May chuckled, the sound low in her throat. She wiped her hands and turned to him, stepping close—close enough to smell the cologne on his skin. She rose on her toes and brushed a soft kiss over his lips, light, teasing, nothing more than a thank-you sealed with sugar.
"Not enough," he murmured, before his hand slid to the small of her back and pulled her against him.
His lips captured hers again. It was possessive. She gasped softly into his mouth as his hand slid up her spine, the other anchoring at her hip. His tongue coaxed hers into a slow, hot dance, and she felt herself melting into him. Her fingers gripped his shirt without thought, needing him closer than close. The kitchen faded. The baby. The errands. Everything but him.
And then—
A throat cleared at the entrance of the kitchen.
They sprang apart, breath ragged, pulses racing.
May turned, still holding the bowl she'd meant for Adelita. And the moment the face at the door registered in her brain, her heart stopped. The bowl slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor, shattering with a loud crack and spraying mashed potatoes across the tiles.
Her mouth went dry. Her knees trembled.
"Mr. Kade…" she whispered, barely able to form the words.
He stood just inside the doorway, arms crossed over his broad chest.
"Is that what you do in the presence of a one-year-old?" Kade asked, tone as sharp as a blade being unsheathed. The question wasn't about propriety. It wasn't about what was appropriate in front of a child. It was jealousy. Poorly disguised behind indignation.
Mark's entire body shifted beside her, tense but calm. He wrapped an arm protectively around May's waist, as if to say: Mine.
May's chest was tight with panic. Her mind scrambled to make sense of what was happening. Why was he here? After all this time? After months of silence, after dropping Adelita, he now showed up?
Adelita squealed from her high chair, blissfully unaware of the tension thick enough to slice through.
"Mr. Kade. I… uh… well… Mark was just—" May stammered, her hands fluttering uselessly at her sides, her thoughts colliding. Her tongue, which had been teasing Mark seconds ago, now felt dry and heavy in her mouth. She hated how small her voice sounded. How disoriented she felt.
But Kade didn't even give her the courtesy of a glance.
"Move your car," he said flatly, cutting her off mid-excuse.
He stepped fully into the kitchen, his scent arriving before him. He moved with that silent, deadly grace he had always possessed, a predator wrapped in the clothes of a man. And then, without a word of warning, he reached for Adelita.
"What?" May asked, her voice rising in confusion and disbelief as she watched him lift the child with ease.
Adelita, traitor that she was, cooed in delight and clutched at his shirt.
"I was talking to him…" Kade clarified over his shoulder, nodding toward Mark. His voice sharpened as his gaze zeroed in. "Move your damned car. I have nowhere to park."
Mark exhaled a sharp breath.
"I was just leaving anyway," he said, looking at May. "So, pick up party favours and bring them back here?"
May nodded slowly, blinking herself back into the moment, her hand brushing against the edge of the counter for support.
"The… the receipt is on the dining," she murmured, eyes flicking from Mark to Kade and back again.
"Yeah, I remember," Mark replied. He gave her one last look and then stepped out of the kitchen that had, all at once, become far too cramped with all the feelings no one dared voice.
The silence that followed his departure was thick. May turned to Kade slowly.
She didn't know what to say.
The words she wanted to say burned her throat.
Oh, you're back. After a year. Didn't call, didn't write. Didn't say goodbye after you touched me like I was the only thing you ever wanted in your life.
But she didn't say any of those things out loud.
Instead, she just watched him—watched the way he shifted Adelita easily onto his hip.
Kade walked to the sink, the picture of maddening calm, and poured himself a glass of water as if he hadn't just detonated every nerve in her body. His forearms flexed as he gripped the glass, and May hated herself for noticing. Hated that part of her still remembered the feel of those hands on her skin. The way he'd once whispered her name.
Adelita giggled and patted his face.
He was here though.
The man who made all sense and reason abandon her. The man whose voice had once made her legs weak and her body hum with anticipation. The man who had left her breathless and aching and wanting… and then disappeared. Kade.
He was here.
The same man who touched her and then vanished as if she had been nothing more than a passing fever dream. The man whose memory lived on in her skin, in the quiet ache in her chest that never really went away.
He was here.
And she couldn't stop wondering—how long before he'd vanish again?
Because Kade always left.
No matter what he gave her in the dark—in gasps and whispered promises—he always walked away when the sun came up. So even as she watched him sitting there now, casually sipping water, holding Adelita, part of her heart was already bracing for the aftershock.
******
When Miss Nelly finally returned, the house was already humming with the faint scent of freshly baked cake.
The front door banged open. She stepped in, a shopping bag hooked over each arm, her curls bouncing. She was muttering to herself about baby shoes being overpriced when she caught sight of Kade.
There he was—sitting on her sofa, in her living room, as if he hadn't ghosted the entire household for an entire damn year. As if he had every right to be there.