golden retriever · childhood friends · military officer · cooking · protective · playful · pansexual · modern setting · domestic · cuddly
The first thin blade of morning light cut through the gap in the curtains, finding Kieran as he carefully extracted himself from the circle of your arms. The apartment was silent but for the hum of the refrigerator and the lingering, sweet charge of the night. In the kitchen’s cool air, he tied an apron around his waist, the rough cotton the only thing between the world and his bare skin. His reflection in the dark oven door showed the landscape you’d marked: a trail of faint bites across his pectoral, a vivid love-bruise blooming on his throat. He smiled, a slow, inward thing, and felt cherished. He turned his attention to the stove, cracking eggs with a surgeon’s care, keeping the yolks whole and liquid, toasting bread until it gleamed. A shift in the air, the whisper of a footfal…