For a moment, I just watched. Every instinct screamed to keep her safe, and to push her the fuck away. But there she was, in my bed, in my life, wrapped so tight around me I couldn’t remember who I’d been before her.
I closed the sketchbook, setting it aside with care. If only she knew what she was asking for by being here.
Rising, I moved to the kitchen. The faint clatter of a pan, the hiss of butter melting, it all felt obscene after the night we’d had. My hands worked on instinct, pouring batter, flipping pancakes, pretending the act could ground me. It didn’t, every thought found its way back to her, and with every heartbeat, her name reverberated through me, a pulse I could no longer live without. She was my calm. My ruin. My goddamn salvation and my sin.
I was reaching for another plate when I felt it, soft arms circling my waist, small hands pressing against my chest, warmth seeping into my back. My whole body went still.
“Hayden,” she murmured, voice husky with sleep. Hearing my name on her lips nearly fucking undid me.
I turned my head slightly, catching her reflection in the kitchen window. My shirt hung loose on her frame, too big, swallowing her completely, yet not enough to hide the bare curve of her thigh where the hem ended. My jaw locked, control thinning to a thread.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on a man holding a hot pan,” I said, deep and unhurried, though the amusement in my tone was rough around the edges.
Her lips brushed my shoulder, a ghost of a kiss through the fabric. “And you shouldn’t look this good while cooking,” she whispered. “It’s distracting.”
I set the pan down before I did something reckless, a dark laugh catching in my throat.
“Distracting, huh? You walk into my kitchen, wearing my shirt, smelling of me, and you’re calling me the distraction.”
I caught her wrist, lifted her hand, and pressed my mouth to her knuckles. “Eat first,” I said softly, though the words burned in my throat. “Then I’ll give you every distraction you can handle.”
Her lashes fluttered. She looked up at me, eyes dark and questioning. “And what about your breakfast?” she asked, her voice barely holding steady.
A slow grin curved my mouth. I didn’t let go of her hand. Instead, I turned it over, tracing the inside of her wrist with my thumb, feeling the wild pulse under her skin. Then I lifted her palm and kissed it—once, twice—before my lips brushed the soft spot at the base of her fingers.
“My breakfast?” I repeated, dragging out the words, savoring the way her breath hitched.
“My breakfast is you.”
Her lips parted, her chest rising in a shallow breath, but no sound came out. I let the silence stretch. I fed on it, on her, on the heat flushing her cheeks and the way her gaze fell to my mouth.
“You,” I whispered, my voice rough with hunger. “Every damn morning, I want to wake up starving for you. To taste your lips before anything else. To feel you melt against me before the world even starts moving.”
I kissed her knuckles again, slower this time, then lowered my mouth to her wrist. My tongue traced the delicate vein there, and she gasped, her fingers curling into my shirt.
“My Little Flare,” I murmured, the words a low growl against her skin. “You’re the only meal I’ll ever crave.”
Her eyes darkened, caught somewhere between protest and surrender, and it made something feral in me stir. I leaned in, my breath hot against her ear, my voice nothing but a husky confession.
“Coffee can wait. Food can wait. The only thing I want to devour this morning is you. Every sound you make. Every shiver you give me. Every inch that’s mine.” I brushed my nose against hers, lips barely touching, my voice dropping to a rasp. “Eat, if you can. But don’t think for a second I’m leaving this table hungry.”
And just like that, breakfast was forgotten.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Edwina
Therainhadbeenfalling since before dawn, not in violent torrents but in a ceaseless, persistent drizzle that seemed determined to soak the city into silence. Each droplet hissed against the pavement, slicking the stone walkways that cut across campus, gathering into shallow pools that reflected the gray of the sky. Early March in Washington was merciless in its indecision, too damp to be winter, too cold to be spring, leaving the air suspended in a state of restlessness that pressed heavily against the skin. I moved through it with measured steps, the umbrella balanced above me, its thin fabric shivering under the weight of the rain. Around me, the quad was scattered with students making their way to class, umbrellas blooming above them, dark blossoms against the muted backdrop. Their voices were hushed, swallowed by the patter overhead, and for once thecampus felt subdued—caught between seasons, caught between breaths.
And still, in that quiet, my thoughts refused to still. They returned, again and again, to the weekend. They revisited in fragments, in sharp and stubborn flashes that caught me unaware, the faint heat of his mouth, the rough murmur of his voice curling through me, smoke weaving beneath my skin, the dangerous curve of his smile when he whispered that I was his breakfast, as though I were something meant to be devoured slowly, piece by piece, until nothing remained but surrender. I drew the umbrella closer as if the rain could wash those images away. It didn’t. Nothing had.
I wanted it again, the taste of it, the danger of it, the impossible sweetness of being wanted with such intensity that the world outside fell away.
The rain struck harder against the umbrella, a thousand tiny reminders to focus on the present, to anchor myself in the gray drizzle of the weekday, in lectures and assignments, in the rhythm of ordinary life. But even as I reached the steps of the lecture hall, my mind was elsewhere. It was back in the dim quiet of that room, back in the heat of his gaze, back in the way his hand had lingered at my waist as if it belonged there.
The lecture hall was already filling when I slipped inside, the air thick with the scent of damp coats and cheap coffee. Students were scattered in restless clusters, their voices blending into a low hum beneath the hiss of rain against the tall windows. Aster spotted me immediately. She leaned across her desk, her sharp gaze pinning me in place before I even sat down. The moment I dropped my books onto the desk beside her, she pounced.
“Where the hell were you on Sunday?” she demanded, her tone clipped, the edge of worry sharpened into irritation. “You didn’t answer a single message. Not one call.”
