Page 27 of Wolf Found

He took five minutes to look through the whole kitchen and familiarize himself, all the while picking up things he needed. They had a container of precooked bacon, so that was helpful.

He threw together a basic recipe, using syrup instead of sugar and crushed the bacon pieces to sprinkle in. Then he decided if it was going to be sweet, it needed something else, so while they baked, he put together powdered sugar and more maple.

While the muffins cooked, he got rid of the pan of... whatever... and cleaned up some of the mess Waylon had left behind.

Just as he was pulling the muffins out of the oven with the now-cool mitts, Gavin came in from the front, looking exhausted, mentally and physically. He looked at Graham and a sweet smile crossed his face. “You really made muffins.”

Graham shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter if Gavin didn’t want them after all. “You asked.”

Ash poked his head through the door without coming into the kitchen. “Do I smell bacon?”

Graham shrugged again, helplessly. “She said bacon and maple syrup.”

Ash’s eyes flashed with something that was either hunger or... a rather different kind of hunger. Graham internally hoped for both as he put the muffins into one of the trays sitting on the counter.

“They go like this?”

Gavin took a long drink from a water bottle, and then nodded. “That’s amazing, Graham. You’re absolutely the best.”

He bit his lip and looked at the oven, then back at Gavin and Ash. “Should I make more?”

Gavin looked at him, dead calm, and said, “If you want, Graham, you can make muffins forever. You’re my favorite.”

“I thought I was your favorite,” Ash pretend-whined from the door.

Gavin grabbed the tray of muffins as soon as Graham finished drizzling the icing onto them, and brushed past Ash. “You didn’t make me bacon muffins.”

Ash grinned at Graham and followed Gavin back out. “I get one of those, right?”

Graham wondered absently as he started the originally mentioned blueberry muffins if Gavin could be convinced to follow through. The kitchen was the nicest thing he’d ever seen, and the feeling of accomplishment had somehow been even more than when he finished cooking a meal for the pack.

A few hours later, when Gavin latched the front door and Ash took off his dirty apron and tossed it in the hamper to go to the cleaners, Graham was still trying to formulate his question.

He hadn’t often asked the Martingale alpha for anything, and never much when he had. Chocolate chips or a new knife, those were things he knew how to ask for.

Gavin was different than that, not least because Graham was allowed to call him by his name. He wasn’t even sure what the Martingale alpha’s name was. He had always been Alpha Martingale, sir, with lots of bowing and apologies for disturbing him.

“I’m really sorry for putting you in that spot,” Gavin told Graham as he peeled the paper off one of the last remaining muffins, a ridiculously decadent thing that was basically chocolate cake with chocolate chips in it.

Ash pouted, sticking out his lower lip, and instead of sharing, Gavin rolled his eyes and pointed to the kitchen door. “Go get your own. I hid one of the bacon ones under the counter for you before they sold out.”

“I didn’t mind,” Graham finally forced out. “I really didn’t mind.”

Gavin smiled at him and inclined his head. “But you never complain about anything, even when we’re half an hour late for a dinner that you spent hours making. Still sorry about that, by the way.”

Graham shook his head and took a step toward Gavin before stopping himself. “No, you don’t understand. Ireallydidn’t mind. It was nice. I could—I mean, if you really thought I did okay, I wouldn’t mind maybe doing it again. Tomorrow. And the next day. Or, you know, for good.”

With all the starts and stops, Graham wasn’t sure he was making any sense, but Gavin didn’t look confused, only thoughtful. “Are you sure?” he asked right as Ash came back in, mouth full of muffin, moaning in that same obscene way he had around the ice cream at the restaurant earlier.

Graham was instantly distracted by that sound, and that expression, and Ash’s beautiful, full lips wrapped around his own finger as he licked the icing off it. He shook his head sharply and turned back to Gavin. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure. It was nice. This kitchen is amazing. I would love to spend every day here.”

Ash’s eyes went round, staring at Graham, finger still stuffed in his mouth. Graham wondered if he had any idea how he looked like that. He didn’t have any personal experience with sex, but he’d heard enough, had enough people say suggestive things to him, that he knew sex when he saw it. And Ash and that muffin were it.

“Stay?” Ash asked as he pulled the finger out of his mouth. “You mean, like, be our new non-asshole Waylon?”

“I never met him, but that would be my hope, yes,” Graham agreed.

Ash dropped the remaining half of the muffin he’d been making love to on the counter, rushed across the kitchen, and swooped Graham up in his arms. “That’s amazing! That would be so perfe—” He paused in his excitement and looked over at Gavin, biting his lip, and it was the cutest thing Graham had ever seen.

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