Rutledge Werewolves 1: Scent of Passion (6 page)

Chapter Six

Artemais finished preparing the two salads and the dressing while he waited for the pasta sauce to simmer. The water for the pasta finally began to boil. Now he had to wait for the sauce to finish simmering and then he could cook the pasta. He smiled to himself at his thoughts. Everything checked from his mental checklist, he let himself relax. Everything was under control for dinner.

He could still hear water running in the bathroom, so he knew Sophie hadn’t yet finished her shower. Either she was avoiding him, or she liked to indulge herself with long hot showers.

The thoughts that arose from helping her get clean in a long, hot shower had his cock rock-hard again, and him nearly panting with desire. Keeping his hands off her would certainly prove difficult, if not impossible.

Steeling his mind away from his lascivious thoughts, he started cleaning up the kitchen. As he always cleaned as he went while cooking—it was an easy task to tidy the last few items up, and very soon the running water penetrated his brain again.

With the way things were shaping up, he’d be pouncing on Sophie the instant she walked out of the room. Her scent inundated the tiny apartment, saturating the chairs, the air, every item in her small apartment. He felt her presence here as strongly as if she were standing right behind him, waiting to grab his ass or hips and turn him around.

His boner so hard he feared he’d split the seams in his jeans, Artemais desperately tried to adjust his pants for a more comfortable fit. With the size his cock was, he knew restraint would be an exercise in futility, but anything was better than thinking of Sophie. Sophie, naked and wet in the shower, waiting for him to come and scrub her back, nibble her shoulder playfully, soap her lovely body into creamy anticipation for him to ram his hardness…

Pushing himself away from the bench he leaned against, Artemais paced the small room like the caged beast he was quickly becoming.

With the scent of his passionate Sophie surrounding him, coaxing him, daring him, he felt every breath threaten to push him beyond his limits. He desperately wished for Sophie’s erotic scent to fill his own rooms in the main house, wanted to feel her body over his, and have her scent all over his possessions, have her small knickknacks and books next to his own.

He wanted them to be a family
, he realized. Not merely for his son’s sake, but because he had never felt this intensity for another woman. Never wanted to wallow in her body, in her laughter and passion.

Fearing that her scent would truly start to make him lose his mind and control, he stalked out of the kitchen, preparing to pace the rest of the apartment.

As he entered the main living room, his eye fell on the dropped satchel of books Sophie had left in her rush to enter the bathroom earlier that evening. Happy to find a mess that needed clearing, he bent to pick up the satchel and place it more neatly on the table.

Grunting, he hefted the surprisingly heavy satchel. Since when did a few romance novels weigh so much?

Not feeling the slightest twinge of worry, he was merely satisfying his curiosity of the borrowed books, nothing else, he opened the unlatched satchel.

Inside were more than a dozen books, all crammed haphazardly into the large satchel. Glancing at the titles, Artemais felt his curiosity peak even higher.
101 Things to Know About Pregnancy;
The First Trimester—What to Expect; Doing it Alone—The Modern Woman’s Guide to Raising a Healthy Baby Alone;
Pregnancy: The Herbal Way
,
How to Safely Eat, Drink and Have Sex Without Hurting Your Baby
.

Artemais stopped at this title.
Eat, drink and have sex
rolled around in his brain, taunting him and flashing all manner of erotic and highly explicit pictures in his mind. He might have only physically had sex with her for one night, but the last six weeks of their dream loving hadn’t satisfied him fully, it merely whetted his appetite for more. Researching and finding the safest and best way to bring his Sophie pleasure without harming their son suddenly became his first priority.

Carrying the book back with him into the kitchen, he stirred the sauce, pleased to see it coming along, but it definitely needed at least another ten minutes work.

For the first time Artemais noticed the shower had been turned off. He now could hear Sophie opening and closing drawers. Resting one hip against the sink, so he could read and keep an eye on the sauce simultaneously, he opened the book.

Completely forgetting the satchel sitting on the table, Artemais flipped to the contents page. Quickly finding the chapter about the information he desired, he flipped to that section of the book.

Stage 1—the first trimester months
: the book started.
As long as your wife/partner is feeling okay with the idea, it is more than safe to still have sex
…

Engrossed, he started to read.

* * * * *

Sophie ran a comb through her damp curls. Warm and satisfied from her shower, now casually dressed in a pair of baggy tracksuit pants and an old sweatshirt, she was at her most comfortable.

During her long, luxurious shower she had debated mentally at length. At no stage since learning of her pregnancy had she thought to exclude Artemais from their baby’s life, yet neither did she find herself fully prepared to blithely go and live with him as if they had always planned it thus.

Frowning slightly at her reflection, she tried to sort out her thoughts.

She couldn’t deny her attraction to Artemais, she craved his touch and his body. Yet this was lust speaking, passion, not a lasting commitment, which living with him would entail.

Sophie took a deep breath and returned the comb to its spot on her dresser.

She was starting to fret. Maybe she needed food to calm her mind, her thoughts always ran away from themselves when she got hungry.

She opened her bedroom door and the delicious smell of carbonara sauce wafted in from the kitchen. Glancing at the pile of empty and half-empty packets neatly stacked on the bench, she noticed that Artemais cooked traditionally enough that he used Italian bacon, pancetta, and not normal bacon rashers.

Sophie smiled whimsically, a man who could cook, and cook very well from the smell of the simmering sauce, was a treasure worth hording. Her mouth watering at the scrumptious scent of freshly cooked pasta, she pushed the softer feelings aside until only the scent of the creamy white sauce and cooking bacon resided in her mind. Through the open doorway she could see Artemais leaning against the window casually, reading one of her books.

