Sawyer smiled goofily at her. “I love…how much you’ve thought about this. I bet you’re going to be really good at that new job.” He transferred the smile to the book.

“Put that back! Some young lady’s mind is just waiting to be blown.” Maybe Clara’s Miss Not Theoretical would wander by. Although Eve hadn’t seen her—with or without Clara—for months.

Sawyer did not put the book back. He started flipping through it. “Hmm. I feel like there’s some stuff in here that is more widely applicable.” He looked up and raised his eyebrows. The goofy smile was gone. “I need to work on my numbers.”

“You’re on duty!” she whispered urgently. She wasn’t sure why she was whispering. The street was full of people, but the festivities were generating a lot of noise and no one was paying attention to them.

“We don’t have that much time left.”

“You’re on duty!” she said, like maybe he hadn’t heard her the first time?

“I can be really quick. I won’t even take off my clothes.” He cracked his knuckles.

He cracked his knuckles. Well. Who was she to turn her nose up at the offer? But she did sort of want to tease him, so she said, “But I’m not done with my sandwich.”

“You can keep eating it while I make you come.”

Wow. She had no comeback for that. Also, she would really like to see that. Feel that. Taste that?

Wordlessly she turned and led him inside. Neither of them spoke as they walked through the finished main floor to her room in back. He slammed the door behind them, walked her toward the dresser and started unbuttoning her jeans.

Which left her staring at the ledge with the sad mermaids and the childhood photos. She’d left those alone even as she’d renovated the rest of the room. She and Sawyer had had sex in this room many times in the past few months, but on the bed. There was something deeply unsettling about the prospect of doing it while looking at these mementoes of the past. Their past. What they were doing now was categorically different from what they’d been doing then. That had been love. This was friends. And sex. “I can’t face this way,” she panted as he shoved his hand down her pants.

Thankfully, he didn’t press her as to why. He spun them both around, his hand in her pants the whole time, sat on the dresser, and pulled her back against him.

“Better?” he rasped.