She cradled his head in her hands while his tongue played gently in the hollow of her throat. "I can't."
He pulled back. "I know. I was only hoping." He released her, then tied her robe closed. "Eat your breakfast."
Bride sat down at her small bistro-style table as he returned to the stove to make his bacon. She nibbled on the toast and watched him. "You have serious guts to fry bacon without a shirt on. Aren't you afraid it'll splatter?"
He shrugged. "It doesn't really hurt."
She frowned as she traced the various scars with her gaze. "How did you get so many scars, Vane?"
Vane debated how to answer her. She wasn't ready for the truththat they were battle scars from four hundred years of being pursued by Arcadians who thought he was a Katagari Slayer. For that matter, they thought any Katagari male was a Slayer. That he had been forced to fight his own pack to keep his brother safe.
That some of them were from the she-wolves he'd been with.
Some were from beatings.
"I haven't had an easy life, Bride," he said quietly as he turned the bacon over in the pan. He turned around to look at her. "I've never had anything I didn't have to pay for with blood and bone. Until you."
Bride sat perfectly still as that green gaze held her transfixed. There was something about his open expression that reached out to her. He was laying himself bare to her, she sensed it.
God, it would be so easy to love this man. He asked her for nothing and he was so incredibly giving. This moment felt surreal to her. She'd never known anyone like him.
This is too easy.
That niggling voice in the back of her head reared its ugly head. Nothing was perfect. Nothing was this easy.
There had to be more to him than what she saw. What if there isn't?
What if he really was just as he appeared? She couldn't see any deception.
Maybe it was because there wasn't any.
"Thank you for last night, Vane," she said.
He inclined his head to her, then went back to his bacon. He removed it from the pan and placed it on a plate, then turned off her stove and brought his plate to the table.
"You want some?" he asked.
Bride took two crispy strips while he got himself a glass of juice. There was something so intimate about sharing breakfast with him. She didn't know what it was, but in five years of dating Taylor, she'd never experienced a feeling like this. It was wonderful.
She ate quickly, then got up.
"I've got it," Vane said as she reached for her dishes. "You get ready and I'll clean up."
"You really are too good to be true," she said, kissing the top of his head before she darted to her makeshift wardrobe closet.
Vane tried not to watch her dress, but he couldn't stop himself. He was aroused just by seeing her pull on her underwear and dress.
Cocking his head, he realized she never wore pants. She always wore flowing dresses in dark earth tones or black. She slid her feet into a pair of flats and brushed her hair. Then she coiled it into that familiar messy bun.
Vane was enchanted by her actions. There were so many details involved in her morning routine. Such as the way she put on her makeup and then powdered it down. The precise movements it took to put on mascara and lipstick.
He loved watching the way she artistically dressed herself and styled her hair.
Bride paused as she lined her eyes to look at him in the mirror. "Something wrong?"
He shook his head. "I'm just thinking I'm glad I'm not female. I can't imagine putting on all that every day."
She smiled at him and his heart thundered.