Page 102 of The Fire We Crave

31

QUINN

The light that floods into the kitchen of the apartment is one of my favorite things. It looks over Main Street, so the view is pretty average. I mean, as I crack the egg into a jug, I can see the giant outline of a molar in the window of the dentist I’ve visited my entire life.

But the early-morning sunlight touches everything.

And it matches my mood.

I slept like a baby in my own bed last night.

This morning, I woke up wrapped in the arms of my lover.

Which, who knew the wordlovercould cause such a ripple of excitement down my spine that I find it hard not to run back to my room and jump him?

What we did last night was everything.

But there were too many things racing around in my head to enjoy lying next to him this morning. So, I did what I always do when I feel that way. I got up to spew my thoughts down onto paper. Big ideas. Small ideas. A to-do list in absolutely no priority order.

Just an emptying of my brain, so I can find the peace to then go through all the details and figure out what to do first.

And on that, I have decided. I’m going to speak to my father about making the apartment and bakery legally mine. If he wants to be a dick about it, I’ll find a way to buy him out. But I’m hoping that he’ll do the right thing, for once, and just agree that after all this time of keeping the business afloat, it should be mine.

I’ve just finished cracking the eggs and reach for the whisk when Smoke walks into the kitchen. As usual, he’s wearing only his jeans. Also, as usual, they’re unzipped.

He puts both his hands up on the door frame, and there’s just too much to look at.

The taut muscles in his arms. The ink across his pecs. The way his six-pack looks even more pronounced. Or the deep V-muscles that lead to the dark thatch of hair above his zipper.

“You’re too attractive,” I admit.

He grins at that, and his smile is the very best thing about him. “That might be the thing that saves you from getting your butt spanked for leaving me alone in that goddamn uncomfortable bed. When I wake up, I expect you to still be wrapped around me.”

“Do you?”

He releases the door frame and saunters over to me. “I do, sugar. When I wake up with a boner, I want somewhere to put it, and I can’t think of anywhere better than your pussy while I kiss those fat lips of yours.” He uses his thumb and drags it along my lip. “I missed you.” His lips meet mine in a deeply connected kiss.

It puts all the broken pieces of my heart together until I feel like I’m dancing in the sunlight.

A knock at the apartment’s exterior front door makes him groan. “I’ll go get rid of whoever the fuck that is.”

I shake my head. “It’s probably Kinsey. I told her we were staying here last night so it didn’t surprise her when she opened up. I’ll go see her.”

Reluctantly, he lets me go, and I practically bounce down the stairs.

I didn’t tell him that Kinsey sent me a long text message, begging for details and genuinely super-excited for me, and that I was excited to share the news that yes, indeed, I do have a boyfriend.

I open the door, expecting the long swish of her dark hair, but I’m met by a blown-out balayage and eyes that match my own.

Grabbing for the wall so I don’t fall over, I gasp. “Melody?”

“Hey, Quinn,” she says with a coolness that stills my heart.

All the heat that Smoke churned up in my body drains out, and in a poetic moment, a cloud skitters over the sun, bleaching the sidewalk of its color.

We’re strangers. But I throw myself at her anyway. “Oh my God, Melody. You’re here.” She feels unfamiliar. I can’t even remember the shape of her when we used to hug. I was so much shorter than her back then. “We’re almost the same height now. What happened? Oh my God. Come in.”

Melody looks up at the door frame, then steps back to look up at the apartment above. “You still live here?” she asks.

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