An Old Flame in the Dim Bar Light

Chapter 1

The bell above the door jangled, a sound I hadn’t heard in five years, but one that was still buried deep in my muscle memory. *Casey’s Tavern*. The air still smelled the same—old wood, spilled beer, and the faint, clinging ghost of cigarette smoke from a time when it was still allowed inside. The lighting was still dim enough to hide the wear on the booths but bright enough to see the shock on a familiar face.

And there she was.

Clara was perched on a stool at the far end of the bar, a half-empty pint of something dark in front of her. Time had been kind to her. The short, reddish-brown hair I remembered was still cropped close to her head, a soft, daring frame for her round, lovely face. Her smile, as she listened to the bartender tell a story, was exactly as I remembered—playful and wide, with a hint of a secret behind it.

My feet carried me forward before my brain could formulate a plan. I was just a guy walking into his hometown bar. That’s all.

Her eyes flicked up as I approached the bar, passing right over me at first. Then they snapped back, the playful glint replaced by a stunned, wide-open surprise. “Leo?”

Her voice was lower than I remembered, or maybe the years had just filled it in. “Hey, Des,” I said, my own voice quiet, almost swallowed by the hum of the old cooler. I slid onto the stool next to her, leaving one empty between us. A buffer zone.

“Holy shit,” she breathed, setting her glass down with a soft *clink*. She swiveled fully toward me, her knee brushing against the empty stool’s leg. Her gaze was a physical thing, traveling over me—the goatee I’d grown, the lines that hadn’t been around my eyes when we were twenty-two. “You look… the same. But different.”

“You don’t look different,” I said, and it was mostly true. The soft curves of her body, the slight, comfortable roundness of her cheeks and hips—they were all there, just more defined, more present. She wore a simple black tank top, and the swell of her chest beneath it was generous, drawing the eye. I forced mine back to her face. “You look great.”

A flush crept up her neck. “Liar,” she laughed, but the sound was tight, nervous. “What are you doing back here? I thought you were conquering the world out west.”

“Visiting my mom,” I shrugged, signaling the bartender for a beer. “She had a fall. She’s okay, but… you know. It was time.”

The silence that followed was thick, loaded with every unspoken thing between us—the good, the bad, the way it had ended not with a bang, but with the quiet, slow leak of two people going in different directions. I’d been too quiet, too inside my own head. She’d needed more noise.

“So,” she said, drawing the word out, her playful spirit tentatively re-emerging. She traced a finger through the condensation on her glass. “How long has it been?”

“Five years, three months,” I said without thinking, then immediately wished I hadn’t.

Her finger stopped. Her hazel eyes, which had been avoiding mine, lifted and locked on. The intensity of her stare was a current, pulling at something deep in my gut. “You kept count.”

I took a long pull from the beer that appeared in front of me. “It’s a round number. Easy to remember.”

We fell into a safer conversation—parents, mutual friends, the town’s one new traffic light. But the undercurrent never left. It was in the way she leaned forward when she spoke, the way the neckline of her tank top gaped slightly, offering a shadowed glimpse of the soft, pale curve of her breast. It was in the way my own body responded, a slow, gathering heat that had nothing to do with the cheap bar whiskey and everything to do with the woman three feet away.

I learned she was a manager at the new arts center. She learned I was a freelance graphic designer. We were both, technically, adults.

“I should probably get going,” she said finally, as the bartender started wiping down the other end of the bar. “Early meeting.”

“Right.” I stood when she did. The space between us vanished. She was shorter than I remembered, the top of her head just level with my chin. She had to tilt her head back to look at me, and in that moment, with the bar nearly empty and the neon sign in the window painting her face in red and blue, the last five years dissolved.

The air crackled. Her playful smile was gone, replaced by a raw, searching hunger. Her eyes dropped to my mouth, then back up, a question burning in them.

“It was really good to see you, Leo,” she whispered, her voice husky.

Before I could overthink it, before my quiet, protective nature could wall me off again, I closed the final inch. My hand came up, not to pull her in, but to cradle the side of her face, my thumb brushing the high curve of her cheekbone. Her skin was impossibly soft.

She let out a tiny, shattered breath and swayed into me.

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a collision, a dam breaking. Her lips were as soft as I’d fantasized, but they moved with a desperate, claiming pressure. Her hands flew up, one tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck, the other clutching at the front of my shirt. I tasted beer and something uniquely, essentially *her*.

