23
BLACK ARCHIVE HEIST
CALLAHAN
Iwoke to the smell of coffee and Dom's weight shifting the mattress.
He was already up, moving through my kitchen in just his boxers, bare-chested and wearing last night's bruises like badges. The manual coffee grinder whirred—he'd been grinding beans because my electric one had died months ago and I kept forgetting to replace it.
“You're awake,” he said without turning around.
“Mmm.” I sat up and catalogued the pleasant aches. A bite mark on my shoulder. Fingerprint bruises on my hips. Scratch marks down my back. “What time is it?”
“Early. Go back to sleep if you want.”
“Can't. You're making noise.” But I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to watch him move through my space like he belonged here, like this wasn't the fifth or sixth time he'd stayed over but the hundredth.
“You weren't complaining about the noise last night.” He poured water into the French press. “In fact, you were rather loud yourself.”
“Was not.”
“Cal. The people three floors up know my name now. Possibly my full legal name and National Insurance number.”
Heat crept up my neck. “Shut up.”
“Make me.” He brought me coffee, black and at a perfect temperature, then sat on the edge of the bed close enough that I could see the hickey I'd left on his collarbone. “Morning breath and all.”
I kissed him anyway, slow and lazy, tasting coffee and sleep and him. His hand cupped the back of my neck, his thumb stroking skin still tender from where he'd held me down last night.
“You're in a good mood,” I observed when we broke apart.
“Slept well. You tire me out.” He stood and stretched, completely unselfconscious. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Good. I'm making eggs.” He headed back to the kitchen. “Also, I'm buying you groceries later because this fridge is a disaster.”
“It's fine.”
“It's three-day-old takeaway, expired milk, and condiments. That's not fine, that's depression.”
“I eat.”
He cracked eggs into the pan one-handed. “You're underweight. I can feel your ribs when I?—”
“Don't finish that sentence.”
“When I hold you,” he said innocently. “What did you think I was going to say?”
I threw a pillow at him. He dodged it, grinning.
“Come eat,” he said. “Before it gets cold.”
I got up, pulled on yesterday's shirt, and joined him at my tiny kitchen table that barely fitted two people. He'd made proper eggs, scrambled with cheese and herbs I didn't evenknow I had, along with toast and fresh coffee in mugs that didn't match because I'd never cared enough to buy a set.
“You're too good at this,” I said.
“At what? Cooking eggs?”
