Genre: modern fantasy/fluff
Description: Dinner isn’t the only thing Kris surprises you with, and that might not be a good thing.
The moment you opened the door to your apartment a mixture of pleasant smells hit your nose, causing you to stand there and let yourself take it all in slowly. Kris had gotten good at a number of different things while you spent your days at work, but cooking was by far the most impressive. Now he always had dinner in the works around the time you got home, which gave you enough time to kick off your shoes and relax before he set the table.
“Welcome home,” he mumbled to you from the kitchen. That man probably heard you coming from 20 meters away, so even though you barely made a noise you weren’t surprised he caught you lingering.
A brow furrowed in concentration was the first thing you noticed when you rounded the corner. He had been simmering something and now held the pan lid tight while he shook it. Was it some sort of stir fry? Half the time his methods never seemed to match what ended up on the plate.
“Hey,” was about all you could say. Watching him cook was always so… distracting. His hands moved in such intricate, delicate ways while he prepared food. You’d never seen someone cut vegetables with such grace or attention. Kris put every ounce of himself into the dinners he made for you, which showed both in the way they tasted and the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he tossed whatever he had in the pan. It was like he was made for cooking. Another minute of your staring was all he needed to pull himself from his concentration, but you managed to look away just in time to try to avoid awkward eye contact.
The smile on his face told you he’d definitely caught you staring but didn’t mind. He simply shook his head and turned his focus back to the pan in front of him, eager to get it finished. “Go change and relax. You’ll see.”
Though Kris was hardly ever anything even sort of assertive, you knew fighting for an answer would get you nowhere, so you complied. You let your hair down, changed into something looser, and headed out to the living room with the hope of being able to watch him finish up.
By the time you plopped yourself on the couch he was already starting to set the table. He walked around the island with a small towel on his shoulder and empty plates.
“You stare at me a lot lately,” he said softly, and you felt a bit of heat rush to your cheeks. Did you really stare at him that much? You just liked watching him work. Was it that bad? How were you even supposed to respond to that? Before you could think of something to say, he opened his mouth again, this time with a bit of a nervous laugh in his words. “You have to stop.”
It wasn’t until he set more plates down and turned into the light at just the right angle that you understood what he was trying to say. His cheeks were as red as yours felt, and you had to stifle a laugh because of what it meant. “Are you embarrassed? I’ve seen you hide a shiny plastic cup that said ‘pimp’ on it and you said it was just a dragon thing, but you can’t handle me watching you cook?”
Kris smiled and shook his head, pretending to put more focus on plate placement and putting everything out onto the table. “It is a dragon thing. And it’s not about watching me, it’s about how loud your thoughts are when you watch me.”
If he cheeks could get any redder it might look like the red was painted on. You could feel yours doing the same. You two were always in sync, feeding off each other’s emotions and hormones, but he had said he could block out your thoughts. Knowing he hadn’t been was quite alarming. Kris spoke before you could retaliate, probably because he knew what you were going to say.
“I tried not listening but you think too loud.”
Whatever he heard you think must have been much more than you wanted him to know. You were living together and you were mentally and physically connected, but you two hadn’t gotten close enough to warrant certain feelings. Now you were the one embarrassed, and it came out in the form of vomiting apologies. Kris stopped to watch you spill out a babble of words, each hand with a plate full of food, and waited patiently for you to finish. After a few seconds of silence and a thoughtful quirk of his head, he smiled. You recognized something equally smug and shy in his voice. “I didn’t know hands could be a useful display in human mating.”
That was it. You screwed up. Of all the the thoughts he could have overheard, it was about the things his hands could do, and more than just with kitchen utensils. You could die right there on the couch. Not even the sounds of his melodic chuckle could bring you out of your misery.
“Hey.” The hand towel smacked your cheek gently and Kris loomed over you, brown eyes watching your expression closely. “Come eat.”