I pulled back first, my forehead resting against hers, both of us breathing heavily. The world had narrowed to this patch of sticky floor, the sound of our shared breaths, and the overwhelming, passionate intensity connecting us.

“Your place or mine?” she breathed, the words a hot promise against my lips.

I didn’t have a place here. She knew it.

“Yours,” I said, my voice rough. “Lead the way.”

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Chapter 2

I followed her taillights through the quiet, familiar streets. My training kicked in without thought—maintaining a two-block distance, noting the turns, predicting her route. The guilt was a cold stone in my gut. I wasn’t an operative anymore. She wasn’t a target. She was Clara, and I was lying to her by omission.

We pulled into the driveway of a small, neat bungalow. Her porch light flicked on. By the time I killed my engine and got to her door, she already had it open, her body a silhouette of urgent welcome.

“Inside,” she breathed, and it wasn’t a request.

The door barely shut before she was on me. Our kiss in the dark foyer was a frantic, starving thing. My hands found the hem of her black tank top and yanked it up and over her head. Her fingers scrambled at the buttons of my shirt, popping one in her haste. Fabric rustled and fell to the floor in a heap.

She was glorious in the dim light from the streetlamp filtering through the blinds. Her full breasts, freed from a simple bra, were pale and heavy. My mouth went to one taut nipple while my hands spanned the soft, wonderful curve of her waist. She gasped, her head falling back, her fingers tangling in my hair.

“Bedroom,” she managed, her voice thick. “Down the hall.”

We stumbled backward, a clumsy, heated procession of tangled limbs and desperate kisses. My belt buckle clattered on the hardwood. Her shorts and panties were a single obstacle she kicked away. I shed my own remaining clothes, my gaze locked on her. She stood naked at the foot of her bed, her short hair tousled, her body lush and openly offered, her hazel eyes blazing with a playful, possessive fire I remembered and had missed for five years.

She reached for me, her hands cool on my heated skin. “I need to feel you,” she whispered, pulling me onto the bed. Our bodies came together, skin to skin, and the shock of it—the softness of her belly against mine, the heat between her legs pressed to my hard cock—drove a ragged groan from my chest. The past and the lie dissolved into the all-consuming, passionate now.

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Chapter 3

The sound of her laughter, breathless and wicked, filled the room. She let go of my lip and collapsed against my chest, her soft body shaking with giggles. My palm still tingled from the sharp, satisfying contact with her round, warm ass.

“You haven’t lost your touch,” she murmured into my skin, her teeth grazing my collarbone in a softer bite.

“And you haven’t lost your smart mouth,” I said, my hands sliding down to cup her backside, kneading the spot I’d just swatted. She moaned, the playful sound melting into something deeper, needier.

She pushed herself up, straddling my hips, her heavy breasts swaying with the movement. Her hazel eyes were dark with intent. “I want to taste you,” she said, her voice a husky command that shot straight to my cock.

Before I could answer, she was sliding down my body, her short hair brushing over my stomach. Her kisses trailed a hot, wet path from my chest, down my abdomen. She paused, her playful spirit re-emerging as she nuzzled the coarse hair at the base of my cock, her breath fanning over my aching skin. The anticipation was a live wire.

Then her mouth was on me, and my head fell back into the pillow with a groan. She took me slowly, her tongue tracing every sensitive ridge before she engulfed me, her lips creating a soft, perfect pressure. Her hands held my hips down, her rhythm deliberate and deep, learned anew but familiar in its passionate intensity. I tangled my fingers in her short hair, not guiding, just holding on as the heat pooled low in my gut, a tightening coil.

I couldn’t let it end like this, not yet. With a force of will that felt like tearing metal, I pulled her up by her shoulders. “My turn,” I growled, flipping her onto her back.

I settled between her thighs, spreading them wider. She was already glistening, utterly bare and open for me. I didn’t tease. I lowered my mouth and licked a slow, firm stripe through her soaked folds, tasting her essence—sharp, sweet, and uniquely Clara. She cried out, her back arching off the bed.

I devoted myself to her, using my tongue and lips to worship her, following the rhythms of her gasping breaths and the clenching of her fingers in the sheets. Her thighs trembled against my ears. I could feel her climax building, her body tightening like a bowstring.

“Leo… I’m so close,” she pleaded, her voice shattered.

