“I’m always ready for you.” I lightly trace my fingertips over the bruises. “Do they hurt?”
“No.” She shivers from my touch. “They’re where you left your mark.”
“Now you’re mine.”
“Don’t get cocky,” she teases with a soft pinch to my flank, then slips away.
“More like wishful thinking.” I haul her back, my hands roving her body as I kiss the air out of her.
“Boy, you better stop.” But her eyes have that glazed look I like putting there. “Breakfast first.”
“Fair.” I smack her ass with just enough sting to make her yelp. “Need me to kiss it better?” I toss over my shoulder.
“Later.” She grins. “Can I help with anything?”
“Nope. Finish your puzzle. Eggs over easy, right?”
She quirks an eyebrow. “How do you remember all the things I like?”
“I store them up here,” I say, tapping my temple, “and on my phone for safekeeping.”
“You got a spreadsheet with my name on it?”
“Not exactly. It’s more like a running ledger.”
Her smile says she likes being the subject of my focus.
Luna puts on show tunes while I move with efficiency, grabbing eggs from the fridge and getting started on the sausages. I know musicals come in all flavors, but whatever she’s playing is an assault on my eardrums. I live for the deep, hypnotic crawl of Amapiano. Music that lives in the sub-woofers. This stuff lacks any semblance of chill. It’s a frantic barrage of tinny tambourines and brassy, theatrical screeching that crowds the kitchen. I want to plug my ears, but looking over at her bopping happily on the stool, completely lost in the candy-coated rhythm, her shoulders twitching to the beat, puts a sweet shine on the torture.
As I turn the sausages browning in the skillet, Luna glances up. “Four-letter word for desire?”
“Urge? Lust? Burn? Fire? Fuck?”
“Okayy, how’d you rattle those off so fast?”
“I have inspiration.”
That makes her grin. “The second letter is a ‘t’. Ah… itch.” She fills in the squares, then looks back up. “I have inspiration, too.”
I grin back, and the mood stays light over breakfast. And thankfully, she’s turned off the music.
“That was incredible,” she says when we’ve finished the last bite. “You’re far too good at all this.”
“All what?” I ask, bringing our empty plates to the sink.
“Being attentive. Making a woman feel like a queen. It’s giving experienced-boyfriend energy, which seems at odds with a man who claims he’s never been in a serious relationship. Why has no one ever locked this down?”
Here’s the pivotal moment. No more glossing over it. No more dodging. Just the truth.
“Because I wasn’t like this before,” I admit, rinsing the plates.
“Like what?” she asks, stacking them in the dishwasher.
“Work wasn’t just a job for me. It was my entire makeup. There wasn’t room for another person—no space to build anything real.” I glance over at her, wanting to be as transparent as the glass walls surrounding us. “If you talked to the women I dated in D.C., they’d probably tell you to run.”
“Why?” Her eyes widen.
“Because they felt like they came second. To the work. To whatever crisis was blowing up. To everything.” She doesn’t move away, but I feel the warmth between us cool as my admission unearths the ghost of Hollis, and every man who made her feel like an afterthought. “I wasn’t a partner, Luna. I was a man who fit women, friends—even my family—into the gaps of his schedule.”
