The orgasm hit her all at once, ripping through her body and making her arch her back and throw her head back. Everything went blissfully white and quiet for a second, and then she came back to herself in time to feel Caleb shudder in her arms and come inside her. She held him through the aftershocks as he murmured nonsense in her ear.
After a moment, he slid off of her and lay beside her. “That was something,” he said.
“Something good, I hope.”
“Something great.” He panted and turned his head to look at her. He smiled.
“Your smile could knock someone out. I’m glad you don’t whip it out much.”
He laughed. “I know I’m not the most cheerful person.”
She wanted to laugh and say something sarcastic, but she didn’t want to break the moment, so instead she patted him on the chest. “You sure smiled a lot this morning. But I’ll keep your secret.”
***
Caleb returned to the bed and slid under the covers with Lauren. She curled around him.
He didn’t know what to say. He was here with a woman he thought was incredibly sexy, and nothing about seeing her naked was disappointing, but he was aware their personalities were not the most compatible. Maybe that would change now.
He felt a little snoozy and closed his eyes, deciding to revel in the feel of her body curled against his.
What felt like a moment later, she said, “Are you sleeping?”
Without meaning to, he snorted. “Am I?”
She leaned over him and looked down at his face. “Not anymore, apparently. Sorry for waking you up.”
“Probably for the best. I should go see poor Hank before he thinks I’ve abandoned him.”
“Mmm.” She kissed him. “So you are a dog person.”
“Guess so. This dog had my number from the first moment he showed up at the clinic.”
Lauren sighed happily. “You’re cute, you know that?”
“I like to think I’m just an animal person. In vet school, I had to take care of horses and cows and lizards and all kinds of things. The veterinary medical center at Tufts took everything.”
She grinned at him. “So you went to school in Boston. Is that where you’re from?”
“Well, I’m from Maine originally, a little ways outside Portland. But I lived in Boston for a long time. That’s where I was before I moved to Manhattan.”
“Ah, okay. I grew up in Ohio but moved to New York for college and never left.”
“Yeah, that’s something I’ve noticed since moving here. New Yorkers kind of fall into three categories. People who were born and raised here and will never move, transplants who think this is the greatest place in the world and will never move, and people who talk about moving reluctantly because they have to for whatever reason.”
“And you?”
“Well, you know, I thought about moving after my last practice closed, but here I am, so maybe this city is stuck with me.”
He had thought long and hard about going somewhere, anywhere else after Kara had run off. He’d felt humiliated and furious and just wanted to put everything behind him. But Kara had done him the favor of running off to another city, so Caleb had decided to give New York one last shot.
He was reluctant to mention all that to Lauren, though. The divorce had made him feel like a failure, like he hadn’t been good enough for Kara. Still, Lauren should probably know the reason he wasn’t super eager to commit to a relationship.
Her phone rang somewhere in the room. With a sigh, Lauren rolled away and dug through the clothing on the floor. “Shit, I forgot to call in. They’re probably wondering if I’ve died.”
She found her phone in her jeans pocket. And apparently their moment was over, because she pulled a sheet over her naked breasts as she answered the phone.
“I’m so sorry, Monique. I was feeling under the weather this morning and forgot to call. Are you guys able to hold down the fort without me? Oh, shit, Victor called out? Is Paige there? Okay, ask Paige to help you at the counter. She knows how to use the register but not the espresso machine. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” Lauren glanced down at herself. “Er, can you give me forty-five or so? Okay. Soon as I can, I promise.” She hung up and sighed.
“So I guess this is over now,” Caleb said.
“Yeah, sorry. One of my baristas called out and there’s been some pandemonium at the café during the morning rush.” She got out of bed and pulled on a pink robe. “I’m not going to work smelling like sex, though, so they’ll have to make do while I shower.”
Caleb lay back on the bed for a moment. He looked around the room. The walls were painted a soft gray, and Lauren’s furniture was mostly dark wood. It was a nice, feminine room; the bedspread was pink, there were little stuffed animal cats on most available surfaces, and there was a vase full of dry pink roses on her dresser. Also cat toys on the floor. “Do you have a cat here?”
“Yeah. Her name is Molly. She’s a grouchy old lady. She’s here somewhere. She doesn’t really like people, or other cats, or really anything besides me, so we couldn’t keep her at the Cat Café. She’ll probably hide until you leave.”
“So your cat lady bona fides are solid.”
Lauren laughed. “You could say that.” She started picking the clothes up off the floor.
“Well, this was…nice. Guess we have to go back to real life now.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Guess so.”
“Is this a thing now?”
Caleb felt like a dick for even saying that, but he didn’t see much disappointment on Lauren’s face, either. He kind of wanted it to be a thing, but maybe that wasn’t a good idea.
“A thing?”
“I just mean,” Caleb said, sitting up. “The ink on my divorce papers is
