Chapter 257: The kiss in the garden_Part 1

Viola’s breath caught, her lips parting instinctively as his face hovered inches from hers. She could feel the warmth of his breath brushing against her mouth, the heavy beat of his heart thumping steadily against her chest, his grip on her waist pulling her in until there was nothing left between them but the anticipation of what came next. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to. Badly.

"Now, slowly drizzle in the hot oil while stirring carefully!"

The loud and enthusiastic instruction blasted directly into her ear from the earbud she had forgotten about and shattered the moment like glass hitting tile. Viola jerked back startled, her cheeks flooding with heat as reality crashed back in, and she fumbled to pull the earbud out.

"You should...you should go do your things." She said breathlessly, still not quite meeting his eyes. "I’ll get on with the cooking."

Sebastian’s jaw flexed. His eyes were still dark and hadn’t fully cleared, the hunger in them unreleased and sitting right there on the surface. He had been managing himself since their marriage and managing it well, but today was different.

Today his body was not cooperating with the level of control he usually kept over it, and without a suppressant running through his system everything was hitting harder and closer than it normally would.

He didn’t want to take the suppressant. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was being stubborn about it, only that he was, and that the line between not wanting to force anything on her and wanting very much to have her was becoming a thinner one by the hour.

Never in his life had he held back with a shewolf this much. He had always gotten what he wanted, always, without having to put in any real effort because that was simply how it had always worked for him.

But then never in his life had he had a woman like her, one whose pull on him went beyond the physical in a way he still wasn’t completely used to, and whose pull on his wolf was something else entirely.

Muffin was fully in support of her and would not allow him to simply seduce her into his bed the way he would have handled any other situation, standing firmly between Sebastian’s desires and his actions like a wall.

And maybe it wasn’t entirely Muffin holding him back either. Maybe part of it was something he didn’t like to acknowledge even to himself.

Fear.

A quiet and unfamiliar fear that if he took her to bed and made love to her, a term he had never used for sex before in his life and yet found himself using now, that he might get her with a pup before she found her wolf and before everything between them had settled into something permeant. And if that happened before she was ready, before they were ready, things would go downhill in ways he couldn’t fully predict or control.

They could use protection but that option came with its own complications when it came to werewolves.

They were primitive creatures at their core, and mates specifically were built differently from humans in ways that made their bodies actively resist interference of that kind when it came to each other. It simply didn’t work the way it did for others.

The she-wolves he had bedded in the past had always known how to handle themselves to avoid having a pup. They were not new to intimacy and Sebastian had never needed to think twice about any of it with them.

But this one was different in every way that mattered, and he would never take her the way he had taken any of those women before her. She deserved better than that from him and he knew it, even when every instinct he had was arguing loudly against his restraint.

After a long moment he gave a slow nod. "Call if you need help." He said, his voice coming out rougher than he intended. His eyes dropped to her lips one final time before he turned and walked out of the kitchen stiffly, doing his best to conceal the erection pressing against his trousers as he went.

---

The dining table was set simply but elegantly, two places across from each other with the good candles Viola had found somewhere in the quarter and a bottle of red wine she had brought out from the wine compartment to complete her vision of a proper high end dinner.

She dimmed all the lights in the dining hall so only the candles would brighten the space, and the effect of it made her pause and look around and then smile softly to herself because it had somehow turned into something that looked very much like a candlelight dinner date, which hadn’t been what she intended at first. But she found she didn’t mind the direction it had taken. A date with Sebastian was not the worst thing she could imagine.

She’d never had a candlelight dinner date with anyone before and having one with her husband doesn’t sound all that bad.

She stood back and looked at the table and then at the food and felt the nervous flutter in her stomach settle into something closer to pride. It looked good. It smelled good. Whether it tasted good was the part she was about to find out.

Sebastian came down from his study and stopped at the doorway of the dining room. He took in the table and the candlelit space and then his eyes found her standing beside it in his oversized shirt, and something in his expression shifted in a way he made no effort to hide.

He had come to notice, and quietly like, that she had a habit of wearing his things. His shirts, his house shoes, she moved around his space in his clothes with a comfort that should have felt presumptuous and instead felt like something he hadn’t known he wanted until it was already happening.

Nobody had ever been bold enough to wear his things before. He had always considered himself someone who didn’t share personal things, not his space and not his belongings, and yet here she was in his shirt looking like she belonged in it and he found he had absolutely no complaint about it whatsoever. He loved her in it.

"You did all of this." He said, still taking it in. It wasn’t a question. "Everything smells divine." He inhaled slowly, the aroma of everything she had cooked settling rich and warm in the air around them.

"Don’t say anything until you taste it," Viola said quickly, pulling out her chair and sitting down before he could make her even more nervous than she already was.

Why was he inhaling the air like that? Oh, why was she suddenly so worried about his reaction when she should have been worried about whether the food even tasted good or was edible? This was her first attempt at cooking, and she hadn’t dared to taste anything while making it, choosing instead to cook and serve everything first.

She bit the inside of her cheek nervously. With how good he was at cooking, she doubted he would find hers eatable, but she would be deeply disappointed if all her effort went to waste. She chided herself to stop overthinking and just let him try it first.

He sat across from her and began loading his plate, helping himself generously to what she had made. She had prepared different dishes. Creamy garlic butter pasta, roasted herb chicken, and buttery mashed potatoes. It had taken the better part of the afternoon to get everything finished and she had been afraid the whole time that the effort would amount to nothing.

For dessert she had prepared a strawberry shortcake layered with whipped cream and fresh strawberries.

She watched him take the first bite with her breath held somewhere in the middle of her chest, and then she watched his expression change.

He said nothing. He simply reached forward and served himself more.

"Well?" She asked, her brows drawing together as her eyes moved between his face and the food.

"I am eating." He chuckled, and she decided to accept that as the highest compliment available.

He ate with an appreciation that was almost embarrassing to witness, the kind of focused and genuine enjoyment that couldn’t be faked or performed for politeness, and Viola finally allowed herself to take a proper bite of each dish she had made. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Her eyes rounded slightly. They weren’t bad. One of the pasta dishes was a little salty but the rest of it was genuinely good in a way that surprised even her.

Seeing that Sebastian hadn’t so much as glanced up to complain about anything, she found herself eating as well.

When he finally set his fork down his plate was clean in a way she had never seen it before. Her heart gave a small flutter and her stomach felt suddenly like it was full of wings all taking flight at once. A funny sensation.

"You have been holding out on me." Sebastian said, looking at her across the table as he finished the last of what was in his mouth.

Viola laughed before she could stop herself. "I genuinely did not know I could cook until today."

"Then we have wasted a great deal of time, my darling. You should open a restaurant." He said, reaching for the wine bottle.

"Don’t flatter me, the pasta is salty. Nobody would pay to eat salty pasta." Viola chuckled, watching him fill her glass first before his own. He picked up his glass and looked at her with an expression of genuine disbelief.

"Salty? Where exactly? I didn’t taste any salt. You are being a harsh critic of yourself." He mused, pulling the dessert plate toward him and taking a bite, humming in great approval.