chapter 38

Later that afternoon, I’m laughing with Regan in the kitchen, a glass bowl in my hand filled with chocolate chip cookie dough when I feel someone watching me.

I don’t even have to turn to know it’s Dayne.

My laughter dies away at the sight of him standing propped up in the doorway, arms folded over his chest, and an inscrutable look on his face.

It takes superhuman effort to stop myself from sighing at the way his biceps are bulging under his gray t-shirt.

He was gone when I woke around midday, feeling deliciously sore between my legs and craving the feel of him inside me again.

Not that I would ever tell him that.

But I can see the memory of what happened in the bathroom and our bed in his eyes, and I feel a flush blooming over my cheeks.

Just as he looks poised to speak, a phone starts ringing, interrupting whatever strange moment we were just having.

“I want three of those,” he says, pointing his chin at the bowl in my hand, “and a glass of milk in my office the second they come out of the oven.”

Since there’s a sheet of cookies cooling on the stove, a batch Regan made to show me how it’s done, I start to offer those.

“No. The ones you’re making. In my office. As soon as they come out.”

He turns and walks away, and I stare at the back of his head, my hands tightening around the bowl.

If I were to throw the heavy glass bowl hard enough, I doubt he’d have time to get out of the way of it in time before it knocked some manners into him.

Then it hits me how silent the few members of the pack sitting at the dining table, and who are fast becoming my friends, have gone.

I turn to find Jenna and Marshal have stopped whispering to each other and are staring at me, Marshal with a trace of a smile on his lips.

Regan just looks worried, as if she suspects what I’m thinking.

Forcing a smile on my face, I loosen my tight grip around the bowl and bend to grab a cookie sheet from the cupboard beneath the kitchen island I’m standing in front of.

It’s more to hide the snarl on my face I don’t want them to see than anything else, before smoothing it away as I rise and start scooping balls onto the cookie sheet.

“You okay, Talis?” Regan asks softly.

“Sure.” I slam down another spoonful of dough. “Fine.”

“It’s just that ”

“Wearing an apron. The floral one. Regan can get it for you,” Dayne calls out from his office.

I glance up in time to catch him poking his head out of his office door with a phone pressed against his ear before the door slams shut.

My wolf growls so loud in response to wearing a floral apron, panic has me jerking my head to the dining table to make sure I didn’t accidentally growl out loud.

But instead, I find my packmates eying the counter in front of me warily, and I don’t understand why until I lower my gaze to the cookie sheet.

To call them balls would be me being generous.

The mess I’ve made doesn’t come even close to resembling the perfectly formed tray of dough balls Regan showed me earlier.

No, my cookie sheet is a disaster, and that’s putting it mildly. Hell, half didn’t even make it onto the tray.

I stare at the mess I’ve made, and then I turn to grab another cookie sheet.

Better to just start over, and it’ll give me a little more time to calm down before I have to face Dayne in his office. Because if I go in right now, with the way I’m feeling, I’m just as likely to make him wear the milk and grind the cookies into his eyes.

Or probably kill him.

It depends how floral the apron is, and if it has frills because I’m having serious doubts about a floral apron not having at least some frills.

At the sound of Regan softly clearing her throat, I look up.

In her hands is the apron Dayne must have been talking about. The one he’s demanded I wear to deliver him freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and milk.

I know then that the ten minutes it’ll take the cookies to be ready is nowhere near long enough. Not even close.

Death. Death is the only thing good enough for Dayne Blackshaw.

Shoving his office door open with one hand while I carefully balance the plate of cookies and glass of milk in the other, I pause just inside the room.

In the center of the room, Dayne glances up at me from where he’s sat at the large dark wood-stained desk, set in front of windows showing the leaf-strewn clearing at the back of the house.

Dayne, leaning back in a brown leather office chair, his cell phone pressed to his ear and his boots balanced on the edge of the desk, never takes his eyes off me as he motions me to close the door and come closer.

Swinging around, I’m just in time to see several heads disappear behind the kitchen door. My supposed friends not wanting to miss even a second of my humiliation.

I slam the door shut and stalk over to Dayne wearing the most ridiculous pink, orange, and cream frilly apron with a full skirt that I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t begin to understand where Dayne got a hold of it, or why he even has it in the first place.

All I know is that it looks like it belongs on some fifties sitcom where women did nothing but bake, pop out kids, and kiss their husbands goodbye before they left for work.

Dumping the plate and the glass on the desk, I purposely ignore the coaster because who gives a shit about the condition of his wood desk when he has me in this ridiculous apron?

Not me, that’s who.

I turn to leave now that I’ve done what he wanted, only to stop when he thumps his feet off the table and points at his lap.

I stare at him, not getting what he wants since he doesn’t speak a word, just continues to listen to the man on the phone.

From what my shifter ears pick up, nothing the man is saying is in any way interesting to me. Just an accountant, I guess, since he’s waffling on about liquidizing some accounts.

When I continue to stand over him, Dayne reaches out and snags my wrist before tugging me hard until I fall into his lap.