The first thing I notice is the smell. Not Mark, who is warm and solid beside me, but the scent drifting from another room. Cinnamon. Vanilla. Something buttery and rich cutting through the haze of sleep and sex and regret. I open my eyes to pale morning light filtering through his minimalist blinds, striping the gray duvet. The other side of the bed is empty, the sheets cool.

“I know you’re awake.” Mark’s voice comes from the doorway. I turn my head. He’s leaning against the frame, wearing only a pair of dark sweatpants low on his hips. The morning light catches the defined cut of his abdomen, the surprising breadth of his shoulders. He holds two mugs. “Your breathing changed. I’m a doctor, remember? I notice these things.”

“That’s mildly terrifying,” I say, my voice gravelly. I push myself up on my elbows, the sheet pooling at my waist. He doesn’t stare, just walks in and hands me a mug. It’s tea, not coffee. Lemon ginger. “You’re a mind-reader, too.”

“You talked in your sleep. Something about a ‘stuffy British librarian’ and overdue fines.” He sits on the edge of the bed, his brown eyes warm and knowing. “I made an educated guess. Come on. I’m making breakfast.”

The kitchen is all clean lines and stainless steel, but it’s warm from the oven and filled with that incredible smell. He has a bowl of custardy batter, thick slices of brioche soaking in it, a skillet already shimmering with butter. I watch him from a stool at the island, wrapped in one of his sweaters. It’s soft and smells like him—clean laundry and something subtly antiseptic. He moves with a calm, practiced efficiency. “You cook like you do everything else,” I say, sipping the tea. “With unsettling competence.”

“It’s french toast. Not neurosurgery.” He lifts a soaked slice, lets the excess drip, then lays it gently in the pan. It sizzles, the sound immediate and promising. “My grandmother’s recipe. The secret is a splash of orange liqueur in the batter. And patience.”

I am struck, suddenly, by the normalcy of it. The domestic ease. There’s no tension here, no bitter history, no words like “performance” hanging in the air. Just a handsome man making me breakfast after a night that, by any objective measure, was shatteringly good. It feels like a life I could have. A simple, pleasant, uncomplicated life. The thought should be a comfort. It feels like a sentence.

He plates two pieces, dusts them with powdered sugar from a little sieve like a professional, and adds a dollop of whipped cream and a single strawberry. He sets it before me with a flourish. “The best you’ll ever have. I guarantee it.”

I cut a bite, the fork gliding through the custard-soaked center. I bring it to my mouth. It’s perfect. Crisp at the edges, soft and almost pudding-like inside, the flavors of vanilla and citrus and rich egg melding together. It’s objectively, undeniably sublime. A small, helpless moan escapes me. “Oh, my God.”

Mark leans on the island opposite me, a smile playing on his lips. “Told you.”

I take another bite, closing my eyes to savor it, and that’s my mistake. Because without the visual of Mark’s kind face, his nice kitchen, the perfect food… all I have is the sensation. The richness. The intensity. The devastating competence. And my traitorous brain, the one that lives to torture me, serves up a different memory: Sebastian’s horrible, black coffee. The bitter taste of it on my tongue the morning after. The way he’d watched me drink it, his blue eyes guarded, offering nothing as nourishing as this.

I open my eyes. Mark is watching me, his head tilted. “You okay?”

“It’s just… really good french toast,” I say, and my voice is annoyingly thick. I take a huge gulp of tea to wash down the sudden, inexplicable lump in my throat. This is the best french toast ever. And I am, in this perfect, sunlit kitchen, utterly and completely heartbroken.

“Are you close with your grandmother?” I ask, pushing the last perfect bite around my plate. The question feels safe, a return to the script of normal morning-afters. “Besides her stellar french toast credentials.”

Mark finishes his coffee, leaning back against the counter. “Yeah. She raised me. Mom worked two jobs, so abuela’s apartment was home base. She’s why I cook. That, and med school ramen gets old.” His smile is easy, uncomplicated by the weight of that history. “Your turn. Siblings? Parents?”

“One older sister. She’s getting married. My parents are… currently cruising the Greek isles, I think.” I gesture vaguely with my fork. “They retired early. It’s a whole thing. We’re not a ‘Sunday dinner’ family. More of a ‘random postcard from Bali’ family.”

He laughs, a warm, genuine sound. “Sounds nice, in a way. Freedom.” He takes our plates. “Here, I’ll get these.”

“No, let me.” I slide off the stool, the soft sweater falling to mid-thigh. “You cooked. It’s only fair.” I take the plates from him, our fingers brushing. The contact is pleasant. Uncharged. I run the water, squirt in the dish soap, and the mundane ritual is a balm. This is what people do. They have sex, they eat french toast, they do the dishes. No one cries into the sink.

He comes up behind me as I’m scrubbing the skillet. Not aggressively, just a natural drift. His arms slide around my waist, his chest warm against my back, his chin resting on my shoulder. “You don’t have to,” he murmurs, his voice a low vibration against my skin.

“I want to.” And I do. The hot water, the simple task, his solid presence anchoring me. It feels real. For a minute, I don’t think of blue eyes and bitter coffee. I think of warm hands on my hips.

“I don’t have to go in until seven,” he says, his lips near my ear. The words are casual, but the implication hangs in the steam rising from the sink. His hands slide up under the sweater, finding my bare skin, his touch firm and certain. “We have the whole day.”

