My chest goes tight in a way I don’t have a name for.
Ruby must see something shift in my face, because her expression softens too. She pushes herself up a little on the pillow, the hem of my shirt sliding higher on her thigh, and my body remembers exactly how little sleep I got and why.
“Coffee can wait,” she whispers.
My hand stays at her waist.
“Ruby.”
There’s warning in it. Not because I want to stop this. Because I know exactly what happens if I don’t.
Her eyes hold mine.
“I know,” she says softly.
I search her face anyway. For fear. For doubt. For the smallest sign that she’s reaching for me because she’s shaken and not because she wants me.
All I find is warmth.
And choice.
Her hand comes up, fingertips brushing my jaw, then my mouth, like she’s still learning the shape of me in daylight.
“I meant what I said,” she murmurs. “I want to wake up with you.”
That feels too close to home for a man like me.
Home isn’t a thing I’ve ever trusted.
But this?
Her in my bed. My shirt on her skin. Her looking at me like she wants me here after one of the worst nights of her life.
This could make a man stupid.
Or dangerous.
Maybe both.
I roll onto my back and pull her with me until she’s half over me, giving her every chance to shift away, to laugh it off, to change her mind.
She doesn’t.
She settles there like she belongs, one hand braced on my bare chest, the other sliding up into my hair. My briefs suddenly feel useless.
“Still want coffee?” she asks, and there’s the smallest sleepy tease in it now.
I look up at her.
Her cheeks are flushed. Her hair’s a wild red spill around her shoulders. Her eyes are still heavy with sleep, but they’re fixed on me like I’m the first thing she wants in daylight.
“Not as much as I want this,” I say, then I pull her into a kiss.
“Sin,” she whispers, her cheeks flushing. The shirt rides up as she swings a leg over, straddling my lap.
My hands go to her thighs on instinct, gripping the soft flesh.
“You want this?” I ask, even though I can feel her heat through the thin fabric, pressing against me. My cock thickens, tenting the briefs.
