Page 114 of The Space Between Heartbeats
I almost reach for my phone to check my tracking app, just like I do every morning, but then I hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Pans clanging, water coming from the tap.
She’s still here.
My chest loosens, and I let out a long breath. If she left me in her apartment without saying anything, even a goodbye, fuck. It would mess with me more than I want to admit.
I grab my glasses, then find my boxers on the floor and pull them on, running a hand through my hair. In the doorway mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself and damn, I look like hell. As soon as I see the scratch marks down my back, my body remembers and I feel the sting. There’s a bruise forming on my shoulder where she bit me. I run my finger over it, smiling.
I fucking love that she left her mark on me.
She’s standing at the stove in an oversized sleep shirt, her legs bare, and her hair still tangled and pulled up in a messy bun.I don’t think she’s noticed me yet, so I take the opportunity to watch her for a few minutes. It’s my favorite activity, after all.
God, she’s beautiful. Especially like this, freshly fucked and completely unguarded. I can see the evidence of last night all over her. Redness where my stubble rubbed against her delicate skin. How she’s moving slowly, probably sore from taking my cock so hard. Her hair, a mess from my hands being tangled in it. I know she’s bare underneath that shirt. My cum is probably still sticky between her legs.
The thought of her walking around like that all day—marked up, sore, still carrying pieces of me inside her—does something feral and unhinged to my brain.
I’m so goddamn hard already. But I adjust myself.Later. She’s not going anywhere.
There’s a pan in front of her with eggs that are very clearly past the point of saving, and she’s just...staring at them. Spatula in hand, miles away. What is she thinking about?
Is she regretting last night?
The thought lands like a punch to the gut. I watch her body language, trying to read her the way I always have. But she’s not giving me much, especially from behind. She’s just standing there, staring at burned eggs, lost in whatever’s happening inside her head.
The eggs start to smoke, and she doesn’t move.
I push off the doorframe and cross the kitchen. She startles when she finally registers me, spinning around, spatula raised.
“Fuck!” Her hand flies to her chest. “You scared me.” I reach around her and grab the pan, dropping it into the sink.
“Pretty sure these are done,” I say, with a smirk.
She looks at the pan, eyes wide. “You probably wouldn’t want them anyway. My specialty is crunchy eggs, extra shells.”
I reach past her and turn the burner off, close enough that my chest brushes her back. She goes still. Up close, I’mreminded of how much I love her goddamn smell. I could bottle it. This morning she smells even better. Strawberry and sex and something that’s just her.
“I can make more,” she says quietly, not turning around.
“I know you can.” I take the spatula from her hand. “But I’m going to.”
“Knox, you don’t have to.”
“I know that too.”
She turns, leaning back against the counter, watching me. I can see that she’s cautious, the way she’s searching my face, like she’s waiting for the version of me she knows better to show up and ruin this.
I pull the eggs from the fridge and grab a clean pan, a whisk, some plates—all without having to look.
“How do you know where everything is?”
“I pay attention.”
She hums low. “Pretty sure you still don’t know where anything is in your parents house.”
“I don’t care about anything in my parents’ house.” I hold her gaze over my shoulder. “Never have.”
I crack the eggs and work quietly, trying to figure out how I should act. I can’t fuck this up. And the truth is, I don’t know how to do this part. In the dark, it’s easier. When she’s shaking in my arms, tears falling, taking care of her was instinct.
But this—her watching me in the kitchen, in the daylight, with our night sitting between us and everything I want to do with her ahead of us—this takes a different kind of courage.
