“We all need a break from our routine, no matter how much we love our job.” Annie shuffled closer, not taking the bait. “You say the same exact thing every Monday morning and, just like any other Monday, I’m not falling for it.” Annie pecked Jane on the lips.

“Come here.” Jane pulled Annie as close to her as possible. Their warm skins coming together sent a frisson of excitement up her spine. The last few weeks, Jane had started wondering why they didn’t have more relaxed mornings like this. When nothing urgent awaited them and their minds were free of the clutter of the upcoming day and it was just them, naked in bed, with nothing much to worry about at all.

Maybe once the shop was fully back on its feet and they could afford to, they could hire someone to mind it for a few half days a week. If they both planned to work past the general retirement age—and they did—they would need to take more breaks than one day a week and a ten-day holiday once a year.

“Hm,” Annie groaned into Jane’s flesh. “Let’s not get up today. Let’s just stay in bed.”

Jane wondered if the transition from just-book-shop to book-shop-plus-coffee-shop had been more taxing than expected for Annie as well. She wasn’t one for lingering in bed too long, unless she was reading the newspaper on her iPad and got sucked into an interesting long read. Unless… Oh yes, of course.

“Okay, babe.” Jane tried to reconnect with that pang of excitement that had coursed through her earlier, but it seemed to have disappeared somewhere beyond her reach.

Annie was peppering kisses along her collar bone already. Her lips were moving upward, on their way to Jane’s, who didn’t have it in her to say she didn’t much feel like it. Not on a Monday morning like this when she had all the time in the world. And who knew, maybe this could unblock her writing. Maybe all she needed was that moment of surrender to release whatever had been keeping her from accessing her subconscious brain the way she needed to when writing.

But as their foreplay progressed from kissing each other on the lips to their hands roaming all over each other and, after a while, Annie’s hand descending between Jane’s legs, Jane didn’t feel much more fire burning in her belly than she had before Annie had started kissing her. What was wrong with her? The usual thrum between her legs wasn’t present and Annie’s hand there felt more like a nuisance than a turn-on.

“Are you all right?” Annie whispered in her ear. “You seem miles away.”

“I don’t know.” It was as close to the truth as Jane could get.

“Do you want to take a break?” Annie sounded concerned.

“How about I, er, just do you,” Jane said.