I eased off, lifting my head. Her frustrated whimper was a victory. I kissed my way back up her body, settling over her again. The swollen head of my cock pressed against her entrance, and we both shuddered.

“Look at me,” I said.

Her eyes, glazed with need, found mine. I pushed forward, one slow, relentless inch, burying myself in her impossible heat. Her mouth fell open in a silent scream of relief, her inner walls fluttering around me, pulling me deeper. I held still, letting us both feel the overwhelming, full sensation of connection, the five-year gap vaporized in the friction of our skin.

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Chapter 4

I settled into a deep, grinding rhythm, my hips rolling against hers. My gaze was locked on her face, on the way her mouth fell open with each slow retreat and driving return. The sight of her losing control was my undoing—her back arched off the bed, presenting her full breasts to me, and her head thrashed from side to side on the pillow, her short hair a wild, dark fan.

The tight, slick heat of her pussy was a perfect fist around my cock, each stroke pulling a broken gasp from her throat. I put all my weight on one forearm beside her head, caging her in. With my other hand, I slid it up the damp skin of her torso, over the soft swell of her belly, until I cupped the heavy, perfect weight of her breast. I didn’t just hold it. I pinched her taut nipple between my thumb and forefinger, rolling and squeezing with a firm, deliberate pressure.

Her eyes flew open, wide and unseeing. A ragged, shattered scream tore from her lips as her entire body seized. Her inner walls clamped down on me in a series of violent, milking pulses, the sensation so intense it ripped my own control to shreds. My own orgasm erupted from the base of my spine, a white-hot surge of release that had me driving into her one last, deep time as I spilled myself inside her with a guttural groan I didn’t recognize as my own.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of our ragged breathing and the frantic hammer of our hearts. The world swam back into focus—the rumpled sheets, the dim room, the smell of us.

I collapsed beside her, careful not to crush her, but I couldn’t let go. I pulled her into me, her soft, sweaty back against my chest. My arm wrapped around her waist, my hand splaying possessively over her stomach. She trembled, a fine aftershock running through her.

“Jesus,” she whispered into the quiet, her voice hoarse.

I just held her tighter, my lips pressing into the damp skin of her shoulder. No words felt adequate. The lie still sat between us, but in this breathless, tangled aftermath, it felt very far away.

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Chapter 5

We lay there for a long time, her back against my chest, my arm wrapped tight around her waist. Our breathing slowly synced, the frantic drumbeat of our hearts settling into a steady, shared rhythm.

“Five years,” she murmured, her voice thick and sleepy against the pillow. “And it’s like we just pressed pause.”

“Not erase,” I said, my lips brushing her damp shoulder. “Just… store it somewhere safe.”

She turned in my arms, her hazel eyes searching my face in the dim light. Her playful smirk was back, softer now. “So, you’re saying I’m a safe deposit box?”

“The most valuable one,” I said, and meant it.

The stickiness between us was becoming a pleasant nuisance. “Shower?” she asked, already untangling her legs from mine.

“Lead the way.”

The bathroom was small, tiled in pale blue. She turned the water on, steam quickly fogging the mirror. We stepped in together under the warm spray, and it was a different kind of intimacy. The frantic heat was gone, replaced by a slow, tactile curiosity. I watched the water sluice down the lovely, soft curves of her body—over the generous swell of her breasts, down the gentle slope of her belly. She took the soap and began to lather her hands, then mine, her fingers sliding slowly, deliberately over my skin.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, her voice barely audible over the water. She worked the soap up my arms, over my shoulders. “In my shower.”

“Feels more real than the bar did,” I admitted. My own hands found the soap, and I returned the favor, smoothing lather over her back, down the full, perfect curve of her ass. She leaned into the touch, her eyes closing.

“What happens tomorrow, Leo?” she asked, not opening her eyes.

The question, the lie, hovered between us in the steam. I chose a half-truth. “I have to check on my mom in the morning.”

She opened her eyes then, and the playfulness was tempered with something serious. “And after that?”

I didn’t have an answer. Instead, I pulled her close under the spray, letting the water rinse the soap from our bodies. Her skin was slick and hot against mine. I cradled her face, water dripping from my fingertips onto her cheeks. “Right now,” I said, my voice low, “there’s just this. You. Me. The water.”

