by Jessica Sims
I make a huge breakfast of rare steaks, hash-browned potatoes, bacon, eggs, and toast. I debate coffee, but I don’t know if she’s going no-caffeine for the pregnancy or what. I debate milk or orange juice, but I’m pretty sure some of those are probably bad for pregnant ladies, too. Fuck it. I pour her three drinks, one of each. She’s a goddamn adult and she can decide what she wants.
By the time I set the table and butter the toast, Savannah shows up in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. Her hair is a mess and she’s wearing the ugliest robe I’ve ever seen, but I love the sight of her. “Hey,” I say, grabbing the skillet and sliding the eggs in it onto her plate. “Sit. I made you some breakfast.”
She licks her lips, smiles at me, and sits down at the table in front of the food. Score one for Anderson, I think. I’m pleased when she immediately cuts a big bite of steak and then moans with pleasure. “You make your steaks better than mine.”
“The trick is searing them.” I’ll gladly make her steak every day if she wants it. Fuck, I’ll run down a cow and cut her a fresh one right off the hoof if I have to. Whatever my girl wants, she’s gonna get. I quickly make my own eggs, slap them onto two pieces of toast, and sit down across from her. I notice she takes sips of both the juice and milk and avoids the coffee. I file that away mentally. “Also, I stocked up on oysters for you. I know some of the baby books say you shouldn’t eat them, but I asked Dr. Lamb and he said it’s fine for wolf shifters, so I’m guessing it’s fine for you, too.”
She glances up at me and then goes back to cutting her steak. She chews in silence.
I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I scarf down my sandwich and then nudge the rest of the bacon in her direction, just in case she wants it. I wish she’d say something. She can’t still be mad about the baby cribs, can she? Maybe I won’t tell her about the fact that I’ve enlisted Tony to bring her lunch every day. He went to culinary school and can bake a mean chicken parm. And since he’s not working, I figure he can feed my woman every day even if I’m not around for lunchtime.
“By the way,” I begin, since I don’t like how silent she is. “I’m flipping a house that’s got a really nice fridge if you’d rather have that one. I can swap them out. It’s got stainless steel, french doors, the works.” Nothing. “Just say the word and I’ll get the boys on it.” Still nothing. “Since I’m flipping it, the new one doesn’t have to have a swanky fridge. New owners won’t even notice.”
She eats a piece of bacon, sips her milk, and then shrugs. “This one’s fine.”
My heart’s thudding like I’ve been chasing jackrabbits. “What’s wrong?”
Savannah’s gaze flicks to me, then back to her plate.
I feel sick. “What is it? You might as well say. Did I do something to offend you? Did you not come?” But I’m pretty sure she did. I felt her clench around my fingers when I was thrusting into her.
Her cheeks get pink and she shoots me an annoyed look. “That was fine.”
“Then what is it?” I lean forward. “Savannah, you’re my world. You have to tell me what’s bothering you. Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” She ties her ugly robe shut and then sighs. “I just…I don’t think this is something we should do on a regular basis.”
Is she crazy? She has to eat every morning. “If you’re worried about gaining weight, I’d find you beautiful no matter what. And your metabolism is a shifter, so you’re fine. I—“
She shakes her head and interrupts me. “Not this,” she says, indicating the plates. “This.” And she points at me, then at herself.
My good mood shatters just like that. “Why?”
“It’ll be confusing for the children.”
Just like that, my heart squeezes as if a fist clenched around it. Last night was a fluke, then. There isn’t any ‘us.’ There’s just me, the sperm donor to her children, and Savannah, who doesn’t want me to be a part of things. She’s afraid that if I’m around, it’ll confuse the kids into thinking they have a dad.
Heaven fucking forbid. “Why’s it so bad if I’m in the picture, Sav? I’m not a terrible guy. I have a job, I don’t have a prison record, and I like kids.”
She chews on her lip for a moment, and then says, “What if I start dating someone else?”
