Page 29 of Dark Rover’s Luck (The Children Of The Gods #95)

29

FENELLA

F enella perched on a bar stool next to the counter watching Din, who moved with the confidence of someone who knew his way around a kitchen. He'd donned an apron to protect his clothes from splatters, a sensible burgundy one that somehow made him look even more attractive. He'd also rolled up his sleeves to reveal muscular forearms dusted with dark hair.

There was something unexpectedly sexy about a man preparing a meal for the woman he wanted to impress.

She preferred it to him inviting her to a fancy restaurant, a show, or a concert. Those were nice, but the only effort they required was spending money, and Fenella appreciated sweat equity much more.

Sipping the glass of red wine he'd poured for her, she savored the rich flavor while she observed him seasoning the thick ribeye steaks with salt and pepper. His movements were practiced, indicating that he had done that countless times before.

"Where did you learn to cook?" She swirled the wine in her glass.

Din glanced up with a smile that lifted the corners of his eyes. "Everyone knows how to cook a steak. That hardly makes me a chef."

"I don't know how to do it," Fenella admitted with a shrug. "Honestly, my culinary expertise is limited to putting together a killer sandwich, but that's about it."

"Really?" Din drizzled olive oil into a cast-iron skillet. "Not even eggs and toast?"

She laughed. "Of course, I know how to make those, but that's it. When I was young and living at home, my mom did all the cooking, and after I left, I lived mostly in dingy hotel rooms or rundown bedsits with shared kitchens. I've never felt the need to learn."

Din laid the steaks in with a satisfying sizzle when the skillet began to smoke slightly. The rich aroma of searing meat filled the kitchen, making Fenella's mouth water.

"Would you like to learn?" Din's attention was seemingly on the steaks, but she caught his quick glance her way.

Fenella snorted. "An old dog can't learn new tricks, as the saying goes. Or doesn't really want to."

"That's not true." Din flipped one steak with a pair of tongs. "Especially not for immortals. You have eternity ahead of you to learn whatever you want, try whatever interests you." He flipped the other.

For some reason, his encouragement had sounded condescending to her, which made her bristle. "Being a homemaker isn't exactly on my bucket list," she said with a forced laugh. "I don't have visions of myself in an apron, baking cookies and waiting for my man to come back from work."

The words tasted sour on her tongue. Unbidden, images flickered through her mind of herself in a comfortable home like this one, she and Din cooking together in the kitchen while a small child sat at the counter, watching them with smiling eyes.

She could work at the Hobbit Bar in the evenings while Din taught at some local university.

Right.

Dreams were for losers.

Fenella shook her head, banishing the fantasy. That wasn't her. It had never been her, and dreaming of domestic bliss was the last thing she should be doing.

"Who said anything about homemaking?" Din said. "I meant that you can do anything that interests you. Cooking is just one skill among millions you could acquire."

The steaks continued to sizzle as Din added a sprig of rosemary and several cloves of garlic to the pan, followed by a generous pat of butter. The aroma intensified, and Fenella's stomach growled audibly.

"So, what else have you done with your long life?" she asked, eager to shift the conversation away from herself. "Apart from becoming Professor Indiana Jones, I mean."

Din's laugh was filled with warmth. "I've tried my hand at many things over the centuries. When I was young, I joined the Guardian Force for a while. That's how Max and I became friends."

She had a hard time imagining him as a soldier, but perhaps that was because she'd always known him as a civilian. Then again, when she'd met Max, he hadn't been a Guardian either. He'd taken a long break and had returned to the force only recently. Still, there was something about Max that said military, and it was absent in Din.

He just wasn't a fighter.

Not that it detracted from his appeal. Max was a simple guy, and there was nothing wrong with that, but she was more attracted to Din's complexity.

Well, now she was.

Back in Scotland, she'd been attracted to Max's overflowing confidence and brawn.

"I can't picture you as a Guardian," she said. "You are more of a scholarly gentleman."

"You are correct." Din acknowledged with a wry smile as he basted the steaks with the fragrant butter. "I wasn't particularly good at it. I'm too much of a thinker, not enough of a doer in crisis situations. Max, on the other hand, was a natural."

"So, what happened?"

Din shrugged. "I realized my talents lay elsewhere and retired. After that, I became a bricklayer for a time."

"A bricklayer?" Fenella couldn't help the surprise in her voice.

Din's hands didn't look like they belonged to someone who'd done manual labor, though she supposed immortal healing would have erased any calluses immediately, so that wasn't an indicator.

"It was peaceful work," Din said, a faraway look in his eyes. "I loved creating something tangible and lasting with my hands. There was a quiet satisfaction in it that's hard to describe." He transferred the steaks to a wooden cutting board, covering them with foil, and added another two to the pan. "But it didn't require much thinking, and I've always had a thirst for knowledge."

"So, you traded trowels for textbooks?"

"Eventually, yes. I enrolled in university and tried different subjects until I found one that captivated me." He moved to a pot of boiling water she hadn't noticed before, dropping in what looked like finger potatoes. "That turned out to be archaeology."

