Page 31 of A Pack of Honey
"It'll work out," I say, squeezing him tighter. It's lame, but it's what I believe to be true in my heart. He squeezes me, and I kiss him again before separating myself to put on real clothes and make food like I'd planned.
Hunt
Thedownstairsofthefarmhouse smells like sweet, honey-soaked sex, and it has me instantly hard. Little sounds in the kitchen tell me Sunny's cooking again. It makes me feel guilty. She does so much for us this way when she already works so hard. I know she likes it, but it also seems one-sided. We try to make up for it. We never let her clean up afterward, and when she's at work, we do things around the house. Even before she lets us sleep here we made sure to take care of things, like the cleaning. If she's cooking, she shouldn't have to be doing all the other shit.
I slide next to her at the counter while she's chopping some bacon. "What are you making, Bumblebee?"
She looks up at me, a small smile on her lips. Damn. I didn't know how much her unhappy frowns and tense stares bothered me until she smiled.
"Quiche," she says.
"Can I help? I know I'm not a good cook, but maybe you could teach me?"
Her smile widens, and maybe Jess has the better nickname for her because it is brighter and more beautiful than the sun. I could live forever without the sun if she's smiling at me like that.
"Of course,” she says. “Do you know how to chop vegetables?"
I suck in my lips and shrug. Unfortunately, cooking was not something I'd been interested in before Sunny. She laughs and guides me to a set of cutting boards explaining which are for meat and which for vegetables. She shows me how to hold a knife and curl my fingers so I don't chop them all off, and I set to work painfully, slowly chopping an onion, which makes me cry. Jess jokes at my expense when he enters the kitchen, and I flip him off before returning to my task.
My knife work is pretty pathetic compared to Sunny's samurai moves with her chef knife. I think I contributed less than an eighth of the work to the meal.
As we work, I want to get to know her. "Who taught you to cook?"
Her lips pull up into a little smile as she chops. "My grandpa. The dominant alpha of my grandmother's pack. He loved doing it. He always ensured that no matter what we were doing or how busy we were, we always ate breakfast and dinner at the dining room table."
I smile, thinking of our pack following the same tradition. Sunny and I creating delicious meals in this kitchen, and everyone sitting around the table to talk about our days, our hopes, and our plans for the future. It fills me with purpose and warmth. Maybe Sunny would want to bless us with children to sit at the table, too, filling up the rest of the empty seats.
Jess heads back upstairs. I stare after him, and when I look back at Sunny, she's looking at me from the corner of her eye.
"How did you and Jess meet?" she asks.
I smile at the memory. "He punched me in the face."
Her gobsmacked expression makes me chuckle. "Jess can be a bit blunt, but I've never seen him hurt anyone, " she says.
"Oh no," I rush to reinstate her image of him. "It wasn't on purpose. Jess was out at a bar, and I was with a group of mine. Ones that I thought I'd pack up with after college." Her eyebrows shoot up. "I'm happy I didn't, and it's all because of Jess."
She dropped her gaze back to her vegetable chopping. "What happened?"
"My friends and I were out drinking. One alpha from my group decided he was interested in a beta woman with her friends. She was decidedly not interested in him." I inwardly cringe, remembering how my former-friend's advances became more and more aggressive as she repeatedly rejected him. "I told him to drop it, but he wouldn't. It wasn't the first time, but this was my last straw, especially since none of the other alphas seemed to think he was doing anything wrong. None of them tried to stop him. Jess was there alone, and he told my friend to back off. I chimed in, but when he refused, there was a scuffle. The guy from my group swung first and punched Jess in the gut, and when Jess swung back, he missed."
Sunny nods, a derisive smirk playing on her lips. "And connected with your face."
I chuckle. "Yep. After, he bought me a drink, and we went from there." She hums to herself as we put the ingredients together. "Honestly, I think that seeing him do what I'd been hoping my friends would do for months is where I first fell for him. I've been falling ever since." I whisper the last part and meet her eyes.
It's a big admission for me. Jess and I hadn't fully solidified our relationship when we hit a hard patch with the omega courting. But Sunny doesn't seem upset or jealous like some of the scent-match omegas were. Just curious.
"Finding you is like a piece that's been missing between all of us. Like you're molding us back together." My hand reaches out and cups her cheek.
When she nuzzles against my fingers, an electric shock travels up my arm and straight to my heart. Her pouty lips catch against my palm, and the softness of their touch causes my cock to harden. A low growl slips out, and her eyes shoot wide. Her sweet honey and rich tea scent fills the room. I lean down, brushing my lips against hers. But an ding behind us signals that something needs to be taken out of the oven, breaking the spell. She reluctantly moves away to take care of it.
When Sunny comes back we each ask each other rapidfire questions about basic stuff. It might seem silly but I'm cataloguing all of the information like I'll be tested on it later. I'm in awe of the fact that she's letting me get close to her finally. I tell her about my love for mushrooms, baseball, and beaches. She tells me about her obsession with 70's rom-coms, hatred of nut-based milks, and secret love of crossword puzzles. I'm definitely going to use this info on pack dates if she'll let us take her on one. Her voice is like a melody, it brings so much joy that I didn't even know I was missing.
Sunny
"Canyoupulloutthe quiche when the timer goes off?" I ask Hunt. Has he been the most helpful? No. Has it been infinitely more enjoyable to cook with him? Definitely. There's a special kind of joy in teaching another person something that brings me so much happiness. He nods as he concentrates on chopping some fruit and not taking out a finger. I walk out the front door and onto the porch.
Cole sits on the porch, swinging gently while looking out onto the land. His eyes unerringly snap to mine. No matter where I am, I know his eyes will find me.
