Daily reminders that I was gone. Proof that I had been here.
Comfort or torture, I wasn’t sure.
I jumped out of bed into the cold February morning, because I was here now and I wasn’t about to waste it.
In the dark, I hadn’t really looked at the room, but now I couldn’t unsee it. The way he’d dragged me to the end of the bed, taking his time on my throat, the way he’d pressed hisbody against mine. The morning kisses. The sneaking back out.
The love we’d shared in this room.
And, in the mirror, I tried to calm my nerves. I threw my hair up and, knowing full well that it would be freezing downstairs with the dogs going in and out, and the fact that I had at least one other outfit to unpack, I wanted him to admire me just like how I’d drooled over him last night.
So, in nothing but his jumper, I went to make a coffee, Vincent in tow.
Zolt was already down there, his back bare and as muscular as I remembered. I paused on the stairs, watching his body move. The marks from my nails had healed in the months since I’d clung to him.
He was smooth and strong andmine.
His mouth was full as he waved over at me and smiled. “Morning.”
The dogs rushed over, a stampede of pitter-pattering paws and tongues licking at my calves.
“Morning,” I returned. The second the bannister no longer hid me, his chewing slowed as he looked me up and down, eyes lingering just as I’d hoped, then met mine. He breathed in deeply and swivelled back to the food he was preparing.
“Can you keep an eye on this?” he asked and gestured to the sausages in the pan. “I won’t be a second.”
Those words, and the way he ran up the stairs, deflated me.
I’d pushed a boundary. He might not hate me, but I’d still betrayed him, and here I was, parading goods he couldn’t have.
I rolled the sausages over with the spatula, cursing myself.
It wasn’t just me who needed time.
He crept up on me, placing something warm and heavy on my shoulders. I jerked back in surprise, then grinned, wrapping the fluffy dressing gown around me.
It was mine from that first weekend I’d stayed here.
“It’s cold. I know how much you feel it.”
“Thank you,”I said in Kriolu as he took over the cooking again.
He slowed and frowned at me. “What did you say?” he asked in Hungarian.
“I know a few phrases now,” I told him.“I’ve been learning in my spare time. Don’t think I did it for you, though.”
My grin told him it was a lie.
“Fucking hell,” he said in English, then slipped to Kriolu. “And I thought I couldn’t love you anymore.”
I laughed, somewhat awkwardly, looking at the floor.
“I know very little in the grand scheme of things,”I told him, back in Hungarian. He always put me on a pedestal. I didn’t deserve that.
“I can teach you,”he offered, his smile warm and excited.
I wanted that. But we needed to move slowly.
As I stepped back, I nearly tripped over one of the dogs.
