I can feel her watching me.
Slowly I open my eyes. A mottled gray haze obscures the skyline usually visible through the wide windows, visual confirmation of weather forecasts that have been heralding several days of heavy sleet and snow. Cosima provides a much more pleasant sight, lying on her side with her head propped up by an elbow on her pillow, squinting slightly and smiling. "Good morning, sleepyhead."
Vain as a cat under her avid gaze, I stretch voluptuously, arching until my shoulders pop and then reverting to my warmly muzzy state. I reach for her, cupping her cheek in my palm to trace the curve of her mouth with the tip of my thumb. "Good morning, chérie. How do you feel?"
Her grin widens, baring nearly all her teeth. "Like someone plowed me a new backbone by railing my ass last night."
Chuckling, I smile back at her. "Not too sore?"
A shake of her head sets her dreads dancing. "Only in the best way." Moving far more agilely and gracefully than I would be capable of right now, she straddles my hips and leans in to kiss me deeply.
And pulls back when I frown.
She winds a hand into my hair, stroking. The expression on her face is improbably ingenuous. "Something wrong, babe?"
"You know very well what's wrong. You ate my croissant. Probably all the rest of the macarons, too, if I had to guess."
At least she manages to look sheepish. "Woke up coughing in the middle of the night. It was a pretty nasty bout, so I dabbed some shatter. Might have gotten a little too medicated too quickly 'cause I wound up with a wicked case of the munchies. I was going to take just a little bite out of your croissant but it was so damned good that I'd finished it before I realized it, and then the macarons were calling my name. Like, literally. They sounded almost exactly like Alvin and the Chipmunks. You know, that really high-pitched three-part harmony. In the key of D-major, if you were wondering. I checked it with the piano app on my phone."
"Did they sound different from the Pop Tarts that sang 'Down By the Riverside' to you the other — wait, dammit, now you're just trying to distract me."
Wickedly nimble fingers traverse the shallow valley between my breasts, notching my pulse up into another gear. "Is it working?"
"No." My voice is unconvincing even to my ears. Especially when she starts to kiss where her fingers had just been exploring, the warm graze of her breath ghosting over my skin as she intersperses her kisses with tiny nips of her teeth.
"Besides," she says against my chest, "I didn't eat them all. I left some for you."
"'Some'?"
"Okay, one."
"One. You left one. One is not 'some,' chérie."
Sucking an instantly hardening nipple into the heat of her mouth, she licks and bites at it gently. "The coughing was really, really bad. Almost made me black out. Actually horked up part of a bronchial cast, which was kind of gross and awesome at the same time. If it's any consolation," she says in a small voice, ducking her head and looking up at me through her long lashes with hugely rounded eyes, "I feel way better now."
Oh, god, not the puppy dog eyes. Cosima knows damned well that I can't resist the puppy dog eyes. And that her mouth on my breast is driving me crazy. I sigh. "At least tell me you saved me one of the salted caramels."
She moves to suck and nibble at my other nipple, sending a fresh jolt of pleasure straight to my center. " ... Maybe?"
Slowly she kisses her way down my belly, nipping at the involuntarily bunching and gathering of the deep muscles beneath skin that thrills with every elusive touch of her mouth and random brush of her dreads. Settling between my legs, she uses the bracing of her elbows to urge them farther apart.
My hips flex, the muscles in my thighs trembling with anticipation and poorly restrained demand as her fingers delve through my already damp curls to tease between my folds. Her other hand slides around beneath me to play her fingers over the cleft at the base of my spine, making me shiver. Barely conscious of having flung one leg over her narrow shoulder, the first touch of her lips to my sex elicits a moan of brazen hunger from deep within my chest. As though sensing that my desire is far too strong to want her to linger, the wriggling and swirling of her knowing tongue short-circuits any coherent mental processes and sends ever-widening ripples from my center outward.
Her face is soon shining with the thick hot flood from my cunt pouring its want all over her. I fight not to crush her head between my thighs when she begins rasping the flat of her tongue over my clit, brutally coursing back and forth and suckling hard in time with the jerking rhythm of my hips. My hands fist into the sheets, all-consuming desire renouncing any remaining shreds of gentleness as she lays claim to the pulsing heart of my need. Gut-clenching tension gathers at my core, torquing my pleasure until my entire body feels as though it is tautly hovering. The immeasurably breathless shimmering moment implodes when she scrapes the barest edges of her teeth over the distended wet strain of my clit, slamming me flat to the bed in the inexorable grip of the convulsions that break me. Crying out hoarsely, waves of wracking, uncontrollable spasms roar through me again and again as I come so very hard against her mouth, my empty cunt contracting wildly and painting her with its copious flow.
"Cosima, come here," I gasp when I am finally able to speak, reaching a still shaking hand toward her. Obligingly she clambers up and drapes her slight weight atop me, settling between my legs so that her silkily swollen, weeping sex glides against mine. Clinging to her, I kiss her blindly, tasting myself in her mouth and over her face until the harsh seething of my labored breath lulls at last and we lie together, bound by the exorbitant spend of wanton hunger and sweat and the perfect fit of her body fused with mine.
Warm and loose-limbed from the shower, still tingling all over thanks to our earlier exertions, I saunter barefoot into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. The first rich, almost inky black mouthful is bliss; I force myself to savor it slowly, feeling consciousness trickle into my veins along with the caffeine.
