“TheTimeslist is actually a bunch of different lists split up by genre,” he said. “Some are a lot easier to hit than others.”
In anyone else, I might have suspected his nonchalance to be false modesty. But Jesse wasn’t like that. Because I knew him well enough now to be certain. We hadn’t spent months or even weeks together, but I knew what kind of man he was. Honest and good. Worthy of respect. Most importantly, he was mine. This gorgeous, successful man belonged to me. And hewantedto belong to me. As a mate. As a…husband. The revelation loosened my knees. Before it could dump me on my ass, I cleared my throat.
“Someone I know once told me not to downplay my accomplishments.”
Jesse’s smile grew. “Oh yeah? Was this someone a man or a woman?”
“All man.”
His dark eyes warmed with affection—and perhaps something that resembled gratitude. “Was he hot?”
I pretended to consider it. “Decent looking. I can introduce you if you’d like.”
He laughed. Then he jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Come on. You can tell me all about him over dinner.”
Minutes later, my stomach released an eager rumble as Jesse slid a glistening mountain of cubed steak nestled next to crisp-looking potatoes in front of me.
“Balsamic-glazed steak tips and herbed potatoes,” he said. “And I’ve got bread. Do you want a beer?”
“I’d love one,” I said, putting my napkin—cloth, of course, no paper towels off the roll for Jesse van der Meer—in my lap. If the smells wafting from my plate were any indication, I was about to enjoy the best meal of my life.
Jesse returned from the kitchen with two longnecks in one hand and a basket of bread in the other.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” I asked, ready to leap from my chair and take the bread from him. “I feel weird slacking off while you do everything.”
He smirked as he set a beer in front of me. “You’re doing plenty sitting there looking pretty.” I must have blushed, because his smirk turned into a laugh as he settled at the other end of the table. “Cooking is no big deal to me, Caleb. I worked as a chef for a while.”
I paused in the middle of raiding the bread basket. “Teaching college and being a bestselling author wasn’t enough for you?”
“I didn’t do all three at once. After my teaching career wound down, I got bored. I’d always enjoyed cooking, so I completed a culinary arts program and then got a job in a kitchen. I started out as a fry cook.”
I’d seen enough kitchen shows to know that was low on the hierarchy. “I can’t imagine you taking orders from anyone,” I said, raising my brows.
Humor gleamed in his eyes as he took a pull of his beer. When he lowered the bottle, he chuckled. “We still have to live in the real world, babe. I couldn’t barge in and start throwing mypower around. For one thing, professional kitchens are basically little fiefdoms. The head chef would have tossed me on my ear. But it’s also fun to mingle in the human world. Once you fully master your wolf, you’ll find it more tolerable to be around regular people.”
I nodded, his casual “babe” zinging around my chest like a pinball in a machine. Sure, he’d said it before, but only during sex. This was different—just the two of us doing ordinary shit. Sharing a meal like…a couple. My heart sped up as the dizzying revelation I’d experienced in the living room zoomed back. I’d never dated. Fuck, did I even know how? My knowledge of relationships was limited to watching my parents, and while they seemed okay with each other, they didn’t exactly exude passion. But wasn’t that how things went when you were with someone over the long haul? The sex grew ordinary, even boring. Daily routines replaced spontaneity. Were Jesse and I going to settle down and get a dog or something? Could werewolves even own dogs?
“Caleb,” Jesse said softly.
I jerked my head up. Fuck, I’d been staring blankly at my plate. I cleared my throat. “Yeah?”
“Eat.” He smiled as he lifted his fork. “Don’t let all my hard work go to waste.”
With another nod, I tucked into my food. As expected, the steak was phenomenal, and I couldn’t stifle a moan as the perfectly seasoned chunks of meat fell apart on my tongue.
“Good?” Jesse asked.
“You know it’s amazing,” I grumbled around a mouthful of steak. Did I like it as much as docking? No, but it was a damn close second. He was good at everything, apparently. Writing. Cooking. Making me orgasm. Maybe I should have been jealous, but it seemed stupid to begrudge him his talents when I was their direct beneficiary.
Smiling, he turned to his own food, and we ate in companionable silence broken only by my caveman grunts as I consumed my body weight in steak and potatoes. Halfway through, he rose and fetched us another round of beers. After he resumed his seat, I gestured to my bottle.
“Can we get drunk? Like, is that a thing with werewolves?” The wine at the restaurant might as well have been fruit punch, so I had a feeling I knew the answer.
“Not really,” he said, the hint of an apology in his voice. “It requires so much alcohol that it’s not worth it.”
Wonderful. I couldn’t even drown my sorrows. “Do any substances work on us?” I asked. “What about painkillers?” These were things I hadn’t thought of. Although, I’d been a little busy getting paddled over the Dean of the College of Business Administration’s desk.
Jesse wiped his mouth with his napkin and placed it next to his plate. “You’re unlikely to need them. The lycanthropy virus heals most injuries before infection can set in. We can’t catch human illnesses. Things like heart disease and strokes don’t apply to us. We can die from lengthy exposure to large quantities of silver.” He paused. “Beheading can kill us.”
