Kallie and Sasha moved around in the room barely lit from the outside lights. He only needed to lean somewhat and reach to the fridge to pull out liquor. “Wanna glass and soda with this?” he asked.

She wanted that, but she didn’t have the nerve to say yes.

So he did. “I’m getting ice. I’ll be right back.”

When she was alone in the room, it felt weird. Somehow, they’d become strangers. He made his point. She wasn’t good about sharing what was going on with her. She should have brought her worries to him, honestly, and this whole blow-up would have been avoided.

He returned with bucket filled to the brim. He even made getting ice seem gallant. He grabbed a few cubes in his bear-sized palms and dropped some in each glass. He emptied a mini bottle for each of them before topping each drink off with soda.

He handed her glass, and surprised her when he leaned in for a tender kiss that brought tears to eyes that she wasn’t at all expecting. How was it he could make her feel so much, so fast, even when she’d been mad at him all day?

“I’m sorry.” This, too, was a surprise. The great Sasha, apologizing first.

“I’m sorry back,” she said, suddenly ashamed and awkward.

Maybe this was what love was. Being frustrated with another person, but then finding your way back from those frustrations to their side. Wanting to fight for them, more than you wanted to fight with them. So, then, am I in love? She stared at him, unsure of herself in a way she’d never expected.

He reached forward, and they knocked back their drinks together in a silent toast to...what exactly? Maybe just to them laying to rest this whole stupid awful mess and starting over.

Kallie about choked on hers; it was stronger than she expected even though she saw him make the thing. How could the first taste be so smooth and delicious, only to end up choking?

He grabbed the soda and let her drink it straight until she got her breath back. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She smiled at him a touch unsteadily. “Yes,” she replied, finding his concern sweet. Then, as he looked at her, his eyes darkened. Did she move first, or did he? It didn’t matter. The meeting of their lips was almost certainly fated. One kiss led to another. She was drunk on him, loving how his breath was sweetly laced with alcohol. I’m an addict, she thought as their lips met and parted and met again. Each kiss sweeter than the last. I cannot get enough of him.

He reached for the lamp and flipped it on. The light was blinding, and it spilled over her body. He was inspecting her new underwear as she’d promised him.

Kallie made a big deal of rolling over for him, teasing him slowly as she modeled for him. She extended her leg, flexing and bending, even though her legs were not dressed. She was no longer showing off her purchase. She was showing off herself, inviting him to take her the way he had before.

Maybe it was because the belt of alcohol had brought her inhibitions down, but she’d missed him terribly. She needed to feel him in her arms.

Sasha kissed her skin from head to toe. He lavished her nipples with his wet, warm attention. His fingers slipped inside her as he suckled on her, until she thought she would scream. His hands never stopped caressing her. He slipped inside her and fucked her in three different positions. He moved over her, in her, on her. It was all as if he were imprinting himself on her.

During this wild, insurmountable tide of sensual perfection, Kallie panted and came, then came again, crying out his name. He had leaned in close and whispered, “That is what I wish to hear.”

Eventually she lay limp in his arms, overcome with emotion, overcome with the new intimacy that they’d forged in their wild lovemaking. He never once let her go, holding her to his side even as they drifted off to sleep together, sending faltering words into the dark, trying to connect with words the way their bodies had only a short time before.

“We’re going to be at the bakery tomorrow,” she said, curling around him, her head upon his shoulder.

“We can take a little break. The casino just opened up. You and I haven’t been away together,” he said, not combative, just pointing out an alternative. His tone was gentle, wanting to please her, she realized. “Why don’t we take a week? We’ll stay here. I can ask Sal to watch over things. We’ll reconnect. We’ll play twenty questions if you want. I’ll answer anything you want to know.”

Suddenly, she didn’t have anything she wanted to know. She just wanted him. “You confuse me,” she said, staring off into the darkness as she tried to connect her thoughts. “You’re an amazing, giving man. I see how people love you. And then you do these things that make me doubt you. I feel like the worst person in the whole world for doubting you. It’s not as easy as just accepting. I wish it were.”

“Why not?” he asked. “You trust me with your body. Implicitly. Explicitly. You just proved that.”

Then, once again, just the suggestion of sex heated her to the core. “I know,” she said finally and bit her lip, trying to find the phrasing she needed that would still somehow sound respectful. “Are you a liar?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.

What was she supposed to do with that? If he was a liar, then him saying he was a liar could be a lie, right? But then he wouldn’t be lying...she went ‘round and ‘round in her head on that one for a minute.

“Okay. Why do you want to be with me? I have to admit the sex is amazing. But why be with me? What’s in it for you? I’m certainly nothing special.”

He leaned up on one elbow to look at her. “I already told you,” he said. “I’m crazy in love with you. I might bend the truth now and again, but it’s just business. And, in the long run, I share what I have with you.”

“But why go through the pretense of letting me make something for myself?”

“Do you want the compliment? I have been with a lot of beautiful women,” he began. “But from the second I saw you, I knew.”

“What did you know?” she asked, completely lost.

“That I want you to have my babies,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Sasha...” She whispered his name, absolutely floored. Such a thing had never even occurred to her. Never in her wildest dreams.

Then she got caught up in the fantasy, wondering what their children would be like. How beautiful they would be!

He swept his giant palm to the side of her head, brushing the straight silk strands of her white-blonde hair from her face.

So maybe he wasn’t good at expressing his wants and needs either. Though she supposed that if he’d said such a thing earlier in their relationship she would have...what exactly? Fled? Things were already moving so quickly. She would have thought him weird to confess such a thing any sooner. Even now it felt...fast.

She found his shoulder as he lay down next to her again. Odd how she fit in his arms so perfectly. She curled in and closed her eyes, but couldn’t sleep tired as she was. Neither, it seemed, could he.

“Do you have your laptop with you?” he asked after several long minutes had passed.

“Yes.” Silly thing. Of course, she did. She dangled off the side of the bed and grabbed her computer. She hadn’t set it on the nightstand and had to reach far to find it.

“On the floor?” He half-scolded her, swatting her backside before she could right herself. “Bad girl.” Sasha opened her computer and found the browser. He typed something and then handed it back to her. “There,” he said. “This is the bakery’s account. That’s our balance. I know this isn’t the same as showing you the books. We can go over them tomorrow. My eyelids are heavy.”

She glanced at the screen, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s a nice number.”

“I won’t try to handle you again if you promise not to second-guess me again,” he said, his voice already fuzzy with sleep.

She held out her hand, inviting him to shake. “Deal. And I’ll be involved in all of it from here on out?” she asked frankly.

“Kallie, we’re stepping into a sixty-year old business. It’s as simplified as simple could be. Katia and Lev had their overhead down to the exact penny. There’s no figuring. When they ran out, they just stopped selling and that’s what keeps people coming back. So their orders are standing. They get x number of pounds of flour a week, x number of egg product, and so on, and it doesn’t change ever. So, there is no work really. But you can see it all if you like.”

“But once we expand...” she began.

Sasha finished, “Yes, once we expand that will change a little bit. But I hope not by much. I say we take their formula and broaden it some to accommodate new business, but keep it fixed like they did.”

“See, this is the kind of conversation we should have had after we signed, or even maybe before we signed,” she said. “It left my imagination running wild.”

“Well, conversations do take two at least. I realize that I shouldn’t have just taken charge of everything. But in my defense, sweetheart, you let me, and this is the way it got handled.”

“Got it.” She nodded.

“Me too,” he said, and closed his eyes. “G’night.”