Page 77 of Stains of Desire

"Mmm..." I debate then grab a can. "Salmon it is."

"Grab my spices if you want."

"Good idea." I dig into his backpack and pull the pouch out. "How long have you traveled with spices?"

"Since the Marines. Dirk and I met in boot camp. We've been best friends since. His family was big into hunting, and his grandma used to make them skin and cook their kill."

"Go, granny."

Axel chuckles. "She was a spitfire. But I've been in enough situations where we had to make something gross taste decent enough to swallow and keep down. Dirk thinks the hotter, the better, so his seasoning always has a kick. His grandma actually is the one who showed me how to blend spices."

"Aww." I fix a fish cracker, sprinkle a pinch of seasoning on it, and hold it to his lips. He opens, and I shove the entire thing in his mouth.

I make one for myself and eat it in bites.

"What food do you miss the most from England? Fish and chips and mushy peas?" he asks.

"Mmm. Yes. And a good curry. Oh, and my mom's Yorkshire pudding."

"Never had the last one."

"Really?"

"Don't sound so shocked."

I gasp. "You're a forty-three-year-old man. How could you never have eaten Yorkshire pudding?"

"Have you eaten pig's feet?"

"Eew. No."

He draws in a dramatic breath of air. "You're a thirty-five-year-old woman. How could you never have eaten pig's feet?"

"Funny." I push another cracker in his mouth.

He winks, and my loins throb. Axel's sexiness was apparent when I first laid eyes on him. But the more I get to know him, against the odds, the sexier he becomes.

I take another bite of my breakfast.

"What made you work for the embassy?" he asks.

I shrug. "I needed a job. William was in the pub and needed an assistant. I was only in my twenties and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life besides someday be a mum."

He glances over and smiles. "You always knew you wanted to be a mum?"

"Yeah."

He focuses on the road again.

And because I feel like it's an elephant in our relationship, I ask, "You didn't want kids?"

He lowers his voice and quickly replies, "I never said that."

"But you don't have any."

"I've never been married. I didn't think getting a woman pregnant whom I wasn't sure about was the right thing to do."

"I wasn't married when I got pregnant," I say defensively.