Justin cooks twice as much as ever these days. If he doesn't have any appointments with clients, he cooks dinner for Eleanor in her apartment while he waits for her to come home. (He scared Kira the first time she came in & found him in her kitchen, but no one refuses the opportunity to have Justin cook for them, no matter how obnoxious she thinks it is for her roommate to give her boyfriend their key without telling her.) When he works his bouncer job, he still cooks the late dinner his housemates have come to expect when he gets home, while Eleanor waits for him in his bed. He even enjoys cooking more when it's for her, which he hadn't thought was really possible, cooking having been his greatest pleasure in life before he met Eleanor.

Justin has a little time before he has to do the bouncer gig. Kira goes out, leaving the couple alone with the TV. Justin usually doesn't have the patience for sitting & watching TV: he watches cooking shows, taking notes. Diego can tease all he wants, Justin has gotten a lot of great recipes from TV. Eleanor likes animal shows: more than likes, they excite her. Justin can feel her skin grow hot as the lioness hunts, her breasts heave with her quickened breath. He understands the thrill she gets, watching the cat take down her prey: he can still feel that feral & driven place inside himself. Watching the large predators hunt, Justin doesn't need the narrator to explain the animals' behaviors. For most of his life, he's felt more animal than human, shying from contact, solitary & not really trusting anyone, not even the people he cooks for.

Justin's lips brush against her ear, so he can speak very quietly & she will still hear, "Eleanor, I feel like my life was like that, like these cats...Everything was just so much hunting & sleeping, every day the same. I wasn't..what you'd call happy. But now there's you, Princess. Just knowing you exist has given me a reason to get up in the morning, being with you has changed me, deep inside, and I don't think I could go back to being who I was before. I still don't want anyone else touching me, Eleanor, but I need it now, I need to be touched," he says, speaking unashamedly of his deep feelings, in awe of this whole new world of emotions. He's tried not to worry over her parents, not to be hurt by her wanting to hide him from them, but the situation has called the relationship into question, and he can't rest for the fear that she might leave him, if not now, then later. He lifts her face to look in her eyes, soft & brown, and says "I need you to tell me what I have to do to keep you Eleanor, because I can't lose you." "You're not losing me, Justin," she says.

He kisses her, because there is nothing to say, because he wants to lose himself in the moment, to stay joined in this kiss forever. "Please understand, Justin," she sighs, resting her head against his neck, "I'm just hiding you from my parents because they're too blinded by their prejudices about class & education to see you for what you really are. But I like you the way you are, Justin, I wouldn't want you to change." Her words are no reassurance. She 'likes' him, she says. He's fallen abject at her feet & offered his everlasting devotion, and she 'likes' him. He holds her hand up against his chest, wondering what it is going to take to win her love. "I don't think I'd want to sleep alone again, Justin," she says after a tense silence, her voice timid & small, "I don't think I'd sleep well at all if I wasn't in your arms."

With a short laugh, he stands & takes her up in his arms. She's too uptight to admit her own feelings to herself, let alone to him. Getting her to open up is going to be a lot of work. But she's a princess, he never expected it would be easy. Which is just as well, Justin has never been interested in things that were easy. "I wish I could do as much for you as you do for me," she sighs. He laughs to himself at her pretense: he knows how very much she enjoys his worship. "Princess, just let me be the one who gets it if you ever decide to let it out, that's all I'll ever need," he says.