Breakfast. In. Bed. It was right up there on the list of It’ll never happen to me moments, along with late-night skinny dipping and one-kneed marriage proposals. But this was almost better. Because I was pretty sure I could smell…coffee. Yes. Plus…

Peanut butter!

Max walked softly across my bedroom. I could tell he was being quiet—he was a big guy, he worked with lumber for a living, he didn’t exactly go softly-softly from scene to scene in his life. But he was being quiet for me. Which was just lovely. Cups on saucers rattled. I felt him set down a tray and push it across the sheets. Then I heard his footsteps come around to my side of the bed. I did my very best to keep my face neutral; I focused on my breathing and just hoped this moment would last and last. He moved my bangs aside and softly touched his thumb to my cheek. It was so tender, so unspeakably beautiful, that I swallowed hard. I couldn’t help it. Total reflex. Like being tickled, but instead of laughing I just sort of…melted.

“There she is,” he said quietly. I opened my eyes as he sat down on the bed next to me, still fussing with my hair.

I blinked hard against the sun. “What time is it?”

Max raised his eyebrow and glanced at the tray. “Breakfast time. How’d I do?”

I turned my head and looked at the tray. There was a place mat under the plate so it didn’t slide, a napkin folded carefully in half. A rose in a bud vase. Coffee. Sugar cubes. Be still my beating heart. “You’re a natural.”

“You make it easy.” He handed me a piece of peanut butter toast. “But listen, about the house…”

Well, there went that fantasy. I jammed my toast in my mouth, at the same instant I tried to protest. “Can’t we save this?” I sputtered. “For, you know, never?”

Max scratched the side of his neck. “Nope. Here’s how I figure it. You got that inspection report, and you were just going to let that info drip-drip-drip so I wouldn’t worry, right?”

I shook my head hard and covered my mouth, “No, I was going to figure out a way to pay for it and then start the drip-drip-drip.”

From under the place mat, Max produced the document in question, all crinkly from Bremmer’s sweaty hands and slightly smudged with his hair paint. It looked like a mechanic had manhandled it after trying to fix an engine. Sorta. “This is a lot of repairs,” Max said. He rubbed the brownish smudge and looked at his fingers.

“I’m not sure what that is.” I was trying really hard to sound totally clueless. “Any guesses? Engine oil? Some sort of sauce?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Fine. Fine. I took the page from him and held it up. Pinprick holes from Bremmer’s ballpoint made the letters look like Braille in the sunshine. It listed so many required repairs that the sheer scale of the inspection report had trickled through my attempts at controlling my dreams—I’d tried so hard to focus on Max, but instead I saw Frank Bremmer, writing things like Insurance Fraud: America’s Pastime Since 1776!, and on the line where he was supposed to write whether or not the house had passed inspection, he’d written, LOLOLOL.

I finally finished my square of toast and busied myself with a slice of apple. “I’ll figure it out. Easy-peasy. Don’t worry about me.”

Max shook his head slowly. “No dice. The minute you let me have you, it became my job to worry about you.”

I bit down, but I was too awestruck to chew. “It did?” I said into the apple.

He nodded. “And I think I can say this now because we’ve crossed all the lines, so I feel pretty confident that you aren’t gonna get all sassy with me if I overstep.”

I chewed slowly as Max moved the tray off the bed, on top of a high dresser—too high for Julia by far.

He turned to me with an aggressive yumminess in his eyes that I had seen a glimpse of in the fire last night, but I saw in a new way in the bright light of morning. The alpha I’d always known was there in full force. “Because you’re mine, I’m going to overstep. And you’re gonna let me, aren’t you?” He pulled the bedclothes off of me so that I was naked. He cupped his cock and balls and then pulled his boxers down with his other hand. He was just so perfect I could not even. Girthy, too. Not only long but very, very girthy. He stroked himself a few times. “Answer the question, kitten.”

Kitten.

I’d never been one for pet names, but that one felt so good, it was like walking into the cold room at the liquor store. My whole body prickled and tensed and relaxed.

Kitten!

Oh, but wait, was there a question? What question? What was the question? I stared at him, blank-brained. Kitteennnnnnn. “What were we talking about?”

He climbed on top of me, taking the apple slice from my fingers and putting it on the dresser. He lowered his weight and took one of my wrists in each of his hands. “I was saying I was going to overstep and that you were going to let me. Right?”

He was right at my opening. I was wet already—pretty sure in spite of my dreams, he’d kept me wet all night—and he moaned as he slid himself along me. I couldn’t even form a sentence. Whatever he asked me to do next, it was almost certain to be a blurted-out Yes! But I still had some semblance of logic left. “Maybe.”

“No maybes,” he said and put some pressure on my opening. He growled a little as the head entered me.

I growled, too. Softer than him. Almost a purr. Kitten, indeed. But I tried to focus. Focus, Rosie. Focus. On the hunk of beautiful man in front of you who is just about to…focus. I flexed my fingers, trying to grab him, and in response, his grip tightened. “I know you won’t take my money.” His eyes got all bedroomy and narrow and aggressive. “But you’re going to take a loan from me, Rosie. No arguments.”

I thought about it, in as much as I could do any actual thinking right then. For the amount that I was going to have to dump into the house, that would be a lot of generic logos. So many smiling toilets. So many owls for library insignias. So. Many.

But suddenly I was back in the Land of Should, where sleeping with your best friend is tied with taking a loan from your best friend for a bad idea. This place wasn’t his responsibility, loan or not. This house had been in my family longer than some hereditary disorders. It was mine to figure out—my problem to solve. Never had a Madden taken charity, never. But as he let me feel his power and his weight, I knew, too, that I was between a rock and a very hard place. So I went for the middle ground and hitched up my hips to draw him further into me. “With interest.”

He answered with a groan, but it took him a moment to find real words. “No interest. You can help me with repairs, but it’s all on my dime.”

“Yes to helping, no to the loan.” I parted my legs a little more and gave him a squeeze.

“Fuck,” he snarled. He let my hands go and took hold of my hips, squeezing so hard that my ass cheeks parted because of it. Still, I stayed strong. “I’ll say yes only if you charge interest.”

The growl came from somewhere in his throat. “I set the terms of the interest.” He punctuated the word with a thrust so intense that I grabbed hold of the sheets in my fists, and I heard the fitted sheet pop off one corner with an elasticky thump. “You can pay me back in quickies and all-night marathons. And cupcakes. And kisses.” He moved his hand to my clit and drew it up between his fingertips. Halfway between a pinch and a roll, and just enough to make me turn my cheek into the pillows and whine.

“Please, Rosie,” he said, his tone softer now. “Let me take care of you. Starting now. Don’t fight me anymore. Let me do what I need to do.”

My heart tumbled and fluttered. I had to give in. I had to. Actual goddesses would have knelt for less. “Okay,” I whispered. He let his eyes slide shut as he drove into me again. But before he pushed me into the pleasure pond, I knew I had the sense to give him one more dig. One more tease. One more jab like I knew he loved. “Compounded daily.”

Now the cheek-pinch smile hit us both at once. I pushed my hips into his, and he came down over me, nipping my lip, as he drove into me all the way, saying, “I’ll show you compounded daily,” as he did.