He tangled his fingers in her shiny brown hair. “I know,” he said approvingly. “You look like you just rolled out of my bed. Bedhead hair, your face kissed by the sun…”
He was bending down to kiss her when the door banged open, and the delicious smell of garlic wafted in. A roly poly man in a chef’s apron and chef’s white cap bustled through the door. He had a droopy dark mustache and looked as if he should be the advertisement for a line of spaghetti sauce, and he was carrying a tray of pasta dishes.
“Oh, I interrupt!” he said, in a heavy Italian accent, his eyes going wide.
“Yes, you do, Sergio,” Dominic grumbled. Zoey squirmed in his arms, embarrassed, and tried to push him away, but it was like pushing a building.
“You want dinner, or you no want dinner?” Sergio looked comically offended. “I spend hours in the kitchen, over a hot stove, for you! You come to my house, you eat!Mangia, mangia!”He set down the dishes on a table, next to a bowl of bread and a bottle of wine.
Dominic reluctantly released Zoey, and the two of them walked over to the table. Dominic pulled the chair out for her to sit down and she tried to remember if any man had ever done that before.
“Enjoy!” Sergio said. “And Dominic? You treat this gorgeous girl right or I steal her!”
Dominic growled. Sergio backed up, eyes widening. “I kid, I kid!”
“Settle down there,” Zoey said to Dominic, although she was secretly just the teeniest bit flattered. Nobody had ever been jealous of her before.
Dominic poured her a glass of excellent red wine. They dove into the food, and her linguine with shrimp and lemon butter was what she would have requested for a last meal. It was heaven on a plate. The garlic butter was tearably soft and fluffy and tangy. For once, she didn’t feel self-conscious eating in front of a man, because he’d told her that he loved her body just the way it was, and she believed him.
They ate in companionable silence, taking their time, enjoying the food. She didn’t feel pressured to make idle chit chat, she just savored every bite.
She smiled as she set her fork down to take another sip of wine, and Dominic nodded. “Smiling is good. Better than running from me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It’s just nice to be able to relax and forget life’s stresses sometimes.”
“I can make all of your stresses disappear.” She arched an eyebrow, and he grinned fiercely. “You’re about to say, ‘So you’ll disappear, Dominic?’”
“Damn, am I already becoming predictable?” she shook her head ruefully and finished her glass of wine.
He poured her another, and then reached out and took her hand. “I’d rather say, reliable. Look at us, sparring like an old married couple already.” His hand was so big it wrapped around hers, warm and comfortable like a blanket. He grinned, flashing big white teeth.
She let him hold her hand for a minute, because it felt so good to sit there with a handsome man who looked at her with lust in his eyes even after she’d just carbo-loaded enough pasta to feed a medium sized orc.
“Damn, Sergio really is an amazing cook. So, he’s single, you say?”
Dominic gave her a sour look, and his growl didn’t quite make it out of his mouth, but she could hear it rumbling in his broad chest.
“Seriously.” She shook her head in wonder. “Are you actually jealous?”
“Well, the man does know his way around a plate of pasta. Some women like that in a mate.” He looked mildly miffed.
“Yes. That is pretty hot,” she agreed, just to torture him. Then, because he was starting to look murderous and she didn’t want him to kill a man who made the best Italian food she’d ever tasted, she quickly said “Tell me more about this moon-bite thing that you keep hallucinating about.”
“Come back to my house with me and we’ll discuss it.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“You keep saying that like I have a choice.” She looked narrowly him. “Do I have a choice?”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He let go of her hand and stabbed into his own plate of pasta.
“Ah, a loophole. Does this have something that with that twenty-eight days thing you talked about?” she mused. “Do I have a choice until the next full moon?”
His handsome brows drew together in a scowl. Clearly he hadn’t wanted her to figure that out. “Maybe.”
“So can I say no to the whole thing at any time?”
“Can you reject my wolf’s claim? Nope.” He looked annoyed. “Do you want to?”
She flushed. “That’s a complicated question. I barely know you, and…as we discussed, you and I have very different viewpoints on things.”
