TWENTY-TWO
RUTH
My stomach grumbled at the scent of fried eggs filling the kitchen.
I sat at the tiny dining room table, marveling how this werewolf had come dangerously close to killing me last night, and now, here he was making me breakfast in nothing but sweatpants.
Ugh. Those freaking sweatpants.
When I woke up to find him in the kitchen, staring off into space, he must have been thinking about last night. His sweats did nothing to hide his hard-on.
And when he moved away from the stove, I just about swallowed my tongue. The turn he made for the fridge had the weight in his pants swinging. Yup, still hard.
His eyes flicked to mine, and his lips pressed into that smug smile. “There’s a joke about sausage in here somewhere.” He opened the fridge and produced a package of meat. “But all I have is bacon, so… joke ruined, I guess.”
I couldn’t help but smirk.
He arched a silver brow in my direction. “What?”
“You’re just…” I smoothed my hands over his dining table with a sigh. “You’re not what I expected. Like at all. Also, I’m a vegetarian.”
He blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Like I’d said something funny, and he was waiting for the punchline. “Vegetarian?”
By his reaction, you’d think I was speaking a different language.
“As in, I don’t eat meat.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Um, hello. I’m a rabbit shifter, remember? I’ve lived my whole life in a commune where we grow our own produce. And if we’re feeling really spicy, we make our own granola. We’re not into slaughtering innocent animals.”
He snorted. “That’s funny coming from you, Little Miss Ax Murderer.”
My jaw set. “I saidinnocentanimals. I’m sorry about your brother, but he sure as shit wasn’t innocent.”
Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, but being mated to this male had changed my feelings toward him.
I’d expected that on some level. What I didn’t see coming was how close I’d feel to him. Even with his back turned and the two of us on opposite sides of the cabin.
I could practically feel his pulse and count each breath he sucked into his lungs. There wasn’t just a physical connection, though. His emotions were right there, too, almost as recognizable as my own.
There was no trace of the hatred that had nearly choked the life from me last night.
I didn’t hate him anymore, either. How could I?
I expected his wolf to be even more brutal than the rest of him. Instead, all I’d seen was a lonely monster who was kind and gentle in all the ways he needed to be.
The scent of something delicious ripped me from my thoughts, and I lifted my eyes to see him placing a steaming plate piled high with pancakes and scrambled eggs on the side.
There was a moment where all I could do was stare at the steaming food, my mouth watering. “You made all this for me?”
“Can’t let you starve, can I?”
“You could, though there are more efficient ways to kill a bunny. But I don’t have to tell a wolf that.”
Taking a seat at the small table across from me, he watched as I ate like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.
“Um. You’re kinda making it hard to chew. You’re still looking at me like you want to eat me for breakfast.”
