Chapter Twelve
Kai
There was nothing like waking up all tangled up with his mate. Kai should have known that there would be nothing like it, but he would never have expected to feel so happy, so complete. Even his lion was a big purring kitty in his mind. There was no urgency to get out of the door and off to work to knock another day off the calendar.
He was content exactly where he was.
A very naked Ember turned to face him. His arm was draped over her waist. He had kept her tucked close to him all night. Her smile was bright as she leaned up to kiss him.
“Morning,” her sleepy voice was raspier than usual. It was cute. Yet another little thing he had discovered about his mate.
“Morning,” he repeated.
“We should get up and head to the studio. I don’t want to be late.” She stretched against him. He reveled in the feel of her body on his.
There were so many things he wanted to do with her, but there was no time. Ember was right. They had overslept a tiny bit, and they needed to jet off to the studio to make it in time to start filming. Some of the other contestants were being kept in hotels, as they were from out of town. Kai was happy his mate was from the same city as him. It made things so much easier for them, and it also meant she got to be in her space. Or more accurately, he got to be in her space.
It was intimate to wake up in her arms, in a bed which her scent permeated. Now his smell was there too, marking the territory. He had come so close to marking her during their wild night of sex. He had bitten her a few times, always easing off just before he broke the skin. It wasn’t something he should have done, but he had been so desperate for her, for his Ember.
She dropped a quick, open-mouthed kiss over his heart before leaping out of bed. “I’ll take a shower. You should join me. It will save time.”
Like hell it would!
Kai chased after her, laughing as he scooped her up off the floor. He turned the shower on, only dropping Ember down under the hot spray of the water when the room was filled with steam. The quick shower they were meant to share turned into some vigorous morning sex up against the glass wall. Later, as he got dressed, Kai made a mental note to check the glass. He was pretty sure they had damaged its structural integrity.
It would have to wait. Their shower sex had definitely cut into their commuting time. The very last thing they needed was to show up late for filming. They couldn’t start the day’s challenge without two of the competing bakers.
Kai was locking up when Ember’s heart rate kicked up. He turned toward his car to see her face was ashen and frozen in fear.
“Umm—” She was blinking back tears, her breathing coming out in short, nervous pants.
“What is it?” he asked, rushing toward her.
Ember held up a slim white envelope. Her hand was shaking.
“Fuck.” His grumble was low and angry as he took it from her.
Without any further words or explanations, Kai headed back into the apartment with Ember on his heels. He dropped the envelope onto the counter and sniffed at it. There was Ember’s scent, as well as his own. There was another there. One he didn’t quite recognize. It had been tampered with somehow.
That made all kinds of alarm bells go off in his head.
“You’re not going to like what I’m going to say,” he said, grabbing a knife to slice the envelope open.
“Then don’t say it,” Ember pleaded.
She must have already figured out that he would ask her to bow out of the baking competition.
He would give her the money to open her bakery, with no strings attached. His contract with F&D Network had given him loads of savings. He had every intention of spending it on his mate and their life together. It just so happened that his mate wanted to open a bakery. He would do that for her.
But he knew, of course, that Ember would never agree.
It didn’t matter that she was his mate. She had turned down capital from her parents and her sisters. The bakery needed to be something all her own.
Kai would have to argue with her about it. He just needed to find the right words. Unfortunately, words had never been his strong suit.
“What does the letter say?”
He shook his head. “It’s the same thing as the last one. If you do not leave the show, I’ll be forced to make you leave in a more permanent way. Don’t make me hurt you, Ember. That’s not what I want.”
“That is freaky.” Her whisper was angry and terrified. At least she was having the right kind of reaction. Perhaps he would be able to convince her to walk away after all.
Kai sighed. “Ember, are you sure you need to do this? It could be very dangerous to go forward. I don’t want to lose you over a bakery competition. I can—” He stopped short, seeing the seething anger in his mate’s eyes. The fear had melted away and was replaced with pure fury.
“If you tell me to quit, I’ll be furious,” she dared him, crossing her arms under her breasts.
“This is your life, Ember.” Couldn’t she see reason?
“My career is, too, you know. I can’t keep working for Ciro. I want my own place.”
“At what cost?” He growled low. She was infuriating, deliberately putting herself in harm’s way for her dream. There had to be some kind of special place in hell for people this stubborn. “You’re putting yourself in a psycho’s path if you keep this up. I just found you. I won’t lose you to some stalker who doesn’t want to see you competing in a show. This is stupid.”
He knew he had made a mistake the second the word left his mouth.
“I’m not stupid.”
“That’s not what I said. What I meant was, you have a death wish. No dream job is worth dying over. I’ll buy you a bakery if that’s what it takes.”
Ember’s sharp intake of breath was a clear indication that he was fucking it all up again. He shook his head. “Ember, love. I know you want to do this all by yourself, but you have to face this new reality. Someone wants to hurt you.”
“But how? Will this psycho walk up to me and attack me? You’re always around me, and you have the studio locked up tight. How could anyone get to me?”
“I don’t want to take that chance.”
“Well, I do.” She tightened her arms around herself, not budging.
“That’s not how it works,” he snapped. His fear of losing his mate was getting too great. “How am I supposed to protect you if you won’t make better decisions?”
“Kai, I have known you all of two seconds. You say I’m your mate, and sure. Fine. I believe you. But you need to understand one thing. I will not be the kind of woman who melts into this puddle of incompetent and helpless goop because of it. I was a person with a life, with dreams and ambitions before we met. That won’t change.”
“Infuriating woman,” he growled. “Don’t you get it? This has nothing to do with you being a human or a pastry chef. Or my mate, for that matter.” That was a lie, but she wouldn’t know that. It had everything to do with being his mate. He would protect any person from a threat, but there was so much more on the line because Ember was his mate. “You can’t keep competing if it means someone is going to hurt you.”