Page 31 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

A laugh slips out of me, breathless and unguarded. “Sure they would.”

The chicken goes into the pot, and I lose myself in the rhythm of it, the chopping, the stirring, the salt. Marcus stays close the whole time, handing me a knife before I ask, finding the pepper when I can’t. The talk comes easy, easier than it has any right to. I keep waiting for the old anger to flare back up. It stays quiet.

The girls thunder down the stairs around the second simmer, Bella wrapped in a blanket and looking better for the company, both of them clamoring for Marcus to come build a fort or play a game or be a horse. My jaw tightens as I see Mia, along with Bella, pulling at Marcus’s hand. A stab of pain in my chest has me looking away to regain my composure. Then I turn to look at them.

“Up you go, both of you.” I shoo them back with the spoon. “Bella needs to rest, and Marcus is helping me cook. I’ll call you when the food’s ready.”

They groan and trudge back up, and the instant they’re gone, Marcus turns to me with a slow grin spreading over his face.

“So you wanted me all to yourself.” He props himself on the counter beside me.

“This spoon is very hot.” I level it at him. “And I will smack you with it.”

He drops onto a stool, hands raised in surrender, though the grin doesn’t quit.

I stir, telling myself the warmth in the room is coming off the stove. “Is Bella really the only reason you’ve stayed single all this time?”

“Maybe.” He props his chin on his hand and watches me work. “Could be I’ve been holding out for the right woman. Maybe one who makes soup in my kitchen.”

“Oh, please.” I scoff to cover the foolish little flutter the words set off low in my chest. “Does that line usually work for you?”

“I’ll let you know.”

The soup’s ready before I want it to be, rich and golden and steaming. I ladle a little onto the spoon, blow across it, and hold it out toward him.

“Here. Tell me if it needs salt.”

He leans in and takes it from the spoon, eyes sliding shut for a second as he tastes. “That’s incredible.”

“You don’t have to sound so shocked.” I take a sip myself.

“I’m not shocked. I’m—” He opens his eyes, and they fix on me, dark and warm. “I’m impressed.”

The word comes out low, and I realize too late how close we’ve drifted, the spoon still hovering between us, his stool pulled flush to where I stand at the counter. A drop of broth has caught at the corner of my mouth, and before I can reach for it, his thumb is already there, wiping it from my lips slowly and carefully.

He doesn’t pull his hand back, just brings the thumb to his own mouth and sucks the broth from it, his eyes never once leaving mine.

I look at his mouth and can’t look anywhere else.

I should step back. The stove is on, my daughter is upstairs, this man is the single greatest threat to the life I’ve built, and I still don’t move. He tilts his head. The space between us shrinks by a degree, then another, until the heat of him is all I can feel. Ten years of keeping him at arm’s length count for nothing, and I tip up to meet him.

His breath ghosts across my lips.

I don’t stop it. Whatever’s pulling me toward him is older and stronger than my good sense, and for once in my life, I let it win.

Chapter Seven

Marcus

Her breath is on my lips, warm and unsteady, and my heart slams against my ribs hard enough to hurt.

I don’t understand what this woman does to me. Every scrap of discipline I’ve built over the past few years turns to nothing the second she’s this close, her scent wrapping around me and her mouth tilted up toward mine. I lean in that last inch.

The sliding door rolls open behind us.

“Marcus, are you home? I brought food.”

We jump apart so fast that Jessa’s hip catches the counter. Her face is scarlet, her pulse jumping at her throat where I can see it, and the warm bloom of her arousal still hangs in the air between us. She crosses to the far side of the kitchen and grips the edge of the sink, her back to me.