14. Kane #2
“No, I mean—” She presses her palm flat against my chest, over my heart, the way she did in the room the first night she saw it. “You always put me first. Even when I’m infuriating. Even when I break the rules. Even—“ Her voice quiets. “Even when I make it difficult not to.”
“You make everything difficult.”
“Thank you.” A breath. “Kane. Can I kiss you?”
I look at her. “You did.”
“No.” She shakes her head slightly. “I mean, can I kiss you. Not because we’re in a scene. Not because I’m trying to get something. Just because I want to and I’m asking.”
The distinction lands below the level where I have a response ready.
I nod. Once.
She takes her time with it. Rises onto her toes, one hand curved around my jaw, and kisses me slowly — no urgency, no agenda, just the warm press of her mouth against mine, like she has all the time in the world and has decided to spend it here.
My hand finds the back of her head before I’ve decided to move.
She deepens it by degrees, her fingers curling gently against my jaw, and just like that the constant low-level work of containing everything — the effort I’ve carried so long I stopped noticing it — dissolves into the warmth of her.
The soft sound she makes when I pull her closer.
The way she tastes like coffee and warm skin.
The weight of her body against mine when she leans in like she’s decided I’m somewhere worth being.
I’m not holding anything back. For once, there’s nothing to hold.
I don’t know how long it lasts.
When she pulls back she stays close, her forehead tipping forward to rest against mine. Both of us still. The kitchen quiet around us, the city carrying on outside the windows, neither of us quite ready to step back into it.
I feel her exhale.
I feel mine.
She lifts her head and looks at me, and whatever is in my face right now I can’t arrange into anything useful before she sees it.
“Brat,” I say.
It comes out rough. Transparent. Nothing like it usually sounds and we both know it.
The corner of her mouth curves, as she picks up her coffee mug without a word.
Her phone buzzes. She checks it and her expression shutters.
“Sloane?”
She nods. “She’s asking if I’m free for lunch.” Guilt flashes, then she files it away — quick, practiced, the same motion every time.
She types back with one hand, coffee mug still gripped in the other. Sets the phone down. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
She doesn’t look at me when she says it, and I don’t look at her. We both look at nothing, the counter, the window. I can see the screen of her phone from where I’m standing. Sloane has already replied: can’t wait, love you xx. Vera doesn’t pick it up again.
We drink the rest of our coffee in silence.
When she leaves forty minutes later, dressed in yesterday’s clothes, my shirt folded in her bag:
“I’m stealing this, by the way.”
“I noticed.”
I kiss her at the door. Long and deep.
“Text me your schedule for the week. I’ll find time for another session.”
She pulls back, eyebrow arching. “Another session? Already? Someone’s eager.”
“Careful.” My eyes find hers and hold. “Keep that tone and I’ll drag you back inside right now.”
“Promises, promises, Sinclair.” She traces her finger down my bare chest. “Besides, what if I’m busy? I have a demanding career.”
I catch her wrist, grip firm enough to make my point. “Then you’ll make time. Won’t you?”
Her breath catches. The brat melts. “Yes, Sir.”
The title in this context, domestic, fully dressed, standing in my doorway, goes straight through me.
“Good girl.” I release her wrist. “Go. Before I change my mind about letting you leave.”
“So bossy.” She’s grinning, backing toward the elevator. “I’ll send you my calendar.”
“And text me when you’re home safe.”
“Why?”
“Humor me.”
She reaches the elevator, presses the button. “Yes, Sir.”
Something tightens in my chest. Lower. “Vera.” I cross the distance between us in three steps, close enough that she has to tip her head back to hold my gaze. “Stop saying that unless you want to spend the rest of your morning tied to my bed.”
Her smile turns wicked. The elevator dings. “I’ll believe it when I’m tied to it, Sinclair.”
I let her see exactly what that does to me. “Get in the elevator.”
The doors close on her smile and I stand there, jaw tight, already reconsidering every reason I let her leave.
Twenty minutes later my phone buzzes.
Vera: Home safe. Happy now?
Me: Yes.
Vera: Calendar sent. Prepare to be devastated by my popularity.
I open the shared calendar. She’s color-coded everything.
Tuesday: Client meetings (red). Wednesday: Manicure (purple). Thursday: Sloane girlfriend dinner (blue). Friday: Client meeting (red). Saturday: Blocked off (gray, no details).
I stare at Saturday.
Me: Saturday is blocked off. Details?
Vera: Wouldn’t you like to know.
Me: Yes. I would.
Vera: Maybe I have plans.
Me: Cancel them.
Vera: So demanding.
Me: Vera.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Vera: It’s blocked off for you. In case you wanted it.
I’m smiling at my phone like an idiot. I don’t care.
Me: My place. Saturday evening. Pack an overnight bag.
Vera: Overnight? Presumptuous.
Me: Realistic. You’re not leaving after.
Vera: We’ll see.
Me: We won’t see. You’ll stay. That’s not a request.
Vera: Yes, Sir.
I set the phone down and look around my penthouse.
Everything in its place. Controlled. Precise.
Except for her coffee mug on my counter. Her scent on my sheets. The memory of her in my shirt, drowning in gray fabric, arguing about not being able to have a Sinclair-Beckett Smackdown before nine AM like it was the most natural thing she’d ever done.
I pick up her mug. Rinse it. Dry it, and open the cabinet.
Sloane’s mug is on the shelf below, the one she uses when she comes for dinner. I set her mug next to mine on the upper shelf, and close the cabinet.
Then I stand there, staring at the closed cabinet.
The mugs are where I put them — hers next to mine, upper shelf, the natural place for something that belongs.
I know what I’ve done. I did it without deciding to, which is the part I can’t work out, because I decide everything.
Every object in this apartment is where it is because I put it there on purpose.
The mug is where it is because I wasn’t paying attention.
I step back. Move to the window, which is what I do when I need the city to be indifferent at me for a while.
A week since Suite 7. One morning. The arrangement exactly what we said it would be.
Except I just gave her mug a shelf.
I wait for the impulse to move it. To restore the order I prefer. The apartment that has always been precisely mine.
The impulse doesn’t come.
I get the glass of water I don’t want and stand at the counter with it. My gaze drifts back to the cabinet.
Hers. Mine. One shelf.
It’s harder to stay present. When I’m not indifferent to the outcome.
I should not have said that. I said it anyway. And the thing I notice — the variable I can’t isolate — is that I don’t want to take it back.
I look at Gerald.
Six years on that shelf. Never once demanded I be more than I’m in a given moment. Never looked at me across a room full of people and made me forget what I was doing. In every respect, the ideal roommate.
“You’re useless,” I tell him.
Gerald says nothing. He is, as always, a cactus.
I shower. Change. Spend the evening doing the work I told myself I’d do.
This is not true.
My phone buzzes at eleven forty-seven.
Vera: Still up?
She never texts late at night.
Me: Still up.
Vera: I’ve been thinking.
Me: About?
Three dots. A long pause. Longer than usual for her — she types fast, doesn’t second-guess.
Vera: This morning. The argument. The part where you said you can’t give me up.
I set the phone down. Pick it up.
There are things I could type. True things. The mug. The shelf. The fact that the question has never been whether I want this — it’s that I can’t yet see the bottom of it, and that quality of not-knowing is not something I have a measurement for.
I delete what I’ve typed.
Vera: Never mind. Forget I asked. Goodnight, Sinclair.
She’s giving me the exit. Folding the question away clean, the way she always does when she’d rather not know the answer yet.
My thumb moves.
Me: Goodnight, Vera.