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I loosened my tie. “Yeah.”

She turned and cocked her head. “Your serious ass builds LEGOs?”

“It’s relaxing.”

She moved over to a case where I kept the builds that were special to me—the Millennium Falcon, the grand piano. She picked up the Porsche 911 and turned it over carefully.

“How long did this take you?”

“About six hours.”

“So you just sat around for hours building this tiny car?” She set it down and looked at me.

“Helps me when I can’t sleep.”

“What do you think about while you’re working on them?”

“Depends.”

She looked back at the display case. “You got at least twenty things in here, Dez.”

“What can I say? I got a lot of shit on my mind.”

I went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of water. When I came back, she was at the windows, arms crossed, looking out at the skyline.

“This view is crazy,” she said, taking a glass from me.

“There’s an even better one in the bedroom.”

She bit back a smile. “You are so corny.”

I wrapped my arms around her waist. She sipped the water and leaned against me, resting her head against my chest.

“You did good tonight,” I said against her ear.

“Was this some kind of test?”

I pressed my nose into the crook of her neck, inhaling her perfume and natural scent. “I seem like the type of nigga who tests women?”

“Yeah, you do, actually.”

“Actin’ like you know me and shit.”

“I told you, I’m good at reading people,” she said, turning in my arms.

“Mm.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “And what if I just wanted to see you in my world?”

She looked away, the way she did when I said something that made it harder for her to pretend she didn’t want to be here. “I wanna see the view from your bedroom,” she said quietly.

I took her hand and led her down the hall.

My bedroom was my sanctuary. I did all my builds in here, hunched over on the floor at the foot of my bed for hours, with the TV on for background noise. I had a few pictures on my dresser. One of me and my mother when I was a kid, another of me and Pops at the ribbon cutting for the resort. The windows faced the river and at night the water reflected the city lights like a painting.

Belle walked to the windows and looked out. “Okay, you weren’t lying. This view is incredible.”

I came up behind her and kissed her shoulder as I unzipped her dress slowly.⁠1 She sucked in a breath as the fabric loosened and fell, pooling at her feet. She turned to face me, standing in nothing but lacy black panties and her diamond necklace.

“You know how hard it was watching you in that dress all night and not being able to touch you the way I wanted?”