He followed her down the familiar hall into the kitchen. The pan on the burner was simmering, sauce thickening to a glossy gold. A salad waited in a big wooden bowl, bread on a cutting board beside it.
Reid set the wine on the counter and turned, leaning his hip against the island, eyes tracking her as she moved.
“You cooked,” he said.
“Iamcooking,” she corrected, reaching for a wooden spoon. “Active verb. This could still end in spectacular failure.”
“You reopened one of the most infamous cases in the county and still found time to feed the District Attorney,” he said. “I’m honored.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m your insufferable tonight.”
She thrust the spoon at his chest before her brain could fully process that. “Stir. If you’re going to stand there and be intolerable, you can at least be useful.”
He didn’t take it right away.
Instead, his fingers closed gently around her wrist, stopping the motion. He gave the lightest tug, drawing her a half-step closer until they were almost chest to chest, the heat of him sinking through the thin silk of her camisole.
“I sure have missed you,” he said quietly.
The air between them tightened. Her pulse kicked hard against his fingers where they circled her wrist.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. With his free hand, he brushed his thumb along her lower lip, rubbing it lightly, tugging it enough that she felt flustered and undone.
Then he bent and stole a brief, soft kiss—nothing like the wild, hungry thing from her hallway and his bedroom. A deliberate press of his mouth to hers that saidI rememberandI’m glad I’m here.
By the time her brain caught up, he’d eased the spoon from her fingers.
“Now,” he murmured, finally taking a small step back, attention still fixed on her. “I’ll stir.”
He turned to the stove, easy and unhurried, like he belonged there, and started to stir the sauce as if he hadn’t unraveled her in two seconds flat.
“Timeline check,” he said lightly, watching the sauce. “I left my house Monday morning after our weekend of bliss, thinking, ‘That was incredible.’ You left my house thinking, ‘I will now never acknowledge that ever happened.’ Then you walked into Burke’s office Monday and looked at me like I’d crawled out of a drain instead of like a man you were completely, helplessly over the moon for.”
“Reid.”
“Or,” he said, entirely too pleased with himself, “at the very least like a man you’d spent the entire weekend thinking about.”
“I did not,” she protested.
He slanted her a look. “You absolutely did. And now, tonight, you’ve invited me into your home. Alone. No Deck. No sheriff. No witnesses.” His voice went a shade softer. “I’m going to take that as progress.”
She stared at the counter, fighting a smile and losing. “You are… a menace.”
“And yet you keep calling,” he said gently.
Jazz curled around them. The sauce thickened under his hand. Her heartbeat finally, finally started to settle...into something that didn’t feel like panic.
Maybe, she thought, he wasn’t wrong.
Maybe this was progress.
Dinner was easy. Too easy, really.
They ate and talked and argued lightly over nothing, his foot brushing hers under the table often enough that she was pretty sure it was on purpose. By the time the plates were cleared and the jazz on the speaker had slipped into something slower, the air between them felt thick with unspoken decisions.
They wound up back in the kitchen, side by side at the sink—her rinsing, him drying. His arm brushed hers. Once. Twice. On the third pass, he didn’t bother to pretend it was an accident.