Like that Craig guy? I snort. “You’re not.”
I can see her back go up. She practically bristles. “You’re so sure about that? After yesterday?”
“If that guy’s what you have to pick from? Yeah, I’m not worried about it. Craig’s a douche.” She can do better than that. Especially with me around.
Her face flushes with anger. She stands up and throws her napkin down on her plate. “Maybe I want my children to have were-cougar parents.”
“Don’t see why,” I drawl. “Seeing as how they’re gonna be wolves.”
Her nostrils flare and she storms past me, heading upstairs. I rub my face and don’t get up from the table to chase after her. Damn it. This was not how I wanted to start the day. I think of Savannah, sweet and sleepy before waking up.
Then I imagine her in the arms of that Craig joker and I want to break the dining room table in half with my fists.
“Said she didn’t want your food, bro. Turned me away at the door,” Tony tells me over the phone. “It’s all getting cold, too. You know lobster ravioli is no good if it’s cold.”
Fuck. Savannah’s being stubborn. “She already had lunch? Or just didn’t want what I’m providing for her?”
“Didn’t want anything that had to do with you,” Tony says, and there’s a little perverse pleasure in his voice. That shit. “Said you could go fuck yourself if you thought you could control every aspect of her life.”
Huh? That wasn’t my intention at all. I ignore Tony’s sniggering and Wade’s chortling on the other end of the phone and hang up. Let them laugh. I drum my fingers on the granite countertop installed not five minutes ago in the flip house. The contractors are still outside, and I can’t leave.
My phone immediately dings with a text.
Tony: If your girl ain’t gonna eat it, can I? Me and Wade are starving, yo.
Go ahead, I send back, just so he’ll shut up and leave me alone. And then call Alice and see what she needs help with today.
Tony: Aww, man. You suck.
Connor: That a challenge?
Tony: No. :P
That was what I thought. Tony whines a lot, but he’s a pretty loyal wolf to whoever’s in charge. They all are, really. They just need a firm hand. Uncle Levi let them run roughshod and they turned into bullies. I’m keeping them on a tighter leash and they’re slowly going to learn how to behave.
The food is the least of my problems. Last night had been amazing, and now that the sun was up, Savannah is determined to fight me again. I don’t understand her. I don’t understand why she hates me so much that she’d rather raise our children alone than have me around. She sure didn’t hate me last night when I was between her thighs. It’s clear she regrets it now, though.
It’s also clear to me I can’t let this sit. I need to talk to her. I check the time on my phone. Four in the afternoon. Savannah eats lunch late because she works the night shift at Midnight Liaisons. I knew that when I sent Tony over. By six, she’ll be starving and she usually doesn’t bring a lunch.
I know this because I watch her a lot.
As the men come in with the next counter, I nod at them. “Can we hurry things up? I have someplace to be soon.”
By the time I sign off on the counters, two hours have passed and I’m antsy as hell. I drive to the nearest deli, order a bunch of sandwiches and soups of every kind, and then add a bunch of cookies and brownies too, just in case my girl has a sweet tooth. I drive over to the dating agency and, with my enormous lunch-slash-dinner in tow, I head in to the office.
The first thing I notice is that it’s crowded. Three of the big, hulking guys that have been accompanying Savannah are present, seated with picture books in th
eir laps in the waiting area. Two more sit at her desk, and I hear Dora the Explorer’s voice coming out of the computer. “Bienvenidos,” one man repeats after the computer program. Savannah’s sitting at Ryder’s desk, the phone pressed to her ear as she scribbles notes.
All heads turn as I walk in, no doubt smelling the hot sandwiches and soups I’ve brought with me.
“Bienvenidos,” says the other man at the desk. His buddy nods at him as if he’s done a good job.
One of the men with the picture books sniffs the air and then nudges the man at his side. “He’s one of the tiny wolves.”
Tiny wolves? What the—
Savannah puts her call on hold and gets up from the desk. Her eyes are wide with…relief? “Connor, thank god. I—”
Thank god? For me?
