“Coffee?”
“Yeah.”
I pop in a fresh pod and make his coffee. He sits on my couch. I bring both our cups over and sit next to him. We’re quiet for a minute and it’s the good kind — the kind that doesn’t need filling.
“Just three words,” I say.
“What? It was fair.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know.”
I look at him. He looks back. I’ve been in so many rooms with so many different people and I have always known how to read them and this man is the first one in a long time I can’t fully get ahead of. He keeps doing things I don’t expect. He keeps meaning them.
He reaches over and takes the coffee cup out of my hand. Sets it on the table.
“Nova.”
“Yeah.”
Brick’s dead asleep on the back of the couch. Dina is at the bowl outside.
I should tell him.
The thought has genuinely terrible timing.
The coffee is untouched on the table between us. Jax is sitting close enough that I can feel the heat of him through his sleeve. Brick is making direct eye contact from the back of the couch like a tiny judgmental priest.
This is not the moment.
Nobody confesses professional sins with a cat watching and Jax Mercer looking at her mouth.
So I don’t.
Not yet.
We’re just sitting here on my couch, and I know he isn’t going to push.
That’s probably the best thing about him.
Also, inconveniently, the worst.
He just sits there, solid and contained, looking at me like he has all the time in the world. My skin prickles. Heat climbs my neck, slow and undeniable.
So, apparently I’m the one who’s going to have to do something about this.
I lean in.
He goes still. His hand comes up slow and finds the side of my face, thumb brushing once along my cheek like he’s checking whether I’m sure.
I am.
I pull back just enough to look at him.
“Nova.”
“ I know,” is all I got to say.