Instead he’d be waking up to this Mary. She felt as if her mother had somehow made a deal with the devil and had Mary waking up to the fate she’d always envisioned for her daughter. She looked in the mirror and didn’t see Tiff’s Mary. She didn’t see Cora’s MFT. No. She saw Naomi’s busted-ass daughter, old and silly and ridiculous.

“Oh, God.” Regardless, she had to go out there. She couldn’t hide in here all morning. It was only 5:00 a.m. Maybe she could scuttle him out the door before the light got too bright and he saw what he was really dealing with.

She took a deep breath, feeling lower than she had in years, and padded back into her bedroom. He was on his back and rubbing at his face when she came in. He cracked one eye when he heard her, a sleepy smile blooming over his face.

“Hi,” he said softly, reaching for her.

She let him take her hand, because how in the hell was she supposed to keep from reaching out to him when he reached out to her? It was like a law of the universe. He tugged her forward, and she sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, casting about for anything to say that wasn’t Could you please leave so that you don’t find out I’m secretly a hag and run screaming from my apartment?

“Mmm,” he answered. Apparently he was too cute and dozy in the morning to string sentences together. He curled against her, and she melted when his hand traced down her spine. Maybe that was why she didn’t have it in her to protest when he gently tugged her down and folded her into him, his mouth landing on her exposed shoulder, his hand spanning her tummy as he kissed his way to her neck.

Did he have to be so cuddly and sexy in the morning? He was making this a hundred times harder than it had to be. Why couldn’t he have been awkward and aloof, anxious to get the hell out of her house the way some men were? It would have been so much easier if they could just have a good old-fashioned awkward morning after.

But he showed no signs of awkwardness as he grumbled something unintelligible into her collarbone and traced a hand down to her knee.

“John,” she whispered, her eyes closed tight.

“Mary,” he whispered back, and she could hear the happiness in his voice.

When she didn’t answer, he paused in his ministrations and sat up, balancing his head on one hand.

She winced. She really didn’t want him to get an eyeful of what she looked like right now. Things were safer when he’d had his face buried in her neck.

“Are you all right?” he asked.