She rushes on. “—I need your help. Can you talk to the person on the phone for a few minutes? She’s trying to figure out how to reinstall her web browser and I’ve been stuck with her for forty minutes, and Lir’s been in the bathroom for nearly that long and I need to check on him.” She gives me a pleading look.
The sandwiches are forgotten, the arguments from this morning pushed aside. I don’t even ask why she’s checking on a grown man in the bathroom. “Of course.”
The look she gives me is full of relief and she rushes down the back hall while I put down the bags of deli food and pick up the call holding. “Tech support, how can I help?” I lie.
“The computer’s asking me if I want to run. Do I want to run?” The elderly woman’s voice on the phone sounds confused.
“To install your new browser? Yes ma’am.”
“I don’t need a browser. I need a Google.”
Oh boy. I start to launch into an explanation of computer programs versus computer websites, when one of the big guys comes sniffing around the food. I glare at him as I help the woman on the line, but he only glances at the bag and then looks at his friends.
“He’s feeding her,” he tells them. “I do not smell pizza.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know the trick,” says another.
Trick? I want to hang up on the caller and figure out what the hell they’re talking about, but Savannah needs my help, so I resist the urge. Of course, it’s hard to concentrate when they’re all wandering around the office. One starts playing with the Scotch Tape dispenser, and then the next few minutes are full of the noise of tape being yanked off and stuck to things, and then ripped back off again.
Just when I finish the call, Savannah comes out of the bathroom with another man, her hand holding his elbow like a naughty child. He’s extremely tall and muscular, the stranger, but that’s not surprising. They all are. This one’s also got wild blond hair, dark eyes, green marker smears on his temples and bright red lipstick plastered all over the bottom half of his face.
I can’t help it. I stare.
Savannah’s busy handing him more wet wipes. “I can’t believe you, Lir.”
“It looked good in the movie.”
“What movie?”
“The one with the man-bat with the funny voice.” He wipes at his face with the towelette, but it only succeeds in making a bigger mess.
Savannah makes an exasperated noise and takes the wipe from him and begins to clean his face. “I don’t care if you put makeup on. I don’t care what you do. The problem is that those things you used aren’t yours. You can’t just take things without asking. You have to get permission. You have to ask. People have to want to give you things.”
Her tone is gentle even as she scolds, and it hits me like a bolt of lightning.
You have to ask.
That’s it.
That’s why she fights me. She’s been saying it but I haven’t been listening. It’s not that Savannah hates me. It’s that she hates that all her choices are being taken away from her. She didn’t ask to be pregnant. She didn’t ask to be kidnapped, and she hasn’t asked for me to push my way into her life in an effort to make her see me.
I’m an idiot.
I’ve forgotten the oldest trick in the books. That if you want to win a woman? You woo her.
I need to change what I’m doing, starting now. I can woo. I can make Savannah see that I’m not the enemy. I’m just going about it the wrong way.
SAVANNAH
I’m doing my best not to laugh in Lir’s Joker face, but he just looks pitiful. I’d guessed he was up to no good when he disappeared into the bathroom, but I had been tied to the phone and couldn’t get up to check on him. The Primordials are fascinated by cosmetics and can’t seem to grasp that they’re only for women, especially when they see otherwise on television. The Pirates of the Caribbean movie? Big mistake. Now apparently the superhero movies are off limits.
I wince inwardly as I think about trying to explain to Bathsheba why her office lipsticks are now destroyed. “You have to ask about things, Lir. You can’t take things and use them if they belong to other people.”
He grunts. ‘Permission’ is another big thing that the Primordials have trouble with. In their old reality, they’d simply take and stake a claim. Trying to teach them otherwise has been challenging.
When his face is mostly clean, I send him back to the Dora The Explorer game with Anrai and Shea. I have six Primordials right now because Ryder’s running the weekly Speed Mating sessions, and can’t bring them with her. To say it’s been hectic is an understatement. I was actually relived to see Connor show up. One more person helps, even a little.
