“That’s better.” I opened the fridge and pulled out a carton. “Sit down while I cook.”
He licked around his mouth. “You’re talented.”
I flicked him with a dishtowel. “You’d better believe it. I make excellent scrambled eggs. It's the only thing I can cook, but I make it better than anyone else.”
I cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a fork while Larkin didn’t sit but leaned on the counter and watched me. It was so domestic. Me in my mate’s kitchen wearing his shirt, making breakfast while drinking coffee and him kissing me about once every sixty seconds. Or thirty.
We ate at the island with our knees touching. We both loved hot sauce. Not liking it was a deal breaker. Larkin put hot sauce on his eggs, which I agreed with, but he also put it on his toast. Interesting.
“Don't knock it until you try it.”
“Maybe I will, but for now I’m happy to have just hot sauce eggs.”
I nudged his foot under the counter, and he caught it between his ankles. Awww. It was sweet. He captured me. We continued eating our breakfast with our legs tangled together as if it was something we'd been doing for years instead of for the first time.
My phone buzzed while I was rinsing the plates. Then it dinged again and again. The crew group chat was blowing upabout pranks against Larkin’s station. It was the usual station rivalry stuff that I'd normally be in the middle of while egging everyone on.
But I was standing in the enemy’s kitchen, wearing his clothes and with his mark on my chest. Damn, I wrapped my arms around myself as if the temperature had lowered a few degrees. Inside, I was safe, but once I walked out the front door, the glare of reality would smack me in the face.
Briggs texted me.Where were you last night? I tried calling.
Went to bed early. Long week.
I hated lying and wanted to avoid doing it again.
“The ladder climb is next week.” I changed the subject because staying on this one would ruin the morning. “I’m Station 9's entry.”
“I know.” Larkin poured me more coffee. “You'll be good.”
“I’ll be great, thank you very much.”
We spent the rest of the morning on the sofa, with Larkin reading and me pretending to watch TV while watching him. How could he concentrate on a book while I was beside him? His brow furrowed as he turned the pages, and without looking up, he rested a hand on my thigh. And regular as clockwork, my body vibrated.
Around noon, I gathered my things. My shift started at six in the morning, and I needed to get home and squeeze in a training session for the ladder climb. As usual there was laundry to do. When was someone going to invent self-cleaning clothes?
“You could stay.” Larkin hadn’t moved from the sofa, but his book was now open on his chest.
Gods, I wanted to. The pull to stay was so strong as I moved toward the door.
“I have to train. And if I don't go home, Briggs is going to show up at my place and find it empty two nights in a row.” I pulled on my jacket. “He’ll have questions I can't answer.”
Larkin walked me out. He kissed me in the hallway, and there was another kiss near the front door, and the third after he opened the door. I hated leaving and wanted to be in his arms, watching a reality show or tucked up in bed together.
“Text me when you get home.”
“Oh, you’re one of those mates. The check-in type.”
“I absolutely am. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Nope.” I couldn't argue with that.
My dragon was subdued on the way home. Like me, he wasn't unhappy because Larkin and I were mated. But we were living separately, and who knew what came next.
The scenery outside my window was unchanged, but I was someone’s mate now, though no one else knew. I pressed a hand to the bite mark on my chest. Larkin's scent was still on me, and it wafted around the inside of the car. Part of me wanted to never wash it off.
I pulled into my parking spot at the station’s housing and stared at the building.My crew was in there somewhere. Briggs was probably cooking something inedible, and the others would be swapping stories from last night's shift. These were my people, and I’d built a life here, one shift at a time.
A wave of nausea took hold of me, and I gripped the steering wheel until it passed. Was that from the eggs I’d eaten? I hoped they weren’t off, but I would have smelled them if they were bad.Or perhaps it was that I was keeping the biggest secret of my life from the people I trusted most.
