The handsome man props himself up on one elbow, looking at me like he’s never seen anything so beautiful. He brushes damp hair from my cheek and kisses me, soft and sweet.
“Are you okay?” he whispers. “Did I hurt you?”
I laugh. “More than okay, and no, I’m totally fine.”
He pulls me onto his chest, tucks the comforter around us, and holds me tight. His heart is pounding, but it slows as I stroke his side, mapping every rib, every scar.
We lie there in the dark, the only sound our breathing and the far-off hiss of the house settling for the night.
I could live here, I think. Not in the house, necessarily. But in this moment, on his skin, in the hush between words.
I fall asleep with his arms around me, utterly safe, utterly ruined.
In the morning, I’ll wake with his smell in my hair and his mark on my body. But for now, the night is endless, and we are the only two people in the world.
12
THE MORNING AFTER
SIMONE
Ismile and yawn a bit, looking at the light. It’s incredibly gorgeous—shards of sun pouring through Liam’s kitchen windows, turning every dust mote in the room into a diamond. I’m wearing nothing except for his dress shirt, and yet totally comfortable, sitting at his kitchen island with my legs swinging like I’m five. My toes brush the cabinet beneath, every few seconds making a hollow thunk that echoes in the silence.
Liam is by the stove, spatula in hand, hair still a little rumpled from the hours we spent making love and then, miraculously, sleeping. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants, low enough that I can see both the beautiful cut of his lower back and the pale suggestion of a tan line just above the waistband. The muscles of his arms flex and twist as he flips bacon, and every so often he reaches for the salt with fingers that, twelve hours ago, were inside my mouth.
He glances over his shoulder. The look is soft, not the usual bludgeon of dark blue intensity. “Coffee?” he asks.
I nod, stretching my arms over my head, letting the shirt gap enough to show one breast, then the other. He notices—of course he does—but doesn’t comment, just returns to flipping bacon like I’m not trying to destroy his concentration on purpose.
The kitchen is immaculate, every surface some shade of black or stainless, but there’s evidence of real life: a bottle of sriracha with the cap missing, a row of mismatched mugs drying by the sink, a battered lunchbox that looks like it could have belonged to a Civil War reenactor. I wonder how much of it is him, and how much is just the set dressing of a man who’s spent too long alone.
He pours coffee into a mug and brings it over. The mug says, in blocky white letters, WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD. He puts it in front of me with a half-smile.
“I didn’t peg you for the dad joke type,” I say.
He shrugs. “Found it in the break room last year. Kind of liked the energy.”
I wrap my hands around the mug, letting the heat bleed into my palms. “You could do worse,” I say, and it sounds like a compliment.
He goes back to the stove, and for a minute the only sound is the violent hiss of bacon and the burble of the coffee machine refilling itself. I take a sip and immediately burn my tongue, but try not to show it.
Liam glances at me, then grins—actually grins—and says, “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who puts ice in their coffee.”
“Only if I want to taste my own tongue for a week,” I say, and he laughs, a deep, rough sound that makes me want to climb across the counter and ruin him all over again.
I watch him cook. He’s methodical, but not fussy. Every movement is efficient, practiced, like he’s spent years optimizing the act of breakfast. The way he pours eggs into a pan, the way he pinches the spatula in the web between thumb and forefinger, the way he shifts his weight from one foot to the other with unconscious grace. It’s a little obscene, how good he looks in loose sweatpants and nothing else.
I clear my throat, testing my voice. “Are you always this domestic in the morning, or is this a special occasion?”
He gives me that look, the one that could peel paint off a wall. “I wanted to make sure you ate something.”
He starts to plate the food—eggs, bacon, sourdough toast from a bakery I’m pretty sure has a waitlist. He’s got a little glass of homemade strawberry jam, the color so red it’s almost cartoonish.
I can’t help it. “You’re kind of a kitchen slut, aren’t you?”
He raises an eyebrow, then wipes his hands on a towel. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not,” I say, letting my eyes linger on the line of his hips. “I just didn’t expect a full-service breakfast.”