Emilia shifted her weight as she cooked. The motion should have disrupted the way they fit together, but all it did was bring her closer. Perhaps it had felt like this with Kate in the beginning, back when they were younger and dumber and unaware of the consequences of a shared life. She hadn’t felt Kate pulling away. She hadn’t seen her tears or her anger, her frustration about one lonely meal after the next as Morgan worked and worked and worked, pushing herself to build them a better life and completely unaware that with each late night she pushed Kate further and further away. How could she trust in this if she had failed so totally before?

Emilia added some of the freshly chopped herbs to the garlic and put her back to the gas burners. Morgan instinctively pulled them a step back and out of the way of the open flame.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Morgan.

“You got quiet.”

“I was enjoying the garlic.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Emilia laced her fingers around Morgan’s bicep.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Stuff.”

“Stuff,” Emilia repeated. “Any of it interesting?”

“Maybe.”

“What do I have to do to get you to tell me?”

A few possibilities flashed through Morgan’s mind. Desire struck, spreading like electricity from the places where Emilia touched her. “Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On how much you care about burning the garlic.”

“Oh, shit.” Emilia spun around and snatched the saucepan from the stove. “Fetch me the bottle of white wine on the counter.”

Morgan obeyed, enjoying the command more than was probably healthy.

Emilia wrapped up the meal preparation with a surge of steam from the pasta and mussels and a generous swig from the bottle of wine, which she passed to Morgan. The pinot grigio wasn’t bad, she noted as she took a sip.

“Okay.” Emilia surveyed the bowls before her. “Now we just need a drink.”

“Can I get you one?”

“I’m the hostess. Pick your poison. Wine? Beer? I don’t have anything harder, but—” She stopped talking when Morgan slid her hands beneath the sheer fabric of her crop top.

Drinking could wait.

•   •   •

Emilia swirled the wine in her glass as she breathed out a contented sigh. Dinner had turned out even better than she could have hoped. The mussels dripped flavors, and the memory of Morgan’s eyes closing as she took her first bite, moaning, caused a physical reaction in Emilia that made sitting deeply uncomfortable.

“You,” Morgan said as she twirled one last strand of pasta onto her fork, “are a goddess.”

Emilia used her next sip of wine as a cover to stare at the flush in Morgan’s cheeks and neck, planning to deepen it very soon. They would not need to be quiet here.

“Seriously, why have I been cooking?”

“Because I like seeing you behind a grill.”

“Yeah?”