“Thank you for the toys. That was a really nice gesture.”
He pulls me tighter into a deeper kiss like he’s desperate for this moment to linger before letting me go. “I have to go back to work.”
I slump against the wall once he’s gone. I swear, that man lurches between the most charming human I’ve ever met and an absolute robot.
But he kisses like heaven and that’s the most dangerous thing about him.
MASS
Ican barely sleep that night. I keep wondering who I’ve become. I can barely recognize the man inside my skin.
Since when did I want to linger in a baby’s room just to watch her sleep? And why is that single, tasteful kiss still lodged in my stomach like a stone?
I wake early and slip from bed without bothering Allie. I make espresso and check my messages. There’s a morning briefing created by Lady. The house AI is good at taking all of my various emails and collating them into a single list of important tasks. Mostly they’re minor fires I have to squash, and today’s no different.
Rebels in Yemen are killing my suppliers. A bomb-maker affiliated with our organization is dead in a blast of his own making in downtown Cairo. Problems are scattered all over the fucking place.
And I still can’t think of anything but my wife.
Frustration lingers in my stomach. I stand by the windows and look out at the ocean. Usually, the endless blue calms me. But not today.
“Lady, play something to help me concentrate.”
“Right away, Mr. Cardone.” Her vaguely accent-free voice floats from the hidden speakers. Simple lo-fi piano music follows with a mellow beat and calming strings on top. Probably Lady’s generating everything on the fly. I drink my coffee and try to get back to reading, but that doesn’t last long.
Allie appears in the kitchen. She yawns, stretching up onto her tiptoes. Her top pulls up and shows off her smooth stomach. If she reaches higher, it’ll touch the bottoms of her breasts. My heart rate increases and I feel myself getting half-hard at the sight of her messy hair and her sleepy eyes.
“Why are you staring at me?” she asks, smiling a little.
“You look good.”
“Uh, thanks.” She quickly turns away. “Can I have some coffee?”
“I’ll make you a latte.” I take over in the kitchen. She watches me, leaning against the counter. “When does our daughter wake up?”
“My daughter,” she corrects absently and glances at the monitor. “Not too much longer. What’s this music?”
“Lady’s making it.”
“The house AI?” Allie wrinkles her nose. “Why not listen to something from a human?”
“All noise is the same to me. I just needed something to help me think.” But I want to please her, and so I query Lady with my phone and have her play only human-made songs.
I barely notice the difference.
“Did you know it threatened to zap me yesterday? There’s this big metal door?—”
I finish her drink and hand it over. She cradles it between both hands and blows lightly on the top. “You must’ve gone far if you found that.”
“What are you hiding in there?”
“Nothing you’d be interested in.”
“Drugs? Money? Guns?”
“A person.”
Her eyebrows raise. “Really?”
