Tor cracked a smile as he tossed the potatoes with some kind of herb mixture. “I see where your mind is tonight, little lamb.”
“Does that mean you approve?”
Shaking his head, he set down the bowl, and then he came over and placed his hands on either side of the barstool back. His thigh wedged in between mine as he lowered his face to my neck and sucked on the skin there. My head fell back as I gave him easier access, and my hands moved to his waist, looping through the belt buckles to tug him in closer. Tor’s tongue teased a path up to my ear, and then he bit down on my lobe, hard.
“Food first. Fucking later,” he said, and then his body left mine, and he returned to prepping our dinner.
I reached down to adjust my erection, which was at full mast now, and tried to get my mind off the feeling of his mouth on my neck. I didn’t have to try too hard, though, because Tor broke the silence.
“I saw your friend Brayden this evening.”
“Yeah, he came by to raid the muffins one last time.” I chuckled. “Poor guy’ll have to pay for them now. Not that he can’t afford it, just…friend perks.”
“Friend…perks,” Tor murmured. “Any other perks between you two I should know about?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen Brayden at the den. I know what he is.”
“A sex connoisseur?” I joked, using the term Brayden would always say when I called him a slut.
“Something like that.” Tor’s jaw bunched, and then he said, “Have you two ever fooled around?”
My mouth fell open. “Me and Brayden?” I began to shake my head. “No. Definitely not.”
“Why? He’s an attractive guy, and you already know what I think about you.”
Holy crap. Was he… Was Tor jealous? It was almost laughable, because the thought of crossing the friendship boundary with Brayden had never even occurred to me, and I was positive it had never occurred to Brayden either. But there was something undeniably hot about Tor’s possessive tone as he questioned me. I liked it. A lot.
“We’re just friends,” I said. “No other benefits there, unless you count Charlemagne’s cooking.”
“Who’s Charlemagne?”
“His housekeeper-slash-chef. She makes these spinach feta pastries to die for.” I was drooling now, the smell of the steaks being seared on the stove almost more than my stomach could handle.
“How long have you two been friends?”
“We met our freshman year. He always tried to get me to go out, but I rarely took him up on it because I was studying. So he’d invite me over for movies, low-key stuff, and then it just became our thing, I guess.”
“And your visit with him to the Wolfe’s Den?”
“That was called peer pressure. But I guess it didn’t turn out all bad. I wouldn’t have met you.”
Tor hummed again, and I couldn’t decipher what that one meant. Then I remembered my conversation with Brayden from earlier, and I hesitated, wondering if I should even bring it up, but Tor glanced in my direction, as if he sensed it, and I found myself asking anyway.
“So, um. Brayden mentioned he went back to the den last night.”
“Yes. I saw him there.”
“Right.” I chewed on my lip. How to broach the subject? “Did something, um…happen there last night?”
“I’m sure many somethings happened last night. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Like something bad? Something you got upset about?”
Tor picked up a dishtowel and wiped his hands slowly, taking his time to answer. “If you’re referring to my altercation in the hallway, then yes.”
“What happened? Did you get hurt?”
Tor let out a humorless chuckle as he faced me. “I don’t take kindly to rules being broken and disobeyed. The man who decided to drug a fellow patron knew what he was doing, and he took the risk anyway. Those consequences are his to deal with.”
“So you were protecting someone. And your club.”
Tor cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Do you think I’d attack without provocation? Is that what Brayden told you?”
“What? No, of course not. I knew there had to be more to it.”
“And this friend of yours. Brayden. He came to you tonight to warn you off me. Is that it?” Tor looked downright pissed, and I stood and went over to him, trying to defuse the situation before it escalated.
“No, he’d never do that. I mean, he looks out for me, but we both knew something must’ve happened for you to do what you did.”
“And why would you assume that?”
My mouth fell open at his question, my thoughts coming to a halt. He was right: why would I assume that? It wasn’t as though I knew him that well…but then the serious line of his mouth twitched and he said, “I got you worried there for a minute, didn’t I?”