She searched my face for a moment longer, then nodded, accepting the temporary reprieve. A slow, wicked smile returned. “You missed a spot,” she said, her hand sliding down between us, her fingers finding me, already hardening again under her touch. Her grip was firm, purposeful, a promise of what was to come. The heat began to rebuild, a slow, delicious burn spreading from my core as she stroked, her eyes locked on mine, daring me to look away.

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Chapter 6

I guided her with my hands on her hips, turning her away from me until she faced the steamed-up tiles. The water beat down on her back, rivulets tracing the lovely curve of her spine.

“What are you—” she started, but her question melted into a low moan as I bent her forward gently, just enough. My hands smoothed over the full, wet swell of her ass. I positioned myself behind her, the head of my cock nudging against her slick entrance.

“Leo…” she breathed, her voice a plea and a promise.

“I need you like this,” I said, my own voice rough with want. I pushed into her, a slow, deliberate slide that made us both gasp. She was so tight, so perfectly warm and yielding. My hands left her hips and reached around her body, finding the heavy, soft weight of her breasts. I cupped them, squeezing, my thumbs rubbing over her hard nipples.

“Oh, god,” she choked out, arching her back into my touch.

I began to move, shallow at first, then deeper. The sound of our skin meeting, slick and wet, filled the small stall. “You feel incredible,” I growled into her ear, my fingers pinching and rolling her nipples.

“Don’t stop… please…”

Her body began to clench around me, a frantic, rhythmic tightening I knew well. Her breaths came in sharp, ragged pants. I could feel it building, coiling at the base of her spine, threatening to shatter her.

“Let go, Des,” I commanded, my voice low and firm against her ear. “I feel it. Come for me. Now.”

A broken cry tore from her throat as her orgasm hit. Her whole body shuddered violently, her inner muscles milking me in pulsing waves. I held her tight, my hands still possessive on her breasts, my own release surging up to meet hers. With a raw groan, I followed her over, my hips jerking as I spilled deep inside her, the heat of it mingling with the shower’s spray.

We slumped together, spent and trembling, the water washing over us. I kept my arms around her, my forehead resting against her damp shoulder.

“Five years,” she whispered, her voice wrecked and full of awe. She turned her head, seeking my lips for a soft, lingering kiss. “And you still know exactly what to say.”

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Chapter 7

The water did cool, a gradual shift from enveloping warmth to a pricking chill that finally nudged us apart. We shut it off, stepping onto the bath mat. The air was heavy with steam and the scent of her body wash. We took turns with the towel—I dried her back, her shoulders, the lovely dip of her spine, and she returned the favor, her hands slow and deliberate as she patted my chest dry.

She led me by the hand back to the rumpled bed, the only light now coming from the bedside lamp. She sat on the edge, pulling me down beside her. The sheets were still warm from before.

“So,” she said, her voice soft, playful again. She traced a finger along my thigh. “You’re really going back to that hotel?”

I shrugged, giving her my best crooked grin. “Well, the hotel does have a pool and a hot tub. And no one’s probably using them right now.”

Her eyes narrowed, a mock-offended sparkle in them. She gave me a playful little shove against my shoulder. “Oh, really? So those rate higher than me, do they? A chlorinated puddle and a bubbly tub?”

I caught her wrist before she could pull her hand back. The playfulness evaporated, replaced by the intense, quiet gravity that always lived between us. I pulled her against me, her damp, soft body molding to mine. I held her close, my face buried in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent—clean skin and something deeper, uniquely Clara.

“Never,” I said, the word a low rumble against her skin. “There is nothing, Des. Not a pool, not a hot tub, not a damn thing on this planet that rates higher than you.”

She went still in my arms. Then her hands came up, one tangling in my hair, the other splaying wide over my back, holding on as if I might vanish. “Say it again,” she whispered, her breath hot against my ear.

“Never.” I pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. “I’m staying. Here. With you. Tonight and…” I trailed off, the future a cliff edge I wasn’t ready to jump from.

“And?” she prompted, her gaze searching mine, that playful hope now tinged with a vulnerable hunger.

“And for as long as you’ll have me,” I finished, the truth of it settling in my chest. It wasn’t a plan; it was a surrender.

A beautiful, slow smile spread across her face. She leaned in, her lips brushing mine in a kiss that was tender and deep, a silent seal on the promise. When she broke it, she kept her forehead pressed to mine. “Good,” she breathed. “Because I have plans for you that require much more than one night.”

“What kind of plans?” I asked, my hands sliding down to cradle her hips.

