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Ellie

“Who are you trying to convince there?” I asked gently, seeing the pain of his wounds as well.

He sighed before kissing my hand again and focusing on his food. “It’s not so much people leave me but fail me. But I’ve had awesome mates since I was a pup. I’m set on trusting friends or having that part of my life. They—we saved each other that way.”

“So it’s family,” I muttered, accepting that. He was more well-rounded than I was on that.

“No, work,” he corrected, intently focused on his food. “I was so used and abused for my talents and powers—Dr. Carpenter hit the nail on the head pretty well about how things went. But also just getting dumped on all over in London or England because I was the youngest Clark. People were jealous or were wolves and knew the truth about my family.”

“You needed this job to work to heal,” I surmised, reaching over and rubbing his arm.

“My da was right and cleaning off those ideas to present was the right move, especially since Dr. James backed them,” he whispered. “But it brought up a lot of my past that I wasn’t ready for. I feel…”

“Shaky?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat and gave me a smile. “But this isn’t about me. What doyouwant to do? What can help you feel better?”

Right, my mess. I’d been so focused on trying to explain why I was in his condo and had mishandled everything that I hadn’t thought past that. Of course Ha-joon had made apologizing and getting past it easy on me.

I swallowed a snort. It had to be an Alpha wolf or shifter thing that one minute he was overreacting and the next making things too easy on me.

But then I thought about his question and came up blank. Right then I just snuck some fried chicken off his plate, smiling when he nudged it closer. It was cute and we needed more cute.

“If I was the boss of your relaxing, I was thinking funny brownie and food, so you’re halfway to my plan,” he suggested quietly.

“Throw in a soak with those bath salts I found and left here for us and yeah, that sounds about heaven,” I agreed.

“Yessss,” he groaned. “I hid them so I wasn’t tempted to use them without you. Those have magic in them, right? Something about them is just too good.”

I chuckled but wouldn’t tell him even when he threatened me with a good time that I was pretty sure was supposed to be a punishment. The fact he’d wrapped the same pot brownies from our first time and kept them in his freezer just for us was so adorable.

Ha-joon was just adorable which didn’t seem fair when he was so fucking sexy.

And smart.

And handsome.

And just awesome.

It was time to stop being so afraid of being with him and start appreciating how lucky I was that a man like him wanted me.

I snorted and chuckled when Ha-joon raised an eyebrow at me. “I realized brownie kicked in because my thoughts went from dark and numb to happier and grateful.”

“Do they involve me now?” he teased.

“Yes.” I smiled when he did a double take, not having expected that as the answer. He didn’t push it though, and we both got lost in our thoughts and food.

“Bath time?” he asked, sounding lighter and relaxed as well.

“If you can roll me there,” I replied with a happy sigh. “I’m in a bit of a food coma here. At least I picked really good food if I was going to crash your condo.”

“Stop talking like it’s an imposition. I told you it’s not.” He reached over and flicked my forehead as he stood. “You promised me naked Ellie and I want naked Ellie. You put the food away and I’ll get the bath going. We can food coma in there.”

I blinked after him. Since when was he the boss of me?

Oh right, I’d actually signed a contract to those terms… Sort of.

Whatever.