This was happening too fast and not nearly fast enough. I wanted to touch him everywhere, wanted to map every muscle and scar and imperfection until I knew his body as well as my own. I wanted to strip him naked and worship him with my mouth until he forgot his own name. I wanted?—
“Wait,” I gasped, my hands flat against his chest as reality crashed over me like a bucket of ice water. “Wait, we can’t?—”
Eamon pulled back immediately, his breathing harsh and his eyes dark with arousal, but he didn’t try to convince me otherwise. “What’s wrong?”
“We can’t do this,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “We shouldn’t. You’re on duty. This is your job, protecting me. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your supervisors and mess up your career.”
Something flickered across Eamon’s face—surprise, maybe, or gratitude that I’d been thinking of his well-being even in the middle of this. “Charles?—”
“I’m serious.” I stepped back, putting some much-needed distance between us before I lost my resolve entirely. “I won’t be responsible for you getting fired or disciplined or whatever happens to cops who sleep with the people they’re supposed to be protecting.”
Eamon stared at me for a long moment, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. I could see the internal struggle playing out across his features—desire warring with duty, want battling with obligation.
“You’re right,” he said finally, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”
“Don’t apologize,” I interrupted. “Please don’t apologize for that. I want it too. God, I want you so much.”
The admission hung between us, raw and honest, and for a moment, we looked at each other with naked longing.
“So what do we do now?” Eamon asked quietly.
I glanced toward the fireplace, where the flames were still devouring the wood Eamon had chopped earlier, oblivious to the emotional chaos they’d witnessed. “We could…dance some more? If you want to.”
Relief flooded his expression. “I’d like that.”
This time, when he took me in his arms, the mood was different—still intimate, but softer, more tender than desperate. We swayed together in comfortable silence for a while, the only sound the crackling of the fire and Eamon’s quiet humming.
“Tell me something about yourself,” I said eventually. “Something real.”
Eamon was quiet for so long that I thought he might not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was distant, almost wistful.
“I grew up poor,” he said. “Really poor. The kind where you wore the same clothes until they fell apart and considered yourself lucky if there was meat on the table once a week.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
“It was, and it wasn’t.” His hand moved in slow circles against my back. “We didn’t have much, but we had each other. My ma could make anything grow in that little patch of dirt behind our house. Flowers, vegetables, herbs for cooking and healing. She had the greenest thumb you’ve ever seen.”
He spun me slowly, and I caught a glimpse of his face—soft with memory, younger somehow. The love in hisvoice when he talked about his mother made my chest tight.
“She sounds wonderful.”
“She was, and that’s the truth. She used to say that music and growing things were the only real magic in the world.”
His accent was slipping again, but I didn’t mention it. I was beginning to suspect it wasn’t an act for an undercover assignment. Somehow, he was Irish, though why he was trying to keep that a secret, I wasn’t sure. The way he talked now was the real him showing through the careful facade he usually maintained.
“I see baking as magic. You start with something so simple, like flour, butter, and sugar, or a bit of yeast, and then you create the most amazing things by adding a few ingredients. Even watching dough rise is like magic to me. It never gets old.”
Eamon made a humming sound deep in his chest. “I can see that. Did you always know you wanted to be a baker?”
“From when I was eight and received a kid’s baking set from Santa.” I chuckled softly at the memory. “It was from my grandmother, who loved baking as well. She and I had baked cookies together for the first time, and she was so delighted I loved it that she got me a little kid’s baker’s hat and apron, plus some cookie shapes and baking tins. The very next day, I begged my mom to bake something, and we made chocolate chip cookies together. I never stopped, and within months, I made far more complicated things than my mom or my grandma. I baked my first wedding cake when I was fourteen, for my cousin, and that was that. I never wanted anything else.”
He was quiet for a while, but it felt comfortable as we continued to sway to the soft music still playing on hisphone. “The baking might be magical, but so is what you make people feel.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You bring joy to weddings, birthdays, or other special occasions. That’s magical too. That something you create can make people feel good.”
The simple observation hit me harder than it should have. Trust Eamon to see the poetry in what I did, to understand the real reason I loved my work. “Not many people understand that.”
