Page 91 of The Love Bandits

“A gift for making you come.”

I’m laughing as he kisses me, his hand lifting into my hair to cup the back of my head. He pulls away slightly, smiling at me. “I made some precious, precious coffee.”

“Oh, thank God,” I say, in no hurry to get up. I look into his eyes, taking in the layering of colors, like in one of his pictures. He’s achingly beautiful. Maybe that’s why I decide to ask, “Are you ready for Thursday night?”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “You know me. I live for breaking and entering.” Then he shrugs and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling my closer. “My brother’s better at picking locks.That’s kind of his thing. If lock-picking were a class, I’d probably get a B-. Maybe a C+. But we’ll muddle through.”

I’m confused by this. Surely, a professional thief should be able to get through a lock, any lock. I pull back a little, turning to look him in the eye again. “Maybe you picked the wrong career plan.”

He gives me an inscrutable look, his hand flexing around my hip. “If you make them like you enough, they’ll open the door for you.”

From the way he says it, it’s meant as a warning. But if so, it’s been delivered too late. I’ve opened the door for him—I’ve propped it with a metal anchor.

We eat breakfast; I leave for my day job.

When I come home, he’s waiting for me, his pen tapping against my desk. Professor X is curled up on his lap. “Are you ready, Love Fixer?” he asks with a grin. “We’ve got some work to do.”

And my heart gives a funny little lurch as I grin at him and say, “Thank God. I figured I’d just come home and rest like a normal person. It’s a good thing I have you to save me from being boring.”

“I knew you’d see things my way,” he says, picking up Professor X and setting her down gently. Then he lifts me up by the waist and swings me around before kissing me, and my heart gives another sickening lurch.

We help a woman pack up her things while her crappy, cheater of an ex is at a concert. We make a cookie delivery. We call up a woman’s ex, and Jake pretends to be her new boyfriend and tells him in no uncertain terms to back off.

It isexhilarating.

And five minutes after we pull into the driveway of the cabin, Claire and Declan come over with dessert.

Jake grins at me. “Look, honey, your friends just happened to come over again. Who would have thought?”

But he doesn’t act like he minds, and I definitely don’t mind. It feels strangely right to have them here. Like this might become a habit I’ll depend upon if I’m not careful.

By mutual silent agreement, he sleeps in my room again that night.

When Jake’s phone buzzes the next morning, I groan and bury my face under my pillow. It’s much too comfortable next to him for me to want to deal with the day yet. Still, I can’t help glancing at him as he checks the message, his brow furrowed.

“Your girlfriend?” I joke. Or at least I’m mostly joking. There’s still so much we don’t know about each other’s histories, so much we haven’t said. In some ways, I feel closer to Jake than I’ve ever felt to a man, and in others…

I don’t know his last name.

I don’t know his last name.

“No, it’s Roark,” he says with a sigh, flashing me the screen. I see a few texts from a number coded ASSHOLE. Based on the text he just received, his brother has just over a week left before he faces his consequences. “He wants to keep me on my toes.”

“Prick.”

He nods, tapping the side of his phone, but there’s something melancholy about him. “I guess he is. You know…I didn’t used to think so. I used to think of him as…not a father, but close. It’s been one of those hard truths.”

There’s something vulnerable and sweet about his expression, and my heart gives another of its lurches. I lean in and kiss him softly, marveling over the fact that he’s here, in my bed. That I want him here. That my bed would have felt empty and cold if he’d left in the night.

At Smith House, Mrs. Rosings is practically humming with nervous energy. She spends the whole morning talking my earoff, and then sits beside me all afternoon while I package the wedding favors for a wedding she hopes will never happen. With favors like these—brown goat milk soap that smells like the inside of a barn and looks like excrement—I’m guessing the guests would prefer it that way too.

My phone rings at around three.

It’s Damien’s number, and my heart instantly starts racing.

He was looking into Jake’s story, and he’s found something. Heknowssomething.

Part of me doesn’t want to answer.

---