Whipped cream and me.
I reached for him without thinking, caught his face in both hands, and leaned in to lick my own taste and the last sweetness off his mouth.
His eyes went dark on contact, and the sound he made sat one half step from losing every decent intention he had put on that morning.
“Dammit, woman,” he muttered.
I smiled, still breathless, still shaking a little, and rested my forehead against his.
“No,” I whispered. “Your breakfast.”
seventeen
. . .
By the timeI got to Burton Creative’s rooftop mixer, the city had already gone full evening. Downtown looked expensive in that way Pittsburgh sometimes surprised people with, all glass, gold, and river-dark shine against an ink black sky.
My overnight bag sat in the back seat, packed with a change of clothes for work tomorrow. Toiletries. A fresh shirt. A tie rolled instead of folded because I wasn’t trying to wrinkle my own life up over romance.
I hadn’t brought it because I assumed anything.
I brought it because somewhere between Talia leaving a pair of heels by my front door and me waking up twice last week with her asleep across my chest, I had stopped pretending I likedleaving her house at midnight just because convention said I should take my Black ass home.
I got out, headed through the lobby, and took the elevator up with a few people who smelled like expensive cologne, fresh makeup, and whatever confidence came from being invited somewhere with a view.
The elevator doors opened into a low-lit lounge that spilled straight out onto the rooftop. Warm air moved in from the terrace, carrying music, perfume, and the low, layered sound of people enjoying themselves without having to wonder if the room had been built with them in mind.
Beyond the glass doors, string lights crossed overhead in clean lines, and the city stretched out around the building like part of the decor. High-top tables sat between planters full of deep greenery and dark florals. Low lounge seating curved around small tables with candles set low enough to make everybody’s skin look good. The bar ran along one side under a black awning, bottles catching gold light every time the bartender reached for something. Nothing looked accidental, but none of it felt stiff either.
My baby worked on this.
Late nights on my couch and hers, laptop balanced on her pretty thighs, tablet propped beside a glass of wine, her voice calm but firm while she went back and forth with vendors who kept trying to make safe choices and call them elegant. I had watched her reject pale mockups, question lighting plans, push for richer textures, better florals, warmer wood, music that actually fit the room, and signage that did not look like it had been ordered in panic from somebody’s cousin’s printer.
Burton Creative’s name was on the event, and the hotel group had the rooftop, the sponsor, and the budget. But Monarch Row had clearly influenced the feeling of the room.This looked like Talia’s work. Not because it screamed for attention. Because it understood who was coming.
The space felt polished without being sterile. Expensive without being scared. Black without being reduced to a mood board somebody had stripped of blood and called sophisticated.
It was the kind of place where Black people could arrive dressed, beautiful, loud if they wanted to be, soft if they wanted to be, professional without shrinking, sensual without apologizing, and know the room could hold all of that.
The kind of event that told you money had been spent, but taste had made the final call.
And there she was.
Halfway across the rooftop, near the stretch of railing where the city made everybody look better than they probably deserved, talking to a woman with a press badge and good posture. One hand wrapped around a glass, the other moving lightly through the point she was making. Deep plum dress. Gold at her ears and wrist. Pixie laid smooth and glossy. Her whole body moving with that calm, unhurried confidence that made it clear she knew the night was partly hers.
I stopped right there and let myself look.
The plum dress hugged her ass enough to keep a grown man clenching his jaw. Her smile flashed once, bright and quick, and I felt something shift low in my chest that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with the fact that this woman had somehow become part of what peace looked like for me.
That had happened faster than I expected.
Since the night at my place, things between us had stopped feeling like dates I was setting up and started feeling like a life slipping into place. Dinner out one night. Movies on my couch another. Her soft laugh in my kitchen. Me sweating out her pretty hair while she held on to my shoulders like I was exactly where she wanted to be. Waking up and seeing her asleep besideme, mouth parted just enough to ruin a man’s discipline before seven in the morning. The way her amber eyes looked when they opened and realized where she was.
And being inside her.
God.
That had become its own kind of trouble.
