Once again, Rowan feels his face burn but immediately digs in for another bite as if the act of eating will help the flush dissipate from his cheeks faster.

“’Anks,” he mumbles, mouth full. Then, when he finally swallows, “You were pretty adamant about the ‘no kissing’ thing last time. I didn’t wanna overstep.” Even though he’d had Rowan’s literal spit in his mouth during the gangbang, somehow sharing food seems more intimate than that.

Mal pauses, fork halfway between the plate and his mouth, and bites his cheek quickly before releasing it.

“That’s different,” he says, quieter than Rowan would have expected. “Too personal.”

“I get it.”

And he does. As much as he’d love to get his lips on Mal’s, kissing is personal. More so than sex, sometimes. Though if he ever does get the chance to kiss him, God knows he’ll take that privilege and fucking run with it.

When the pie is nothing more than miniscule flakes of pastry on the plate, Rowan figures it’s time to bring up what he’s been wanting to talk about this whole time.

“So, what’d you think?” He can’t help the nerves tingling through him in asking, despite the fact that he’s still here and Mal hasn’t kicked him to the curb yet.

“About tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“It was good. Fuckin’ great, if I’m bein’ honest, ’specially for a first scene, but I think we can do better as we ramp shit up.”

Nodding in agreement, Rowan adds, “Yeah. I don’t mind vanilla stuff, but I’m definitely looking forward to some’a the stuff we talked about last time.”

“Mmm. We’ll stick with exploring some kinks for now, maybe work in some restraints next time.”

Rowan doesn’t want to dwell on why, but relief floods through him at hearing next time. Because there’s gonna be a next time. And fuck if that doesn’t nearly get him hard again right here in the diner. That and the image of Mal being restrained by something other than loose clothing.

He takes a—hopefully unnoticeable—shaky breath, reminding himself to get a grip. It’s not like he’s not gonna get another chance at fucking him. They just established that that will very much be happening.

“I meant to ask earlier, but what do you wanna get out of our time together?” Rowan tries not to sound too much like he’s quoting from the BDSM material he’d found, but Mal sees right through it.

“Did some research, huh?” Thankfully, he doesn’t sound put out by it. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Practice is the best experience, obviously, but there’s a shitload’a books out there on it if you wanna get really deep in it.”

“Really?” Obviously there’s books on it. Idiot, Rowan thinks at himself.

Mal nods. “Yeah. Read a bunch of ’em.”

“You like to read?” He doesn’t know why that surprises him. Mal’s clearly very smart and well-versed in this stuff.

Mal’s lips twitch to the side like he’s chewing his cheek again. “Yeah. Audiobooks, though.”