Love or Desire

Chapter 38 "Ruining the Barriers"

To Tony's great surprise, it took me no more than fifteen minutes to get ready, and we got into his car even before it got dark outside. The road took about half an hour.

Tony's flat was on the 14th floor of an apartment building in a fairly cozy residential area. We took the elevator, Tony unlocked the door, and we entered a small hallway with three exits, leading to a living room, a bedroom, and probably a bathroom.

I stopped at the doorstep, looked around and smiled.

Tony noticed this and asked, "Why are you smiling?"

"Ah... it's just... I remembered Portonapoulos's puzzle about three doors."

Tony laughed. "Fear not, crocodiles, poisonous gases and arrows are not here, so come in and feel at home."

"I'll try," I said with a shy smile and walked into the living room.

The living room turned out to be quite spacious and was combined with a kitchen and an office area. The furnishings were modest, minimalistic, but quite cozy. But the main thing that drew my attention was the perfect cleanliness, completely contrary to the cliché about bachelor dwellings.

I turned my head to Tony and asked, "Do you even spend time here?"

"It happens, why?" Tony shrugged.

"Living quarters are never so clean."

"Oh that," Tony laughed. "Well, I like order, and I really don't have much time to litter." Then he smiled shyly and, blushing slightly admitted, "In general, I try to keep my place more or less clean, but I must confess that I had a little time this morning and prepared for your visit."

I sighed with relief and laughed, "Well, thank God, because I have already thought... But it doesn't matter."

"It matters, Tayra," Tony said coming up from behind, wrapping one arm around my waist and kissing my shoulder. "But you don't have to speak if you don't want to."

I stroked Tony's hand lying on my waist and chuckled.

"Okay," Tony said softly. "I'll go cook dinner."

"Wow! Um... May I at least help you?"

"Sure, if you want."

We moved to the kitchen area and started cooking. I took on the role of a cook apprentice, I did not take the initiative, but only strictly followed the instructions of the chef, because, firstly, it is not good to command in someone else's kitchen, and, secondly, why interfere with a man in the implementation of his culinary ideas.

My embarrassment from the unexpected situation and unfamiliar environment disappeared very soon. We chatted, joked and were fooling around almost the same way as we had done before the expedition, with the only difference that now there was no need to hide our feelings. And Tony was happy to show them, kissing and hugging me at every opportunity, which was also rather unusual, yet no less pleasant from this.

The food we had cooked together was swallowed very quickly, with laughter and lively talk about meaningless nonsense, which nevertheless created a unique, relaxed atmosphere. Lately, we only talked about business and cracked some puzzles. We had absolutely no opportunity to just relax and concentrate on each other and feel as good and comfortable as it was before we revealed our secrets and began to jointly solve the problems of neutralizing the ancient evil.

As a real team, we washed all the dishes in five minutes and brought the kitchen to perfect condition, after which we moved to the large window in the living room. By this time, it had already got pretty dark outside and the silver stars appeared in the sky. Tony came up from behind and hugged me gently.