I decided bacon and egg sandwiches would be quick and hot and should hit the mark, so I busied myself making them.
'He's a friendly little guy,' came Miller's voice as he padded into the kitchen, his legs bare, wearing just his black shirt. I swallowed hard as I ran my eyes up and down his firm thighs. He had the build of a rugby player. 'Sorry, I tried your pants, but they were too tight.'
'My pants? You found a pair of my pants and tried them on?' I gasped. Crap. Had I left a pair lying around in the bathroom? Oh no! Had he rummaged in the laundry bin for a used pair? I was mortified. Why the hell would he need a pair of my pants when I'd given him his own? I knew he was too good to be true. He was a damn cross-dresser.
'No, you gave them to me.'
'I did not! Like I'd just hand out a pair of my smalls to some … some … virtual stranger, even if he did act chivalrously the once, ok twice, actually three times,' I shot back, trying to remember which knickers I'd been wearing yesterday that would have been on the top of the laundry pile. 'Oh God, the big pink granny ones?' I groaned. I'd been in my comfy knickers. Not that I possessed many sexy lacy ones, but these were the extra big, extra comfy ones for lounging around at home in. They encased everything.
'No, the small black ones you handed to me outside the bathroom. Do you have color blindness?'
'No. Are you telling me you're not wearing the ones I gave you?' I asked, my eyes flicking down to see if I could spot anything hanging out. Sadly not.
'Well, you can see I'm not. Good thing too because I'm bleeding. I'd have ruined them.'
'Are we having the same conversation here?' I asked, covering my eyes and feeling very confused. Now he was telling me he had a period? Did that mean he was a transsexual? No, hang on a second, they didn't have periods.
'Oh God,' he uttered, completely aghast. 'You thought I meant I was wearing your panties? What do you English call them, knuckers?'
'Knickers,' I whispered, still not sure what was going on. He burst out laughing, and I dropped my hands in time to see him stride over.
'No, I definitely didn't try your "knickers" on, Abbie. I meant these,' he chuckled, reaching down to rub my covered leg. 'We call them pants.'
'Oh, thank God.' I let out a sigh of relief as I finally smiled again. 'I was having a whole visual there that I really didn't want to have. But I dread to ask what's bleeding, other than your chin.'
'My knees,' he confirmed, pointing down to where they were looking red and raw. 'Scuffed them up a bit when we fell, but they're fine. You really call your panties knickers, not knuckers?'
'Ermmm, I should know. Not that knickers makes any more sense than knuckers. Damn it, the eggs,' I exclaimed as I heard them spitting in the pan. 'Sit down, we'll eat, then I'll sort out your knees and chin. Are you warm enough?'
'I am, thanks,' he replied.
'Well, after we've eaten, you can head to bed if you're tired, or I can make a fire if you want to stay up and talk, or we can watch TV or something.' I flashed him a hopeful look over my shoulder.
'I'm not tired, surprisingly wide awake actually.' He gave me one of those slow smiles, the kind that could melt a girl's heart.
'Great,' I replied, sliding the eggs onto the buttered bread then reaching for the pan of grilled crispy bacon.
I was far from tired and wasn't in any hurry to have this evening end.
Sunday
'Hmmm,' I moaned, snuggling down in my warm bed as flashes of the evening in front of the fire with Miller came back to me.
We'd sat on the long sofa, feet up and tucked under each other's thighs to keep warm, as we'd talked about differences in our language. We'd laughed more often than not while we drank a few glasses of whisky to warm us up from the inside. I'd still been shivering, not seeming to be able to get warm despite the central heating being on and the fire roaring. So Miller had made me turn around and settle back between his outstretched legs, my back to his chest. He'd pulled my cream fleecy blanket over us, then wrapped his arms around my waist as we'd continued to talk. Injuries aside, it had been the perfect night. Even Sumo had displayed uncharacteristic happiness, venturing off his armchair to lie on his back on the floor next to us, whining now and then for a belly rub from Miller.
I smiled to myself. Was it normal to like a guy so fast? I mean really like. He just seemed to accept me as I was. I didn't feel like I had to try and make myself better for him to be interested in me. And he really seemed to be. Each minute I spent with him, the less I worried that he was only satisfying curiosity over someone who wasn't his usual type. But there was still that thing, the "he hadn't found the kind of girl he wanted to get serious with." For most guys, that was usually an admission that they really weren't into relationships. So why would he change for me? And if he did, how the hell would it work with him so far away?