Her smile turned secretive, wicked. “You’ll see.” She pushed me back gently onto the pillows and climbed over me, her short, damp hair framing her face. “But first, we’re not done. I believe you owe me a few more of those… persuasive arguments.”

I laughed, the sound low and genuine. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Mmhmm,” she murmured, lowering herself to kiss me again, her body a warm, welcome weight. “Now stop talking.”

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Chapter 8

“Glad to know your drive hasn’t diminished,” I said, my voice a low rasp against her skin as I pulled her back down. My lips found the side of her neck, then the smooth slope of her shoulder, tasting salt and soap and her.

She shivered, her fingers tightening in my hair. “Well, that’s what happens when I hold out hope that you would come back to me,” she breathed, the words a warm, confessional puff against my ear.

Then, with a deliberate shift, she pushed herself up on her arms, hovering above me. Her face was flushed, her eyes dark with intent. “Your mouth,” she whispered, her voice thick with command and need. “I remember how much you loved this.”

She arched her back, presenting herself to me. The full, heavy weight of her tits hung above my face, her nipples already stiff and dusky pink. The sight was an electric jolt straight to my cock, which throbbed against her thigh.

“Fucking beautiful,” I growled, my hands coming up to cradle the soft undersides. I didn’t tease. I drew one taut peak into my mouth, sucking hard, my tongue swirling around the rigid nub.

She cried out, a sharp, broken sound, her hips grinding down against me instinctively. “Yes… god, just like that.”

I switched to the other, lavishing it with the same hungry attention, my free hand kneading the plush flesh I wasn’t devouring. Her moans became a continuous, breathy stream, punctuated by the creak of the bedsprings as she rocked against me.

“I dreamed about this,” I admitted, pulling away just enough to speak, my lips wet against her skin. “Your taste. The way you gasp.”

“Show me,” she panted, her own hands now gripping the headboard for leverage. “Show me what you dreamed.”

I did. I worshiped her with my mouth and hands, a slow, dedicated claiming. My teeth grazed her sensitive flesh, making her jump, before I soothed the sting with the flat of my tongue. I could feel her growing wetter against my stomach, a hot, slick promise.

“Leo,” she gasped, her composure fraying. “I need you inside. Now.”

The raw need in her voice mirrored my own. My control was a thin veneer, ready to crack.

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Chapter 9

She slid back down my body with a slow, deliberate grace that stole my breath. Her slick heat brushed against my cock, a teasing promise that made my whole body tense. Guiding me with a knowing hand, she positioned me at her entrance. Then, with a look that held five years of pent-up hunger, she sank down, taking me inside with an agonizingly slow, rolling motion that forced a raw groan from my throat.

I was buried in her, completely, a feeling so devastatingly familiar and yet brand new. Her walls clenched around me, a hot, velvet fist, and she let out a shuddering sigh of pure relief. She didn’t move yet. She just rested there, her forehead against mine, our breaths mingling, her incredible weight a perfect anchor.

“God, you feel…” she whispered, the words dissolving into a moan.

Then she began to move. Not a frantic race, but a deep, circular grind of her hips, rubbing her clit against me with every roll. The sensation was incredible, a slow-burning fire in my gut.

My hands came up of their own volition, palms cupping the full, heavy swells of her tits. I kneaded the soft flesh, my thumbs brushing over her tightened nipples. “And I remember how much you love this,” I growled, my voice thick with lust and memory.

A sharp, delighted gasp escaped her lips. I did it again, flicking and pinching the sensitive peaks, watching her eyes flutter closed.

“Yes,” she hissed, her grinding becoming more urgent. “Don’t stop talking. Don’t stop touching me.”

“I dreamed about these tits,” I confessed, my grip firm, possessive. “Wrapped around my cock. In my mouth. Every fucking night for years.”

“Leo…” she whimpered, her rhythm stuttering.

I pulled her face down to mine and kissed her as deeply as possible. It was a claiming, a devouring. My tongue plunged into her mouth, mimicking the slow, deep thrusts I ached to give her. She met me with equal fervor, her moans vibrating into my mouth, her hips now rocking with a building, desperate tempo. The room filled with the sounds of our ragged breathing and skin meeting skin. The slide of her soaked pussy around my cock was driving me toward a cliff’s edge, a relentless, exquisite torture. Every grind, every clench of her muscles, pulled me deeper into a vortex of sensation where nothing existed but her heat, her weight, her desperate, hungry sounds.

