I stopped, turned, dumped everything in my arms on the floor by holding my elbows out to the sides then I shoved a hand his way, offering him a takeaway latte.

His eyes were on the stuff now scattered on the floor then they moved to the latte.

“It isn’t fancy,” I declared and his eyes moved from the takeaway cup to mine. “Full fat. Considering the amount of muscle you lug around, your metabolism has to be akin to Superman’s so you can hack full fat. And no syrup because I’ve noticed you have a sweet tooth but I haven’t noticed if you lean toward anything specific, you seem to like it all and you’re a huge badass, I didn’t want to get it wrong and incur disfavor so the basic will just have to do.”

When I finally quit babbling and he could get a word in edgewise, he asked, “Are you all right?”

No. No. It was safe to say I was not all right. I’d seen my husband masturbating in the shower, I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life and I was standing in a hotel room probably looking like garbage when he was three feet away from me looking like the definition of male beauty and I had a near overpowering urge to jump him and f**k his brains out.

So no, I was not all right.

I didn’t share any of this but I still answered, “No.”

His hand came up and he took the latte from me ordering, “Talk to me.”

“I was at the pool,” I told him and then sucked back some of my own latte wondering if Ty would find it amiss if I hit the mini-bar and poured a few of mini-bottles of rum into my coffee. Say, seven of them.

“Yeah, I know. You left me a note,” Ty prompted when I said no more.

“A pool, incidentally, that you didn’t join me at.”

“Lexie, told you, got no need to hang out in the sun.”

“I know you told me that but there’s a meal to be consumed, it’s called breakfast and it’s the most important meal of the day.”

“You’re hungry, eat.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“They got a counter at the gym. Had a protein shake after I worked out.”

My eyes narrowed. “You have a phone, you didn’t think to call me and tell me you were covered so I could take care of myself?”

“No, I didn’t, seein’ as you’re a grown woman. I assumed you could take care of yourself or, say, phone me you wanna know what’s happening, not charge into the room throwing sass.”

My back went straight.

“Throwing sass?” I asked.

“Throwing sass,” he answered.

“What the f**k does that mean?” I snapped and, surprisingly, his brows drew together and he shared a reaction with me and that reaction was puzzlement with an edge of annoyance.

“It means, you barged in here yammering and then threw a fit about me not joinin’ you at the pool, which I told you I didn’t do, and you bein’ hungry when anyone knows, they’re hungry, they should f**kin’ eat, and not phonin’ you when your phone’s right f**kin’ there,” he pointed to the phone that fell to the ground when I dropped my stuff, “and you got fingers so you can also dial me. That’s throwin’ sass.”

I glared at him.

He kept talking. “I also told you this was your vacation day so I got back, saw you were at the pool and left you to it.”

“You left me to it?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Yeah?” I snapped.

His eyes changed at my snap and it was new to me but I read it right away.

Confusion and annoyance gone, now he felt anger.

He proved that by biting out, “What the f**k’s your problem?”

“My problem, Ty,” I started, not giving one shit about the fact that this huge man was obviously angry and angry enough to let it penetrate the impenetrable shields he kept up to cover his emotions, “is that I wanted to have breakfast with my husband not be left to it. What, were you gonna leave me out there all day?”

It was then I noticed his body had gone still but I was still angry. And I knew why I was angry. I was angry because I was reacting to something different, something important, something big and it had nothing to do with breakfast and everything to do with life being total shit and me never being able to latch onto anything good, anything clean, anything right and I sensed, no matter what secrets the man standing in front of me had, he was all three of those things. Therefore right in front of me I had something I wanted and there I was, in a position where I couldn’t let myself have it, not until I knew I was right. But I wanted it, not later, but right then and that pissed me way the hell off and I was taking all that out on him.

“Hello?” I called. “Did you hear me?”

Then he spoke and when he did it was soft in a way that made my body go still.

“You wanted to have breakfast with your husband?”

“Well, yeah,” I replied. “We did that yesterday. It was nice. I mean, I’m the kind of person who can be alone and I have no problem doing that but why be alone when you can be with someone you like being around? And we’re in Vegas and we have a vacation day. It isn’t often you get to be in Vegas on a vacation day so you should live it up. If you don’t want to hang at the pool, that’s cool. So we have breakfast, go shopping, go to some crazy Vegas museum or do the Star Trek Experience. I heard that’s cool and not just for geeks. But whatever we do, we should do something. And all of this, by the way, was something we could have discussed over,” I leaned in to drive my point home, “breakfast.”

He stared at me and I let him.

Then he rocked my world again and he did this be saying in a different kind of soft voice, “Baby, you wanna have breakfast with your husband, all you gotta do is pick up the phone and dial. I’m covered, you eat, I sit with you and drink coffee. But you want me, anytime you want me, that’s all you gotta do.”

I didn’t speak and again I couldn’t breathe and there were a lot of reasons for that. The first, he called me “baby” which was the second time he did that but the first time he did it without an audience, the first time he did it in that soft voice, the first time he did it just him and me and I felt that word rushing through my blood with a warmth I never wanted to leave. Second, his soft voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my life. And third, him telling me anytime I wanted him, he was a phone call away was the kind of thing I’d wanted my entire life and never, not ever, had and there he was, giving it to me.