Deciding not to interrupt his reading, she refrained from calling out to him and simply crossed the room. As she walked across the room, she finally registered the title of the book he was reading.

Embarrassment made her face flame a dark red, outrage welled in her chest.

How dare he go through her satchel!

Opening her mouth to yell at him, she nearly snatched the book from his grasp, when she remembered her hasty entry into the apartment earlier that evening. Mentally picturing herself dropping her satchel with no thought to where it lay, her outrage dimmed slightly.

He hadn’t been snooping, probably just picking up after her.
But even so
, her inner demon insisted,
why is he reading this particular book?

Sophie sighed. Despite herself, and knowing full well she wasn’t the sort of girl to usually indulge in casual sex, she had been curious to learn what would and wouldn’t be safe sexually for her baby. With her erotic dreams becoming more vivid over time, instead of less vivid, she knew that sooner or later she would have tracked Artemais down. Once they were in the same space, she had known sparks would fly, and the possibility of sex became almost a given.

“I take it you’re not looking up what foods are best to eat while I’m pregnant?” she finally conceded. There was no point in getting upset that he was reading the book, when she, herself, had planned on reading it later that evening, before her world had been turned upside down with Artemais showing up.

Artemais looked up, grinned that cheeky, mischievous grin he did that made her melt each and every time she saw it, then went back to the book.

Sha
king her head, unsure whether to laugh at him or hit him, she gently pushed past him to stir the sauce. Inhaling the rich, creamy fragrance with something akin to awe, she smiled despite herself. She would owe Artemais an apology for her remarks about his lack of cooking skills. If the sauce tasted even half as good as it smelt, he could definitely cook.

Just as she pondered whether to remove the boiling pasta from the stove, she felt Artemais’ large presence behind her. He placed the book on the table and made a shooing motion.

“Back, woman! I’m the uninvited guest here, I’ll finish the meal. How about you set up two places for us?”

As Sophie set out the places, she watched Artemais drain the pasta, place it next to the salads he had prepared and dribble the carbonara sauce over the pasta. Within minutes they were both seated and digging in to the delicious meal.

“I’m sorry I implied you couldn’t cook. I definitely stand corrected.”

Sophie felt her stomach roll with desire as Artemais paused in his eating. Looking her up and down, his eyes seemed to brand every inch of her flesh. There was a hungry, wicked glint in his eye that spoke of untold nights of ecstasy and a deep, lasting possession.

“I’m good at a number of things we have yet to explore. Goddess willing, we’ll have the time and opportunity to…explore them together.”

Sophie steeled herself not to shudder in reaction. She well remembered that deep, husky quality to his voice, and what it symbolized. On that unforgettable night, the deeper into his lust and passion they both fell, the huskier his voice became. It were as if all his energy and blood centered and became controlled around his groin and in his passionate lovemaking. Everything else started to shut down, so they had been both too weak to walk, to speak coherently, to do anything except have mind-blowing sex.

Sophie determinedly shoveled another mouthful of the pasta into her mouth, so he wouldn’t catch her drooling. Chewing far more forcefully than necessary, she concentrated on not stripping there and then and begging him to take her. She instinctively knew if she gave in to him physically, he would expect her to pack her belongings and move in with him. If she capitulated even an inch, he would take that and move in a mile.

Carefully sipping her water, she finally managed to get herself under control. Not wanting Artemais to know the direction her lascivious thoughts had taken, she decided it was time to change the topic of conversation.

“So what do you do when you aren’t playing the drums in bars and having masses of women throwing themselves at your feet in ecstasy?”

By the wild, masculine grin that spread across his face, she knew he understood the direction her thoughts had taken. He knew exactly how deeply he affected her.

Bully for him
, she thought.
He can just bloody well wait for me to get to know him better.

As Artemais began to explain about the security company he owned and ran with the help of his brothers, the bulk of their conversation through dinner stayed well away from babies, pregnancy, moving and sex.

Sophie diligently ignored the many double entendres Artemais innocently managed to inject into their conversation as the evening progressed.

For his part, he ignored the small smiles and answering flames these risqué comments brought to her eyes on occasion. He was, thankfully, gentleman enough to not bring up either of their reactions to each other. Life felt complicated enough for her at the moment, so she was grateful for his gentlemanly behavior.

Around midnight, she felt her eyes begin to droop. Moving to the linen closet as she finished telling him about her day from hell and subsequent quitting of her job, she pulled down a number of spare blankets and a comforter from the cupboard.

“I hesitate to ask this sweetheart, but what are the blankets for?”

Sophie smiled tiredly.

“For you to make your bed out of,
sweetheart
. That is a perfectly fine couch you’re sitting on. I’ve fallen asleep on it more than once over the years. It’ll do just fine as a surrogate bed for you.”

Sophie felt her gut clench as he simply shook his head.

“Maybe it’s comfortable for
you
to sleep on, but I’m a good six inches taller than you, and no way will my frame fit comfortably on that!”

Sophie looked from his tall, looming figure and back to the couch. She realized that it would be too short for him, and though a part of her rebelled not to care, the softer, more caring side of her knew she wouldn’t insist he sleep on it.

“Well then, I suppose I could—”

Artemais interrupted her before she could even finish the thought.

“Do not even suggest it. It’s far too cold here at night for you to even consider sleeping out here. I give you my word of honor I won’t ravish you in the middle of the night. I simply want to have a comfortable place to sleep.”

Sophie looked from Artemais to the couch. She trusted his word of honor. Over the last few hours, they had talked at length on every topic imaginable. He made her laugh and made her ponder different trains of thoughts. He certainly seemed to be a decent, honorable man, and her instincts were rarely wrong about people.