Debra narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Debra leaned in and kissed Billie slowly. “If I do, you’ll buy it for your place, and I won’t have a reason to lure you over here.”
Billie unexpectedly wrapped an arm around Debra’s waist and drew her in. Their bodies pressed together, and she almost lost her mind. “I come here foryou, not your coffee.”
“Is that so?”
Billie lifted Debra’s chin gently with two fingers and smiled down at her. “Youare the only thing I think about lately. If I didn’t have to work today, I wouldn’t be. I’d be here with you, or at my place with you…but either way, I’d be with you, okay?”
“Nina can’t handle the entire day without you?” Debra felt selfish for putting that out there, but she still had to ask. If Nina could handle this morning, why not the afternoon too?
“I have a new client coming in at two. I like to be there for their first fitting to build rapport if nothing else. My name is above the door, so clients expect to deal with me.”
Debra paused long enough for Billie to notice.
“What is it?”
Debra dipped her gaze and cleared her throat. “May I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“When I went to the shop yesterday, Nina mentioned that you don’t offer the full service anymore.”
Billie simply lifted a shoulder. “No, I don’t.”
“Can I ask why?”
Billie considered the question as she rested back against the counter. Even as she did so, her arm remained around Debra’s waist, holding her securely in place. “At first, I removed it because I thought that you and I would reconnect.” Billie smiled weakly. “I didn’t want to be offering something that intimate to other women if you were in my life. It didn’t sit right with me.”
Debra’s fingers clenched around her coffee cup.
“But then, even when I knew you weren’t going to be around anymore, I couldn’t bring myself to put it back on the website.”
Debra’s brows drew together. “Why?”
“Because it doesn’t align with who I am now.” The words landed with surprising weight. “I’m not ashamed of what I used to do, and I understand why I did it, but that version of me was about control and containment. About surviving. I don’t want to live there again.”
“I’m proud of how far you’ve come, Billie.” Debra lowered her cup to the counter and draped her arms over Billie’s shoulders. “You should be proud of yourself, too.”
“I don’t want to sell access to myself. Not physically and not emotionally. I want my work to be my work, and my intimacy to be…mine.Ours.”
The kitchen fell very still. Debra reached out and brushed her thumb over Billie’s bottom lip, aching to take her back into the bedroom and show her just how much she craved everything that she was. “Ours…”
“I don’t want anyone else, Debra. Only you. If…you’re sure you want me.”
“Want you?” Debra lifted a brow and cupped Billie’s face in her hands. “Oh, I wantallof you, Billie. Every last inch of you.”
“Idofeel it.” Billie visibly swallowed. “The way you look at me, the care you have for me, I feel it all.”
“Do you think it can be enough? Do you thinkIcan be enough for you?”
Billie bent her knees, wrapped her hands around the backs of Debra’s thighs, and hoisted her onto the kitchen island. She pressed her hands to the counter on either side of Debra’s body, leaned in, and whispered, “You’re already too much for me.”
“Billie…”
“I want this, Debra. I want you, whatever our mornings together end up being, and I want to leave work each day knowing at some point I’m going to be kissing you.”
