork at him. “But waking up before nine a.m. wasn’t part of the plan. I need at least four more hours of sleep to make up for lost hours during the week.”
