Layla didn’t have to fake the smile that tugged up the corners of her lips. No matter how crazy things were between them on any given day, seeing Jayson always made her happy. She hurried across the room and wrapped her arms around him in a welcoming hug. That’s when she was reminded of the second thing that had attracted her to him at her sister’s wedding—his scent.
Shifters had a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world when it came to their senses. Since the day she’d gone through her change when she was seventeen, Layla had been able to see, hear, and smell things that the rest of humanity never even noticed. And when it came to Jayson’s scent that was a pity because he smelled better than anyone else in the world.
As she hugged him, Layla surreptitiously buried her face in the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply.Mmm, he smelled so good. It would be tough to describe his scent to anyone else, even another shifter or hybrid. None of the workplace smells could ever cover his natural, yummy aroma, not even the metallic odor of the guns he handled or the sharp smells of smokeless powder and cleaning solvents. When she was this close to him, all she could smell was his personal musk. It was so perfect that sometimes it was hard not licking him.
Layla hadn’t been able to do something that intimate in a long time—not since she started field training and Jayson had started working at the gun range. Hugs like this were all they managed these days. Though she had to admit, a good hug could go a long way for her.
“You worked late.” She reluctantly pulled away from him, not wanting to push her luck. “Somebody having problems getting through their qualification course?”
Jayson looked around the living room of his small apartment, and she tensed, knowing he could tell she’d been cleaning. She braced herself, waiting for him to get upset. But it didn’t happen. Instead, he smiled and shook his head.
“Nah. Just had a lot of weapons to clean. Then a shipment of 40mm grenades came in and I had to get them inventoried and locked away in one of the ammo bunkers before closing up for the day. They aren’t something I like to leave sitting out on my desk like a box of doughnuts.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, both at what he’d said and in relief that he didn’t seem upset at her for cleaning his place. “I don’t know, 40mm grenades might be less dangerous than doughnuts—at least as far as my hips are concerned.”
Jayson chuckled as he followed his nose to the kitchen. Opening the oven a crack, he took a sniff.
“Mmm, smells good.” He turned to give her a big smile. “Is that homemade lasagna? Special occasion or something?”
Layla had seen the hesitation in his stride when he’d walked over to the oven. Which meant he’d either pushed himself too hard at work today or moved the wrong way and made his back flare up again. Either way, he was in pain. That made his obvious good mood all the more surprising.
She followed him into the kitchen. “No special occasion. Do I need to have a reason to do something nice for you?”
Jayson floored her yet again by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. “No, you don’t need to have a reason. I’m just glad you’re willing to put up with me, considering that I can be such a jackass sometimes.”
Layla opened her mouth to tell him he was never a jackass, but before she could say anything, Jayson dipped his head and kissed her. Not a little peck on the lips either, but a real, honest-to-goodness kiss. It took her a second to get over the shock, and when she did, she melted against him. It had been so long since he’d kissed her like that, and while she had missed his touch, she hadn’t realized how much until that moment.
He slid one hand into her long hair, tugging that little bit like she loved as his tongue tangled with hers and made her moan. Heat pooled between her thighs. God, it had been so long.
She reached down to massage his hard-on through his cargo pants when he suddenly pulled his mouth away from hers. The kiss ended so abruptly that she almost fell over. She caught herself just in time and looked up at him in confusion.
Jayson didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t let on. “Need some help getting the rest of the dinner made?”
She’d rather he turn off the oven and take her to the bedroom so they could get to work on dessert, but she didn’t say that. Jayson hadn’t been romantic with her in weeks, and she was never sure if it was because he wasn’t attracted to her anymore or because he felt he wasn’t physically up to the task. The one thing she did know was that the fastest way to upset him was to push too hard.
So as difficult as it was, she put her arousal on hold and nodded. “Yeah, that’d be great. Can you make the salad while I fix the garlic bread?”
He flashed her a grin. “Babe, I live to make salad.”
She couldn’t help laughing at the silly words.
Within minutes of working side by side in the small kitchen they were laughing and joking like they used to do before their relationship had fallen off the rails for reasons Layla didn’t really understand. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d heard Jayson laugh. Months at least. It wasn’t until now that Layla realized she had missed that as much as she’d missed his touch.
Not that there wasn’t some touching too. As he stood beside her cutting tomatoes for the salad, their arms and hips would occasionally come into contact, and she could feel the spark that was always there between them. It reminded her of why she fought so hard to stay with him and how good it could be—when it was good.
Layla was spreading garlic butter on the bread when Jayson leaned over and kissed her neck, then slowly ran his warm mouth up to her ear, making her shiver all over even as he whispered softly to be careful with the knife. She put down the knife and turned her head to capture his mouth in a quick kiss.
He returned the kiss with a laugh. “We’re going to burn dinner if we’re not careful.”
She couldn’t care less about the dinner. Man cannot live on lasagna alone, and a woman definitely needed a few good kisses every now and then, she thought as she gazed up into Jayson’s twinkling, blue eyes. This was the guy she had fallen in love with. A part of her wondered why he couldn’t be like this all the time and why he was like this right now.
She resolutely pushed those thoughts aside. Right now, Jayson was laughing and joking and happy. When he was like that, she couldn’t help but be happy too. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him how she felt about him, but the same thing that always held her back stopped her this time too. She was afraid he didn’t feel the same. The thought of him rejecting her love hurt so much it made her heart ache.
So, instead, she gave him another kiss, then busied herself by taking the lasagna over to the table. As they ate, Jayson told her about his day, including his run-in with Powell and Moore.
Layla gaped. “You pulled your weapon on them?”
She hadn’t had much in the way of interactions with the two men, but she knew there was a good chance Powell and Moore were working directly for the people on the Committee who were in charge of the DCO as well as behind the hybrid research facilities. She had no doubt that Jayson had been justified in pulling his weapon on them, but she wasn’t sure they were the kind of people you wanted as enemies.
