chapter 1

Lying on the bed, she was watching him get dressed, but also playing with her phone.

‘Don’t be shy,’ she said, glancing up over her screen. ‘You needn’t suck it in around me.’

After twelve months of dating, him staying over at the weekends had become a thing.
Relieved at her suggestion, he let it all hang out.

‘Oops,’ she remarked, with a wry smile. ‘I think someone’s starting to show.’

He blushed as he looked across at her. He then looked down his front. At some point that year he’d lost sight of his feet. She had warned him that dating her came with risks, but he never knew they would grow this big. And her teasing had not stopped since those first few pounds, but neither had her libido too, which made it all the more difficult to pump the brakes on his spiraling weight.

‘Whatcha doing on your phone?’ he asked.

‘Just work mails,’ she said.

‘On a Saturday?’

‘Fine,’ she conceded. ‘I was just messaging Lisa about later.

‘And the park run.

‘Sure you don’t care to join?’

With his back to her, he drew back the drapes, his love handles silhouetted in the early morning sunlight.

‘Looks like rain,’ he said, lying through his teeth. ‘Think I’ll give it a miss.’

He unconsciously patted his gut. If only he knew what that did to her. It had been sixty pounds or more since he had last said yes. But she still liked to ask. He always had the option to lose some weight.

‘Lisa’s also asked how many pizzas for later.’

‘And?’ He turned to look at her.

She looked up at him and smiled. ‘I’ll say four.’

‘Because you’re so clearly eating for two.’ She puffed out her cheeks and gave him a wink as she patted her own slim waist.

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘Well just make sure she gets dessert this time.’

‘Two tubs,’ he added.

She grinned at him. ‘I see that big belly’s given you quite the appetite these days.’

‘Oh yeah, you think?’ he said, as he walked across to the bed and clambered up over her on all fours.

‘Don’t pretend like you don’t like it,’ he whispered in her ear, as he began to trace sweet kisses along her neck. ‘I see you gawping.’

She felt the colour rise to her cheeks. As he leaned in to kiss her more fervently, she felt the heavy hang of his belly press into her hips.

‘Sure you don’t wanna work out with me this morning?’ she asked, with a sly smile, as they both broke for air.

‘I’ll run a few on the tread later,’ he said, with a grin.

‘You mean that glorified clothes horse in the spare room?’

‘Hey!’ he protested, as he tickled her sides. ‘I’ve been putting that thing to good use!’

‘I can tell.’ She smiled up at him as she patted his belly. ‘It’s no wonder this thing is getting so big.’

He kissed her again. ‘Not my fault you keep leaving cheesecakes in the fridge.

‘Especially chocolate ones.’

She smiled. ‘Ah, chocolate,’ she thought to herself, perhaps his greatest weakness.

She kissed him back. ‘Well that one you ate last night was meant to last all week.’

‘But you know it’s the one I can’t resist,’ he protested.

‘Oh, I know,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at him. ‘Be a pretty poor feeder if I didn’t.’

They kissed again.

‘But tempting me with that shake afterwards was a little evil,’ he said, as their lips parted. He rose back onto his knees above her and rubbed at his gut. ‘Just what the hell do you put in those things?’

She bit on her bottom lip. ‘I bet you’d like to know.’

‘I would,’ he said.

She smiled at him. ‘Well I can’t be revealing all my trade secrets at once.’

‘Oh, … is that so?’ he asked rhetorically, though she nodded in response, as he ran his hands beneath her top and began gently kissing at her waist. ‘Bet I can tease it out of you.’

‘Well you can try, if you like,’ she said as she grasped his head in her hands an pushed it south. ‘But the park run’s in less than an hour.’

He broke free of her grasp and grinned up at her.

‘Well then,’ he said, flashing his eyes at her mischievously, as he began trailing kisses all the way down her waist to between her thighs.

‘Let’s just see if we can’t get you all warmed up before then.’

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