I SET THE PUPPY ON THE BED and fed him burgers and fries, which was probably a bad human thing to do, but man did he like it. He shoved his little snout into the plate and hoovered it up, then toppled over on his kind-of thin belly, his paws stuck out like fat little sticks, his furry head pushed against Trey’s knee. He farted once and fell asleep.

Trey and I grinned at each other.

“What are you, some kind of warlock?” I said, rubbing my hand over the puppy’s belly.

Trey sat against the headboard, one leg bent, the other stretched out beside me. He’d disrobed, and the sheet was draped lazily over him from the waist down, but from the waist up…damn. Dark hair sprayed across his plated chest and down a flat stomach, narrowing over his abs to rope’s width, before it disappeared under the sheets.

I kept looking at him as I ate, trying to convince myself he was actually real, actually here in my bed. Actually, for right now, mine.

With a puppy.

Trey ate another fry as he looked at the pup. “You said you wanted him, and you were right, he was hungry.”

“But how’d you get him to come?”

He shrugged. “I called him. Told him about the burgers.”

I gave a sage nod. “That would do it.” I eyed his furry little body. “We’ll have to give him back in the morning,” I said sadly.

“But for tonight…”

“For tonight, he’s ours.”

This got a grin, tilting up one side of the handsome mouth that could do so much damage to me. “Never had a dog.”

“Me either. We’ll name him Peacock,” I announced.

“That’s a stupid name,” he replied in a friendly way.

I folded my arms over my chest. “What would you call him?”

He ran a hand over the fluff ball. “I have no fucking idea. I’ve never named anything in my life. Fluffy?”

I snorted. “Yeah, you’re not very good at this. Peacock Prodigal Pup,” I said firmly, and reached forward to pet him. “Because he found his way home.” I looked up swiftly. “Just for the night.”

“Peacock it is,” Trey said.

I sat facing him, sheet lumped around my waist, wearing my favorite old t-shirt that I’d tugged from the drawer and nothing else. His foot and calf poked out of the blankets beside me, just behind my bottom, and I rolled that way a little, to feel his hard maleness touch me.

I took another bite of my burger, then pointed to something poking out of the pillow behind him.

“Hey,” I said, my mouth full of food. “Where’d that come from?”

He reached back and pulled out one of my coffee bean dispensers. “Found them in a box in the sex room.”

I laughed and had to swallow fast before I choked.

“Of course, after the sex, they weren’t in the box anymore.”

I recalled now the little clattering sound when Trey swiped his arm over the table, clearing it to bend me over. It hadn’t made much of an impression then, all my little plastic dreams scattering across the floor.

“I grabbed one before I left,” he explained. “But they were on all the tables.” He fingered it, flipping up the little coffee cup on the top. Coffee beans spilled out in a brown-black tumble onto his lap.

He shoved up. “The fuck…?”

I laughed and reached for another fry. “They’re peaberry Kona beans. Coffee beans. They’re mine.”

He scooped them up and sniffed them. Smart guy. They smelled incredible. Then he gestured to the dispenser. “These are yours?”

“Yep. Had them custom made when I ran my coffee shop.”

He lifted a brow and looked impressed. “An entrepreneur.”

I pulled a face. “If you saw the shop, you wouldn’t call it that. And I think you have to actually make money to be called an entrepreneur, right?”

He shook his head. “Nope. You just have to try.”

I smiled bitterly. “Then I fit. I can try with the best of them. The coffee shop was supposed to be that. Funky vibe, live local music in the afternoons, fancy beans, the works.”

“Fancy beans are the best.”

I laughed and shifted on the bed, stretched my leg out. His hand came down absently and dropped over my ankle, a warm, heavy weight.

My heart did a little flip.

The puppy sighed and shifted. His eyes never opened.

Trey took a bite of his burger and looked at my toenails a second. “Why ‘ran’?” he said, pulling his gaze back up.

“Sorry?”

“You said you ‘ran’ the shop. Past tense. Where’s all the fancy beans now?”

