"I notice everything about you, Sunny." He says it without fanfare, just a quiet truth delivered with his lips still pressed tomy palm. "I felt the moment you woke up. You stiffened, then melted right back into me."
My cheeks flush. He's not wrong, and the fact that he clocked all of that through touch alone, eyes closed, makes my pulse skip.
"I wasn't going to bolt," I reply. "I was just assessing the situation."
"Assessing." His grin widens, and the playfulness I know so well surfaces through the morning softness. "And what's the verdict?"
I hold his gaze, and the honesty of this moment, lying face to face in my small bed with the gray morning light catching the gold flecks in his eyes, tears something open inside me that is both terrifying and wonderful. "The verdict is that I'm not sorry about a single thing that happened last night."
"Good." The word comes out low and satisfied. "Neither am I."
"Don't let it go to your head, Hayden."
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering at my cheek. The teasing falls away from his expression, and I do the only thing that makes sense. I kiss him.
His mouth is soft, tasting like sleep and something familiar that I'm starting to associate exclusively with him. His hand slides up my back, fingers spreading wide against my bare skin, and the contact makes me shiver despite the heat of the sheets around us.
When I pull back, his pupils are dark and his breathing has changed, and the hard press of him against my stomach makes the investigation I started last night very tempting to continue. But my stomach growls and the timing is so perfectly terrible that I press my forehead against his chest and groan.
Charlie's laugh shakes the bed. "I'll take that as a sign that breakfast comes before round two."
"There's no round two until there's breakfastandcoffee." I push myself upright and swing my legs over the edge of the mattress, reaching for the t-shirt I keep draped over the bedpost. It's an old UC Davis shirt and it falls to mid-thigh when I pull it over my head.
"I like that shirt on you," Charlie comments from behind me. "Though I think mine would look better."
"It's the only clean thing within reach, and you're the reason my tank top is tangled somewhere on the floor."
"Guilty." He doesn't sound remotely sorry.
He stretches, the sheets sliding to his waist. I force myself to look away before the sight of all that gorgeous bare skin derails the entire morning. I hear him scrounging for his clothes, and by the time I'm starting the coffee, he appears in the kitchen in jeans and nothing else, his hair mussed and his feet bare on my tile floor.
The domesticity of the image catches me off guard. Charlie Hayden, sexy and shirtless in my kitchen, leaning against the doorframe like he belongs there. This space has never had a man in it. It's mine and designed for the rhythm of one.
Having him here should feel like an invasion. But it's not intrusive at all.
"Pancakes and eggs sound good?" I ask, pulling a bowl from the cabinet. "It's my go-to."
"You don't have to cook for me."
"You fixed my sink. I fed you dinner. Breakfast is the next logical step." I crack eggs into the bowl and reach for the flour. "Besides, I'm starving."
"Same." There's a twinkle in his eye that makes my cheeks flush. "Someone kept me up past my bedtime."
"Don't look so proud of yourself." But I'm smiling, and the grin he gives me from across the counter is insufferable.
He finds the coffee mugs without asking where they are, and when the pot finishes, he pours two cups and sets mine on the counter beside me. Black.
"How do you know how I take my coffee?"
"Because I've been bringing you coffee since I started at the winery, Sunny, and not once have you asked for cream or sugar." He moves close enough that his arm brushes mine. "I also know you hold the mug with both hands when you're comfortable and one hand when you're not."
I stare at him. "That's a very specific observation."
"I pay attention when something matters."
The echo lands like a jolt, and he knows it, because the corner of his mouth lifts in a way that's both infuriating and endearing. I pick up my mug and wrap both hands around the ceramic without thinking about it. His gaze drops to my hands, and the satisfied expression on his face makes me want to throw something at him.
We move around each other in the small kitchen with a rhythm that shouldn't exist between two people who have never shared a morning. He reaches past me for a spatula, pressing into my back for a second, and I lean into it before I can stop myself.
