Page 59 of Broken Heat
“I like to cook,” he told me as he made chicken stir fry wearing only a red-checked apron.
It had been a full day since I’d entered Mykel’s apartment in a frenzy of want and need, my desire so fierce I would have done anything to get to him.
Had anyone missed me? Maybe not yet. I’d told Senta I needed a day off before being assigned another surrogate.
But ruts could last three days. I was afraid we would eventually be found out.
We had two full bowls of stir fry on the table, and Mykel had put the delivered food in the center to share.
It was the first time since getting out of bed that the two of us faced each other. There was no sexual urgency in this short moment, and the only distraction was food.
We started out wolfing our food. We’d really worked up our appetites.
“You’re an excellent cook,” I began.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say, but certainly cooking was not what was on my mind. I needed to know in words, though he’d shown me through action, what Mykel was thinking.
I already concluded this wasn’t a normal rut hook-up. My ruts with Coah were less intense, and he’d been my mate.
I wanted to express my thoughts but wondered if I should wait for Mykel’s lead.
Whenever I told Coah I wanted him, or enjoyed him, or even loved him, he would look a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t mean. He might smile. He might tell me I was a good omega. But he didn’t like sentiment or talking about sex. He wasn’t one to linger on intimate stuff.
But Mykel was like day to Coah’s night.
“I—I am staying, you know.” I made it a flat statement, not a question.
Mykel looked up from his food, eyebrow raised. “Yes.”
“Until the end,” I added, and then hesitated because it almost sounded like I was saying I would leave right after the rut ended. Honestly, I didn’t want that, but it also wasn’t my place to expect any invitation beyond that.
I let out a shaky breath.
Mykel’s eyes opened wide. “I want that.”
Relief flooded my chest as if I’d been holding my muscles in preparation for something worse. Disapproval. Silence. Outright rejection.
“It’s, uh, like nothing I’ve ever experienced,” I said.
Mykel’s lips curved up and his entire face softened.
In the rut, he was hard. A hard alpha the whole way. I loved it then. But I also loved right now while he was resting, looking at me like I owned his world.
I wanted to own his world.
“My ruts with, um—” I didn’t want to say his name. “—um, my mate were never like that.”
Mykel’s eyebrows went up. “No?”
Suddenly, I wanted to hide my face. “He was very straight-forward about them. He fucked until he had to sleep. It was my duty. He didn’t really, um, make love during ruts. He wasn’t awful, but he wasn’t tender like—like you were. Thank you.”
Mykel’s expression changed. “I was tender?”
“Well, yes.”
First there was a tightening of his jaw as if in irritation, or shock, then a softening to an openness that seemed to draw me right into him. I wanted to go sit on his lap, wrap my arms around his neck and never let go.