I turn to face Connor and notice he’s off the phone. “Did you help Ms. Stephens?”
He nods and gets up from the desk. “She’s going to call back if she can’t get on again, but she should be good.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” I tell him gratefully, and watch as he goes to the bag full of food he brought in. The smells wafting up are heavenly, and my stomach growls, reminding me that I didn’t bring my lunch and I turned away Tony earlier because I was still mad.
I’m still mad, I remind myself. Connor can’t shove his way in and tell me what to eat and drink, and control me. I won’t stand for it.
But he pulls out a container of what smells like broccoli cheese soup and a sandwich that I’m pretty sure is a melty grilled cheese, and my stomach growls even louder. “What’s all this?” I ask, just because I feel I need to stick to my guns.
He adds a brownie and a cookie to the pile on the desk and I get weak. My sweet tooth has been out of control today and those look like heaven. “I just wanted to come by and apologize.”
That…wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. “Apologize?”
“For sending Tony over here. I shouldn’t be pushing food onto you.”
“You came to apologize for sending food…with more food?”
Connor gives me a sheepish look. “Well, I thought you might be hungry anyhow, and I thought maybe if I brought enough for the office you wouldn’t hold it against me.”
My mouth waters and my pride wavers. This isn’t the normal pushy, you’ll-do-what-I-say-and-you’ll-like-it Connor. The fact that he came to apologize? I find myself relaxing, soothed by the thought. Maybe he realizes how high-handed he’s been.
“Besides, I’d feel terrible if you didn’t eat because of me.” He picks up a container of soup and holds it out to me, a puppy-dog look on his face. “Am I forgiven?”
I pretend to consider for a moment, then take the soup. “Just try and remember that I’m not in your pack, okay? You can’t order me around.”
“I’ll remember,” he promises, and offers me the sandwich, too.
I snag the brownie, just because it’s calling to me. Then I peer in the bag. “You did buy a lot of food.”
“I wanted to make sure there was something you’d want.”
Aww, that’s sweet. I can’t help but smile at him a little. “I appreciate the help with the phones, by the way.”
“You want me to stick around and keep helping while you eat?”
Another surge of gratitude shoots through m
e. “Could you? That’d be wonderful.” The thought of relaxing for five minutes - impossible with the phones and six Primordials in the office - sounds like heaven. When he pulls out Ryder’s chair, I sink into it gratefully and dig into my sandwich.
Connor turns to the others in the office. “You guys want something to eat?”
Lir recoils. “Are you trying to feed us?”
The others look horrified. Connor just looks confused.
I snort between bites. “He’s not trying to mate you guys. He’s just being polite.”
“In that case, I want food.” Shea is the first one to the bag. No surprise there. As one of the cave bears, he’s always hungry. They eat more than anyone I’ve ever seen, even Ramsey.
Connor hands out sandwiches, and when the men return to their seats, he comes over to the desk I’m sitting at and perches on the edge. His own soup and sandwich are untouched. He’s got a puzzled look on his face, and I know he’s dying to ask what the situation is. Why the Primordials would think he wants to mate them.
“I’ll tell you later,” I whisper, and then lick the cheese off my soup spoon, because oh my god, this soup is amazing.
He grins and my heart pitter-pats at how handsome he is. It pitter-pats again when he slides his container of soup toward me. As I pry the lid off, he glances around. “Where’s Ryder?”
“Speed Mating night,” I tell him. I lick my spoon again and notice that his gaze flicks there, and my body gets all hot and squirmy, remembering last night. Oh. A visual of him between my thighs stirs, and I remember just how good that had felt. And I remember he’d made it all about me and took nothing for himself.
My face feels flushed. “Could you get me a soda, Connor?”
“Of course.” He practically jumps to his feet and saunters to the mini-fridge, and I watch his ass flex in his jeans. God, he’s sexy. God, I can’t stop thinking about last night.
