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Giving in to the need, he rolled her onto her back and kissed the living daylights out of her, loving the soft, throaty moan she made, the feel of her fingers in his hair.

“Hungry?” he asked when he came up for air.

“Yeah, but I need food first. And we need to buy more condoms.”

He cursed under his breath, having forgotten all about using the last condom sometime in the middle of the night. He’d woken in a tangle of limbs, not sure who’d started it and not really caring. All he knew was that it ended with his name on her lips and an explosion of mind-numbing bliss.

They dressed, and after a quick check of the kitten, they headed for the kitchen. No sign of the guys, which was a relief, because Nate was pretty sure what they’d been doing was written all over their faces.

“So how hungry are you?” Nate asked. “Breakfast bar hungry or omelet hungry?”

She raised one eyebrow. “Pancakes aren’t an option?”

“Nope. That’s beyond my skillset.”

“Liar. You just don’t want to compete with Pinto.”

“Would you?”

“Probably not.” She leaned against the counter. “In that case, I’d like an omelet.”

“You got it.” He opened the fridge and grimaced. While they’d been busy in the bedroom, the guys had devoured most of the food in the fridge like a swarm of ravenous locusts. He did a fast inventory, deciding there were enough ingredients to make omelets but they wouldn’t be anything fancy.

While Nate got busy in front of the stove, Dorcas brewed a pot of coffee. If given the choice, he’d rather have an energy drink, but the guys had drunk them all. He made a mental note to buy more when they went to the store.

Finished, he carried the plates to the dining room table and placed one in front of Dorcas. “It’s not five-star dining, but it’ll have to do for now.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. Thank you.” She bit into her omelet and made a moan that reminded him of last night. “Oh, that’s really good. When this is all over and I’m back in my apartment, I’ll make you pastelón.”

“What’s that?”

“Puerto Rican lasagna, except you use plantains instead of noodles.”

He swallowed a bite of omelet. Not bad, considering half of the ingredients he normally used weren’t available. “Never heard of it. Sounds interesting.”

“When I was a kid, my mom used to make it on Christmas Eve. Instead of gingerbread and pine, our house smelled of garlic and fried plantains.” She smiled at the memory. “How about your family? What was Christmas like at Casa Flint?”

“Chaos.” He picked up his mug. “Everybody came to our house: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it. By the end of the day, the house was a wreck and my parents looked like they needed a few shots of whiskey and a week’s worth of sleep.”

She laughed softly as she gathered another forkful of food. “Ours were pretty quiet—just me, Mamá, and Rita.”

“No other family in Florida?”

She shook her head, her mouth full of food.

“Then what brought you down here?”

“Mamá wanted a clean break after the divorce. Said she wanted someplace warm. So she packed everything that could fit into a U-Haul, sold or donated the rest, and drove us down to Florida.” She paused to sip her coffee. “For the first couple of years, she worked in housekeeping at one of the theme park hotels, and on her days off, she cleaned houses for extra money.”

“It’s a wonder you ever saw her.”

Dorcas shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. At the hotel, she worked the early shift, so she got home before dinner, which I usually cooked. And on her days off, she scheduled the house cleaning jobs for when we were at school.”

“It still sounds like the poor woman worked herself half to death.”

“Oh, she did. I wasn’t trying to make light of it. If she somehow managed to get a full day off, she usually slept through half of it. The other half was spent doing all of the things that needed to get done.” Her features darkened as she pushed her food around her plate. “Have you heard anything about the flash drive?”

Sensing her unease, he decided to roll with the change of subject. “Not yet. Larissa said she’d start on it last night. Let me give her a call and see if she’s cracked the password.”