Page 103 of Mate
The wound is not a scratch, but neither is it as bad as the pooling blood suggested.
“Alpha,” he murmurs from above my head. “We heal quickly.”
And yet just last night, he was whole. That very spot beneath his ribs was unbroken and smooth. Except, what do I know? I didn’t get to touch him. I touched myself while no one took care ofhim. So unfair, I could scream. “What happened?”
“Vampyre.”
“I thought they were all . . .”
“Dead?”
I nod.
“We kept a couple for questioning. One’s restraints were a bit loose.”
“And then?”
“Then he wasn’t alive anymore. No big deal.” He disappears into his room, and I shiver, picturing blood the same color as Misery’s. I busy myself warming up dinner, setting the table with the few plates he owns, rinsing the—
Koen comes up behind me, hands bracketing my sides. I jolt. The glass slips from my hand, straight into the sink, but doesn’t break. His body barely touches mine; it’s such an inappropriately intimate, jarringly mundane gesture, my heart cracks.
And then it breaks into a million pieces when his nose nuzzles the crown of my head. His voice is as rough as coffee grounds. “Why does it feel like you’re playing house again, killer?”
Because I am. “Playing” being the key word.“I’m sorry.” My mouth is dry. “I didn’t mean to— ”
“C’mon. I didn’t say stop.”
I kill the faucet and turn in his arms. He showered off the blood and put on jeans and a flannel, which hangs open over his bare chest. The look we exchange is worth a million unspoken words but could be condensed to fewer than ten.
It’s wrong. Let’s do it anyway, though.
I reach up. Fasten the buttons of his shirt. Each one feels like a choice, like whittling the rest of the world away to carve out this night just for us. Excising a moment in time. It’s just me and him. And the face he makes a couple of minutes later, when he puts the first bite of dinner in his mouth. “Fuckme.”
Ibeam. “You are such a better audience than Misery.” I don’t care if Vampyres don’t eat. I’ll take her refusal of my cooking personally till the day I die.
“Holy fuck.” He continues shoveling pasta with meat sauce in his mouth, and I consider taking a picture of it and scrapbooking it. I’ve written an award-winning exposé on the largest embezzlement scandals in The City and covered one of the most abstruse monopoly trials ever recorded, but . . .
Okay, I’m still prouder of those. But it’s satisfying, watching him inhale something I made. Why do I care about some dude’s opinion?
Because he’s notsomedude.
“At the Collateral mansion we weren’t allowed to prepare our food, so cooking feels like an insurrectionary action that doesn’t require me to put on clothes and go outside.”
He says “Please, insurge away” over another mouthful, and I decide to just let myself enjoy this. I ask him if he can cook. He says not well, but I tell him that I don’t believe him, not after the piano stunt, and he shakes his head, which I’ve learned is his way of laughing when he doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of having amused him.
“I can’t believe you let me teach you the C major chord. Why are you that good, by the way?”
“My dad taught music.”
“And you lied to me, because . . .”
“You didn’t ask if Icouldplay. You asked if I played. And before this week, I hadn’t. Not in years.”
“God, I hate you.”
“Sure.”
He side-eyes me when I make him lift me onto the counter to watch him wash the dishes. “I do havesomefurniture.” He points at the two chairs he brought in from the porch.
