13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
O n Saturday, I was working with Cooper for a change. We were a few weeks into den-making season, and my client, Mr Miller, was wealthy enough to be forking out for electric hookup in his den. It was nice having company while I worked.
Mr Miller had chosen a design with a trapdoor for access so he and his omega could come and go in their human forms; it had become one of the most popular designs in the last few years.
I’d finished packing down the earth in the main section of the den, where Cooper was now wiring up some outdoor fairy lights that worked on a dimmer switch. My job today was digging out an extension, which was the main reason why I wanted to club Mr Miller in the back of the head. It had been the first and, hopefully, last request I’d had for an extension that would be a separate space for his omega when they weren’t in heat, and he wasn’t in rut. Yuck.
I’d heard of traditionalists like Mr Miller, but thankfully, they seemed to be few and far between in Foxwood Hollow. Traditionalist alphas only mated with their omegas when they could knot them, which meant they had to be in rut/heat. They treated omegas like they were toys they could cast to one side the rest of the time instead of people to be treasured and cared for. It made me sick to my stomach.
I’d almost refused to take this job on principle, but Cooper needed the money, and most of the other den-makers used their own electricians.
“Check this out,” Cooper said.
I poked my head out of the area I’d been working in to take a look.
Holy shit.
He’d embedded the lights into the ceiling, making them look like twinkling stars. The effect was magical. I doubted Mr Miller would appreciate the effort, but hopefully, his omega would.
“Damn, Coop. That looks great.”
He grinned and continued tinkering away while I got back to work.
With a large section of earth to try and get through to extend the space, I took off my clothes and shifted into my fox form so I could really get at it with my paws.
Even as a fox, I was larger than most, taking up a considerable amount of room in the den. I scrabbled and dug at the dirt wall, chipping away at it bit by bit.
I’d been distractedly wondering how Dylan was getting on. It was his third Saturday night shift, which was the busiest day at the pub. Milly liked him; she said he was a fast learner, and the customers liked him, too. Not that this news was surprising. Dylan was easy to like. He wore his emotions all over his face, laughed freely and smiled warmly. I’d found myself strangely jealous of Milly these last few weeks, getting to spend hours and hours with Dylan while I dug giant holes in the ground.
Clearly, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to my digging. A low rumbling in the earth was followed by a waterfall of dirt, caving me inside.
Fuck. My. Life.
“Ax? Are you okay in there?” Cooper yelled from the other side. I couldn’t reply properly as I was still in my fox form, so I let out two yelps so he’d know I wasn’t injured or anything.
It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was annoying. We’d been on track to finish by the evening, and I had fully intended to drink several pints while watching Dylan like a creep.
Sitting on my haunches for a moment, I took some deep breaths so that I wouldn’t get too wound up by my predicament.
Then I went back to digging. And digging. And a bit more digging.
Cooper went straight home after we’d finished work; it was almost midnight, after all. I stumbled into the pub and plonked myself on one of the red Chesterfield armchairs that faced a fireplace with a few remaining embers still producing heat. I thunked my head against the backrest, exhaustion taking over.
Milly handed me a beer, and I mumbled my thanks. Shortly after, they kicked the last punter out and finished cleaning up and closing down.
“Feet, please,” Dylan said, jabbing me with a broom.
“Ow. Be nice to me. I’m tired,” I moaned.
“Let me clean the floor, you big baby,” he replied, not very nicely at all.
“Night, Ax,” Milly called out. “Make sure he makes it up the stairs before you go,” she directed at Dylan.
“Will do. Night, Milly.”
Once Milly left, Dylan came and joined me, sipping a glass of white wine and shoving a pint of water in my face.
“Coop texted and told me what happened; you’ll be dehydrated. Drink this.”
“You drink it,” I muttered irritably for no real reason other than being bone tired. I drank the water regardless. “How did tonight go?” I asked, wiping my exhausted, watering eyes with the back of my hand.
