Compliments by Mari K. Cicero

he’s trying to lull me into forgetting the subject. While I should be persistent and come back to the topic from another direction, the way his tongue finds mine pushes rational thought from my head.
    The taste of his mocha and my caramel macchiato compliment each other almost seductively. When he kisses me again after sitting silent for a quarter hour, the action is slower, deeper. Even though my fingers still hover over my keyboard, I’m locked into the act. We stop only when someone at a nearby table overly exaggerates clearing his throat. Hawk and I both turn to see a middle-aged man looking concerned but sympathetic, a girl of perhaps ten or eleven sitting wide-eyed beside him.
    “Sorry,” I mouth as I push myself back off the edge of my chair. Hawk and I are barely able to suppress our giggles.
    “My fault,” he offers. “This is a little public, isn’t it?” he adds only to me. “I just really, really like kissing you.”
    Wicked thoughts, well-oiled and agile as Olympians, race through my mind. The suggestion leaps to my lips before I can rein it in. “We could go back to my place.”
    One raised eyebrow and an air of concern reflect back at me. “You sure about that?”
    “Yeah, though we might want to get the coffee to go, if that’s what you want to drink.” I close my laptop and begin to repack things in my bag. “I haven’t had a chance to get to the grocery store this week, and all I have is apple-cinnamon tea.”
    A few minutes later, we walk with our inside hands entwined and our outside hands bearing fresh coffee cups, toward my street. Hawk’s smile is so wide I could drive a city bus through it. I know he’s happy to spend some time with me, but it takes me a few minutes to catch on to what’s causing ecstasy to manifest on his face. We’re walking toward my place ... where we’ll be alone. Because we were making out at a professional level and it wasn’t a shining example of public decency.
    Dots of self-doubt begin to bubble in the pit of my stomach. Oh my God, I invited him to my place. I haven’t been with anyone since Matthias Gnomon. Remembering the results of that liaison, I feel my chest tighten. What am I doing? Did I think when I said, “Let’s go back to my place,” I meant that we should sit and talk, do math, bake a pie? No, he thinks we’re going to lay on my bed and concentrate on kissing each other until our coffee is cold and our bodies are hot.
    How am I such an idiot? I’m not ready for this.
    The way my grip tenses around his and my movements become more rigid must transmit my inner machinations in some way. Stopping, he pulls my hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “We’re not going to sleep together, Robin. You don’t have to wind together so tight.”
    In a way, I’m comforted that he’s put that out there. In another, I’m somehow insulted at his—nonetheless accurate—assumption.
    “You going to give me the ‘we won’t do anything you don’t want to do’ line, too?”
    A confused grimace flashes over his face. “Of course not. I mean, yes. We won’t do anything you don’t want to, that’s a given. One, because I respect you, and two, because I’m not a bastard asshat who takes advantage of women. But we’re also not going to do anything that I don’t want to do, and I don’t want to sleep with you tonight. We’re not ready for that.”
    He tugs my hand and brings our bodies close, leaning over to whisper in my ear. His hot breath against my chilled flesh makes all of the hairs on my arms go skyward.
    “But don’t think for a second that I don’t plan on kissing you hard, fast, and long the second we’re through the door.”
    Chills shoot up my spine and it’s possible, though I’d never admit it, that I put a bit more speed to my step.
    When we reach my building, we manage to climb the two flights of stairs in record time. I can’t explain what’s happening. I’ve never felt my anticipation rise with each lift of my