He turns me around slowly, water dripping from my hands onto the floor. He doesn’t seem to care. His brown eyes are dark, focused entirely on my face. He kisses me then, not like the careful, exploratory kiss from last night. This is deep and claiming, a slow, thorough conquest of my mouth that leaves my head spinning and my knees weak. I forget the dishes, the kitchen, my own name. I get lost in the sheer, uncomplicated pleasure of it, my wet hands coming up to tangle in his soft brown hair.

Somehow, the sweater ends up on the floor. Then his sweatpants. He lifts me onto the cold, hard quartz of the kitchen island with an effortless strength that makes my ribs ache and my breath catch. The contrast is everything—the clinical, shocking chill of the stone searing into my back, the scorching, living heat of his body covering mine, pressing me down.

He doesn’t rush. He kisses my throat, the hollow there, then lower, his mouth everywhere, until I’m writhing and begging, a raw, continuous sound. My fingers scramble for purchase on the smooth edge of the counter, knuckles white. The ache between my legs is a deep, hollow throb, a pulse that matches the frantic beat of my heart.

When he finally pushes inside, it’s with a slow, devastating certainty that splits me open. A broken, ragged cry is torn from my throat. The stretch is perfect, a filling, relentless pressure that makes my vision blur.

We move together in the stark morning light, the only sounds our ragged breathing and the soft, wet, intimate slide of our bodies. It’s not frantic; it’s a deliberate, prolonged unraveling, each thrust a measured promise. He watches my face the entire time, his gaze holding mine, and I let him. My hazel eyes stay wide open, daring myself to stay here, in this brutal, beautiful moment, with this man who demands everything by asking for nothing at all.

Afterwards, he lifts me, and the air is cool on my damp skin as he carries me to the shower. He sets me down on the tile, the chill of it a sharp contrast to the heat still humming in my blood.

He turns on the water, testing the temperature with his wrist before guiding me under the spray. It’s perfect, a cascade of warmth that beads on my shoulders and runs in rivulets down my back. He is gentle, methodical, washing me with a doctor’s precise care. His hands are thorough, smoothing the slick, floral-scented soap over every curve—the dip of my waist, the swell of my hip, the backs of my knees. He works in slow circles, his fingertips tracing the path of the water, rinsing me clean.

I stand there, pliant, my forehead resting against the cool tile wall. I hear the steady drum of the shower, the soft slide of his palms over my skin, the quiet rhythm of his breathing just behind me. I feel cherished and strangely empty, like a beautifully cleaned vase, hollowed out and waiting.

He brings me to his room and dries me off, the towel catching on my goosebumps. He pats my hair, a gentle, almost reverent pressure. Then he lays me back on the bed and parts my legs, the air cool on my inner thighs. I raise a brow up at him, a silent challenge. He starts by kissing the arch of my foot, then taking my toes into his mouth, one by one, the suction a sharp, sweet pull.

He works his way up, his mouth a slow burn along my calf, the sensitive skin behind my knee, the trembling flesh of my inner thigh. When he reaches my core, he doesn’t hesitate.

He doesn't just taste me. He learns me. His mouth is a deep, focused study, his tongue tracing every secret fold, finding a rhythm that is relentless and perfect. It’s not a performance. It’s a claiming.

The orgasm he gives me isn’t a wave. It’s a fracture. A silent, shattering convulsion that empties my lungs, that turns my vision white and my bones to liquid. It’s an ache so deep it feels like grief, a release so total it hollows me out.

After, as the shockwaves still pulse through me, hollow and deep, he moves to stand. He thinks he’s leaving. My hand is a whip-crack, a snare. I pull him back and push him onto the bed, my body already claiming the space above him.

I straddle him, rubbing him against my slit, which is wet and slick from his own mouth, from the ruin he made of me. I tease the head of his cock, a slow, maddening circle, feeling the desperate jump of his pulse there. I feel it getting harder, a thick, urgent heat against my tender flesh, a blunt demand.

His hands lock onto my hips, his fingers digging in, possessive and bruising. He tries to thrust up, to find the relief he’s earned, but I keep the torture up. I lift just out of reach, a fraction of an inch, a universe of denial. The sound he makes is pure need, a raw, gutted groan that is both a plea and a prayer. I make him beg. I make the wanting an ache in his teeth.

Then I take him inside me, a slow, deliberate slide that steals the air from my lungs. It’s an unbearable stretch, a perfect, searing fullness that makes my body weep around him, until he is buried to the hilt, a deep and final possession. We find a rhythm, frantic and starving, a raw piston of need that builds until it shatters. I feel him come, a hot, pulsing flood that triggers my own release, a second wave that rips through me, wringing me out completely.

I collapse onto him, a boneless heap of spent sensation.

That shower was pointless now, I think, a breathless chuckle lost against his damp skin.

He drives me home, his car smelling like his shampoo and the lemon lozenges in his cup holder. At the curb outside my sister’s mansion, he kisses me goodbye—a soft, promising press of his lips. “I’ll call you,” he says, and I believe him.

I float up the driveway in a happy, sated haze, the memory of his hands, his mouth, the perfect french toast, clinging to me like a pleasant perfume. The Wyoming sun is warm on my shoulders. I don’t think about the pool house, or who might be inside. For the first time in weeks, my mind is quiet, blissfully blank. I forget, completely, about the dilemma waiting for me. I just push the door open, a soft smile on my lips.