Page 111 of Don’t Say Mafia

The sheets were incredible and possibly possessed magical properties, judging by how well I’d slept. The fact that they were filled with Jagger’s scent also wasn’t the worst thing.

I should have been panicking. The fire had taken everything: my clothes, my furniture, the last few photos I had of Ryan, the stupid coffee mug he’d bought me on our first anniversary. All of it was gone. I should have already been on the phone with insurance, scouring Craigslist for cheap rentals, applying to every job within a fifty-mile radius. I should have been making lists, making calls, making plans.

Instead, I was lying here, tangled in Jagger’s sheets, staring at the ceiling like a woman who’d somehow been given everything she’d ever dreamed of.

The room was quiet except for the faint clink of dishes coming from somewhere down the hall. Reluctantly, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and my bare feet hit the cool hardwood. Jagger’s T-shirt brushed my thighs with every step, and I tugged the hem down as I padded down the hallway, trying to ignore how my body still felt marked by last night, how my skin remembered his mouth and his fingers.

I followed the delicious smells drifting through the apartment straight to the kitchen, my mouth already watering and ready to praise whatever Mrs. Nesbitt had left for us . . . until I turned the corner and promptly forgot my own name.

Jagger was shirtless.

He was leaning against the island with his back to me, one hand braced on the marble, the other wrapped around a glass of water. Sweat still clung to his shoulders from whatever workout he’d just finished, catching the morning light and making every muscle shift and flex under tanned skin as he lifted the glass to his mouth.

I stared, wide-eyed, at the tattoos curled over his back, the dark ink tracing his ribs and spine. His gym shorts rode low, and the waistband dipped just enough to show the cut of his hips and the delicious dimples at the base of his spine. He looked like sin standing there. And I was literally drooling.

I stopped in the doorway, forgetting how to breathe for a moment.

Jagger turned his head slightly, and his dark eyes found mine over his shoulder. “Good morning,” he practically purred, and I was proud of myself that I only rubbed my thighs together a little.

I didn’t answer right away because he turned toward me, and I was hit with the sight of his sweat-slick chest . . . and his abs.

If I wasn’t seeing them in real time, I would swear to you they were airbrushed. “You must work out a lot,” I stuttered, immediately wanting to give myself a throat punch for saying that.

It was just that besides on a Chippendale, I hadn’t seen abs like that except in pictures. Ryan hadn’t exactly been a gym rat. Being drunk or high all the time wasn’t a lifestyle friendly to the eight-pack ab mythology.

Which wasn’t actually a myth, it turns out. The proof of it was standing right in front of me.

I finally managed to make it past the abs and the V and the enormous bulge in his shorts . . . lower, to the counter, where two plates were waiting.

“I love Mrs. Nesbitt,” I whispered, staring at the crepes as if they might vanish if I blinked.

They were folded perfectly, the thin edges crisp and golden and dusted with a snowfall of powdered sugar. Strawberries had been sliced paper-thin and fanned out in delicate semicircles beside them, bright red against the pale plate. A small bowl of whipped cream sat to one side, while another held Nutella, the spoon already dipped in and resting against the rim. Steam curled lazily from the carafe of coffee beside two waiting mugs.

I blinked, wide-eyed, and glanced up at him. “I swear you’re Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one.”

He snorted. “I think many people would disagree with that characterization, but if you want to think that, I’m not going to stop you, baby.”

He nodded toward the plates again while crossing his arms, and I got stuck again on his muscles. “Mrs. Nesbitt came in early and made these for you.”

I looked around the empty kitchen, tugging harder at the hem of his shirt like it might suddenly cover more of me. “Mrs. Nesbitt . . . She was here? I didn’t even hear her.”

“You were out cold.” His eyes dragged down me, over the way his shirt clung to my breasts, the bare stretch of thigh, the messy hair I hadn’t bothered to tame. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

Heat crawled up my neck, and I stepped closer to the island, my fingers brushing the edge of one plate.

“Sit,” Jagger ordered. “Eat.”

I slid onto the stool without arguing, my legs shaky as I tucked them under the island. He moved around the counter and poured coffee into one of the mugs before sliding it toward me.

My fork hovered in the air, mid-reach for the crepe, but my hand refused to move. I was too busy staring, completely lost in the slow flex of his abs as he shifted his weight against the counter. “Do you . . . have a shirt?” I squeaked. “Like . . . anywhere? You should put it on.”

He huffed out a laugh. “You want me to cover up?”

I swallowed. “It’s just . . . distracting me from the crepes. Which isn’t fair to Mrs. Nesbitt’s hard work.”

“‘Distracting,’” he repeated slowly, like he was tasting the word. He straightened a little but didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned in closer, his forearms flexing on the marble as he braced himself right in front of me. “Good.”

When my fork was still refusing to move, he reached across the island and grabbed my wrist. Jagger lifted my hand slowly and guided the fork toward my mouth. “Open,” he murmured.