Page 81 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"Really well." I let a small smile come.

"Was the bed comfortable enough for you?"

Something shifts in his expression — the almost-smile I've cataloged across six months of watching his face.

"Enough," he says.

He moves before I register that he's moving. His hand finds my thigh under the sheet — warm, deliberate, pulling me toward him in one smooth motion until we're facing each other on our sides, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his skin. He leans in and kisses me — slow, unhurried, the morning version of him that I'm still learning and already addicted to. Then his lips find my neck and I close my eyes and I feel the specific luxury of a Friday morning with nowhere to be yet.

"I want you in my bed," he says against my skin. Low. Like it's been sitting in him and has finally found its way out.

"My bed. My space. I want you there."

I look at him. "You've never invited me to your place."

"I'm inviting you now." His hand moves slowly up my thigh.

"Dinner tonight. Come home with me after." His eyes hold mine.

"Stay."

I look at him for a moment — this man who spent months being the most contained person I've ever encountered, now sitting on the edge of his bed in the morning light asking me to stay. The want in it is unmistakable. So is the effort it takes him to say it plainly.

"Okay," I say.

He nods once. He picks up his coffee. We sit together in the quiet of my bedroom —just for a moment — before the day requires anything of either of us.

Only twenty minutes pass, then Logan looks at the time on his phone and something shifts in his expression — not reluctance exactly, just the practical recalibration of a man who has a full day ahead of him.

"I have to go," he says.

"I know." I sit up. Pull the sheet around me.

"You have the Nakamura prep before your other 9:00 meeting."

He looks at me. "You have that memorized?"

"I have your entire calendar memorized. It's literally my job."

He gets up. He finds his clothes from last night — folded over the chair in the corner with the precision of a man who even in the middle of everything maintains certain habits. He dresses efficiently,the transformation from the man who just had his hand on my thigh back into Logan Drake, CEO, happening in real time in front of me.

I watch him button his shirt. He catches me watching and says nothing about it. He picks up his jacket. He comes back to the bed. He leans down and kisses me once — brief, direct, with the specific quality of something that is not a goodbye.

"I'll see you at the office," he says.

"I'll be at my desk by 7:55," I say.

"I know you will." He straightens. He looks at me for one more moment. Then he goes.

The front door closes. I sit in the quiet of my apartment and I listen to the building settle around me and I feel the shape of the morning — what it was, what it means, what comes next.

I get up. I get ready. I go to work.

When I arrive at 7:55. His door is already closed — he's on an early call, the low cadence of his voice audible through the panel. I sit at my desk. I open the correspondence queue. I begin the morning the way I always begin it — methodically, purposefully, one task at a time.

Everything looks the same. The desk, the monitor, the stack of briefing folders I organized Friday afternoon. The corridor between our spaces. The floor moving outside with its ordinary weekday energy.

Nothing is the same.