Kendra Castle - The Wolf's Surrender

Which was what he’d asked in the first place, Mia realized. What a great impression she was making. She walked to stand at the edge of the kitchen, all while Jenner watched her with his intense eyes, more like a wolf’s than a man’s. He didn’t return her smile, but he didn’t look irritated by her presence, either.

“Well, I’ve got plenty of coffee,” he finally said in his deep rumble of a voice. “Probably too much food, too, but I didn’t know what you’d like, so…” He trailed off with a nonchalant shrug that Mia found ridiculously attractive. “Cleaned out the pantry. Made a little of everything.”

“Oh, I like everything,” Mia rushed out. “Eating everything, I mean. Er, but not all at once.” She wanted to die, Mia decided. Just lay right down on the floor and give it up. Her foot was already glued into her mouth. Maybe she could just choke on that.

A slow, lazy smile curved up both corners of Jenner’s mouth and deepened the appealing little lines at the corners of his eyes. The bundle of nerves all knotted up in Mia’s lower belly seemed to tighten all at once.

“Good,” he said, his amusement clear in his voice. “Try to eat a little more of everything all at once this morning, though. You’re going to need the energy.”

“Yes, I guess I will,” Mia said, glad that he didn’t seem to think she was as ridiculous as she felt right now. She felt as skittish as a deer scenting a predator on the wind. It was both unfamiliar and unnerving. But there was something she needed to get out of the way before anything else was said this morning. She took a deep breath and plunged in.

“Look, I want to say thank you,” Mia said. “For helping me. Your friends saved my life. And you took care of me. If there’s any way I can repay you…”

Jenner’s eyes seemed to brighten as she trailed off, their strange honey-gold lighting with some inner fire for just an instant as he eyed her in a way that made heat spread from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. But before Mia could do more than register it, he had turned back to the eggs and was poking them with his spatula.

“No need,” he said, his voice slightly huskier than before. “Wolves like this Gaines are scum. Dex and the others were happy to run him off. Just like we’ll be happy to make sure he never hurts you or anyone else again.” He paused, flicked a glance at her before shoveling some eggs onto a plate, then beginning to butter a slice of toast roughly enough that it looked slightly mangled when he put it back down.

Disappointment flooded her. “Oh. So they didn’t catch him last night,” she said.

Jenner shook his head. “No, not yet. But we will. Which reminds me, Bane’s going to want to talk to you as soon as you’re up to it.” He sounded apologetic, Mia noted with a prickle of unease.

“Who’s Bane?” she asked.

“Jayson Bane. He’s Alpha of the pack. Don’t let him intimidate you when you meet him, though. He can be a hardass, but he’s a good man. I sure as hell wouldn’t want his job, but he does it well.”

“Oh,” Mia said, slightly taken aback. Considering Jenner’s size, the aura of power and confidence he projected, it hadn’t occurred to her that there would be other men in charge of him. “I thought maybe you were, you know…the leader,” Mia confessed before she could stop herself.

Jenner lifted his brows, and he chuckled, a warm rumble. He looked genuinely surprised, but not in an unpleasant way.

“Me? No. I’m not what you’d call Alpha material. You could say I’m sort of his second-in-command, I guess, though that’s not exactly right, either. We’re more like…two halves of a whole. He handles the stuff that requires talking.”

She watched him curiously, fascinated by the casual, predatory grace in every small move he made.

“And you do the stuff that requires…”

His grin was fast, wolfish, and moon-bright. “Not talking. Come on and sit down, Mia. Not all of us bite.”

Jenner loaded the rest of the plate with bacon and hash browns, grabbed a fork out of a drawer, and set the plate down on the island, which looked as though it doubled as an eating space. Mia hesitated only a second before approaching. She settled herself on the leather-padded seat of a stool, trying not to feel unnerved by Jenner’s watchful gaze.

“Wait a sec. Napkin,” he said with a frown, and brought her a hastily torn off paper towel. Her fingers brushed his when she took it, and Mia shivered, pulling it quickly away. Even that slight contact left her with the ghost of that beautiful melody she’d heard singing through his veins last night. It was only one of her gifts, but it had never come to her so effortlessly, nor had any man ever responded to her abilities so openly, even if Jenner seemed unaware of how receptive he was. She could only imagine the heaven of joining with him, skin to skin…

“Thanks,” she said, trying for a smile as her heart fluttered wildly. What was wrong with her? Yesterday at this time, she’d been happily imagining a romantic weekend with Jeff. But Jenner’s mere presence seemed to eclipse every thought of Jeff, good and bad.

“No problem.” He drew back almost as quickly as she had. Did he feel it, too, she wondered, this weird chemistry between them? She decided it was a stupid question almost as soon as she’d come up with it. Jenner was a big, sexy, supernaturally powerful man. And she was just…Mia. Not that she was unhappy with being just Mia most of the time. But it was not something that seemed to have set the male hearts of the world aflame just yet.

Because it was easier than forcing her mind to formulate coherent sentences, Mia shoveled up a forkful of the hash browns and dug in. Her taste buds sang their praises so immediately and loudly that she was pretty sure her eyes rolled back into her head in pure pleasure. Apparently, she’d been hungry.

“Umm. Mmm,” she heard herself say.

When she opened her eyes again, Jenner had paused in the middle of sitting down next to her with his own loaded plate and was looking at her with that intense, heated expression again. Almost as though he was thinking about taking a bite out of her . But as quickly as she could blink, it was gone, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined it.

It spoke to her addled state, Mia supposed, that she kind of hoped not.

“Tastes okay?” he asked.

Mia swallowed. “Yes, thank you.”

Jenner slid onto the stool beside her without saying another word. Not much of a talker, that much was obvious. And it seemed like whatever questions she wanted answered, she’d probably have to ask them herself. While she pondered what to say next, she ate another bite of food. It was so good she quickly had another, and it took some time before Mia realized that she and Jenner had been eating for several minutes in complete silence. She glanced at him, certain she’d be confronted with at least an odd look, some sign that her lack of conversation was off-putting. But to her surprise, Jenner seemed perfectly comfortable in the quiet, eating and lost in his own thoughts.

It was easy to imagine him doing much the same thing every day of his life. A cozy thought, one that gave Mia a warm feeling she knew she had no business having over this man. But…it was so unusual, to be with a person who felt no need to inject words into a moment that was fine without them. Jeff had chattered ceaselessly, sometimes nervously…mostly about himself, Mia realized.

And he was as different from the man she was sitting next to as night was from day.

She looked back down at her plate, which she discovered was nearly empty. Jenner, it seemed, was noticing the same thing. He leaned over just a little to look, and now Mia could smell him again, a musky blend of forest and wood smoke. She had a mad urge to stuff her face in his neck and breathe it in.