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I buried my face in my hands. “Does everyone know?” The line went silent. “Okay, I’ll tell him to call.” Hanging up the phone, I carried it out of the bedroom. The shower wasn’t running, and I took a moment to look around.
I could see the kitchen through an open doorway, and the shine of white quartz countertops and a bright yellow stove made my feet itch to explore it. But I resisted, walking around the main living room first. The furniture was minimal: a comfortable-looking leather sofa and matching armchair, plus a long walnut desk against one wall, with some files and a closed laptop on it. One wall was made up mostly of windows, though it was still too dark to see outside.
The most beautiful thing was the fireplace, which was made of rough-cut granite, with halved geodes interspersed in between the stone. The floor was hardwood, but there were wool rugs in muted tones here and there, and small tables with stacks of books on them, and sheets of paper with a masculine scrawl running from the very top to the very bottom of each page. Donovan was a writer?
I had just read the first paragraph on the topmost page when I heard the bathroom door open behind me. I whirled, quickly dropping the paper back down… and froze.
He was gloriously naked, except for a white towel wrapped around his waist. I knew it was a normal-sized towel, but it looked smaller on his massive form. His broad chest was covered with dark whorls of hair that led in a trail down to his groin. Tori and Nessa had dragged me to a Beefcake Boys dance show the year before, and the men in that had nowhere near the definition and allure of this gorgeous man.
I found myself crossing the floor to stand in front of him, one hand moving to touch the damp, quivering muscles of his abs.
“Sweetheart?” he groaned. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer, just kept tracing the ridges along his sides, following the magnificent lines like a map that showed the way to hidden treasure.
“Hey.” His hand caught mine, gently stopping it from continuing beneath the towel.
“Sorry,” I muttered, sucking in a deep breath. His scent was heady and addictive, and I wanted it inside me. I wanted him inside me. But I wasn’t Tori or Nessa. I wasn’t the sister who demanded attention, or expected a man to fall at my feet, even if I was an omega.
Even if I was his true mate.
That thought was like a shock of cold water to my libido. I cleared my throat, holding out the phone. “Nicky wants to talk to you.”
Donovan took it, then turned away and crossed to the windows to place the call. I couldn’t stay in the room with him, not when he was only wearing a towel and talking to my brother. So I let myself explore the kitchen.
I moved slowly, wondering at the perfection of the space. It was at least as big as the living room, with countertops and cabinets for days. There was an enormous Sub-Zero French door refrigerator next to the larger of two sinks. Hand-labeled glass jars filled with dried herbs lined the windowsill above the deep, ceramic sink, with a small curtain decorated with cut lemons perched at the top.
The stove was a yellow-enameled Aga Mercury convection model, the same one I had put in my apartment, but in a better color. The walls were painted a pale buttery yellow, and the quartz countertops had small streaks of yellow and green in them. There was a long shelf with recipe books, and a collection of green Le Creuset cast-iron enamelware stacked below it. Glass-fronted shelves above the counters gave glimpses of crystal stemware and a collection of mismatched mugs, as well as hand-thrown pottery tableware in shades of green and blue by an artist I’d seen in Denver.
I knew my jaw had dropped, taking in all the details of the room, but I couldn’t help it.
It was my dream kitchen. Everything about it was perfect. I opened the fridge—it was empty, except for some butter, an unopened container of cream, condiments, and a lonely glass dish that may have had some kind of pudding in it before it had dried up. The freezer was packed with frozen vegetables and fruits, raspberries mainly, though there were blocks of cheddar and gruyère tucked around the other packages as well. I wandered to one narrow door and opened it, taking in the pantry’s organized dry ingredients.
Before I could think through what I was doing, I had rolled up the sleeves of my robe, gathered butter, flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, cream, and a bag of frozen raspberries, and had the oven pre-heating. The comfortable, routine dance of baking had always been where I found happiness.
“Do you mind if I watch?”
My happiness ebbed slightly. I shook my head in response, not looking away from the pan where I was melting the butter. Donovan entered the kitchen and leaned back against a counter, his arms crossed over his chest.
“You love to bake,” he commented after a moment. I rummaged in a cabinet for a glass dish, pouring the butter into it before answering.
“I love to make things. Sew, weave, cook. But baking is a special kind of magic.”
He didn’t interrupt me, or try to fill the quiet. I measured out the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder, whisking them together, before adding the cream and a tablespoonful of water. After a moment, I said, “The dry ingredients are boring, on their own. They don’t taste good; they don’t look like much. But without them, you can’t make a cobbler.”
“Raspberry cobbler?” Donovan’s throaty growl was unexpected, and I peeked up. He looked ravenous, but his dark eyes were on me, not the mixing bowl. “You’re making my second favorite dessert in the world.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“Cinnamon rolls with vanilla icing.” I shot him what I hoped was a suspicious look. “It’s true. Honestly, I’ll eat anything with vanilla,” he said with a grin. For a second, I thought he was trying to flirt, but he just shrugged when I frowned at him. “My mom used to tease me about it. I’d put vanilla on every single food or drink anyone gave me. I tried putting it on eggs once.” I grinned back at him, and he smiled wryly. “It’s the only thing I won’t add it to.”
“Unless you’re making a vanilla custard,” I mused aloud, pouring the sugared berries on top of the other ingredients and sliding the dish into the oven. “I didn’t see any vanilla in the pantry…”
“Probably drank it all up,” he murmured. When I scoffed, he stared back, unrepentant. “I put it in coffee. My dad used to as well.”
I almost smiled. “Does your family live close by?”
A flicker of something—pain?—shadowed his eyes for a moment, then was gone. “No. My parents both work and live on cruise ships, believe it or not. They just celebrated their fortieth anniversary halfway across the Pacific.”
