Kendrick stood in the doorway longer than he meant to.
The house smelled like her. Something warm and sweet under the steam drifting from the bathroom—her oil, the candle she always burned when she thought she had the place to herself. His carry-on was still in the hall. His keys were still in his fist. He had told her Tuesday. It was Sunday night, and he had rearranged two meetings and a client dinner because missing her had stopped being a professional inconvenience and started being a physical fact.
She didn’t know he was there yet. He liked it that way for three more seconds.
Latoya was getting ready for a bath, the long silk robe whispering against the tile as it followed the full line of her hips. She hummed under her breath—something old, something her mama used to play on Saturday mornings—and gathered her thick dark hair up off her neck, twisting it into a high puff so it wouldn’t get wet. A few coils slipped free at her temple. The bathroom light made her skin look like it had been warmed from the inside.
Kendrick’s face went soft.
She sat on the edge of the tub and poured bath salts into the water. Stood. Reached for the sash of her robe.
That was when he moved.
He crossed the tile in four strides and wrapped his arms around her from behind. The cuffs of his dress shirt brushed her bare forearms. She startled hard, a little sound catching in her throat, body going tight against his chest.
He put his mouth to her ear.
“Baby. It’s me. It’s only me.”
His palm came up to her jaw, steady, familiar. He let her go just enough to walk around and face her.
Latoya’s hands flew to his chest. Then her whole face changed.
“Kendrick—”
She jumped. Arms around his neck, legs almost leaving the floor, kissing his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth in those tiny frantic kisses she only did when she’d been holding herself together for days.
“Oh my God. I missed you. What are you doing home? You’re not supposed to be here until—”
“I know.” He was already laughing into her hair, holding her like he intended to keep doing it. “I know.”
She kissed him properly then, not caring about the why.
He looked like a man who’d left a meeting and come straight to her. Tie loosened. Top buttons of the soft blue shirt undone. No jacket. Navy pinstripe trousers still sharp from the airport. She set her feet back on the floor and ran a hand over the solid warmth of his chest, feeling the beat under the cotton.
“You really want to know why I’m here?” He thumbed her cheek. The short waves at his crown were a little flattened from the flight. His dark brown eyes hadn’t left her face.
She nodded.
“Because I missed you so much I couldn’t stay gone. I love you, Latoya.”
He said it quiet. He’d never said it out loud. He didn’t want to break the room.
Her eyes—deep brown, bright now, wet at the edges—came up to his. She went on her toes and kissed him again, slower.
“You don’t know what that does to me. I love you too. So much.”
She leaned over and shut the water off. The tub could wait. The house could wait. He was home.
Kendrick slid a hand inside her robe and found the soft skin at her waist, stroking up and down like he was reminding himself of the map. He kissed her gentle, watching her lashes drop.
“Yes I do know,” he murmured against her mouth. “Because you said it back. That makes it worth the early flight.”
He kissed her deeper.
Then he lifted her.
Latoya made a surprised little sound and locked her arms around his neck as he carried her out of the steam and toward the stairs. She kissed him on every step she could reach. At the landing he turned left, shouldered open their bedroom door, and stopped.
It looked like her now. When the house had been only his, the room had been sharp edges and dark wood. She’d softened it—cream throws, a deeper duvet, candles set where the light would pool. It looked like a place two people were supposed to land.
He squeezed her.
Latoya’s cheeks warmed. “I hope you don’t mind. I just thought we needed a room that felt like us.”
“I love it.” He set her on the edge of the bed. “You’re right. We do.”
His fingertips traced the deep V of the robe, light as breath. He kissed her with one hand at the side of her neck, pulling her in. She worked his tie loose, then the buttons, tugging the shirt free of his pants. He stepped back and shrugged it off. The shirt hit the floor. Her hands were already on him—warm palms over the dark brown of his chest, the clean lines of a man who lived in suits and still made time for his body.
“Kendrick.” She said his name like a sigh. “I missed you. I missed this. Just us.”
Belt first. Then the trousers, eased down as she touched every new inch of skin. He kicked them aside, stripped the rest, and knelt to kiss her again before he sat with her on the bed.
He untied the robe the way a man unwraps something he already knows is his and still wants to be careful with. The silk fell open. He touched what it revealed—the full weight of her breasts, the soft plane of her stomach, the rich dark of her thighs—like he was coming home in stages.
“I missed how you feel in my arms,” he said. “Missed this skin under my hands.”
