Dwayne woke with the faintest ache at the back of his neck, the kind that came from sleeping on a couch not meant for his broad frame. The muted gray light of morning seeped through the blinds of Courtney's apartment, carrying the smell of freshly brewed coffee with it. For a moment, he didn't move. The night before still clung to him—the rain pounding against the roof, the unexpected breakdown, the way she'd looked in the dim glow of her small living room, hair damp and falling in loose waves around her shoulders.
He ran a hand over his face, willing the memories back into some corner of his mind where they wouldn't be so loud. But the sound of movement in the kitchen made ignoring impossible. He could hear the clink of a spoon against a mug, the shuffle of her bare feet across the linoleum floor. There was something disarmingly domestic about it, and it unsettled him more than it should have.
