To Hiss or to Kiss by Katya Armock

thought of breakfast and not the flutters of anxiety building as I get closer to facing Jorge. I don’t have much experience with the morning after. I’m generally not a let’s-rush-into-sleeping-together kind of girl—or an I’m-doing-a-one-night-stand-and-leaving-well-before-breakfast kind of girl—but obviously I’m not terribly rational when it comes to Jorge. I’m happy, excited, petrified, and on the brink of panic. I don’t know if I should be doing a happy dance into the kitchen or hiding my head in shame that I hopped into bed so quickly. My heart can’t feel guilty about something that felt so right—feels so right. My superego brain is a lot less understanding. Landing somewhere in between doing a bunny binky and running out the door, I pause at the entry to the kitchen, then steel myself with a deep breath and walk in.
    “Morning.” Jorge glances up from the cooking bacon with a heart-stoppingly gorgeous smile. He doesn’t look ashamed at all, but then again, he does hide his emotions pretty well when he wants to. And in our sexist society I’m not sure exactly what it takes to make a man a slut.
    He nods toward the counter. “Tea’s in the pot. Help yourself.”
    The easy entrance does make my nervousness fade slightly, but I feel a fine sheen of panic sweat on my brow and the ever-present capillary action heating my face red. It seems more normal that I’m in Jorge’s kitchen getting tea to go with breakfast than my brain and sympathetic nervous system think it should, but I decide to just go with it. Bodily responses be damned. “Mmm. Thanks. That smells delicious.” I brush against him lightly as I pass to where the mugs and teapot sit. I figure I’ll just outdo my nervousness with sexiness.
    He growls huskily in response to my touch, and I feel my arousal rising to critical.
    After fixing a mug of tea, I ask, “Anything I can do to help?”
    “No, you are my guest.” He grabs a plate covered in paper towels and piles on the finished bacon to drain. Then he reaches for some eggs. “Do you have a preference for how your eggs are cooked?”
    “Scrambled. With cheese if you’ve got it.”
    Now he looks up at me with a slight grin. “I should’ve known you’d be high maintenance about food, too. Guess I do have something for you to do. Should be some cheese in the middle drawer in the fridge.”
    I move to get the cheese. “Do you cook regularly?” I’m hoping so. I hate cooking and generally suck at it. I’d much rather just do the eating.
    “On occasion. Since it’s just me, I don’t have much reason to. You?”
    “Only if you count heating up leftover takeout, so sounds like it’ll be up to you to cook.” Shit. There I go implying a future again. I feel the blush rise.
    But Jorge only grins at me as I hand him a bag of shredded cheddar. “Hmm. I guess I will. Planning to be over for breakfast a lot?” He raises his one eyebrow again, which I’m quickly finding incredibly endearing—and hot.
    “Or at least dinner.”
    By now Jorge is cooking the eggs. “I guess I’ve been forewarned.”
    I really like this teasing Jorge. As he stirs the eggs, I take a few sips of tea, trying to still my beating heart. Leaning against the counter, I note that Jorge has a really great ass in jeans. I smile, letting the happiness replace all the bad emotions of the rocky start to this relationship. The sense of panic still floats around, but I studiously ignore it.
    I want to hold on to the lightness of the morning, but thoughts of why I met Jorge bring Gracie and the other dogs to the forefront of my mind. “So what’s the plan for today?”
    Jorge pours the scrambled eggs onto two plates. “Breakfast and then going over the intel I got this morning.” He takes the plates toward a round oak table in an alcove off the kitchen.
    “So you were busy this morning. I didn’t sleep that late, did I?” I look around for a clock but don’t see one. Until now I didn’t even consider