“I released them to the wilds. Set them free. I closed up shop a few weeks ago. It was a small place, kind of off the beaten track and funky. And the wifi was spotty, and then they raised the rent so…”

“So?” he prompted when I trailed off.

I kept looking at a pile of ketchup on one of the plates and shrugged a little. “Now I’m moving on.”

“Where you going?”

I slid my eyes up to his. “I might go work for Amber’s dad, Ben’s new boss.”

“Whoa,” he said quietly, like he got it.

“Yeah,” I agreed glumly, punching a fry deep into the ketchup pile, smothering it. “It’ll be great. The family business.”

“Like the mafia.”

I looked at the coffee bean dispenser in his hand, jaunty little coffee cup perched atop it, and blew out a breath. “I guess sometime’s trying isn’t enough. I mean, who wants to make their own double shot of coffee when they can go buy a six dollar espresso, already made?”

He sat back against the headboard, burger in one hand, pezzie in the other, looking it over.

“I don’t know about the sheep,” he said thoughtfully, “but they’d be great for soldiers.”

I blinked. “The…sheep? Is that us, the civilian world?”

He smiled and reached out to touch my chin, and came away with some ketchup. “Not you,” he said softly, then popped his finger in his mouth and sucked the ketchup off.

Lucky ketchup.

I sat back and considered him. “Are you serious? Soldiers would like these?”

“Yeah. Grinding them would be a little loud if you’re on patrol, but otherwise….”

“You don’t have to use whole beans.” I sat forward eagerly. “It’ll take grounds just as well.”

He smiled, maybe at the way I’d slid forward in coffee-excitement. “I think they’re great.”

I smiled a little proudly. “You’re welcome to all four thousand five hundred of them back in the apartment. Nothing by halves for me.” I sighed. “But enough about me and my failures….”

“I’m enjoying your failures.”

“You just want to avoid talking about yours,” I shot back, teasing.

“It’d be a long list. I fail constantly. I just get back up again.” He crumpled up a napkin and tossed it onto the tray between us. “Like you.”

Something fluttered through my belly, a little tumble of shivers and knocks.

“And only cowards do things by halves,” he added.

I eyed him skeptically. “Oh yeah? Sometimes smart people do things by halves. You know, one time Ben took me to a company picnic for the Fourth of July because Lexie was away, and I decided to organize this big softball game, and in the third inning the vice-president took a pitch to the head and ended up in the E.R.”

“Ouch,” he murmured.

“Another time, I was playing guitar out back on our patio. But we live in the dense heart of the city, and it was, well, it was late, and I was feeling a little low, and I might have had too much to drink. Anyhow, I was belting out Dusty Springfield, and the neighbors started throwing up their windows, yelling at me to stop.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, smiling.

I leaned forward, over the tray of food, and said in a fierce whisper, “But I did not stop.” His smile deepened, tracked across my face like he was seeing something. “And about twenty minutes later, the cops showed up. I got a three hundred dollar fine for disturbing the peace. With Dusty Springfield.” I sat back. “I think I’m destined to fuck things up.”

He let a few beats pass, then said, “Who’s Lexie?”

I blinked and straightened. “Um, that was way back at the beginning of my story.”

“I circled back around.”

“Lexie is my bff. My only ‘f,’ to be honest. Except she travels a lot, and when both she and Ben are away, which is a lot…”

“You’re alone.”

“In a city of millions,” I concluded. “Only me.”

“Me too.”

Our eyes met. “You spend a lot of time alone, Trey?” I asked quietly. “Because people seem to like you. Me, I’m kind of forgettable, so it makes sense, but you…

His gaze drilled into mine. “You’re not forgettable.”

I felt those words down to my solar plexus. I sat back and grinned at him, showing him smashed up fries.

He leaned against the headboard. “I’ve seen some bad shit in my time, Cass, and that,” he pointed at my mouth, “is disgusting.”

I swallowed and drank some milkshake. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait ‘til you see what I do with bacon.”

