Coming from any other man, Clay included, Brynne would have written those words off as a hokey pickup line. Coming from Eli, who, in her experience at least, tended to be straightforward to the point of bluntness and utterly lacking in poetic inclinations, they were something to be pondered and cherished.

Oddly stricken, Brynne was silent.

Eli mounted the steps, closing the space between them, and bent his head, brushing his cheek—freshly shaven and smelling faintly of soap and toothpaste—against hers.

Brynne shivered, and Eli immediately wrapped her in his arms.

“You’re cold,” he said.

Just then, with her body in such close contact with Eli’s, she was anything but cold. Things were melting inside her, tipping and flowing, leaving a warm ache wherever they touched.

She barely had the breath to speak. “Come in,” she said, the fingers of both hands clasping the front of his shirt. Pulling.

He gave a low, ragged laugh and kissed her.

It wasn’t a deep kiss, like the one they’d shared to mark the coming of a New Year, but it sparked new fires just the same.

With something dangerously close to desperation, Brynne grasped Eli’s hand and half dragged him in from the porch.

She closed and locked the inside door behind them, then led the way up the stairs to the landing, where Festus was already waiting, still wagging his tail.

Inside the apartment, where it was deliciously warm, Brynne turned to face Eli, wondering if she was rushing things, if she’d gotten in over her head.

In the final analysis, she didn’t care.

Tonight was all that mattered. Now was all that mattered.

Who even knew if there would be a tomorrow?

When the silence grew too long to bear, Brynne asked the first question that came to mind. “Are you hungry?”

After all, she owned a restaurant. Feeding people was what she did.

Eli’s grin smoldered, right along with his eyes, as he took her in. It was leisurely, like a thirsty man taking a long, slow drink of the purest water.

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “I am very hungry.”

Brynne blushed, and then blushed because she’d blushed, revealing too much by her reaction.

Eli chuckled. “Damn,” he said. “I love it when you do that.”

“When I do what?” she asked, though she knew.

He didn’t reply. He simply came to her, took her into his arms again.

“How many kids do you think we’d have by now, if we’d gotten married right out of college? Or, better yet, high school?” he asked.

Brynne pretended to shove him away, though her hands remained on his chest, resting lightly there, feeling the hard warmth beneath the fabric of his shirt. “I think we’d be divorced—especially if we’d married right after high school.”

Eli’s expression was one of exaggerated surprise. “Divorced? What makes you think we’d be divorced?”