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I pull her in for a kiss, and she comes easily, her hands finding my chest the way they always do now, like that’s where they live.

She tastes of champagne and vanilla, and I deepen the kiss without meaning to, my hands sliding down to her waist. She parts her lips for me in a way that goes straight to my cock.

I’m hard in ten seconds. She doesn’t notice, and I have to force myself not to pull her against me before breaking the kiss.

She blinks up at me, slightly dazed, her lips pink and swollen.

We still haven’t had sex. I want her to understand, in her body if not yet in her head, that I give her things because I want to give them, not because I expect something back. She’ll come to me when she’s ready. And when she does, it won’t be because she thinks she owes me.

It will be because she’s mine.

I check my watch.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Starving, actually. All this shopping worked up an appetite.”

“Good.” I take her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. “Let’s go eat.”

After today, Cora deserves a quiet evening. Food delivery eaten on the sofa, something mindless on the television, and her feet in my lap. Nothing that asks anything of her.

As we stand between the kitchen and the living room, I reach for my phone. “I’ll order something. What do you feel like?”

Cora glances toward the kitchen. “Can I check if you have anything first?”

“If we have anything, but sure.” I watch her go with a ghost of a smile on my lips. Is she worried about the expense after I just dropped six figures on clothes and accessories for her?

Cora opens the fridge door and her eyes widen.

“There’s a whole quiche in here,” she says. “And another one.” She turns to look at me. “Zevran. You could feed a family of twenty with what’s in here.”

“I had people stock it this morning. I didn’t want you getting hungry.”

“Whoever it was did a great job.” She’s moving things around to see what else there is, and there’s excitement on her face. “Lettuce. Tomatoes. Three kinds of cheese.” She straightens up. “Can I make dinner?”

I lean against the counter, smiling at her. “You don’t have to work in my house, printsessa.”

“I know.” She’s already found a baking tray, and she’s opening cupboards until she locates a salad bowl, completely at home in the kitchen already. “But I love to cook. It’s my escape. My pleasure.” She sets the dials on the oven to preheat and selects vegetables from the crisper, marveling at each one. “These are quality. The kind of things I’d buy only to return later because—”

She stops and bites her lip, turning red.

I frown, my protective instinct flaring. “Cora?”

She whirls away from me to hunt through a drawer. “Nothing.”

There’s a strain in her voice that wasn’t there a moment ago.

I step around the kitchen island and take her in my arms, holding her tense body firmly to my chest.

“Tell me,” I say quietly, my lips by her ear.

“I never got to cook properly,” she whispers. “Troy gave me a grocery budget and checked every receipt, down to the last cent, so I couldn’t keep any money for myself.”

I remember her handbag sitting on the kitchen table. The receipt with its careful pile of change, and I feel a sudden, blinding anger rising in my chest.

That miserly motherfucker.

“I used to skim a little off each week,” she explains. “Go back to the counter and refund one item, pocket the cash, and keep the original receipt so the numbers matched. For my escape fund. I was trying to save enough to leave.” Worry has crept into her voice while she’s been talking. “That probably makes me sound dishonest.”