THE HOUSE IS DARK WHEN we enter. All the wine I consumed has made me sleepy and I lean against Graham as we enter the house. He takes my jacket off and grabs a blanket off the sofa before guiding me back outside onto the patio.

I doze off, warm from the alcohol and the fire Graham started in the fireplace. He awakens me, having changed into a pair of black sleep pants and a long-sleeved, black shirt.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” he whispers, sitting down beside me. I struggle to open my eyes as I sit up. “Come here.”

He moves me so I’m leaning against him, tucked protectively under his arm. My hair splays across his shirt, my legs tucked up under the blanket. Nothing is said and not a muscle is moved besides the rising and falling of our chests. It’s completely still outside. There are no barking dogs or police sirens. Just Graham and I and a crackling fire.

“If I could just stay here, like this, for the rest of my life, I would.” His statement wakes me up. I think I mishear him, but when I look up at his face, he’s watching me. “I love having you here.”

“I love being here,” I say, snuggling into him more. “I really just love being with you.”

I wait for the regret, but the wine must have dulled my reactions, because I feel none. I also don’t feel drunk, just buzzed, and I’m not sure if that means I’m safe to speak or I’m so out of it I need to play dead. “What would it take,” he says, clearing his throat, “for you to give me a chance?”

“A chance like in a raffle?” I ask, trying to stop the roaring of the blood past my ears.

He laughs quietly. “No, Mallory. A chance as in maybe helping me trying to figure out how to love.”

Drunk, buzzed, or sober, I’m wide awake. I’m afraid to move because that might shatter this alternate reality I’ve woken up in.

“How to love yoga?” I offer.

Moving me so I lie across his lap, he sighs. “I’m blaming this on Lincoln.”

The confidence in Graham’s posture that I’ve never seen him without is gone. His features are stern, his face pulled tight. There’s a glimmer in his eyes, but I can’t tell if it’s from the flames of the fire or something . . . else. “I have some issues,” he begins. “I know that. I can be exacting and difficult and a little overbearing at times.”

“A little?”

“A little,” he says, giving me a look. “I thought I was happy before you came into my life. Everything was in its place, everyone in their roles, and I liked it. It was comfortable and predictable. Then you walk in and take all that and toss it on the floor.”

He runs his fingers through my hair, brushing it away from my face. “It drove me crazy at first. I had an anxiety attack for the first week,” he laughs. “But then something changed.”

Sliding my hand so it touches his chest beneath his shirt, I try to encourage him to go on.

“I guess it was partly Lincoln and a speech he and Barrett gave me at the Farm that I can keep my crutches or keep you. They told me I’d know when I’d fallen in love because I couldn’t replace her. I wouldn’t want to.” He shifts me on his lap so I’m sitting up more. “Imagining you not coming in to work every day makes me not want to go either, and that job is all I’ve ever wanted. Then seeing you with my family . . . I get what my brothers were saying, Mallory.”

“Oh, Graham,” I say, feeling his heartbeat quicken under my hand.

“I’ve never been in love before. I’m not sure how it works. If we get to that point, and I mess it all up . . .”

“You’ve been in love before.” The words sting as I reference Vanessa, the one woman I would risk getting arrested to punch in the face.

“I haven’t,” he says, looking me in the eye. “I might have thought that at one time, but I’m one hundred percent sure that wasn’t love. A young infatuation, maybe. But love? No.”

My heart leaps in my chest and I struggle to sit up. My head is a bit wonky from the alcohol, but I press on.

“What are you saying, Graham?” I ask.

“I’m saying . . . I’m saying I’d like to risk my mental stability and grip on life to have you in it. But I’m warning you—”

I leap forward, pressing my lips to his. He winds me up in his arms, kissing me for all he’s worth. When we pull back, we’re smiling and breathless.

“Was that a yes?” he asks. “You didn’t even hear the disclaimer.”

“This isn’t a contract,” I laugh. “There are no execution dates or amendments or fine print.”

“That’s what I mean. I don’t know how this works.”

“It works like this: we take each for what we are. We know each other well enough to know our weaknesses and annoying behaviors.”

“Like the trash in your car?”

“No,” I state. “Like the fact your stapler has to sit three inches from your desk phone. That’s annoying.”

“That’s practical!”

“Well, I’ll overlook that and you overlook the misplaced scrap pieces of life on my floorboard.”

He rolls his eyes, but laughs. “Fine. But we’ll never take your car anywhere.”

“Compromise, Graham. It’s a key to relationships.”

“I don’t do that well.”

“I’ll teach you,” I say happily.

“I’m going to need a learning curve,” he admits. “I need you to have patience with me.”

“And I need you to give me room to grow,” I volley back. “I’ve been making progress on me and I don’t want to lose that.”

He kisses me sweetly. “I don’t want you to lose that.” He stands, offering me his hand. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Inside.”

“Why?”

He smirks. “I want to celebrate with my . . . girlfriend?”

“That’s so high school,” I laugh.

