11. Pontius
11
PONTIUS
I’m pouring a cup of coffee when she walks out of my bathroom, freshly showered and wrapped in a towel. My towel.
She’s beautiful. Her skin is still slightly pink from the hot water. I can’t believe she’s here. My mate. Covering everything in her scent. Getting more of her smells embedded in my house, in my linens, in every part of my nest. Her damp hair tumbles over the slope of her bare shoulder. She bends over to sort through her pile of dirty clothing, the towel gaping open at the side providing a view of the perfect sliver of skin leading up her thigh.
“Can I lend you something to wear?” I ask selfishly. I want her in my clothing. I want her marked with my stuff, and my stuff to be marked by her. I want to pull her back into my bed and never let her leave.
“I need to go. It’s my niece’s birthday,” she says simply.
“You can’t miss that,” I tell her. I know it’s unrealistic to keep her here forever. She said she needed a one-night stand. A night of no-strings-attached sex. I want her to have everything in the world that she could ever desire. So that’s what she’ll get. I’ll see her again, even if it’s from across the street, and I never get to hold her in my arms. My fingers tighten around the handle of my coffee mug. I push the second mug in her direction: almond creamer and two Splenda. Exactly the way I’ve watched her prepare it through several coffee shop windows. “I had an amazing weekend, Piper.”
“Me too.” Her eyes are focused on the ground, seeming suddenly shy. “I wondered if maybe…we might…do this again…”
Again . I would do anything to be with her again. I hold back for a moment before I speak, scared I’ll come off too eager for her company. “You said you wanted no strings.”
“I know what I said.” She’s smiling at the floor. “Ugh, let me put clothes on or something. I can’t think, standing in front of you, with both of us mostly naked.”
I glance down at my body. Right, nudity. I never really wore anything before the Decrypting. Somehow being with her brings me back to that level of comfort. I grab a pair of pants from my pile of clean laundry and hold my breath as she fumbles with her own clothing.
It feels like hours later that her head finally emerges from inside her shirt, with a wide beautiful grin on her face. “I just got out of a long term relationship?—”
Me too. I don’t cut in.
“And I know that can make things complicated?—”
It doesn’t have to. I don’t say it out loud.
"My ex hasn't even moved all of his stuff out of our apartment?—"
I will fix that. I will remove him from her life. I feel myself scowl, and her expression falls.
“Doesn’t it feel like we should do this again?” She finishes with a wince.
“I think we should do this as often as possible. I’d really like to see you again, soon,” I say quickly, adding a smile at the end. Soon, she will not be going home to her empty apartment with her ex-boyfriend's things. She will be here, with me, every day. If she can handle my presence for a weekend, then we can find a way to manage forever. She let me touch her, hold her, fuck her.
“Okay.” She’s all smiles. My heart sings. I've done it. I may have actually convinced someone to like me. Found a woman, a mate, who will spend time with me. All of it was worth it—every minute I waited for her, every time I followed her, every little morsel of information I learned about her. It all led to this, led us here, helped her fall for me.
“Okay?” I reach for her hands, pulling her toward me. She steps easily into my embrace. I purr and she giggles, putting one hand against my bare chest. I never want to let her go, never let her out of my sight, never let her leave my home. “You’ll see me again?” My voice is quiet.
“If you’ll let me.” Her voice is quiet too.
“Of course,” I say simply, while my brain screams yes, yes, yes. I dip down and kiss her, taking my time, indulging in her taste, and memorizing the feel of her beneath my hands. She's mine. She's going to be mine forever. She lets a little sigh into my mouth and pulls away.
“I have to go,” she reiterates.
“Can I call you later?” I ask, even though I want to insist.
“I will be disappointed if you don’t.” She grins.
I'll have a hard time waiting to call her. I can barely stand to let her out of my sight now.
“Do you need a ride home?” I ask. “I would fly you except the sun can make it difficult for me to go outside. But I can order you a car.”
“You don’t need to do that.” She shakes her head.
“I know I don’t need to. I want to.” I know I’m grinning wildly. “You live near Moonshine, right?”
“How did you guess?” she asks with a small bright laugh.
I can’t admit the answer to that, so I turn my back. “Let me find my phone.” I’ve barely looked at it for the past day and a half, completely consumed with her.
She fidgets beside the door. Adjusting a knickknack, moving a book. Touching my things, and getting her lovely smell all over them. I hear her open a drawer in the side table.
