Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Gryff
She’s here.
That simple phrase doesn’t feel adequate to describe the complicated mess of feelings tangled inside me just from having Honey’s scent on the air around me. In my place.
She’s been inside once before, but that was before I knew.
Now that I know she’s my fated mate, it feels wrong and right at the same time. Very, very right. So right it hurts low in my guts just thinking about letting her out again.
Which is wrong.
So that’s why I’m currently on the phone trying to get rid of her again. That’s a real sick fucking joke fate played on me today.
Finally the hold music on the line ends, and there’s a click. “Hello, Mr. Evans? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I bark. Then I take a breath in and let it out again slowly. My nerves are frayed just from keeping my hands and thoughts to myself. “Yes,” I say again more softly. “I’m here.”
“Thanks for holding. I’m afraid I don’t have great news, though. We’re all booked up. Unless there’s a cancellation, I can’t do anything for you. There is a holiday rental up the road—”
“Tried it.”
“Ah, I see. It is Moonberry Festival after all.”
I grunt. I’d forgotten about the stupid festival that seems to be the only reason why outsiders ever bother with Mosswood. But of course it is—because fate. Stupid conniving fate. “Right. Thanks.”
I hang up the call. There’s nothing else she can help me with. No one can help me. I’m doomed and not even that sad about it.
I’m actually fighting the instinct to howl in triumph that I have to let her stay here tonight.
Not a good sign.
I turn to find Honey watching me, an anxious expression I hate on her pretty face.
I hate that my poor behavior put that expression there.
I’d like nothing more than to wipe it away with a brush of my lips to her temple, but I can’t think like that.
“Look, it’s not ideal, but I’ve called every place in town.
No one has a room. You’ll have to stay here with me until the power is back on and your house is dry. ”
“Oh, I don’t want to bother you.”
A purr rumbles from my chest before I can stop it, and once again she reacts to it, going instantly still. Her eyes widen and a dreamy look crosses her face.
I suspected before, but the way she reacts to me, the way her body smells to me, there’s no other explanation. This female is an omega, even if she’s not a shifter, even if she doesn’t know it yet. Then it occurs to me that, if that’s true, she’s an omega badly in need of a nest.
Being forced to sleep somewhere other than her own home and under stressful conditions, she won’t get a good rest unless we can take care of that. I need to take care of that for her.
I gentle my voice. “Bill and Sonia are nothing but good to me. There’s no way I’m letting their daughter sleep on the street or in a waterlogged house with no power.”
Bill and Sonia. I need to keep my mind on her parents and what I owe them instead of what I’d like to do to their daughter who was in high school last time she was in Mosswood.
“Well, if you’re sure.” She looks like she wants to say more, but at the last minute she turns away. “I guess I’ll go pack a bag. It feels weird since it’s only a few yards away, but just a toothbrush and um… stuff.”
I watch her go, wistfully. How the fuck am I going to keep my hands off her and keep her from finding out I’ve been lying to her this whole time?
She’s definitely going to find out.
Bad enough that she definitely felt my erection when she had to reach into my pocket for the keys at the hardware store.
Now her scent is going to be on my bedsheets and on my pillow.
It’s going to fill my house. Just her presence somehow makes it feel like someone yanked back all the blinds and let in the full bright force of the summer sun.
And she’s going to have to make herself cum under my roof while I sit on my hands and pretend every instinct in me isn’t screaming at me to take over and do my fucking job.
No mate of mine should have to make herself cum when I could do it for her.
Of course that makes me think of how sweetly she came on my hand at the store, with a few whispered words and her body pliant in my grasp like she’d been hoping I’d do just that.
Fuck!
I’m standing here daydreaming about her perfect thighs wrapped around my ears when I should be helping her.
I roll up my sweatpants, fetch my mop and bucket, and get to work getting rid of as much of the water from the kitchen floor as I can.
Honey joins me after I’ve scooped buckets of it into the sink, and together we lay down towels and wring them out over and over until the linoleum is damp and squelchy but visibly dry.
Once I’ve mopped the floor and we’ve set up an old fan powered by three lengths of extension cords, Honey’s hair clings to her neck in damp strands and there’s an adorable smear of dirt across her cheek. She’s stubbornly continuing to work, but I can smell the tiredness coming off her in waves.
Enough.
I straighten and stretch out my back, leaning the mop in the bucket and reaching in my pocket.
Pulling out the keys and taking the back door key off the chain, I hand it to her.
“Here, go take a shower and help yourself to something to eat. I’m heading into town for some supplies, but I won’t be long. ”
“Oh that’s OK. I can just stay here while you’re out—”
I look around me at the kitchen in disarray, noting the slightly musty smell of the damp linoleum, and shake my head. “No. Look at this mess, and it’s my fault for not fixing the roof before it rained.”
