Page 45 of Ruthless Creatures

Holy Ghost of Christmas Past, this man smells divine.My heart beating madly, I say, “Are you married?”

Staring at my mouth, he says, “You know I’m not.”

Yes, we’ve already discussed this, but I wanted to make sure he didn’t acquire a Mrs. Dangerous Alpha since I last saw him a few months ago.

“Work keep you too busy?”

“Something like that.”

“Hmm. So it’s only one-night stands for you, then?”

His gaze drifts back up to mine. He takes his time, looking over my features, until our eyes meet again.

It feels like being plugged into a socket.

In a throaty voice, he says, “No one-night stands. No girlfriends. No anything since I first laid eyes on you.”

We stare at each other in blistering silence until the smoke alarm starts to scream.

Because my nerves are already stretched thin, I jump at the sound. Then I run into the kitchen. It’s filled with smoke. Coughing,I pull the door open and wave away the smoke that billows out into my face.

Behind me, Kage says, “Move.”

He’s thrown his wool overcoat onto a kitchen chair and put on the oven mitts. The tight black short-sleeved T-shirt he’s wearing shows off his impressive collection of tattoos and muscles, so much so that I have to look away so he doesn’t catch me gaping.

I step aside and let him grab the baking sheet with its smoking, blackened cookies from the demon oven, then watch in admiration as he calmly closes the oven door, hits the fan button on the top of the range, and sets the baking sheet onto the stovetop.

“Trash?”

“Under the sink.”

As the smoke gets sucked into the fan, he opens the cabinet under the sink, pulls out the trash can, and grabs a spatula from the crockery pot on the counter. Then he scrapes all the burnt cookies off the cookie sheet into the garbage.

“You should use aluminum foil to line the pan. It makes for easier cleanup.”

Maybe he watches Food Network between beating up his boxing bag and flying through snowstorms and going around being ridiculously sexy.

I say drily, “Thank you, Gordon Ramsay. I’ll be sure to try that next time.”

He pauses for a moment over the trash, then returns the empty cookie sheet to the stove, removes the oven mitts and tosses them onto the counter, and turns to me.

Approaching me, he says softly, “Interrupting me is one thing that will get you taken over my knee, beautiful girl. Sass is another.” He looks at my mouth and moistens his lips.

Can you faint and still be standing up?

Equal parts alarmed and turned on, I back up until my butt hits the kitchen table. Then I stand there, wide-eyed. He prowls closer and closer until we’re nose to nose and I’m staring up into his eyes.

He’s silent. Waiting. Giving off heat like a furnace.

I blurt, “He’s a Michelin-starred chef, though. So it was really kind of a compliment.”

Seeing my anxiety, he murmurs, “Please don’t be afraid of me. I told you I’d never hurt you. That was the truth.”

I’m breathing like I’ve just run a timed sprint, so it’s a little hard to answer. “It’s not fear. It’s nerves. You’re very…”

I can’t think of a good enough word until I remember what Sloane called him the night we met. “Undomesticated.”

His smile comes on slowly. “Nowthatwas a compliment.”