"The perfect field for someone who's actually lived history."

"That's why I chose archeology and not history." Din chuckled. "I had to be careful not to reveal knowledge I shouldn't technically have. Even worse, if my account would be dismissed because it didn't follow the established orthodoxy."

She winced. "I would have hated being in a situation where I knew what really happened, but no one believed me. I would have been so pissed."

"I can imagine." He cast her an amused glance.

As he kept working, Fenella watched his strong, capable hands moving with purpose and assurance, and it was so bloody sexy it made her tingle, and she couldn't remember tingling in a very long time.

"What about you?" Din asked. "What else have you done during your travels?"

Fenella took another sip of wine before answering. "Nothing worth mentioning, I'm afraid. Waitressing, chambermaid work, things that paid cash with no questions asked about documentation.” She chuckled. “I make it sound like all I did was work, but I also partied, went to clubs, and met interesting people. It wasn’t all bad." She paused, wondering if she should mention it again. "I played poker, sometimes for money, sometimes for thrills, and oftentimes for both."

"So you said. Professional gambling?" Din looked impressed rather than judgmental. "That takes skill, especially since you probably couldn't enter your opponents' minds, right? You didn't acquire the ability after your transition."

"I didn't, but I have great intuition. I also have a good poker face, which I've had plenty of practice perfecting."

There was a brief silence broken only by the sounds of the gentle bubbling of potato water and the sizzling of asparagus spears Din had added to a second pan. Fenella found the domesticity of the moment calming.

"This is nice," she said quietly, almost to herself.

Din glanced up from draining the potatoes. "What is?"

"This." She gestured vaguely around the kitchen. "A guy preparing a home-cooked meal especially for me."

"I hope it lives up to your expectations." He placed a beautifully arranged plate before her—the steak perfectly medium-rare as she'd requested, accompanied by boiled potatoes, asparagus, and a small ramekin of what appeared to be béarnaise sauce. The presentation was as impressive as the smells were appetizing.

"This looks incredible," she said.

Din smiled as he sat beside her at the counter, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him but not so close as to invade her space. "I like eating well."

She was a little disappointed that he hadn't served the meal in the dining room, complete with a white tablecloth and lit candles, but maybe it was better this way—just two friends sharing a meal, with no expectations and no pressure.

The first bite of steak melted in her mouth, rich and flavorful. Fenella closed her eyes for a moment, savoring it. When she opened them, she found Din watching her with an intensity that sent a pleasant shiver down her spine.

"Good?" he asked, his voice slightly lower than before.

"Extraordinary," she admitted. "You've been holding out on me, professor. This isn't just knowing how to cook a steak—this is culinary excellence."

Was she flirting with him?

It felt natural, even refreshing. There was something about Din that made her feel safe. Not just physically secure, but emotionally so—as if he would accept whatever she offered without demanding more than she was willing to give.

As they ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, savoring the exquisite meal and punctuating the quiet only with the clink of silverware against plates and appreciative murmurs, Fenella studied Din surreptitiously between bites.

She hadn't remembered him being so attractive, and the truth was that he was becoming more and more handsome in her eyes the more time she spent with him. Maybe it was her growing affection for him that was changing the way she saw him.

He was handsome, but not in the conventional, flashy way like Max. Din's looks were subtler, more nuanced—the kind that revealed themselves gradually rather than all at once.

"Do I have sauce on my chin?" Din asked, catching her gaze.

"No." Fenella laughed. "I was just thinking that you're not at all what I expected."

"Is that good or bad?"

She considered for a moment. "Good. Definitely good. You aged well without aging."

A slow smile spread across his face, making her heart do that uncomfortable fluttering thing again. "Wine does get better with time, but fifty years is just a brief moment in the cellar for our kind."

"Speaking of wine," Fenella said, holding out her glass for a refill, "I think I'm going to need more if we're getting philosophical about immortality."

Din obliged, the rich red liquid catching the overhead kitchen lights as it cascaded into her glass, and as their fingers brushed during the exchange, Fenella felt a jolt of awareness.

There was chemistry between them— had been from the moment they'd reconnected.

As Din topped off his own glass, Fenella contemplated a possibility that would have been unthinkable just days ago. The wine was excellent, the food delicious, the company surprisingly engaging. The evening had taken on a decidedly date-like quality, so perhaps this night could lead to more?

She was good at the game of seduction—had played it countless times over the decades, though never with any emotional investment. With Din, it would be different. He wasn't some random guy she'd never see again after a night or two of mutual pleasure.

He was part of her world now, connected to her new clan family.

More significantly, though, Din was perfectly safe.

She didn't need to worry if there was a monster hiding under the pleasant exterior, and whether he harbored malevolent intentions. She could trust him to treat her right.

He also knew what she'd been through. Not the details, perhaps, but enough to understand why intimacy might be a little difficult for her, or maybe a lot. She hadn't tried anything since getting free, not even self-pleasuring. How could she fantasize about sex after what had been done to her?

On the flip side, depriving herself of pleasure would be like handing the monster a victory, and she wasn't willing to do that, no matter how hard she had to work to overcome her aversion to intimacy.