He burst out laughing and I picked up the third-to-last fry, even though I didn’t actually need it. But…salt and grease and potatoes.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten this stuff,” I said, popping it into my mouth.

He eyed the food. “I’ve been eating it all week long.”

I squinted, appraising him. “Yep, you look it. Kinda pale and washed out.”

He threw the second-to-last fry at me. I batted it away, then swept it off the covers onto the plate, feeling happy. I’d been in a crap-food starvation state. Also, sex-starved.

Trey sure was good for me.

“How come no junk food?” he asked.

I patted my lower belly. “Pooch.”

His eyes slid down the length of me in my old t-shirt. “I like your pooch.”

I stared at him. “That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He grinned. “Know the sexiest thing anyone ever said to me?”

“‘Fuck my ass with my heels on?’”

He shook his head. “‘I’m ordering us burgers and fries.’”

I smiled. “Yeah, that’s a good one. And shakes.”

“Definitely shakes.” He looked me over. “I wouldn’t worry about what you eat. You look good.”

“Ha, my hands are greasy and I smell like a milkshake.”

“Good enough to eat.” His gaze moved down my chest. “Pull up your shirt.”

I laughed. “You like this?” I tugged my shirt up, showing him my breasts, then took the last fry and slowly ran the tip of it down my cleavage.

“Now I’m salty too,” I said, all sultry-like.

He lunged for me.

I laughed as he kissed me, then did precisely what he’d said, tasted me, then guided me to the shower and fucked me there, but he didn’t finish the job, just made me die from the wanting.

Then he brought me back to bed and did me there, too. Made love to me there. Did something to me there. Something slow and languorous, like smoke rising in a summer sky.

I don’t know how long we made love, because Trey had ripped the alarm clock cord out of the wall when we first walked in. Maybe we were at it for days.

All I know is he moved in me forever. Held himself above me and moved so slow I thought my heart would stop as his gaze held mine, his eyes closing every so often, his head tipping back as a shudder of pleasure moved through him.

Then he slid out with a wet pop and kissed his way down my body. He kissed my breasts and my belly. He kissed my knees and shins. He kissed my feet.

He kissed my feet.

Then he rolled me over to my stomach and kissed back up my body. My calves, my thighs, my ass, up the line of my spine to my shoulder blades. He pushed aside my hair to kiss my sweaty neck. Then he massaged me, his hard, wide, hands kneading my muscles until I cried a little from the pleasure. I was so thick and heavy I could have fallen into a happy coma, but I didn’t, because I was so aroused my body kept sending little short circuit surges through me, snapping hot then, like a wave, long, slow pulses.

I was drugged. I was alive.

In Trey.

We moved around the puppy, who didn’t even seem to notice us,

Trey pulled me on top of him, his hands around my hips, dragging my body forward, then pushing me back, lifting into me slow and languid, like we’d been making love for lifetimes, and had lifetimes yet to go. Our bodies were slick with sweat. It was glorious, gorgeous exhaustion, this endless fucking that had become our life, and I couldn’t stop. Clearly Trey couldn’t either.

We didn’t talk. We just looked into each other’s eyes. He wasn’t teasing me. He wasn’t testing me. He was taking me. Owning me.

I was his. Fully, entirely.

I leaned down to him, my hands on the mattress beside his head. “Hey Trey?” I whispered, my voice raspy.

His dark blue eyes met mine.

“I know you don’t want to hear this but….” I dropped to my elbows, my breasts skimming his chest, and put my mouth beside his ear. “I think I love you.”

As I said the words, I came, almost painfully so. It rolled out like a sonic boom, spreading in undulating ripples that rocked my body so hard I dropped to his chest and lay there, shuddering on him.

His hands tightened on me and his head jerked back and he came too, spilling hard and hot into me.

Alive in him.

As we slept, the puppy dragged himself up and snuggled in between us. I slitted my heavy eyelids open and saw Trey’s big hand come down soft over the puppy fluff, holding him there.

I smiled and fell back asleep.