snapped opened when she realized she wasn’t dreaming, and she really had fallen asleep on Quinn’s wonderful, beautifully bare chest. Having a mind of their own, her hands came up to run over the chiseled perfection.
The idea of mate would scare away most women, but Haven wasn’t so naive. She’d always known she wouldn’t have a choice. The next in line to rule the Black Rose would be her mate. For as long as the organization had been around, the elders had arranged the marriages of the men heading the group. If magic had stepped in to help her find a better mate, she wasn’t going to complain if he proved he was not like Mason. It was a damn good thing they were supposed to be mates, or she was going to have to have a serious talk with herself about the naughty thoughts flooding her brain.
His hand came up and trapped hers against his beating heart.
“Good morning,” he said. The soft cadence of his voice was slightly graveled from sleep. So incredibly sexy.
She blushed when her gaze met his, and she ducked her head. “I guess we got comfortable with each other last night.”
He scooted up into a half-seated position but still kept her hand trapped against his heart. He used the tip of two fingers to tilt her chin up. “It’s a good thing.”
“I come from an old-fashioned family,” she said without pulling away from him. “We don’t do these things. We have to be respectable at all times.”
“Your patriarch also wanted you to marry a meirlock.” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re safe to think every opinion he has is suspect.”
She dropped her chin onto his chest and gazed up into his mesmerizing eyes. “What happens when your daughter doesn’t marry the man you want her to marry?”
“I will not be the one making the choice,” he said, and then frowned. “I’d have to accept a mating even if I didn’t like him, or I’d risk her death.”
She hid her face. She always managed to make stupid blunders when talking to a man she could imagine being with for the foreseeable future. “I’m sorry, I was just—”
“Asking a valid question,” he said, lifting her chin again. “All the ways humans have to pair off are as valid as anything else. I helped the first two Black Rose leaders choose mates for their daughters. That was the way marriage was done then. Today”—he brushed the side of his face along hers. His four-day scruff was silky soft—“I’d make sure she knew the difference between a good man and a bad one and trust that what I taught her was enough to help her find a good mate.”
“You do have a unique perspective on this,” she said softly. “We are from very different times. Was the past as horrible for women as some say it was?”
Quinn moved on the couch, bringing her with him when he sat upright. “It was horrible and wonderful for everyone, depending on what part of the world you were in and what you aspired to do with your life. Women had their issues while men had others.” He gave her a look to curl her toes. “I’d rather we talk about something less heavy this early in the morning.” Excitement lit in his eyes. “Please tell me you know how to operate a coffee machine.”
She laughed. “You don’t?”
“Nikon forbids for me to even boil water,” Quinn said. He stood up with her wrapped in one arm, pressed tightly against his chest.
That was the moment she realized how large he was. He held her suspended in the center of the room. The ceiling was easily nine feet, but he could reach up and touch the plaster if he wanted without having to stretch. He had to be seven feet in height, and he was easily twice, maybe three times, as broad as she was. He’d lifted her as if she weighed nothing, and her feet dangled a good foot and a half off the floor. All that size and power and he couldn’t make his own coffee? She looped her arms around his neck. “Do I want to know why Nikon forbids you to do it?”
“My last attempt resulted in some singed furs and a minor explosion,” he said with a straight face.
She wasn’t sure she believed him, but she’d go with it for now. “I can make you coffee. But I do need to get into the kitchen.”
“Let’s go.” He set her down next to the counter. He reached up to the highest cabinet and pulled down the can of ground coffee. “You’ll have to explain the coffee smell when the wolves get back or I’ll be in trouble. Nikon will piss in my most expensive shoes if I aggravate him enough, not often, but he will.”
That brought a laugh as she looked down at Quinn’s feet. Any shoe he owned would have to be specially made, so all of them were probably expensive. She grabbed the coffee pot out of the machine to fill it with water. “I’ll have to remember that. Do you know where the filters are?”
He reached over her head to pull a box of them down.
“Thank you.” She poured the water into the tank of the machine. “Where are they, the wolves I mean?”
“Probably outside.” He stretched, touching the ceiling with the flat of his hands and giving her an awesome visual of how all those muscles worked in unison.
Focusing on the task was best if she was going to behave herself. He was adorable as he stood there waiting for her to give him more instructions, but he hogged all the space around her. “Where are the mugs?”
He frowned at her as he crossed the kitchen to get them out of a cabinet that was ridiculous to keep glasses and mugs. She was going to have to rearrange this kitchen for the efficiency of normal-sized people. “How did the wolves get out there?”
“They know the code for the elevator,” Donovan said as he brought two mugs over and set them down on the counter.
She nodded. Of course they would know how to do that. Then she playfully pushed him back a few steps. “I need a little bit of space to work.” She still had time before Bastian would wake. That boy slept like a stone. “Once it’s running, then we can get all snuggly again.”
She could feel his eyes on her as she put the filter into the proper place before adding the right amount of coffee grounds. She set everything and switched on the button. As coffee machines went, this was an easy one. She turned around and leaned against the counter. “So the mighty Quinn can’t cook anything because his wolves won’t let him?”
“Pretty much,” Quinn said with a chuckle, though he did rub nervously at the back of his neck.
He had to be doing that on purpose. That chest was to die for, and, thankfully, it was also all hers. Forever wasn’t long enough to explore the vastness of his muscles. She cleared her throat. “When was the last time you tried?”
“Thirty years ago,” he said. “I keep telling Nikon I need to practice, but he refuses to believe me.”
“I see,” she said. She thought for a moment on how she could help him. She figured the Undying probably had some special way to educate their children. Bastian couldn’t be the only one, and she needed to switch Bastian’s school anyway. That would be the perfect time to teach Quinn to cook. “So then while Bastian is in Undying school, you’ll be attending cooking classes.”
His eyes went wide with worry. “You’re kidding, right? Do you have any idea the damage I could do in a cooking school? I could blow up the whole place.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She padded over to him and petted her hand down his chest just because he was there and she could touch him. “How about private lessons?”
“Who’s the instructor?”
She did her best flirty girl pose and batted her eyes at him. “Me.”
A grin spread out over his face. “Sold. When do we start?”
“After I’ve had two cups.” She rested the side of her face against his chest. “Dare I stop to think about what is happening to us?”
* * * *
Donovan