“Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all.” Mark blinked hard. He put the cup to his mouth and took a sip. His throat seemed to work hard as he swallowed. “Thank you,” he repeated.
Only he held the mug and didn’t drink anymore, just stared at her, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Nice-looking lips, she noted.
“Well. Plans for the day.” She rose to her feet and snuck to the closet, shifting a few garments around. “You have a couple drawers for me to use?”
He put his cup down and followed her, pulling open a space and removing the T-shirts. “Have at ’er. If you need more room, I’ll build you your own dresser.”
“Awesome.” She stripped off her dirty clothing and reached for clean undies, stopping when this strange gurgling noise met her ears. She straightened and looked at him with concern. “Mark, you okay?”
His pupils were huge, his nostrils flaring. The tension in his body screamed out, if she’d happened to miss the fists clenched at his sides. “No worries.”
Deep and low, his voice whispered through barely opened lips.
She pulled on panties and adjusted her bra, tugging the closet open to grab a fresh pair of jeans. “What would you like to do this morning?”
No answer.
She twirled to find him gone. A quick flash of a leg showed he’d stepped into the bathroom. The water turned on and she paced over to peek inside. “Mark, what—?”
He stood fully clothed under the shower, his head resting against the tiles. “Yes?”
Okay, that was a little strange. She supposed that was one way to get the wrinkles out of slept-in clothing. “Umm, when you’re done. No rush.”
She tiptoed out, trying not to disturb him.
After all, he’d had a hard night.
Mark was going to die. No, dying would be the simple solution. A lack of oxygen to his body would mean blood would stop rushing through his veins. It would mean his cock would stop turning into a heat-seeking missile as far as Tessa was concerned.
He’d been so careful last night, maintaining boundaries that would give her space. And this morning, trying to act normal, like he would around any other shifter he wasn’t itching to get intimate with.
The whole shifter lack of shyness had backfired in a big way. He now knew from a very up-close-and-personal glance the following details: his mate was a natural blonde. She had freckles. She was more than a mouthful.
He turned the water temperature down a notch hoping to quench a few of the internal fires, but it was little use. He was hard. Capital H hard and staying that way.
The only way to survive this crazy situation was going to be exhausting labour. If he was too tired to get it up, he might endure the coming weeks.
He pulled himself from the shower and dressed, no sign of his adorably hyper cat anywhere. Well, at least not until he walked into his kitchen. The disaster area proved what the earlier cup of coffee had hinted at. If he didn’t want to be poisoned, he needed to ban her from cooking.
Which was fine. He liked to cook. Mark pulled the coffee maker forward and grimaced at the sight of ground fava beans in the hopper. His disgust switched to amusement when he spotted the cereal she’d left for him on the table. Her bowl was used and empty, his all ready for the milk to be poured. What made it extraordinary was she’d folded a napkin into the shape of a swan and left it waiting for him.
Mark ate quickly, threw out the multiple cups of loathsome not coffee liquid and loaded the dishwasher. Then he went looking for his mate.
He found her on the main floor, surrounded by papers. Mark stood silently observing as she skimmed a pencil over the notepad, her fingers flying across the page. She tore off the top piece of paper and added it to a pile on her right.
“You going to stand there all morning?” Tessa smiled at him.
He paced over to stare down at her chaos. “You’ve been busy.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry about the mess upstairs. I’ll clean it up before lunch, but I had an inspiration for the layout down here and wanted to get it on paper before I lost my train of thought.”
Mark resisted making any smart-ass comments about trains running amuck through the house, instead squatting to examine the top page of a pile. The details of the drawing shocked him. “Holy cow, Tessa. Did you do these all this morning?”
She nodded, shifting her weight as she pointed in a circle. “Design plans for main floor and second floor. Slight modifications to the third, just a few things to make it easier for a B&B setup. I hope you don’t mind.”
He was too stunned to be upset. They weren’t just bubble diagrams, with rough “bathroom goes here” type notes, but full-out plans with measurements and everything. Mark shuffled through the fourth pile resting at his feet. “These are furniture designs.”