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“Not a rumor.” Something about the way he studies me makes me hold my breath. “Until you, cher. Until you.”
I’m almost tempted to ask him if I smell good to him because he smells delicious to me.
It’s impossible that I would run from Lawrence and stumble into three alphas who not only helped me get away but would turn out to be my scent matches. So I refuse to believe it.
But I wonder.
The Everleigh Jackson who once believed in fairy tales wants to think the reason they’re telling me things about themselves is because the impossible has happened.
I shake my head to clear the impossible thought right out. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He stirs the simmering contents of his pot. After grabbing a metal spoon, he scoops a small bite from it and blows on it to cool it down before he offers it to me. “Taste.”
I raise a brow. “Taste?”
“One of Mawmaw’s most important lessons was to taste. Always taste, Rune Fontenot, she would tell me. If you don’t know how it’s supposed to taste, how will you know it’s any good?”
None of us did any tasting before. That’s Cian’s, Kylian’s, and my fault for distracting Rune so much. We likely turned what could have been a delicious meal into an inedible one.
With the memory of choking down the last shrimp étouffée still fresh in my mind, I hope I’m not going to regret this.
As I tentatively open my mouth, I admit I’m not expecting much. Not wanting to hurt Rune’s feelings, I’m focused on keeping my expression neutral in case this meal is as bad as the first.
Until I get my first taste of the rich, savory sauce, and my eyes widen in surprise. “It’s good!”
He searches my face, turns, and reaches for another spoon to dip in the pot before he tastes it himself, his brow furrowing in a frown. “It’s getting there.”
My rumbling stomach likes the sound of that. “Getting there?”
Nodding, he turns to dump the spoons in the sink before he rummages through a cupboard on his left. “That’s the base. If the base ain’t right, the dish ain’t right. Mawmaw’s words, not mine. This needs a little more…somethin’.”
I get caught up in his excitement, sitting up taller as I watch carefully what he adds to the dish. “How do you know what that something is?”
Rune tosses a dash of this in the pot and a sprinkle of that. He’s working on instinct, maybe even muscle memory. He certainly isn’t measuring anything.
When he’s finished adding to the pot, he turns to me. “Flavor, cher. That something is always gonna be flavor. Flavor is the love you pour into the pot. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything.”
Then he’s back to humming and muttering under his breath as he moves around the kitchen. He’s nimble on his feet, generous with his sprinkles, but not careless.
Never careless.
I’ve never seen a man move like that. And I start to wonder what he might be like as a lover. Does he move the same way? Is he as generous and precise, or is he just this way with food?
“At his heart, a Cajun is a lover,” he declares.
I jump. Shit, did he just—
When I blink to refocus on him, he’s not busy reading my mind. He’s busy deveining shrimp on a white cutting board.
The shrimp go in, followed by a flurry of more spices. By now, my stomach isn’t just growling, it’s demanding because the smells coming from that big metal pot are unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before.
He tosses the contents up. I have a brief glimpse of juicy pink shrimp coated in spices before he returns the pot to the open flame.
My eyes burn from all the spices in the air. The fact I haven’t blinked in a while probably isn’t helping. I can’t take my eyes off the man cooking, passion in every line of his body, a soft curve to his lips.
My right hand is moving as I mentally sketch him.
How would I capture his fluidity? Drawing someone on the move isn’t easy. And that hint of a smile. Would I emphasize his playfulness or leave it as a mere suggestion?