He eased her back and curled behind her for a moment, the hard line of him against the curve of her ass, fingers stroking her thigh until she shivered. Then she rolled to face him.
They fit the way they always had: his harder lines against her softness, his mouth finding hers, his eyes full of the thing he’d finally named downstairs.
“Kendrick.” Her lips moved against his. “I need you, baby. I need you.”
Her fingers slid over the waves of his hair.
He smiled. “Soon. Not yet.”
His hands filled with her breasts, thumbs dragging across tight nipples. Her breath caught. She arched into him. He kissed the places on her neck that made her restless, then lower, collarbone, the top of her chest, until his mouth closed over one nipple and his hand slipped between her thighs.
He stroked her clit soft. Her eyes shut. Her hips came up to meet him.
He took his time with her breasts until she pulled him up and kissed him like she was starving. The ache between her legs had a name and it was his. He traced her wet folds, then slid one finger inside her. She moved with him, close, greedy, looking at his face while she did it.
He drew his hand back and teased her with the head of his cock until she chased it. Then he gave her what she was asking for—slow, so slow she felt every inch, her body pulling him deeper until their hips met.
“Latoya.” His breath broke. “You feel so good.”
He started to move.
She clung to him. He rolled her under him, arms braced so he wouldn’t crush her, and looked at her like he was learning her again after too many nights in hotel rooms. A finger along her cheek. A deep, still stroke just to feel her around him.
“I’ve been away too long.”
He kissed her sweet and pulled back until she moaned, then found a rhythm that was love and hunger in the same motion. Hands up her sides, cupping her breasts, teasing nipples while he filled her. She tipped her head into the pillows and took it, nails whispering down his back, pussy tightening when he dragged his own light nails across her breasts.
“Please don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” His laugh was low. “Couldn’t if I tried.”
He hooked her left leg higher and went deeper. She shuddered under him, and he felt it—the particular shake that meant it was him, not the idea of him.
They climbed together. His abs dragged her clit on every stroke. Breath ragged on both sides. The bed said what the house already knew: he was home.
Latoya broke first.
“Kendrick—”
Her whole body bowed. Sight went white at the edges. She clenched around him so hard he groaned into her neck.
“Come with me, baby.”
“I am.” He kissed her through it, thrust once more, locked deep, and spilled into her with a full-body tremble he didn’t try to hide.
He stayed there, forehead on her shoulder, kissing the damp skin while she came down, still shaking. Her arms banded around him. He was still inside her. She stroked his hair with her eyes closed, basking.
He kissed her again and slid to the side, pulling her with him, dragging the duvet up when she shivered at the loss of his heat.
“Latoya.”
“Mmm.”
“Nothing.” Too quick.
She looked at him. “Tell me.”
He kissed her. “You sure you want to know?”
“Kendrick.”
He grinned, the one that meant trouble and devotion at the same time.
“I love you. Don’t move. I have to get something.”
She curled on her side, confused and glowing. He rummaged through the trousers on the floor.
“Don’t look.”
She laughed into the pillow, fighting the urge to peek, heart already doing something foolish.
He came back to the bed and stroked her back, her hair, the baby hairs at her nape.
“Baby. Look at me.”
She rolled toward him. There was a new light in his face. She opened the covers. He slid in with one arm around her waist and one hand behind him.
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Ask me anything.”
“How much do you love waking up with me?”
“A lot. Why?”
“Would you want to do it for the rest of your life?”
The smile started slow on her mouth as it landed.
“Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”
“What do you think I’m asking?”
“Uh-uh. You’re not sliding out of this.”
“Guess I have to say it then.”
He kissed her first.
“Latoya, I want to wake up with you every morning and go to sleep with you every night. I want to know it’s you. I love you. Will you marry me? Make me the happiest man in this city, in this house, in this bed?”
A tear slipped down her cheek. He kissed it, then her mouth, then the other cheek.
“Shh. Is that a yes?”
She nodded hard, laughing through it. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He opened the little blue box with hands that weren’t as steady as his voice had been, slid the ring onto her finger, and kissed her like the question had been living in his chest for months.
She was still crying and smiling when her hand found him under the covers, stroking, already interested again.
“I think we need to celebrate.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
He rolled her onto her back. She laughed. He brushed a coil out of her eyes.
“I can’t believe you want to marry me.”
“I can.” He looked at her like the room had been built for this exact sentence. “I love you too much to let you be a secret I only say in my head on work trips.”
Then he started kissing her again—mouth, throat, the valley between her breasts—and the night, which had already given them the words and the ring, started over from the beginning.
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