Chapter 31
SANTOS
Jennifer has flour on her jaw again.
She doesn't know it. She pushed her hair back twenty minutes ago without thinking and left a white streak along her cheekbone, and she has been standing at my bench rolling pasta ever since, entirely unbothered, moving the rolling pin away from her in the long even strokes that require her whole body to lean into it.
I have been sitting at the island with a glass of wine watching her and telling myself I am giving her space to work.
She came in at six, looked at the bench, said "I'm making pasta," and started making pasta.
She glances at me over her shoulder.
"You're staring," she says.
"I'm appreciating," I say.
"I can't concentrate with you looking at me like that," she says, and turns back to the pasta, and I watch the corner of her mouth do the thing it does when she is trying not to smile and losing.
I get up from the island.
I cross to the bench and stand beside her, close enough that her strawberry wraps around me completely, and she looks up at me with those green eyes and raises one flour-dusted eyebrow.
"I'm working," she says.
"I know," I say. "Let me help."
"You'll ruin it," she says.
I reach past her for the rolling pin. She lets me take it, steps back with her arms folded and flour on her hands and that expression, warm and skeptical and entirely awake.
I roll the dough.
"Wrong," she says, immediately.
"I haven't done anything yet," I say.
"You're holding it wrong," she says. "Use your weight, not your arms."
She comes up behind me and reaches around, her hands over mine on the rolling pin, correcting my grip with the matter-of-fact precision of someone who has been doing this since she was old enough to reach a bench, and her chin is near my shoulder and her strawberry is everywhere and warm and I stop thinking about the pasta entirely.
"Like this," she says, guiding the stroke forward.
"I see," I say.
"You're not looking at the pasta," she says.
"No," I say.
She pauses.
Her hands are still over mine. The kitchen is very quiet.
"Santos," she says.
Her voice is different. Just enough.
I set the rolling pin carefully on the bench, cover the dough with the cloth so it can rest, and turn around.
She is right there, green eyes dark in the kitchen light, the flour along her jaw where she pushed her hair back earlier, and she looks at me the way she looks at things she has decided she wants, which is directly and without pretending otherwise.
I brush the flour from her jaw with my thumb.
She goes very still.
Her scent shifts before she moves, strawberry blooming warm and wide, and I take her hand and lead her the few steps to the kitchen table, which is clear and solid and nowhere near the pasta, and I sit her on the edge of it and step between her knees and take her face in my hands and look at her in the kitchen light.
"Here?" she says.
"Here," I say.
She considers this for approximately one second. Then she reaches for my collar.
She reaches up and takes my face in her hands, flour and all, and that is the end of any discussion about anything.
She kisses me and I pull her in close and she fits against me the way she has fit against me since Vegas, perfectly and entirely, and even now, six months along, warm and round and entirely herself, she is the most beautiful thing I have ever had my hands on.
Her shirt comes off first, arms lifting for it like she has already decided, which she has, and the kitchen light lands on her skin warm and golden and I look at her the way I look at things I find genuinely beautiful, which is for as long as I want to and without apologizing for it.
"You're doing it again," she says.
"You're nearly six months pregnant and you're sitting in my kitchen looking like that," I say. "I'm going to look."
"I feel heavy," she says.
"You feel perfect," I say, and I say it without decoration and I watch it land in her face and watch her decide to let it.
My mouth finds her neck, the bond marks warm under my lips, and she tips her head back and gives me room without my asking for it, which is the most Jennifer thing she has ever done, making a gift out of something while pretending she isn't. I work my way down slowly, my hands finding her waist, her hips, learning the changed shape of her with the same attention I have given to everything about her since day four, and her strawberry scent opens completely in the warm kitchen air.
I growl low against her skin and feel her shiver in response.
"Santos," she breathes.
"I know," I say.
I drop to my knees in front of the table.
"Oh," she says.
"Yes," I say, looking up at her.
"The pasta," she starts.
"Is on the bench," I say. "Under the cloth. Resting. It cannot see us. It has no feelings about this." I press a kiss to the inside of her knee. "You have my complete attention."
She looks down at me with those green eyes and the flour still on her jaw and something warm and certain in her expression, and then she reaches down and puts her hand in my hair.
"Okay," she says.
I take my time.
Her breathing goes uneven and her strawberry fills the kitchen air so completely I can taste it, and her knees part wider and her head tips back and the hand in my hair tightens.
"Santos," she says, differently this time.
"I know," I say, and I stay exactly where I am and I take my time and I let the wave build the way it builds when you have given it the whole ocean to work with.
When it arrives it arrives completely.
The sound she makes is full and warm and belonging entirely to this kitchen at this hour, and her thighs tremble and her hand grips my hair and her voice says my name in the low certain register that I would recognize anywhere and that does something to my saffron scent it has never done around anyone else.
Afterwards I stand and she presses her forehead against my shoulder and breathes.
Then she laughs.
Soft and real, the laugh that catches her off guard, the one she keeps for moments she did not plan for, and I feel it against my neck and it does something to my chest that I have completely stopped trying to name.
"The pasta," she says, when she can breathe again.
"It will keep," I growl against her neck, and I feel her shiver.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her hair half down and flour on her jaw and her green eyes warm and not remotely interested in the pasta.
"We could finish it," she says, without conviction.
“Perhaps,” I reply.
We don’t move toward the bench.
She looks at me and I look at her and her strawberry is warm and open in the kitchen air and my saffron goes bright and certain and my alpha has completely lost interest in pasta.
I growl low against her ear. "Or I could carry you to bed."
She makes the sound. The soft one, the one she tries to contain and never quite manages.
"The pasta really will dry out," she whispers.
"Jennifer," I say, against her jaw. "We can make pasta any night of our lives."
She is quiet for a moment.
Then her hands slide into my hair and she tips her head back and the corner of her mouth does the thing, the almost smile, the real one, the one I have been collecting since a kitchen at nine in the morning.
"Right now," she sighs, and I know this means she’s surrendering to me, "I just want to be in your arms."
I wrap one arm around her back and the other under her knees and I lift her off the table, and she loops her arms around my neck and her strawberry is everywhere and warm and certain, and I carry her out of the kitchen and down the corridor and I close the door behind us with my foot.
The pasta rests under its cloth on the bench.
There’s no need to think or even worry about it. There’s plenty of food on this island, but only one omega I want in my arms.