Page 109 of Joker

“How do you take it?”

That catches me off guard in a completely different way.

“You don’t know?”

He gives me a look. “I know. I’m checking if its changed since you’ve had life altering sex.”

My mouth falls open.

He winks at me and then walks toward the door before I can recover enough to hit him with something. At the threshold, he pauses and looks back over one shoulder. “Get dressed,” he says. “I’ll make sure Lexi’s still running the fort.”

That stops me. Immediately. All the heat drains out of the moment and something much softer moves in.

“Lexi,” I say, sitting up straighter. “I should—”

“She’s fine.”

The certainty in his voice does something dangerous to my nervous system.

“She’s probably still asleep,” he adds. “Or terrorizing Gio with cartoons. Either way, she’s not being neglected.”

I stare at him.

He holds my gaze for one beat longer than necessary. Then, quieter, “I checked before I fell asleep.”

That one lands straight in my chest. Hard.

Because of course he did. Of course he made sure she was okay before he shut himself in here with me. Of course he thought about her too. That normal, practical, deeply unshowy kind of care nearly wrecks me on the spot.

I have to look away. “Okay,” I say softly.

He nods once and disappears into the hall.

The door shuts behind him. And I just sit there for a second in the wreckage of my own composure.

Because what the hell am I supposed to do with a man like that? One who doesn’t just know how to take me apart, but apparently knows how to put the room back together after too?

I get dressed slowly, pulling on yesterday’s jeans and top and trying not to think too hard about the fact that my body feels different this morning.

Not wrong. Not sore in any way that makes me want to hide. Just…marked.

Aware.

Like I’m carrying proof of last night under my skin.

When I finally step into the hallway downstairs, coffee hits me first. Fresh. Strong. Warm enough to make something in me unclench on instinct.

Joker is in the small kitchen area near the back hall, cut already on over a black T-shirt, moving around like this is any other morning and not the one after he changed the chemistry of my bloodstream forever.

There’s a mug waiting on the counter.

My mug. Or at least, one clearly meant for me.

I stop in the doorway.

He glances up once, takes me in, and says, “Two cream, one sugar.” It’s not a question.

I blink. “You remembered.”