Camelia personally thought that James would lookdeliciousall dressed up, but she kept that opinion to herself as she turned back to the tomato that she had abandoned chopping. "Ah, gotcha."
She could feel Evan's gaze on her body, and she bit back a whimper when he moved close again, his chest brushing against her back. "What are you making?"
His breath teased over her ear, and she had to let out a shaky breath to stop herself from moaning. "Lasagna," she said, forcing brightness into her voice. "I...wanted to thank you both. For letting me move in. I'm a decent cook..."
Evan's body pressed firmly against hers, just for a moment as he wrapped his hand around her hip fully. The sudden touch shocked her silent, and Camelia couldn't stop herself fromwhimpering softly at the contact. Evan chuckled softly, his voice devastatingly close to her ear. "You don't need to thank us for anything, Camelia. But thank you. Let me go change, and I'll help."
Then his touch was gone, and Camelia let out a shaky breath as she heard him retreating from the kitchen. She continued cutting the tomatoes and tossed them in the sauté pan as she heard him moving around upstairs, and by the time he came back, she had her music playing again and the pasta water starting to boil, the cooked meat and onions set aside.
"What can I do?" Camelia's mouth dried up when she looked at Evan, his simple t-shirt and house pants almost doing more for her than his nice formalwear had done. She could see the soft outline of his cock in his pants, and averted her eyes before she got herself into trouble.
She pointed at the tomatoes that she had been chopping, turning her attention to the stove. "Dice those, please, and find me tomato paste."
For a while, the two of them worked in companionable silence. James continued to occasionally bang around upstairs, but he didn't appear in the kitchen like Camelia expected him to.
It was only when the pasta was cooked and the sauce was bubbling comfortingly on the stove that Camelia felt comfortable voicing a dangerous thought. "Is James okay?"
Evan pressed his lips together, leaning back against the stove. He wiped a stray splatter of sauce off the counter with a rag, and he sighed, shaking his head a little. "James sometimes has a hard time seeing my parents. He loves them, and they love him like they love me."
"But?" There was always a but.
Evan twisted his mouth in a wry smile. "James doesn't have the best relationship to the concept of family. Seeing mine...it reminds him of why. What he missed out on."
The answer was deliberately vague, and Camelia furrowed her brow, knowing that she was pushing the boundary. "Why?"
Evan reached out and cupped her chin, his thumb stroking gently across her cheek. "Ask him sometime, okay? If he wants to tell you, he will."
Camelia couldn't help leaning into Evan's touch again, and her curiosity about James' background faded away in favor of the thoughts that she had been entertaining while they had been gone. Her pussy clenched, and she cleared her throat as she turned and eyed the sauce. "I think that it's ready," she announced suddenly, ignoring how her voice had become three notes higher in the span of two seconds. "Find me a glass baking dish and we can start putting it together."
Evan's chuckle told her that he knew exactly what he had done to her, but he didn't press the issue. Instead, he hunted out the dish that Camelia had requested, and the two of them assembled the lasagna methodically, their fingers brushing against each other as they lay layers of sticky pasta and meat and cheese.
Their fingers brushing made Camelia bite the inside of her cheek, but she tried not to project how hot she suddenly felt. It wasn't until she gently pushed him away so that she could layer mozzarella on top of the finished dish that she finally let out a tiny sound, their shoulders brushing firmly together before she opened the oven and slid the dish inside.
"There we go. Should be done in...oh, forty minutes or so." Camelia's voice was breathless, and suddenly Evan was close again, his chest brushing against hers as he slowly backed her up against the counter. He cupped her chin, and his eyes were so intense that she couldn't look away.
"What are you thinking, Camelia?" His voice was soft, and his fingers gently tightened on her face when she tried to avert her eyes. "You're not saying something to me."
There was a hint of persuasion, a hint of authority in his voice that made Camelia's instincts react, and she bit her lip. Aria's words from earlier whispered in her ear again, and before she could consider the wisdom of it, she blurted out, "Do you still want to have sex?"
The words hung in the air between them for a moment, and Evan raised an eyebrow at her. Camelia hurried to explain, her cheeks burning. "I...I was talking. To Aria. At lunch today. And she asked if we were going to...you know. Since you and James were there for my heat. And the whole point of me living here is to make sure that any other Alpha knows that I'm already...otherwise occupied, so to speak, right?" She blushed harder. "It sounds stupid now that I say it aloud, but..."
Evan's thumb stroked gently over her bottom lip, stopping her words in their tracks, and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a gentle smirk. "Are you asking me if I still want to fuck you now that you're fully aware and can consent when you come screaming around my cock?"
Camelia's mouth dropped open at the bluntness of his words, and his eyes glittered with amusement as he leaned a little closer, his voice dropping to a seductive murmur. "Do you want that, baby? It's all about you. You know that. If you do or don't want anything, you just need to say the word."
Camelia squirmed a little, the edge of the counter digging into the small of her back as she continued to look up at him. Her nipples were hard under her tank top and sparks of sensation slithered down her spine with every tiny movement she made against Evan's body, and she couldn't look away from him.
Shedidknow that. She controlled everything here. Neither James nor Evan would push her to do something that she wasn't comfortable with.
So why was it so hard to admit it?
"Yes," she whispered, the word feeling like it was ripped from her. The aching vulnerability left inside her chest in absence of her truth nearly made her want to turn and run, but Evan's expression softened, and he nodded.
"Then yes, baby," he murmured, leaning down so that his lips brushed against hers. "I would very much like to fuck you all over every surface in this house, and then some. I want to give you exactly what your sweet, desperate body needs."
He pressed his lips against hers in a slow, hot kiss before Camelia could respond, and she couldn't help the whimper that she let out as she slid her hands up his chest. She felt his heart thumping against her palm, and his teeth tugging and teasing at her lower lip was almost enough for her to ask him to bend her over the counter right then and there.
Still, there was something more that needed to be asked.