Dylan proceeded to witter on about his day. I wasn’t really listening too much to the details of it because I was tired, but his melodic voice was a soothing balm to what had ended up being a stressful day.
“I’m gonna pop to the loo, and then you need to go to bed,” Dylan said before flouncing off with far too much energy for someone who just worked a busy twelve-hour Saturday shift behind a bar.
My eyes drifted shut. I wasn’t sleeping, not really. Just resting my eyelids until Dylan got back.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Dylan said, jolting me awake.
“Huh? Wha?”
“Let’s get you upstairs.”
Dylan tugged me to standing and then wrapped his warm little arm around my waist. I tried not to lean on him too much because he was only small, and I was a behemoth in comparison. I’d probably squish him, and that would be a shame. I could never live with myself if I squished Dylan.
Was I drunk? I’d only had one pint. I wondered if you could be drunk on exhaustion. It felt like it.
When we made it upstairs to my apartment, I flopped face-first onto the bed, smushing my face into the duvet cover, and I think mumbled a goodnight to Dylan.
Someone was trying to steal my shoes.
“They’re mine. I need those,” I said to the thief.
“You can’t sleep in your shoes. You only need to cooperate with me for a few minutes, and then you can go to sleep,” my lovely Dylan explained. He’d never steal my shoes.
“Okay,” I acquiesced.
Dylan proceeded to remove my other shoe and my socks.
“Turn over, please.”
I did as requested, and then he undid the top button on my trousers. In all the times I’d pictured Dylan undressing me, it had never been quite so… perfunctory.
“Lift your hips,” he requested, tugging off my bottoms and folding them on the floor next to my shoes and socks. “Okay, you can get into bed now.”
“Are you leaving?” I asked, suddenly very sad and emotional at the prospect.
“Not yet, Ax. I’m just popping to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a sec.”
I nodded and crawled under my duvet cover. It didn’t smell like Dylan, and I needed it to.
When he returned, he freed my hands from the warmth of my duvet and began washing them with a cloth and warm water. I’d rinsed them after work, but they were always caked in dirt, so I stopped bothering to get it all off at this point in the season.
Using a fresh cloth, he wiped my face with gentle hands. The warm water was soothing and smelled faintly of my soap. It was possibly the most intimate and caring thing I’d ever experienced, and I couldn’t even keep my eyes open to witness it. But the smell and feel of Dylan, cleaning me up and comforting me, was a moment I’d cherish forever.
When the cloth disappeared, soft lips pressed against my forehead, and Dylan whispered, “Goodnight.”
I reached out, catching his wrist and asked him for something I didn’t deserve. Not one bit.
“Stay?”
He didn’t reply, but he didn’t leave. And then he sat on the edge of the bed and began taking off his own shoes and socks.
Relief and any excitement I could muster in this state warred inside me as he shimmied out of his tight black jeans, leaving him in a pair of tight cerulean blue briefs that I managed to keep my eyes open for just long enough to admire.
His polo came off next, and then he opened my chest of drawers, rummaging through them before pulling out a vintage Vixen Vipers shirt of mine. When he tugged it over his head, it reached just above his cute little pointy knees, and he crawled over me to get into the bed by my side. I didn’t possess the words for how my inner fox seemed to puff it’s chest up at the vision of him in my clothes. All I knew was that Dylan Bailey should always be in my clothes unless he’s wearing no clothes at all.
Having Dylan in the bed next to me seemed to be having a bizarre effect on my breathing. Like I hadn’t even realised that I’d never truly taken a deep breath until this very moment, it was as if I could taste his scent as it filled my lungs, breathing life into them for what felt like the very first time.
Dylan shivered a few times once he’d buried himself under the duvet, and that would not do. So, I wrapped an arm around him, pulled him close and cocooned him with my much larger body.
Much better.
Mate was safe now. Mate smelled good. Smelled of us. Mate should always smell of us.