“Funny,” she says. “I had a hair clip just like this, dragon wings, with red with gold flecks, to match my hair.” She laughs. “I broke mine last week, lost it at the movies.”
I freeze. Not the drawer. I should have gotten rid of the drawer.
“Who does this belong to?” She continues rifling.
“Don’t worry about that—” I stop speaking when I see her face, horror stricken.
She’s moving things around. “These are the same cherry chapstick I use, and—” She picks up a scrap of paper to examines it more closely. “This movie stub from the last Artemis midnight movie? From two weeks ago? And this a receipt from a late-night Walgreens snack run?”
“Please.” I start, not sure how to finish the sentence.
“Is this my trash?” She catches my gaze, her brows knitted together.
“It’s not what you think,” I try to tell her.
“I think you have a piece of junk mail addressed to ‘Piper Hamilton or Current Resident’.” She’s holding items up now. “You have a pile of my stuff in here.” It’s not a question.
“Piper.” I reach for her. She backs away from me. “I didn’t mean for you to see this?—”
“How do you have this? Why do you have this?”
“Piper—” I hunt for any explanation that might make it seem alright. “I don’t want to lie to you?—”
“You recognized me at the bar. You didn’t get my name off my credit card at all, did you?” She’s throwing things from the drawer onto the floor. “Have you been following me?”
“Piper, I don’t?—”
“FUCK!” she yells as her fingers hit the wooden bottom. “I am such an idiot!”
“No, you aren’t?—”
“This is my mail, Ant. My stuff! You need to explain this. You need to tell me this is some kind of joke.”
She’s still here, she hasn't run yet. Maybe I can still fix this. “It’s a Mothman’s nature. It’s in our very makeup," I start. "The urge to follow and protect the ones we love. To warn them of danger to keep our fated-mates safe?—”
“Fated-mate?” She cuts me off.
“We belong together, Piper. You feel it too. I know you do?—”
Shaking her head back and forth, she interrupts me again. “You think I’m really stupid, don’t you?”
“No!” I continue. “I knew you were meant to be mine the first time I saw you. When you came into my bar?—”
She takes another step back. “You saw me weeks ago and decided I’m your mate?”
“I didn’t decide. Fate did. Pheromones. Science. Magic. Whatever you want to call it?—”
“It wasn’t fate that we ran into each other on Halloween. You planned it, you waited, and watched me, and schemed.”
“I wanted to approach you. I knew it was pointless when you had the human man?—”
“You were waiting to hit on me until I was single?”
“I saw him moving out of your apartment. You spend your nights alone now, but you don’t have to. You can be with me. We can be together?—”
“You think that’s what I need? Some male to come along and fix me?”
“I think you need me, Piper. Just like I need you. You came back to my bar, Moonshine, several times. You think that was an accident?”
“I don’t need anyone, I—” She interrupts herself to put even more space between us. “Oh god. Your bar? You own it?”
“It’s full of me. Of my smell. Some part of you knew I was there, sensed that I was perfect for you. It’s why you enjoy my company so much. It’s why you like me when other humans can barely stand to look at me. It’s why you took my dick—all of me—so easily.”
“No. No. Please. Please.” Her voice is so different than when she was begging me to fuck her. “You didn’t do those things. You didn’t follow me home. You haven’t been stealing my mail. Collecting things that I dropped or lost. I need you to tell me this is a joke, Ant.”
“It’s not a joke. We’ve found each other. Now we can be together. My true mate?—”
“Shut up!” She cuts me off. “I was so flattered by your attention. But you—you’re a stalker—you’re a creep—you’re a fucking freak.” Her words hit me like a punch.
“Piper, I love you.”
“You don’t even know me,” she insists.
“I know you better than I know myself.” I can’t help it. I reach for her again.
“No. Don’t. Stop talking.” She jerks back. “Do not follow me. Do not try to find me. Do not contact me. I never want to see you ever again. Just leave me alone.”
And then she literally runs from me. The way I knew that she would. The very thing I was afraid would happen.
Through the door and into the bright daylight.
And it’s all my fault.
I want to go after her. Grab her, drag her back here. Spread her across my bed and make her come until she agrees to be with me forever, but I can’t.
So I curl up in my empty bed, where the sheets still smell like my mate, my everything—and let myself mourn.