It was nice, though, the companionable silence as they made the U-turn at the corner of Forty-Fifth and headed back toward her building, stopping every few steps for Groucho to mark a mailbox, bike rack, or the ginormous planters filled this time of year with poinsettias she always had to keep Mary from taking a bite of.

Ideally, all of this silence would give her plenty of time to think about something—anything—to talk about except what they’d done last night. Of course, that meant all she could think about was how wet she’d gotten when she’d heard him come. Just thinking about it had her breathing harder than necessary.

By the time they were back in the lobby and heading up the stairs to her apartment, the anticipation was killing her. Was he going to say anything about last night? It had happened. It hadn’t been a case of her imagination running away during a solo sex session fantasy.

Fine, she’d been the one to say that they wouldn’t talk about it again, but what kind of person would take her seriously about that? What kind of person could just pretend it had never happened?

Once inside her apartment, she unclipped and hung up Groucho’s leash while he did the same for Mary Puppins. Then they just sort of stood there in the entryway, staring at each other. She had no idea when this had started to become a game of who can be quiet the longest, but it seemed like it had gone that way. This was not who she was. She was a chatter, a talker, a woman who liked to tell a story or twelve. She was about to burst with all of the words building up inside her, when he broke the silence.

“Okay, really, what are you getting up to in your room?” he asked as his gaze dipped down to her mouth.

The look in his eyes was intense enough to sear her skin and suck the jumble of words out of her head with an audible whoosh. Good Lord. This was what it was like to feel naked while fully dressed.

“During the day, I mean,” he said after a deliberate pause. “I’ve heard you during the past few days typing away, and sometimes you talk to yourself in different voices.”

No, she most definitely did not talk to herself. She cringed and screwed up her face as about a billion examples of how she’d gone over her main characters talking to each other and, to be honest, acted out their interactions filled her head. Fine, she did. She totally did talk to herself, but that was her writing process, and she refused to be embarrassed about it—no matter what lies the heat beating her cheeks told.