She chews her lip, but it’s not lost on me the way her scent changed when I mentioned a shower. She’s stressed. She hasn’t eaten properly today, and her scent is alarmingly close to the sour of an omega’s full distress scent. The one I first smelled on her when I saved her from the delivery guy.
I wouldn’t leave her alone at all in this state except I know this will be good for her.
This omega needs a nest. She doesn’t know to ask for it either.
She wasn’t raised by monsters. I love Bill and Sonia and know they did the best they could by Honey, but they’re not supes. They don’t know. How could they?
After I caused the damage to her home, providing her with a nest that will help her recover is the least I can do.
“I’ll only be gone a little while. I want you to be comfortable. Please?”
Her gaze lifts and her eyes widen. “O-okay.”
I may not be able to claim her. I may not even be able to tell her she’s my fated mate, but I’ll damn sure treat her like the princess she is while she’s under my roof.
The drive into town only takes a moment.
I pull up outside the only bedding store in Mosswood and glare at the stag shifter in the van next to me.
Ross? Raphael? Some such silly name. What do I care what people in this town are called and what they think of me?
I didn’t move here so I could be their friend.
I moved here so I could keep out of people’s way and they could keep out of mine.
I stalk into the store and look around, getting my bearings.
The section up front seems to be potted plants and vases. To my right are bath towels, and further back are sheets and duvet covers. Then I spot them—a wall of cushions in every shade of the rainbow.
Ignoring the shop attendant’s greeting, I make a wide circle around the counter and head for the back of the store.
I feel like a bull in a china shop here.
I'm so out of place, but I’m sure I can figure out a few cushions for my mate—for the mate I can’t have.
I’ll buy a few, add a nice bedspread and a canopy, and have everything ready to help her settle in.
I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but I leave the store with my arms full of bedding and bags hanging from both elbows.
On my way home I stop at the store for ice cream and popcorn and a pair of fluffy socks that are probably far too warm for the steamy late summer weather, but I like the thought of her curled up on my sofa wearing them.
I get home, and the second I open the door I’m hit with her tantalizing scent, and my mouth starts watering. I already feel stupid about how overboard I went at the bedding store, so I’ve come up with a plan to distract her while I fix the bedroom.
“Did you eat?”
She shrugs. “I ate the yogurt because most of the stuff in my fridge will spoil soon, but nothing other than that.”
I frown. I wish she would have raided my fridge, but that’s fine.
I think I knew she would be too polite. Luckily I came prepared.
“Sit down. I’m putting on a movie, and I’ll fix you something.
” I guide her to the sofa and hand her the remote, tasking her with picking anything she wants.
Then I switch on the sandwich press and make her a grilled cheese with three slices of cheese so that, when I cut it in half, the cheese oozes from the center.
I arrange it on a plate and pour her some orange juice.
“Start without me. I’ll just be a minute. ”
My chest swells watching the way she immediately lifts the grilled cheese to her mouth and blows impatiently on it so she can bite into it.
I drag myself away and hurry to my truck so I can unload everything I bought. It’s at that moment I realize this could take a while.
A few hours later, I step back to admire my handiwork.
You can hardly see the bed beneath the number of pillows and cushions in every single shade of pink that’s ever been invented.
There are tassels and sequins and velour and some type of lace I don’t have a name for.
A frilly canopy is suspended over the bed with soft fairy lights draped along the opening.
I turn to see Honey standing at the doorway smiling at me. “Wow, Gryff. I didn’t take you for a pink guy, but I have to say I really like it.”
“No, I—” I flounder with the words, but I can’t tell her I redesigned the entire room for her. That will definitely send the wrong impression. Instead I cough. “Yeah, well, I guess it’s nice to be able to decorate a little. Not like the barracks.”
She giggles. “Thanks again for letting me stay. The electrician should be out tomorrow, and hopefully I can get out of your hair real soon. Or should that be fur?”
I say nothing because if I open my mouth right now, I’ll probably say something stupid like, never leave, or you might as well crawl inside my chest and make yourself at home.
Eventually I collect my brain off the floor. “Put your things in here.” I gesture to the single nightstand by the bed. I don’t keep much there anyhow, but what I have, I packed up to store in the closet to make room for her.
I scrub a hand over my face.
She colors. “Oh, but I thought—”
“I’ll take the sofa,” I say quickly, in case she got the wrong impression.
“Aww, Gryff, I can’t kick you out of your own bed—”
“I insist.” Gods, there’s no way I could share with her. I would never survive. Bad enough that I’ll be able to smell her as I sleep. That my sensitive shifter hearing will pick up on the small noises she makes, the whispers and sighs.
Might as well be me on the sofa since I’ll get precious little sleep as it is.
My stomach growls, and I realize even though I fixed her lunch, I haven’t eaten all day. “I’ll leave you to settle in. I’m ordering pizza.”