Page 43 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

“Hey,” he says, voice all sheepish warmth and boyish promise, like we didn’t spend yesterday elbow-deep in what I swear to God were femurs.

“Hi,” I say. Except it comes out more like a squeak. A breathless, horny mouse squeak.

His eyes scan me and when they hit my thighs, linger, his ears go pink.

“I, uh, brought juice?” he offers, holding up a glass bottle like a peace treaty. “And those little spinach-feta things you said you liked from the bakery.”

I’m going to combust. Right here. Just disintegrate into a puff of horny shame-dust and existential dread. Who does this? Who shows up with my favorite breakfast, looking like a spread in Domestic DILFs Quarterly, and still acts like I’m the intimidating one?

“Come in,” I manage, stepping aside before I do something completely unhinged, like lick his collarbone.

He ducks past me with a shy smile and that devastating blush, like he didn’t bend over in front of me last week and accidentally show off the ass of a man who exists solely to ruin lives and fix porch lights. My knees do something weird. Soft. Boneless. Treacherous.

We move into the kitchen like it’s neutral territory, even though the air’s already thick with something humid andtrembling. I set the coffee pot to refill. He fidgets with the juice bottle. Neither of us speaks.

I can feel him behind me. The heat of him. The way his presence drags at the edges of my self-control like a tide tugging at sandcastles. My heartbeat’s doing tap-dance choreography in my throat. I stir sugar into my coffee like I’m performing a ritual, except I’m the virgin sacrifice and the priest has great forearms.

“It’s just eggs,” I murmur again, mostly to myself.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I turn, and he’s closer than I meant him to be. Or maybe I’m the one who stepped in. Doesn’t matter. We’re sharing air now. He smells like citrus and helpless admiration.

His eyes drop to my mouth. I see it. I feel it. That ripple in the air. That stillness before a decision.

My whole brain short-circuits.

He’s not going to kiss me. Which is unacceptable. Because if he doesn’t, I will start scream-baking again, and I’m out of vanilla.

I swallow, eyes dragging across his lips, then down, neck, collar, that faint scar on his arm I’ve never asked about but always want to trace. He’s trembling a little. Not visibly. But I can sense it. A held breath. A coiled thing.

And me? I’m past the point of no return. I’m spiraling. I’m starving. I’m going to ruin us both.

“Blake,” I say softly, like a secret. Or a spell.

His eyes snap to mine, wide and open and just a little bit wrecked.

I lean in, watching his pupils dilate like a man seeing the gates of heaven and hell and not caring which one he falls into.

“You don’t want just eggs,” I whisper.

He swallows. Hard. “No,” he breathes.

I kiss him like I’ve decided he’s mine. Because I’m tired of pretending I haven’t spent the last week imagining this exactmoment, except in those versions, I was cooler. Less frantic. Less starving.

His lips are soft and startled and hungry, and when I press closer, he makes this little noise, half-whimper, half-prayer, and I lose the last thread of composure I was clinging to.

I bite his bottom lip. Just enough to make him gasp. And then I pull back. Because I want to see him.

Blake’s pupils are blown wide, his mouth flushed and slick, and there’s this dazed look in his eyes like I’ve just rewritten the laws of gravity.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. “Jennifer.”

My name in his mouth sounds like worship and ruin and a problem he’s delighted to have.

I run my thumb along his jaw, and it trembles. Not his jaw, him. The whole man vibrates like I’ve hit some tuning fork in his soul. His hands hover near my hips, unsure, achingly polite.

“Touch me,” I whisper, leaning in again. “You can touch me.”

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