Page 15 of Monster Mate

And the kitchen…Roxie sighed. It was a chef’s wet dream. Every high-end appliance you could imagine, placed lovingly in the church’s old chancel. Miles and miles of marble countertops, a spiral staircase that led to a little reading nook around the organ (which still worked, apparently)…it was all too much. Sensory overload.

Winston and Waldo obviously had no such issues. They seemed perfectly comfortable in their opulent new surroundings. Winston was casually reading a book in the solarium with Waldo camped out next to him on a settee that looked far too expensive to be covered in Basset Hound hair and whatever snack food dust Winston probably had on his fingers.

How on earth could he afford this place? It must’ve cost a fortune for the building and land alone. But the upgrades he’d done to convert it into a home? It must’ve been millions.

“What do you do for work, Riordan?” she asked, half afraid he was going to say he sold Oxy or stolen organs on the black market.

“Day trading.”

She blinked at him again. That was…unexpected. “Did you go to college for that?”

He scoffed. “I read about it. That’s one of the things I love most about your dimension. Anything I want to learn, I can read about it.”

“So, you came here from your world, taught yourself to read and speak English, then taught yourself to be a day trader, and made enough money doing it to buy and renovate this place?”

He looked her dead in the eye and said, “Learning concrete tasks is easy. Emotional lessons are more challenging. But anything is possible if you want it badly enough.”

She snorted. “That has not been my experience.”

He reached down and threaded his fingers through hers, giving her hand a little squeeze. “It will be from now on.”

And the weird part was that she was starting to believe him. She’d seen nothing but evidence to the contrary in her life, and somehow, standing here with Riordan, she really did believe that anything was possible.

What a dangerous place to be that was.

CHAPTER 11

Riordan was online, researching how long humans were supposed to sleep following a trauma that included smoke inhalation, when Roxie staggered out of her bedroom the next morning.

He let out a relieved sigh. She’d been asleep so long he’d considered sneaking into her room and checking to make sure she was still breathing. He was glad it hadn’t come to that, because he was pretty sure checking someone’s breathing while they slept was an invasion of privacy that Roxie wouldn’t appreciate.

Winston and Waldo, however, had been up since 4am. Wearing nothing but a pair of borrowed sweats and a T-shirt, Winston had explored the house, made a list of foods and toiletries he required, fed Waldo an extremely large portion of the dog food Riordan had picked up while everyone else was sleeping, and was now lounging on a purple raft in the swimming pool that occupied the basement level of the house. Completely nude, unfortunately. Waldo was sleeping off his breakfast in the solarium.

So, it would seem the gentlemen were perfectly comfortable in their new home.

He could only hope his queen would be at ease here, as well.

Roxie let out a jaw-cracking yawn and stretched her arms over her head. He refused—refused, damn it!—to notice how her T-shirt (his T-shirt, actually) rode up her smooth, toned thighs with the motion.

She was his guest. His friend. The fact that she was his fated mate was irrelevant. She hadn’t accepted him as such. Therefore, imagining burying his head between those smooth, toned thighs and bringing her to a swift, soul-shattering orgasm with his tongue and fingers was completely inappropriate. So, he definitely wouldn’t think about that.

Anymore. He wouldn’t think about that anymore.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, banishing all thoughts of her with those long legs thrown over his shoulders to the very back of his mind.

Her hair looked tangled, standing up in some places and matted down in others. There was a pillow crease marring her left cheek. Her eyes were at half-mast, as if she could barely pry them open. But her smile…oh, the smile she gave him.

He’d cross dimensions, wage wars, and burn down worlds just to bathe in the light of that smile.

“I’ve never slept like that in my life,” she said, her voice slightly raspy, either from sleep or smoke. “That has to be the best mattress ever.”

Riordan nodded. “It has the highest quality ratings. I researched it.”

Her smile softened. “Of course you did.”

“Would you like some breakfast?” he asked. “Winston made something called grits, but it did not look appetizing.” He shuddered. “I can make you something if you’d like.”

Her brows raised. “You cook, too? Careful there, friend. With service like that, in a place like this, you might not ever get me out of here.”

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