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“It’s surprising to see you cooking.”
“Admittedly, I hadn’t done much of it in recent years. But I’ve had a lot of time to kill while I’ve been on the island,” he said. “It’s given me a chance to practice some of the skills I learned when I lived in Provence.”
“When was that?”
“Ages ago. I left Spain when I was thirty, then spent a few years in London before relocating to the south of France for the better part of four decades. I missed the food once I moved to the U.S., so I learned to make it myself.”
He stirred the soup pot while I leaned against the doorframe and watched him. Elias was the type of man who somehow just belonged in a suit. But here he was, looking sexy and approachable in a pair of jeans, with the sleeves of his black Henley pushed back. It was tough to reconcile this version of him with the one I thought I knew, but I liked him like this. He was much less intimidating.
To make conversation, I asked, “Why did you leave Spain?”
A shadow passed over his features as he muttered, “After my parents died, there was no reason to stay.”
I knew there had to be a tragic story behind that. Elias was roughly half-werewolf, half-human, so either one parent was a full-blooded werewolf, or both carried a high percentage of that DNA. Anyone who was at least a quarter werewolf should have lived for hundreds of years. Since they’d been of child-bearing age thirty years before, that suggested they’d died very young.
It was obviously a painful subject though, so I didn’t ask. Instead, I took a seat at the scarred wooden table at the back of the kitchen, near a brick fireplace with a fire burning brightly in its hearth. After a minute, I said, “I think this is the only warm spot in the entire haunted mansion.”
“Yeah, the radiators don’t seem to do much, so my advice is to seek out rooms with fireplaces. There are nine of them throughout the house.”
Elias put two steaming bowls of lobster bisque on the table, then brought a platter of sliced bread with butter and sat down across from me. He watched me closely as I tried a small spoonful of soup, and I murmured, “Oh my god.”
He actually seemed anxious as he asked, “Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all. It’s literally the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
He looked relieved as I went back for a bigger spoonful. “I’ve never cooked for anyone before,” he said. “I had no idea if what I liked would actually appeal to you.”
“This is shockingly delicious. Seriously, how is it this good?”
“It’s probably the fresh lobster. That’s one of the nice things about being in Maine.”
“You’re being modest. You’re great at this, and you can cook for me anytime,” I said, between mouthfuls of that rich, savory soup.
“If you stay with me, I’ll gladly cook for you every day.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I ended up mumbling something along the lines of, “You wouldn’t have to do that. It’s not your job to feed me.”
“It’s my job as your alpha to take care of you, and this falls under that heading.”
“I’m pretty sure that was never meant to include cooking. As the bigger and stronger of the pair, it’s an alpha’s job to defend their helpless little mate against outside threats.” I infused as much sarcasm as I could into the helpless bit.
“It’s the twenty-first century,” he said, as a lopsided grin curved the corner of his mouth. “I can vanquish our foes and put dinner on the table if I want to. Don’t hold me to your archaic standards.”
I grinned, too. “And here I thought you were a total caveman. I mean, you are, in a lot of ways. But you’re a caveman who likes to cook, so that’s something.”
“Finally! We’ve found one thing you like about me.” There was a sparkle of amusement in his dark eyes. It was a good look on him.
“Actually, we’ve found two things in one day.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“You’re phenomenal in bed.”
“You have nothing to compare it to.”
“No,” I said, “but phenomenal is phenomenal.”
“This is all great news. I’ll see if I can manage a third thing before you take off for another hundred years.”
After an awkward pause, I murmured, “I’m sorry I did that.”
“Are you?”
“I wasn’t sorry at the time, but I am now,” I said.
“Because you realize you could have been eating this bisque all along?”
I chuckled at that, and his grin got a little wider. “Yes. That’s obviously exactly what I meant.”
I finished the soup, then used a piece of French bread to mop up the bottom of the bowl. He asked, “Would you like seconds?”
“Yes, please.” That made him happier than it probably should have. He got up and refilled my bowl, then returned to his seat and tried to pretend he wasn’t watching me eat, while he totally watched me eat.