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Chapter 10

I kissed her with everything I had. Our mouths fused, all tongue and heat and shattered breath, as her riding pace became frantic. The sound of our bodies meeting was obscene, a slick, pulsing rhythm that tightened the coil in my gut. Her inner muscles began to ripple, a frantic, fluttering vise, and a high, keening cry was swallowed by our kiss. I felt my own release detonate, a scalding rush that emptied me into her shuddering depths. We crashed together, motionless, fused at the core as the waves tore through us.

Slowly, the tension bled from her limbs. With a soft, exhausted sigh, she collapsed forward onto my chest, her weight a warm, perfect anchor. After a moment, she rolled bonelessly to the side. I felt her breathing deepen and even out almost instantly, one hand resting limply on my stomach.

I lay there for a while, listening to her sleep, feeling the cool air dry the sweat on our skin. When I was sure she was out, I carefully slipped my arm out from under her and eased off the bed. The floor was cool under my feet. In the bathroom, I wet a clean washcloth with warm water, wringing it softly.

Back in the dim room, I knelt beside the bed. With a tenderness that felt foreign and right, I gently cleaned the evidence of our passion from her inner thighs and the soft curve of her stomach. She stirred once, murmuring something unintelligible, but didn’t wake. I wiped myself clean, tossed the cloth toward the hamper, and slid back under the sheets.

I curled around her, fitting my body to the curve of her back, my arm settling possessively over her waist. She instinctively snuggled back into me, a contented hum escaping her lips. In the quiet dark, with the scent of her skin and sex and sleep all around me, my own eyes grew heavy. The last thing I knew was the steady, reassuring beat of her heart against my palm as I fell into the deepest sleep I’d had in years.

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Chapter 11

I surfaced from a deep, dreamless sleep to the soft pressure of a gaze. I opened my eyes. Clara was propped on an elbow beside me, her head resting on her hand, just watching. The morning light through her blinds painted stripes across her bare shoulder and the swell of her breast peeking from the tangled sheet.

“Hmmmm good mornin’,” I mumbled out, my voice thick with sleep.

A slow, playful smile spread across her face. “Good morning to you.”

I stretched, the muscles in my back pleasantly sore. “You’re up early.”

“Just admiring the view,” she said, her eyes traveling over my chest.

“Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” she replied, the word a little emphatic, and we both knew it wasn’t just for food.

We got up and took a real shower this time—hot water and soap, a practical, shared intimacy that felt strangely domestic. I washed her back, my hands sliding over the smooth, damp skin of her shoulders, and she leaned into the touch with a contented sigh.

Dressing was its own kind of foreplay. She pulled on a pair of snug, dark jeans and, with a deliberate glance over her shoulder at me, a tiny red thong. I watched, leaning against the doorframe, as she bent to pick up a shoe, the denim pulling taut and offering a flash of that crimson strip against her skin. Her top was a soft, worn gray V-neck. When she straightened and adjusted it, the neckline plunged, showcasing a deep, tempting valley of cleavage she could accentuate with the slightest lean.

“See something you like?” she asked, catching my stare in her dresser mirror.

“I see a lot of things I like,” I said, walking up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist. I kissed the side of her neck. “Most of them are going to distract me all through breakfast.”

She turned in my arms and kissed me properly, slow and deep. “Good.”

The diner was all chrome and vinyl, the air rich with the smell of coffee and frying bacon. We bypassed the booth entirely and slid into one side of a table, our thighs pressed together from hip to knee beneath the Formica. It was a statement, a unified front.

A waitress poured coffee without asking. Clara opened her menu, then let it fall slightly, her elbow nudging mine. “So,” she said, her voice low. “What’s the plan for today, Leo?”

The question hung between us, weighted with more than the morning. I looked at her—the teasing glint in her eye, the soft curve of her lip, the way the light caught the reddish strands in her short hair. I felt the solid, warm line of her leg against mine.

“The plan,” I said, leaning closer so my words were just for her, “is to finish this mediocre coffee. Then I’m taking you back to your place. And I’m going to spend an undetermined amount of time exploring every single one of those distractions you’re wearing.”

Her breath hitched. A faint blush colored her cheeks. She didn’t look away. “Is that a promise?”

“It’s a guarantee,” I said, and under the table, my hand found hers, threading our fingers together in a tight, possessive knot.