Caine interrupted, snuggling me closer in his arms. “And this warm body feels really good. Now get some sleep. You can interrogate me more while you make me breakfast in the morning.”
A few minutes later, Caine’s breathing slowed as he drifted off to sleep. I kissed his chest and shut my eyes to follow him to dreamland. I smiled and thought to myself, I can’t wait for breakfast.
My eyes fluttered open, and I immediately reached over to the other side of the bed. Instead of finding Caine, I was met with only a cold sheet. My stomach sank. Stretching for my phone on the nightstand, I squinted at the time and was shocked to find I’d slept until almost eleven-thirty. The last time I’d slept that late…well, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that late. No wonder Caine was gone.
Yawning, I dragged myself to the bathroom to wash up and brush my teeth. I was still completely naked, and when I looked in the mirror and saw my wild hair and the faint red marks on my neck from Caine’s incessant sucking, I couldn’t help but smile. God, did I have memories. And not just etched into my brain—muscles I hadn’t even realized I had ached, and between my legs was swollen and sore. Yet I felt better than I had in a long time. I actually liked the crazy way I looked, and I didn’t bother to fix it, feeling some sort of odd connection to Caine through my disheveled appearance.
Grabbing the first thing I reached in my drawer filled with lazy wear, I slipped on a vintage Rolling Stones T-shirt and headed to the kitchen for some much-needed coffee. I halted in place upon finding Caine at my stove. His back was to me, and he didn’t seem to have heard me, so I stood in the doorway watching him, half stunned at what I was seeing and half shocked at finding he was even still here.
Caine was…dancing? Well, not technically dancing, I guess. But he was definitely swaying to the beat of something as he flipped pancakes in one pan and rolled the sausage around in the other. Yum. And the food smelled pretty good, too.
I continued watching quietly, utterly amused at seeing Caine so disarmed.
“You want some coffee while you stand there?” he asked without turning around.
I jumped and then smiled. “I didn’t think you knew I was here.”
“I know.” He went to the cabinet, pulled down a mug, and poured me a cup of coffee. It seemed Caine and my kitchen had gotten acquainted while I slept. “Do you take cream and sugar?”
“One Equal and half and half.”
Caine finished making my coffee, and for some reason, I stayed in the doorway of the kitchen. He brought me the mug and kissed the tip of my nose before handing it to me. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“How long have you been up?”
“About an hour.”
“I didn’t know you were still here. Why didn’t you wake me?”
Caine returned to the stove. “Figured you were tired after last night.”
I smiled and brought the coffee to my lips. “I am. I feel like I got beat up.”
Plating pancakes and a few sausages, he set breakfast on the table. “Sit.”
“You’re really bossy, you know? Borderline rude. I’m not a dog. Sit. Stand.”
Caine walked back to where I was still leaning against the doorway and put one hand on either side of my head on the wall.
“You didn’t seem to mind it last night.”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not.”
He dropped his head, chuckling. “How about we have breakfast without a fight?”
“Fine. I’ll sit. But only because it smells really good and not because you barked at me.”
He shook his head. “Whatever it takes, Feisty.”
As soon as the fork hit my mouth, I realized I was starving. I woofed an entire pancake in a few bites.
“Hungry?” Caine raised a brow.
“Shut up. So what did you do while I was sleeping?”
“Listened to music on my phone, checked out the pictures on your wall some more.”
I pointed my fork at him. “You were snooping? Wouldn’t have taken you for a snooper.”
“I didn’t go through your drawers. I looked at pictures hung on the wall. I don’t think that’s the same as snooping.”
“Snooper.” I smiled like an idiot.
We ate in silence for a while. I smiled too much, and Caine looked like he was trying to hide that he was a little terrified of my enthusiasm over breakfast. But it was so much more than I’d expected from him after how things started off last night.
While I was rinsing the plates, my cell phone rang. It was plugged into the charger on the kitchen counter, and Caine and I caught the name flashing at the same time. Davis.
Caine’s eyes flickered up to mine. Ignoring it, I went back to finishing the dishes.
“Not going to get that?”
“I’ll talk to him later.”
While I wiped down the table, Caine went back to the living room wall with another cup of coffee. I joined him when I was done. He stood in front of a picture that had been taken just about a year ago. It was of my three roommates and me the week before we all moved out and went our separate ways. Our couch was six feet long, made of two, three-foot cushions, but the four of us were all sitting squished on one. There were a lot of smiles in that photo.
“Who’s this with you and Ava?”
“That’s Beth and Davis. Beth is the one with the cleavage.”
“I gathered that much.”
Caine sipped his coffee. After a moment, he turned and faced me. “Why didn’t you sleep with him?”
“We just had dinner. He wanted to talk.”
“But he wants to sleep with you?”
“He wants to give dating another try, yes.”
Caine sipped again, studying me over the brim of the mug. “And what do you want?”
You, you idiot. I want you. I knew he was skittish enough about what had happened last night, so I treaded cautiously, trying to make light of the subject. “I wouldn’t mind some more of what I had last night.”
Caine slipped his hand under the hem of my T-shirt and discovered I had nothing on underneath. He grabbed a handful of my ass and squeezed. “You’ve had nothing on under here since you got up?”
“Nope.”
He took the coffee I was holding out of my hands and walked to the kitchen, leaving both our mugs on the table. Returning to me, he leaned down and lifted me up and over his shoulder, fireman style. I squealed, but loved every minute of it. Especially what came after…
It was the middle of the afternoon before Caine made mention of leaving. I had to work at O’Leary’s at five, and we’d just taken a shower together. He dressed while I was in the bathroom doing my usual routine. Still wearing just a towel, I leaned into the bathroom mirror to rub moisturizer into my skin. Caine came up behind me and watched in silence. We exchanged smiles and looks, but for the most part, neither of us said anything. He just watched as I finished with my face moisturizer, rubbed a different one into my legs and arms, then brushed my wet hair.
Eventually he spoke. “Ever hear a song for the first time and you don’t know the words, but the music is really familiar?”
“Sure. Like ‘All Summer Long’ by Kid Rock where he uses parts from ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Werewolves of London’?”
“No. An all-original song that you hear for the first time, but you know the music anyway?”
I turned to face him. “I guess. I mean, all songs have commonality to them. A riff, a chord, a lick, a common register or timbre. Our brain seems to index all those little things so we hear something and have that familiar feeling, yet we can’t figure out where it came from. Why?”
“You’re that song. I don’t know any of the words, but the tune is so damn familiar.”
I understood what he meant. I’d felt a connection from the first time we met, too. I didn’t want to scare him, but whatever was between us had always felt bigger than me—bigger than us.
Teasing, I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Well, my body probably reminds you of some supermodel. I’m guessing the one that football player is married to.”