“Nothing,” I lied around my bite, releasing my bottle and covering my mouth with my fingertips. “Just wanted a snack.”

Jamie stared at me. He slowly lost the smirk. He wasn’t buying what I was selling.

“Tense upstairs, babe. Felt it when I held you,” he shared, pegging me dead on.

I swallowed my bite of carrot.

“Tense before that when we were chillin’ on the couch, but you were hidin’ it better. Probably ’cause we were eatin’ and you weren’t thinkin’ about whatever it is that’s got you down here.”

“Food has got me down here,” I lied again, holding up my bag of veggies. I shrugged. “And I’m not tense. I’m just not tired.”

“Do I gotta fuck it outta you?”

My head jerked back. I lowered the baggie to the counter, reading the seriousness in Jamie’s eyes.

Mm. Now there’s an idea.

“I’m out of Lysol,” I informed him.

Jamie’s brows lifted. “Say again?”

“I’m out of Lysol. If we do it in here, you can’t be banging me on the counter again. I don’t have anything to disinfect it with.”

That smirk returned, only it looked ten times as sexy now because it was merging with a smile. And smiling Jamie had to be one of my top five favorite things to look at in the entire world.

And I’d been to Paris. But the Eiffel Tower had nothing on Jamie McCade. He was beautiful when he smiled.

He was beautiful all the time, but when he smiled? Boom. Billboard beauty.

“Gotta whole house to work with, babe. I’m not limited to a counter,” he informed me.

I immediately started cataloging hard surfaces on the first floor alone. My insides were tingling. I could stand here, eat, and continue lying, or I could have sex with Jamie and avoid his third degree.

He thought he could get it out of me while we did it, but he was apparently forgetting that we didn’t work that way. Never had.

He’d ask questions or affirm I felt a certain way, and I denied everything he was suggesting. We’d both get off, normally me a time or two more than him—Jamie was hardly selfish when it came to orgasms—he’d press once more for confirmation after we were finished, wouldn’t get it, and then we’d both end up dozing off or moving on to a different conversation.

Fuck it out of me? Hardly. I was a vault.

“Okay.” I freed my hands up, twisted away from the island, and grabbed the hem of my night shirt. I started lifting.

“Hold up,” Jamie ordered. His voice was rougher. Firmer. Meaner even.

I studied his face. He was no longer close to that smile since he was no longer smirking. His eyes were hard now. Mouth tight. He looked … knowing.

Crap.

That was not a good look for Jamie, solely because of how it was going to affect me. Not because he didn’t look sexy in this state as well. He did. Maybe even sexier.

Hands frozen at belly level with my shirt bunched there, I held on to his eyes, waiting for Jamie to speak. But he didn’t speak.

He straightened from the wall, moved farther into the kitchen, crossing in front of the stove, and started opening my upper cabinets and searching through them.

Seeing this, I let my hands fall and released my shirt, covering up again. “What are you doing?”

Jamie shut a cabinet door after retrieving a large mixing bowl. “Makin’ pancakes,” he replied.

My eyebrows shot up. “Now?”

Mixing bowl set aside on the counter, he slid my canisters containing flour and sugar in front of him, turned his head, and jerked his chin at the stove, saying, “I know you said it had to be at that diner, but I don’t feel like goin’ anywhere. We’re doin’ breakfast here.”

I slid my eyes to the stove and saw the time, smiled, then looked back to Jamie, smiling bigger when I caught sight of the bright orange elastic band securing his hair—it was one of mine. I watched him move to my spice cabinet and take out the salt and baking powder.

He was making us breakfast at midnight. I wanted that to be our thing, one of many things, and Jamie was giving me that.

I glanced down at my baggie of cut-up veggies and pushed them aside. Nobody wants you.

“So I guess we’re eating first, then getting to the sex?” I asked, hoisting myself up onto the counter and swinging my legs. “I’m good with that.”

“Depends,” he replied.

I tiled my head. Depends? “On …”

Jamie pivoted around and crossed in front of me to get to the fridge, saying as he went by, “You give up why we’re down here instead of upstairs sleepin’ and I’ll give it to you after we eat. You don’t? We ain’t fuckin’. I ain’t stupid, Legs.”

My eyes bugged. What?

We ain’t fuckin’?

WHAT?

I watched, mouth open, as Jamie took the milk, eggs, and a stick of butter out of the fridge, nudged the door closed with his elbow, and walked back to his work area next to the stove.

“Excuse me?” I asked when he got there.

“I ain’t stupid,” he repeated with his back to me.

“Okay.” I laughed a little and tucked my hair behind my ear. “What’s that got to do with us having sex after we eat?”

After setting everything down, Jamie turned around to face me and braced his hands on either side of him, gripping on to the counter.

“I know how we fuck, Legs,” he began. “You don’t give up shit. But usually that don’t matter ’cause I know what you’re thinkin’ anyway. And straight up, I don’t hate it. That’s our game. Wanna keep doin’ it for as long as we feel like doin’ it. Difference right now is, I ain’t solid on what’s got us down here. I got no fuckin’ clue what’s goin’ through your head.”

“I told you, I just wanted to get a snack.”

“Bullshit,” he shot back, voice growing louder. “Somethin’s got you tense and I wanna know what it is.”

“I’m not tense,” I argued.

“You’re tense, babe.”

“No.” I tipped forward a little. “I’m not. I was just hungry.”

“Tori.”

“I’m not tense!”

“Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head, then tilting it when he asked, “Do I need to call Sunshine? Get her in on this? Probably catch shit from Dash but fuck it.” His shoulders jerked. “If it’ll get you talkin’…”

I scowled. Damn it. He’d do it, too. And I didn’t want to disturb Syd and Brian. It was the middle of the night, and knowing Syd, she’d most likely start bawling again and keep Brian up.

“I said forever and you didn’t say anything, okay? There.” I huffed out a breath, twisted, and grabbed my bottle of Pure Leaf, unscrewed the lid off the rest of the way—I had only loosened it earlier—and brought the bottle to my lips.

My eyes connected with Jamie’s as I sipped, which, seeing the way his eyes were looking now, his whole face for that matter—gentled, sweet, soul-touching—I got one mouthful down before I was forced to stop sipping for fear I’d suck sweet tea down the wrong pipe.

I knew that look. I’d seen it on Jamie’s face a handful of times now. One of those times being that very night I showed up at his house begging for sex and he promised me I’d never be worrying about Wes again. Another time being in front of the fire before we made love when I told Jamie he was the best man I’d ever known.