The Wolf Marshal's Pack (U.S. Marshal Shifters 3) - Page 57
Still, though, the most important part of his pack, and of his life, was the woman lying next to him.
Aria’s eyes were closed, her long eyelashes a dark, delicate fringe. Colby liked seeing her curly hair spread out across her pillow. It made a kind of cloud around her, like a halo.
He could have looked at her forever: every bit of her was compelling and gorgeous to him, down to her elbows and toes and earlobes. But as he traced expanding circles around her navel, loving the feel of her soft skin beneath his fingers, he heard her stomach growl.
Aria had almost been purring with contentment, but now her eyes shot open. She laughed, but, this close, he could see her cheeks darken very slightly, too, turning an even richer brown.
“Sorry. That’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing to me,” Colby said, sliding down a little so he could kiss the slight rise of her belly. “I’m supposed to be making you dinner. I’d decided to, anyway. I just got distracted.”
She smiled. “I’m glad to be distracting.”
“Incredibly, unbelievably distracting.” He wanted that to be perfectly clear. “But—”
“You want to provide for your mate.”
She propped herself up on her elbow, watching him with interest. He had the sudden, not unwelcome idea that she was about to snap a photograph of him; he recognized the gleam of professional interest in her eyes.
“I keep forgetting you probably understand all this stuff even better than I do.”
She scoffed. “Please. I understand it from the outside. I’ve spent a lot of time watching how wolves behave, sure. But I’ve spent a lot of time watching other animals, too, so I haven’t had time to pick up all the—lupine subtleties. You know them from the inside-out. You have them.”
She slid off the bed and stood up, gloriously, enchantingly naked.
Colby had a hard time taking his eyes off her. “I hate to say this, but if you actually want us to wind up with any kind of dinner, you might want to get dressed again.”
He might have hated saying it, but she definitely didn’t hate hearing it. Her face lit up even more, and she did a little shimmy that just about snapped his brain in two.
He couldn’t believe she wasn’t used to being admired—or feeling like she should have admiration. It was self-evident to him that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. That was just a fact.
“I’ll have mercy,” Aria said primly, “and put some clothes on. But you have to do it too. Just because it’s not as obvious when a woman gets turned on doesn’t mean I don’t—unavoidably respond to you being naked.”
His wolf radiated smugness.
Actually, screw it, he radiated smugness.
“I’ll put on some clothes,” he said.
He kissed her on the forehead.
He still felt like he was going to wake up from a dream.
*
He might have struck up a new and better relationship with his wolf, but that didn’t mean his wolf was tremendously helpful in this whole “cooking dinner for Aria” scheme. You couldn’t get much further apart than “wolf” and “chef.”
He had to stand in the middle of the kitchen for almost a minute, silently reasoning with the mutt.
No, I don’t just want to go out and hunt down a “tasty deer” for her and then drag it back here. Humans like cooked meat, remember? And a lot of them are still traumatized from Bambi. Just because Aria knows that nature can be gory isn’t any reason to dump a dead deer on her kitchen floor, all right?
Muskoxen? his wolf said hopefully.
Colby felt like tearing his hair out. Have you ever actually seen a muskox, buddy? Because I haven’t. I don’t think we’re going to find one in the backyard.
His wolf sulked a little and then very tentatively said, Blueberries? Apples?
Those—weren’t terrible suggestions. And he could feel his own stomach growl just thinking about them. Whenever he and his dad had spent time on four legs in the woods, he’d always enjoyed foraging for sweet berries and fallen apples and pears as much as he’d enjoyed hunting. Wolves could have pretty flexible appetites.
Source: readsnovelonline.net