After all, if Kyra had managed to get over it in order to be with Max, Fenella could do that, too. She might not be a rebel fighter, but she was a warrior in a different way, and she wasn't going to hide and cower because she'd been hurt.

She'd been hurt so badly, though.

Thankfully, Din had never treated her as damaged or broken, only a little fragile and worthy of patience and respect.

He was offering her exactly what she needed, not just physical comfort but emotional safety, a way to reclaim what had been violently taken from her, to create new memories that might, in time, overlay the traumatic ones.

Din was speaking about some archaeological expedition in Turkey, his deep voice weaving a story about ancient temples and unexpected discoveries. Fenella wasn't fully following the details, too caught up in her own thoughts, but she found the cadence of his speech soothing.

When he paused to take a sip of wine, she made a decision. Reaching across the space between them, she placed her hand over his on the countertop.

Din stopped mid-sentence, his eyes meeting hers with a question in them.

"Thank you for dinner," she said. "It's been a lovely evening."

He looked alarmed. "Are you leaving already?"

"Not planning to anytime soon. We haven't had coffee yet." She winked.

His expression softened. "I thought we could have it on the terrace. There is a decent view of the mountains. I just need to figure out how to raise the automatic shutters."

"You probably need to turn off all the lights first, or they won't go up."

"That makes sense. I should make the coffee first, then."

"Yes, you should," Fenella said, but didn't remove her hand from his. Instead, she stroked her thumb lightly over his knuckles, a deliberate gesture that couldn't be misinterpreted.

Din's breath caught. "Fenella..." he said, his voice rougher than before.

"What?" she asked, feigning innocence though her heart raced.

"I don't want to misread the situation or rush you into anything you're not ready for."

His consideration only strengthened her resolve. Here was a man who wouldn't take advantage, who was putting her comfort above his own desires even when she was clearly signaling interest.

"I'm not made of glass, Din," she said, meeting his gaze directly. "I know what I want."

"You need to spell it out for me because I don't want to make mistakes." He turned his hand beneath hers so their palms met, fingers intertwining.

Fenella hesitated, not quite ready to put her nascent feelings into words. "Right now, I'd like you to kiss me. The way you wanted to do it last night. I chickened out, and I've regretted it ever since."

"Really?" His voice sounded husky.

"Yes, really," she admitted with a soft laugh. "I'd like to find out what it's like to be kissed by you."

He reached up with his free hand, brushing a strand of hair back from her face with a gentleness that made her heart ache. "Finding out sounds like a worthy endeavor," he murmured. "Very archaeological, in fact. Exploring unknown territory with careful attention to detail."

"Are you comparing me to one of your dig sites?" Fenella arched an eyebrow despite the warmth spreading through her body.

Din smiled, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek. "More like a precious artifact that deserves to be handled with reverence."

"Smooth talker," she whispered, leaning slightly into his touch.

"Only stating the naked facts," he said, his face now inches from hers.

The word naked still reverberated through her mind as her eyes fluttered closed and Din's lips finally met hers.

The kiss was tentative at first, a gentle pressure that inquired rather than demanded. When she responded, parting her lips in invitation, he deepened the kiss with a controlled passion that sent electric shocks through her body.

One hand came up to cup the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair as he angled his head to better fit their mouths together. Fenella made a small sound of approval, her own hands moving to his shoulders, feeling the solid strength beneath the fabric of his shirt.

He kissed her like he had all the time in the world, like each moment was to be savored rather than rushed through.

When they finally parted to come up for air, Fenella was momentarily at a loss for words, which almost never happened.

Din's eyes had darkened to a stormy blue, his pupils dilated with desire. "Was that what you wanted to find out?"

Fenella nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak yet. The kiss had affected her more profoundly than she'd expected, awakening sensations she'd thought were still deadened by trauma.

"I'm glad," Din said, brushing his thumb across her lower lip. "I've been wanting to find out what it was like to kiss you for half a century."

A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her. "Was it worth the wait?"

"Every second."

Fenella wanted to make a joke, something that would deflect the intensity of the moment with humor as she always did when emotions threatened to overwhelm her, but she just couldn't.

Not this time.

Perhaps it was the warmth in Din's eyes, or the way his hand still cradled her face as if she were precious.

Instead, she leaned forward and kissed him again, putting into action what she couldn't yet put into words. This kiss was less tentative, more exploratory, as Fenella tested the waters of her own responses. To her immense relief, there was no flashback, no sudden panic—only warmth and a growing desire for more.

When they separated this time, Din rested his forehead against hers for a moment, his breathing slightly uneven. "Should I still make that coffee?"

"Coffee can wait," she said, her fingers trailing along the collar of his shirt. "I'm more interested in exploring other options at the moment."

Din's eyes darkened further, but he didn't move right away. "I need you to know that there's no rush and you can take all the time you need. Whatever happens or doesn't happen tonight—I'm not going anywhere."

The simple promise, delivered without dramatic flourish, touched something deep within her. "I know, which is why I feel safe with you."