Somewhere in the back of my mind, one of my ancestors hissed in disagreement, but I ignored it. Clearly, they had never known the joy of being loved by their own hot wolf.
5
Jax
The whole way back to the house, Dakota insisted he could walk on his own. No doubt he could, or at the very least, we could shift back to four legs.
There was just something nice about carrying him, though—the warmth of his body against my chest, the soft tickle of his silky black hair when he let his head roll against my shoulder.
I felt better with him in my arms, and while there weren’t many drawbacks to being a wolf, a lack of hands was one of them.
We got back, and the first thing on the agenda was to scrub the dirt from our skin. We managed that, and a fair bit of touching besides, before we found our way to the kitchen.
I didn’t often have the chance to cook back in San Francisco, but everybody from our original pack knew enough to get by. It wasn’t like they had DoorDash in the middle of nowhere when we were growing up.
I’d always liked cooking. When we had enough, it soothed my instincts to think I could provide for my pack. If I did it well and made them happy? The wolf inside preened.
With a gorgeous kitchen, a fridge stocked to the brim, and nothing at all to do but look after my mate, I was all too happy to dig into the options.
That was how I wound up in nothing but shorts, glaring into the fridge, when Dakota wandered up beside me.
“What’s wrong?” When he looked up at me, he set his chin against my arm, and I shifted to wrap it around him.
“I want to make steak and eggs.”
He looked over the contents of the fridge, that was indeed stocked with beef and plenty of eggs. His brow arched at all the offerings. “Seems doable.”
“I feel like I should use a marinade for the meat. Something to give it a little extra flavor.”
“Okay?”
I rubbed his far arm. “I’m not sure what to use.”
“Oh.” With hardly a thought, Dakota reached out, plucked up a bottle with a label I couldn’t read, and pressed it into my free hand. “There ya go.”
I opened the bottle and sniffed. Whatever it was, it smelled good. Almost citrusy beneath the savory tang.
“You like?” Dakota asked.
“I do. What is it?”
“Ponzu sauce. We can make it at home, no problem.” He grinned at me proudly, and I couldn’t help but squeeze his waist to pull him closer.
“Let’s do that.”
Honestly, it was perfect. I let the meat sit in the sauce while I whisked eggs and made rice. Carbs never hurt a new werewolf, and clearly, I needed to get myself a rice cooker when we got home too.
Maybe a big one.
With the pack in mind, I might be on the hunt for an industrial-sized rice cooker. Surely such a thing existed.
Once I seared the thin-sliced steak, it sat, beautifully nestled between the rice and egg, and Dakota poured more sauce on top for both of us.
He’d made tea while I cooked and carried it over on a tray.
For a while, we were quiet, sitting on the floor around a low square table and plates almost overflowing with food. He dug in eagerly. If I had to guess, he’d been hungrier than he realized. After a run, I was usually stuck in the wild for longer, not consciously aware of everything I wanted or needed, but led by impulse and instinct. If I was hungry, I was going to shove whatever was nearest at hand in my mouth and not think too hard about it.
I was happy to just sit with him, though if his family had been around, I wouldn’t have been bold enough to stretch out my leg and tap his thigh with the side of my foot.
