The prompt was "an awkward after-sex conversation." Hahaha. Appropriate warnings apply.

Dressed only in her biggest button-down blouse and black panties, Reyna sat at the kitchen table, legs crossed at the ankles, sipping a mug of caffeinated hot chocolate, when a very disheveled Leo dragged himself through her bedroom door. Very disheveled . . . and very naked.

"Morning," she said stiffly, keeping her eyes on her drink.

He looked up in the middle of ruffling his hair and froze. His free hand slowly moved to cover his crotch. "Uh, good morning, your praetorship."

She cleared her throat. "Sleep okay?"

"Once I . . . uh . . . got to sleep," he said, his grin crooked but nervous.

Ugh. Closing her eyes, she hmmed noncommittally and shifted so that her back was just slightly more toward him.

Going quiet, he shuffled past her and, with the hand that wasn't covering his manhood, began to open and close different cabinet doors.

"Looking for something?" she asked, following it up with a suggestion: "Clothes, perhaps?"

He laughed, though it was more like a choking cough. "Uh, I'm pretty sure I know where those are. Though to be honest, I don't quite remember how exactly my pants got on top of the dog cage."

She did. "Cereal is the third door from the left. Bowls are the next one over."

"I know that. And you know I don't like cereal," said Leo.

Reyna took another sip of hot chocolate. "Then take your misplaced clothes and leave. I certainly didn't ask you to have breakfast with me."

He made a noise at the back of his throat that reminded her of her dogs whining. Now in her peripheral vision, she could see the lean muscles work in his back as he went through the cabinets, presumably looking for some sort of sustenance that wasn't cereal. She forced herself to look at her hands, her mug, her knees, anything else but him.

"I don't usually bother with breakfast," he said eventually, glancing her way. "All the ladies love a bad boy, you know. And bad boys don't stick around for breakfast."

"The ladies must not love you much, not if you're stuck coming to see me on a Friday night," she said, raising one eyebrow and cocking her head without looking away from her mug. Their arrangement, granted, was a little touch-and-go—unenthusiastic friends with enthusiastic benefits. But usually he was out on the weekends, chatting up the demigoddesses who'd suddenly found him hilarious after he saved the world and sprouted a few extra inches.

He waved this off. "Nahhhh, they do love me. I practically have to beat the girls off with a bat."

She noticed he didn't argue her use of the word stuck. "Well, then, better not to keep them waiting. Get dressed and greet the day. Or hang out naked in my kitchen, greet no one, and be stuck with me for another night." She pressed her lips together in a grimace.

Leo hesitated, and though she refused to look back at him, she could feel his eyes on her. "You're not . . . ?"

"Upset at you leaving?" she suggested. "No, not at all."

"I mean, it wasn't bad," he said. "Us, last night. It wasn't bad. Right?"

Then Reyna looked at the shirtless young man, and suddenly she was overwhelmed by the memory of him under her, then on top of her, his lips on her neck and his hands between her legs, all but electrocuting her body with an impossibly satisfying touch. His husky low Spanish, his grip on her wrists, the way he shuddered when she played with his hair. She remembered arching into him, pressing against him, lifting herself off the bed. Wanting, no, needing him. And getting him, in the very best way.

"No," she agreed, clenching her stomach against the flame flickering there. "It wasn't bad."

What would have been bad? Admitting she wanted to stop sharing him.