He holds out the coffee and bakery box. “Guava pastelitos. No flowers. No bullshit. No touching unless you say.”
My heart does something stupid.
I blame the sugar.
I take the coffee first. “You may enter, blanquito.”
He steps inside.
My tower apartment is all glass, city lights, and expensive silence. Biscayne Bay glitters beyond the windows. The balcony doors are locked. The curtains are half open because I refuse to hide but not so a drone can get a clean look, because I’m brave, not idiota.
Shady notices. His gaze skims the locks, the corners, the elevator camera feed pulled up on my wall tablet, the knife on the entry table, the chair I dragged near the hallway because the scrape marks on the floor remind me I’m the one who moved it there.
“Nice setup,” he says.
“Don’t sound proud. I’ve been kidnapped once this week. I’m allowed to become security-conscious.”
“Baby, if you start making exit maps, I’m proposing.”
I glare at him.
He clears his throat. “Too soon?”
“Considering my best friend just got proposed to mid-dick by your president, apparently not in this club.”
His brows shoot up. “Diablo proposed during sex?”
“Darling texted me a ring emoji, a devil emoji, and a desk emoji. I filled in the trauma.”
Shady looks toward the ceiling. “That man’s office has seen too much.”
“Your clubhouse bird witnessed it.”
His mouth curves. “I’m afraid of what that bird will start saying.”
“Disco probably yelled pendejo at the exact right time.”
“He usually does.”
The laugh that slips out of me is small.
Shady hears it like a starving man hears a dinner bell.
His face softens for one second.
I hate it.
I walk away before he can see it landed. “Put the box on the counter.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t yes ma’am me unless you plan to behave.”
“Those two things don’t usually go together.”
“That’s why you’re on thin ice.”
“Miami doesn’t have ice.”