Shaking his hand, he motions for me to take it.

“How do you plan on celebrating?” I ask, pressing my lips together. He wiggles his brows.

“I think we managed to do that,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows back at him, “out here last time, didn’t we?”

“Last time was different.”

“Why?”

He grins. “Last time you weren’t mine.”

Swooning, I take his hand and let him lead me into the house.

THE SENSATION OF LIGHT WAKES me up. It’s odd because my room has one small window that faces west, so there’s not a lot of sunlight in there. Especially in the morning.

Stretching, my arms brush over sheets that aren’t mine. They’re softer, silkier . . . nicer. My eyes flip open and land on a large painting of a city in the dark. It’s a black canvas with dots of white and pink and blue. You can make out the streets and mountain ranges. It’s gorgeous. It’s also not mine.

I roll over and face the bedside table. Graham’s watch and day planner sit there next to a blue lamp with a cream-colored shade.

Flopping back against the mound of pillows in his four-poster bed, I can’t help but giggle as everything from last night floods back. His declaration. His sweet smile. His delectable tongue.

Shivering, I burrow under the covers as I hear something in the hallway. It takes a few seconds for him to appear.

Wearing a pair of grey boxer briefs and nothing else, he carries a wooden tray and a big smile. “Morning,” he says. “I made you breakfast.”

Scents of bacon and pancakes drift through the air, blending with the smell of Graham. It’s a divine, heady combination.

I sit up and realize I’m naked. The air hits my nipples, causing them to form stiff peaks. Graham’s eyes go to them immediately.

“Don’t think about it,” I warn. “You have to feed me first.”

He grins, climbing in bed with me. “I don’t know what I love more. Seeing you in my bed in the morning or just seeing you naked.”

I swipe a slice of bacon off the tray and stick it in my mouth. “Perfect. Not too crispy, not too limp.”

“There’s nothing about me that’s limp.”

“True that.” I wipe the bacon around the plate, picking up the excess syrup. “This is the best way to eat it right here.”

I dangle it over my mouth in a very un-ladylike fashion.

“This explains so much,” he notes.

“Like what?”

“Like why there was syrup on the console of your car and why it smelled like bacon.”

“Sue me.” I open my mouth and begin to drop the bacon into it when a drizzle of the maple goodness misses my tongue and slides down my breast.

Graham is on me in a second, the bacon falling on the bed. I shriek, reaching for it, but he pins my hands above my head. His eyes burn with unbridled lust. “If I tell you to keep your hands here, will you listen?”

“What do you think?” I tease, kicking the blankets off my body. I lie on his sheets, completely exposed. His free hand, the one not holding my hands against the headboard, cups me between the legs.

“I think you can’t be trusted.”

His mouth lowers ever-so-slowly until it hovers just over my syrup-covered nipple. I arch my back, desperate for contact, but he just pulls back. Looking at me through his lashes, he grins. His tongue darts out, barely flicking the top of my pebbled bud.

I moan, struggling to work my hands free. He keeps them still against my effort.

The top of his tongue lays flat at the top of my chest and rolls slowly down the sensitive skin of my breast. The trail behind it is chilled, a stark contrast to the heat of his mouth.

My head falls deeper into the pillows, his free hand gripping my vagina harder. One finger slips inside me and I release a moan.

My hands are released and I reach for him, but he pulls back. He turns back to me, a strip of bacon in the air, dripping with sticky goodness from the breakfast plate.

Holding it over my body, the sweet liquid falls to my skin, trickling wild lines from my thighs to my neck.

Graham looks at me with untamed, yet reverent eyes. I’m desperate for his touch. He lies along my legs, holding himself up over my abdomen. A smirk graces those delicious lips.

“I think I’ll have my breakfast like this,” he growls. “Lie back. Eyes open. I want you to watch me lick this off of you.”

His tongue dips into the pool of liquid in my belly button and I nearly jump from the contact. He growls and I know to stay still. I want to stay still. I don’t want this to end.

He works his way around my stomach, following the ropes of syrup as they crisscross my body. His tongue is hot, his fingers tucking under me and squeezing my ass. I try to shimmy, to make his fingers find my opening, but he knows my game and doesn’t budge.

Looking me in the eye, he starts a torturously slow path from my stomach up my breastbone. Then, in a flash of a movement, he sucks my left nipple.

“Gah!” I exclaim, feeling a burst of pleasure shoot through me. My fingers run through his hair, encouraging him to suck harder, take in more. He sucks the sweetness from my skin and looks at me, licking his lips.

Pressing on my clit, he laughs. “This is going to be a good fucking day.”

“I hope so,” I laugh. “Now start the fucking me part.”

“Oh no,” he says, leaning back and stripping off his briefs. “Not today.”

“What do you mean ‘not today’?” I ask, alarmed.

“Today, I’m enjoying you. Savoring you. Relishing the fact that I have an entire day of you all to myself.”

“That,” I say, reaching up and pulling his face to mine, “you most certainly do.”