Verifying the presence of the sole survivor of Cosima's macaron pillage — and noting that she did leave me a salted caramel one, after all — I replace the outer sleeve of the narrow box and put the whole thing on top of the refrigerator, toward the back and well out of her immediate reach.
"Hey!"
I raise an eyebrow at her, trying to keep a straight face at the sight of her indignant pout. "Just in case you get any ideas. Or another case of the munchies."
She slinks into my embrace. I wrap my arms tightly around her slender frame, stroking her back through her thick fleece robe. "Bitch," she says without affront, nibbling at the juncture of my neck and shoulder.
"Bitch with no breakfast," I remind her, nuzzling into her hair; her dreads are still a little damp and fragrant. Letting my hands drift down, I settle them at the curves of her ass, rubbing slow circles over the firm rounds.
"You're not going to let that go, are you. How about I make you some pancakes? With lots of butter and that really dope maple syrup we got from the dude at St. Lawrence Market." Her voice drops half an octave. "And thick cut applewood smoked bacon, the way I made it for you that one time, with brown sugar and cayenne. Watching you eat it was totally a religious experience."
Tipping up her face so I can kiss her softly, I smile. "That sounds wonderful."
"Cool. Let me go get dressed and I'll run down to the corner store to pick up a box of pancake mix."
I blink. "Box?"
"Seriously, dude?" She tilts her head. "Don't tell me you've never made pancakes before."
"Of course I have. Both the American and the French kind."
"French? Do you mean, like, crêpes?"
"French pancakes are a little like crêpes but slightly thicker, more raised. Still very thin and light compared to the kind you're used to. But French or American, what do they have to do with a box?"
She rolls her eyes. "Right, I forgot that I'm dating Martha Effing Stewart. Except, like, the hot, French, not-scary version." Running her hands up my back, one winds up kneading the nape of my neck, the other tangling gently in my hair. She pulls me eagerly toward her into another lingering kiss. Surrounding her and holding her tightly, I hum a low pleased murmur as her tongue slips past the lenient barriers of my teeth to seek out the shapes and textures of my mouth. After a long delicious interval, she smiles up at me. "Pancakes were one of the first things I learned to make as a little kid, the first thing I was allowed to do in the kitchen without supervision. It was sort of a Sunday ritual with my dad: I would get out the Bisquick and make them while he cooked bacon and eggs and made us coffee. Or, in my case, a big glass of milk with a splash of coffee in it. Then we would eat the pancakes with tons of Country Crock and Aunt Jemima. Fake butter and artificial syrup," she says, forestalling my next question with a wry quirk of her lips. "You and your grandmother would have been horrified."
I brush a tiny kiss over the gathered corner of her mouth. "Of course not, chérie. It sounds like a lovely ritual, and a wonderful memory." Her glasses are slightly askew from our embrace; I straighten them and skim my fingers over the soft curve of her cheek. "All right, I have a proposition for you. I will make you pancakes like the ones Mémé used to make for me. If you don't care for them, I'll go down to the store and buy a box of — what did you call it? Bisquick?"
Trapping one of my fingers between her lips to kiss it, she smiles. "Now you're making fun of me."
I smile in return. "Only a little."
Perching on a barstool and leaning on her elbows, Cosima watches raptly as I pull a well seasoned carbon steel pan from the ceiling rack and drop in a scant spoonful of clarified butter. While the pan heats, I pour two eggs, roughly a quarter liter of milk and a healthy shot of vanilla extract into the blender and whirl it together. Whisking a scoop of AP and a couple heaping spoonsful of buckwheat flour in a small bowl with a bit of sugar, a dash of baking powder and a pinch of salt, I blend the dry mixture into the wet just until it is smooth.
Carefully I pour a dollop of batter into the center of the pan, lifting it from the burner and tilting it around until the bottom is evenly coated with a thin layer. Letting it cook until the top is dry, I tease up the edge of the pancake with the tips of my nails, then shake the pan to loosen it, giving it a flick of my wrist.
Except, as always happens with the first pancake, rather than flipping neatly, it sticks and tears. Shrugging, I scrape out the pieces, eating one and handing the rest to Cosima. "La première, comme on dit, c'est pour le chien." I wipe out the pan and start over with more clarified butter and batter.
"Mmmmm," she says with her mouth full. "I hate to admit it but that is way better than the boxed stuff."
"Good to know that you can be flexible about some things."
She gives me a dirty look. "I can be extremely flexible, I'll have you know." One eyebrow arches. "As long as I get what I want."
The second pancake behaves, landing perfectly with its attractively browned surface face up. I let the other side cook for a bit more, then slide it out onto a plate, smear it with a spoonful of Nutella, roll it up neatly, and hold it out to her.
Her eyes close as she takes a huge bite. "Oh, man. Even if I weren't, like, stupid in love with you, I would totally let you do me just for making those."
Leaning over the bar, I kiss her, enjoying the flavors of butter and chocolate and hazelnut in the sweetness of her mouth. "It's nice that you have such high standards, chérie," I say dryly, starting on another pancake.
"Keep cooking, Martha, and you might find out what else I'd be willing to do."
Next chapter: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...
