Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 300

Ch. 70

Noah

My head is spinning and my hands are shaking. What the fuck? I mean, what the actual fuck? I did not just hold Cassandra in my arms and find it hard to let her go. Because that would be insanity, right?

I need to pull my shit together because Piper is coming by any time now. First order of business, a cold shower. Because Cassandra’s scent clings to me and that is not something I’m ready to explain to my… girlfriend?

After my shower, I throw on a plain white t–shirt that stretches tightly over my arms and chest and a pair of low slung gray sweatpants. We don’t have any real plans, just hanging out. But I’m actually looking forward to it.

For a few hours, the weight of everything goes somewhere quieter when Piper’s around. Not gone. More like fading into the background, like a drug numbing the pain until it’s just a dull ache.

The Reeves attacks. The timeline Dr. Lukas won’t let me forget. And now, the memory of holding Cassandra, her scent wrapping around me before I could prepare for it, my hands finding her arms to steady her and the bond doing something I had no defense for, none, while the warm scent of her arousal registered and my wolf said things I’m not repeating.

All of it goes quieter when Piper walks in with grocery bags and says “I’m cooking” with the cheerfulness she always manages to draw me into instead of allowing me to wallow.

A distant part of my brain warns me that I’m using her as a crutch, a means of escape from the constant barrage of concerns that claw at me with talon–like fingers. I shut it down hard. Because if it’s escape I need, I’m clinging to it with both hands.

I sit at the island, nursing a beer, while Piper commandeers the kitchen. I’ve been in this kitchen a thousand times and it’s never looked like this–intimate, domestic. She assigns me simple tasks I’m qualified for, which turns out to be chopping things.

“Onions first, small dice.” She instructs, demonstrating once before handing over the knife.

“I know what small dice is.” I roll my eyes playfully. “I’m not completely useless in the kitchen.

“Then try to do it without losing a finger,” she smirks.

I consider a retort but she’s already moved on to something on the stove, humming to herself as she works. I chop onions. Carefully. I’d never hear the end of it if I did cut myself.

Piper talks while she cooks–nothing that requires responses, just the pleasant chatter that fills comfortable silences with comfortable things. A pack member she ran into this week. Something funny Mara said. The wellness program she’s redesigning, which has hit a bureaucratic snag she finds absurd and is describing with a level of detail that makes me smile.

It’s easy. I chop. I listen. And for a while, life requires nothing more from me.

I can just be here, in this kitchen, with this woman, doing this simple and domestic thing, and it is genuinely good. I won’t allow myself to feel bad about that. This is what I chose and it’s good. For now, that’s enough.

We eat at the table in the Alpha house dining room, which I almost never use for actual dining. But it’s too much to hope we can get through the meal without Piper noticing something’s weighing on me now that I have her undivided attention. She doesn’t wait for me to bring it up.

“Okay, spill it. I know you won’t totally relax until you do. Is it the Reeves thing?” she nudges. “Tell me about it.”

1/4

+15 Banua

The relief I feel at her misunderstanding what’s really eating at me is palpable. So much so, it takes me a few seconds of gawping like a fish before my brain switches tracks and comes back online. It’s not until this moment I realize the guilt I’ve been carrying all evening over what happened with Cassandra earlier. How much I liked it.

When my mouth starts working again, I tell her about it and she listens. Then she asks questions.

“When’s the last time you had a decent meal before tonight, Noah? Your job is too stressful to not take care of yourself.” She chides.

“Uh-,” I’m still thinking when she moves on to the next question.

“Are you sleeping enough?”

“Probably not.” I conceded

The interrogation continues. They’re all good questions. Supportive questions–the questions of someone who cares about me. But….

My mind wanders to the information Cole brought me earlier. Information she’d told Cole to claim as his but that he, once again, admitted she’d uncovered all on her own. Extremely useful information.

I can’t help but think this conversation would be very different if she were here. More useful, more helpful somehow. Her determination to solve the actual problem lifting a burden that all the self–care in the world won’t

ease.

“You know, I’m really starting to think you aren’t capable of taking care of yourself and running a pack. I’m already almost always here. Maybe I should move in full–time, take care of you so you can be at your best everyday,” I tune back in just in time to register Piper’s suggestion.

And every functioning brain cell I have takes a holiday. Did she just hint we should live together? I think she did. And my wolf is absolutely not having it.

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