I heard a load of snuffling, then a grunt, and frowned. That sounded like Sumo. How had he got into my bedroom? He struggled with the doorsteps to the garden to do his business, and he'd definitely never made it upstairs. And thinking about it more, why did my pillow feel so firm, and why didn't I remember going up to bed?
I opened my eyes, surprised to see the patterned cream material of my squashy sofa instead of my high, vaulted ceiling in my bedroom. I soon realised I was in the lounge, curled up against Miller, my head on his firm chest. I held my breath, not wanting to wake him, as I desperately tried to remember what had happened before I must have fallen asleep on him last night.
'Oh my God,' Miller groaned loudly. 'Please tell me that isn't you?'
'What?' I gasped, taking a huge gulp of air when I realised he was awake, only to choke on a Sumo morning special. I buried my face in Miller's chest, giggling as he started to gag.
'It's the dog, right? Tell me it's the dog, or it will ruin this whole "Abbie's really cute" thing I have going on.'
'Well, it's not me, thank you very much,' I mumbled, homing in on him thinking I was cute and feeling my stomach flutter deliciously. 'Close your eyes, it'll melt them. His morning trumps are always the worst.'
'Trust me, I'm closing … everything.' He gagged again and quickly pulled the blanket over our heads. 'Is that normal for him?' he eventually asked when he'd finished choking.
'Pretty much. I did warn you he was gassy.'
'That's not gassy, that's nuclear. You need an exclusion perimeter set up around him.'
'Bet you wish you'd stayed in your expensive hotel suite right now, don't you?' I asked, angling my face up to meet his gaze. He shook his head and reached up to hold my chin, sweeping his thumb over my lower lip, which made a shiver run down my spine, that giddy feeling I'd felt when I first set eyes on him returning full force.
'I'm right where I want to be, Abbie, and I'm not waiting any longer.'
'For what?' I whispered, drowning in his deep, rich brown eyes, which were holding me captive, the tension between us rising with each passing second as our chests rose and fell in unison.
'For this,' he murmured, dipping his head and brushing his lips across mine. I closed my eyes, the butterflies in my stomach soaring, fluttering madly. He repeated the move more firmly, sparks of high voltage stimulating my lips. The next time he kissed me properly, I returned it, making him groan and tighten his arm around me, his other hand firmly gripping my chin to stop me from going anywhere. I was ready to swoon. No one had ever kissed me like this, so full of determination and passion, or coaxed such an incredible response from me. He kissed like a man, a proper alpha-male man. I snuck a hand down to grip his firm bottom, right as Sumo scared himself with a gurgling rumbling trump, which made us break our lip lock and laugh.
'Sorry,' I said quietly, holding his gaze. 'But it will get worse if I don't let him out for his morning business.'
'I'm not going anywhere. I want to keep kissing you, but we need to talk.'
'About what?'
'About how we're going to do this.'
'Keep kissing? Well, I think you just put your lips on mine again. Feel free to practice, over and over, until you get it right.'
'You think you're funny, huh?' he laughed, planting another kiss on my lips, making me melt in his arms. 'I mean us.'
'There's an us?' My voice was barely a whisper. The thought of it excited and terrified me at the same time.
'There is,' he stated firmly. 'I can't explain it, Abbie. The moment I saw you, it was like I was looking at a missing part of myself. Like I've been alone all of my life, and suddenly I wasn't anymore. I've thought about you every day since we met. I don't know how we're going to do this, with me in New York and you here, wherever the hell we are because I have no idea. I just know that I've got to try. The question is whether you're willing to?'
I swallowed hard as I considered his question. I didn't want a long-distance relationship. I was twenty-eight years old, I wanted someone to share my life with. But equally, I'd spent the last few months kicking myself for letting him go the last time. Even a very nice flirtation with Heath hadn't erased Miller from my thoughts. He was embedded deep. Sumo whined, then somehow scrambled up onto the sofa and nudged his way under the blanket to nestle between us. He stuck out his long tongue, trying to lick Miller's face, and broke our intense moment as we both laughed. How could I refuse trying this? Even my moody dog seemed to love him. He'd never jumped on the sofa for me.