“Look at you! Does he call you ma’am or boss?”
“Neither. Quinn Supreme.” She laughs. “I expect nothing less.” She worries her lip. “I would’ve asked you, but you made it pretty clear you don’t want to mix things again.”
“Yeah, after the friends-at-the-office fiasco, I’m not doing that again, don’t worry,” I assure her, and I mean it. “Do you want to expand beyond coffee and pastries now that you have help?”
“Yeah, but I’d need a lot more investment money I don’t have. For more space, a bigger kitchen, staff. Who knows? Maybe one day I can cater for small events.”
“Yo, Quinny!” a scrawny teenager calls from the kitchen door. “The fruit guy is here.”
She groans and I mutter aQuinn Supreme, my ass, under my breath, earning a finger salute from her.
“Excuse me, are you from around here?”
An out-of-towner smiles at me from the other side of the small table. It’s obvious he’s a tourist and his shy smile and the wedding ring on his finger put me at ease.
We strike up a conversation and I find out he’s on an anniversary trip with his wife. He’s so sweet I give him a full list of the best restaurants in the area for a romantic date and places they could visit. I love Silver Lake Falls and I’m so happy to share my little town with the tourists who want to discover its little hidden gems.
Carter sways leisurely through my home, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“What’s so funny?”
“This place is so you. Sunny, cozy.”
I don’t know why his comment makes me all warm and gooey.
His hair is overgrown after two months, giving him a boyish air. The strands fall over his eyes when he bends to peer at the sketches in the best spot in the house: the little workspace under the window, facing the lake.
“I like this look on you,” I say.
“Maybe I’ll keep it and shock everybody in the office.”
The subject of his departure is sobering. We have an expiration date.
We fall into a rhythm. He comes in the evenings with dinner I learned to accept without giving myself an aneurysm.
Most of the time we don’t make it to bed. There’s a hunger and a rush to feel one another as much as possible.
He takes me slow and hard.
The power he has over me scares me. Whenever we’re close this version of me tentatively makes her way to the surface. The more time I spend with him, the bolder she gets, demanding more and more. Demands to shine, to try, to say more. Picks at the hard shell until she makes space to hatch. Until it expands to the very tips of my toes and the ends of my hair.
I get lost in his eyes, shining with unspoken feelings. Maybe if I told him first.
“Carter, I—”
“Don’t. Please.” He kisses my forehead, my nose, and a deep kiss robs me of any words I wanted to say.
It hurts, but he has a point. That’s not what we agreed to. I’ll keep it to myself for the few weeks he’ll be here. My little treasure.
“Will you stay tonight?” I refused to let him stay over in an attempt to prove I could do it on my own, but all it did was waste the precious time I had left with him.
He doesn’t answer but kisses my neck and murmurs, so softly into my hair, the secret we won’t talk about. “I’d never leave.”
The sight of a shirtless Carter cooking breakfast in my kitchen is the newest item on the list of things he does to turn me on. Even after I stumbled into the bathroom and saw his scar, he’s not usually comfortable exposing it except when we have sex.
Carter’s ease in this unguarded moment scorches me, a molted stream, flowing through my veins.
I stare at him without any restraint. I’ve gotten past the point of being ashamed to appreciate his body, but the faint pink on the tips of his ears when he sees me tugs at my heartstrings with a dangerous force.
