Tucked in close to his side on top of the comforter was Henrietta.
When she saw Hilliard looking, her tail began to wag guiltily. She knew she wasn’t allowed on the bed. Without lifting her head, she made a soft grrruff at him, as if to say, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. Hilliard decided she could get away with it just this once.
He took a shower that steamed up the bathroom in record time, warming his aches and washing away the traces left behind from the rest of their evening. Dressed in his most comfortable high-waisted lounge pants and an ivory polo shirt, he stepped into the hallway with his hands on his hips.
There was a trail of discarded clothes from the bedroom all the way to the sofa. He bent to pick up the piece closest to him.
Hilliard had managed to get about half of the buttons undone on Monty’s shirt as they stumbled toward the bedroom in slow motion, their backs bumping against the wall, both of them smiling so hard that their kisses were nothing more than quick pecks and lips caught between teeth. It was here that Monty had pulled his shirt over his head, turning it inside out in the process.
With a private grin, Hilliard folded the shirt over his arm and continued collecting their abandoned clothes and shoes.
Next, he picked up their unfinished glasses of wine and brought them to the kitchen. Quiet music filled the air when he turned the dial on the radio to his favorite Sunday morning station. Once he had the coffee percolating, he started on the bacon.
Was it possible for one man to truly have it all? In that moment, Hilliard felt that it was.
Monty was an experienced lover, sure of himself in all the ways Hilliard imagined he would be. At the same time, he was attentive from start to finish, never rushing—as badly as they both might’ve wanted to. Hilliard’s face warmed as he recalled begging for exactly that at least once. And through it all, Monty had made him forget his worries about what might happen come sunrise.
Hilliard refused to let them trickle in now.
Instead, he focused on flipping the bacon, checking the toast, and cracking the eggs. He added a dash of milk that had been delivered that morning and a handful of shredded cheese to the bowl, whisking away. They were just starting to scramble in the hot skillet when he felt an arm wrap around his middle, followed by a tender press of lips to the side of his neck. Heat washed through him at the touch and he grinned as a soft hum escaped him.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning.” Monty must’ve taken a shower, too. His hair was damp and he smelled like soap. “Coffee?”
“Pour yourself a cup while I finish these eggs. They’re almost ready.”
“I’ll pour two.”
“Thanks, doll.”
Aside from the kiss, their morning started like most did. Hilliard served breakfast at the table. They ate while Monty slowly woke up and Hilliard read the news headlines to him. After the first cup of coffee, Monty was alert enough to share a thought on some of the more important ones.
“Oh, here’s a good one. Apparently there was a flock of South American condors spotted up near Bakersfield,” Hilliard said with interest. “They’re usually only found in the Andes. That’s an awfully long way to fly.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Hilliard let the corner of the paper fold toward him and looked at Monty over it.
“I don’t know much about birds,” he admitted, reaching for the coffee Monty had poured for him. He liked Taffy, the Powells’ pink cockatoo, but that was hardly enough to carry a conversation over.
“I mean about last night.”
“Oh.” Hilliard set his cup down. “Yes, I suppose we should.” He set the paper aside, too, and sat up more in his chair.
“You didn’t push my magic away.”
The bluntness of Monty’s statement forced Hilliard’s brows up in mild surprise.
“I didn’t realize you could feel it so strongly.”
“Why didn’t you push it away?”
Hilliard knew his answer before Monty finished asking the question.
“Because I didn’t want to.”
“What changed?”
