10. Fable #2
The door swings shut behind him.
Silence.
I’m shaking. I didn’t realize I was shaking until right now, but my whole body is trembling, and my wrist is throbbing, and my heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
He was watching me. He grabbed me. He was going to…
And then the panic stops.
Just like that. The spiral that was building in my chest, the one that usually takes hours to talk myself down from, it just… stops.
Because Orion is here. And the scariest thing about Orion isn’t the teeth, or the size, or the fact that he just came through my door, a furry battering ram.
The scariest thing is how safe I feel looking at him.
How my body knows, on some deep instinctual level, that nothing is going to hurt me as long as he’s here.
That’s probably not healthy. That’s probably codependence or trauma bonding or one of those things my therapist would have opinions about.
I don’t care.
I feel safe.
Orion shifts.
One moment lycan, the next man, naked, golden-eyed, already moving toward me. He crosses to the front door in three long strides and flips the lock, turns the sign to CLOSED, and then he’s in front of me, hands cupping my face with a gentleness that makes my throat tight.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is rough. Barely controlled. “Did he hurt you? Let me see your wrist…”
“I’m fine.” The words come out steadier than I feel. “I’m fine because of you.”
“You should have called for me sooner. You should have…”
“I did call for you. I whispered a hearing test and you knocked on the door like a very dedicated guard dog.” I’m talking too fast, the adrenaline finding an outlet.
“Which, by the way, we need to discuss… the whole lurking outside my building thing is either romantic or creepy and I haven’t decided which… ”
“Later.” His thumbs are stroking over my cheekbones, so gentle it makes me want to cry. “We’ll talk about everything later. Right now I need you to tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“Your heart is racing.”
“That’s not because of him.”
The words are gone before I can catch them.
His hands go still against my face.
We’re in the romance section. I didn’t notice us moving, didn’t notice anything except his hands and his eyes and the heat radiating off his bare skin, but we’re surrounded by paperbacks now, books with shirtless heroes on the covers, stories about impossible love and against-all-odds happiness.
Ironic. Deeply ironic.
“Fable.” His voice has dropped. Lower. Rougher. “What is your heart racing because of?”
“You know what.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I’m not going to say it out loud.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s embarrassing.” My face is heating. “Because a creepy man just grabbed me and my door is in pieces and I should be traumatized right now, not…” I cut myself off.
“Not what?”
“Not thinking about the fact that you’re naked.”
His expression transforms. The protective fury banking into a warmer heat, one that looks almost like hunger.
“You’re thinking about that?”
“You’re very distracting.” My voice comes out strangled. “The muscles are distracting. And the… the everything. The whole situation is distracting.”
“The situation where I’m naked in your bookstore?”
“YES, that situation, which is NOT helping my ability to process trauma…”
“You’re turned on.”
My face goes nuclear.
“I am NOT…”
“Sweetheart.” His voice drops even lower, rough and knowing, and something in my belly clenches at the sound. “I can smell it.”
SCANDALIZED.
I am SCANDALIZED.
This is a HATE CRIME against my dignity.
“That’s…” I sputter, grasping for words. “That’s a violation of… of basic privacy, of human decency…”
“I’m not human.”
“That doesn’t make it BETTER!”
“Your heart is going far too fast for someone standing still. Your face is flushed. Your hands keep forgetting what they’re doing.” He’s cataloging evidence now, calm and thorough, a scientist presenting findings. “And you smell like honey and lightning and want.”
“I smell like FEAR and ADRENALINE…”
“Those smell different. Sharper. More metallic.” He’s so close now. So impossibly close. “This is sweeter. Warmer. This is you wanting something you’re afraid to admit you want.”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not… you can’t just…” I put my hands on his chest to push him back, and that’s a mistake, because his chest is warm and solid and I can feel his heartbeat under my palms, steady and strong. “This isn’t fair. You have supernatural smell abilities. I’m operating at a significant disadvantage.”
“Would you like me to tell you what I smell like right now?”
“NO.”
“I smell like want too. In case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering.”
“Liar,” he says again, softer this time.
His hands are still on my face. My hands are still on his chest. We’re standing in the romance section of my bookstore, surrounded by books about this exact moment, the tension, the almost, the breathless space between wanting and having.
This is insane. This is completely insane. He’s a supernatural creature. You’ve known him for two weeks. You…
“Fable.” His voice is barely a whisper. “Tell me to stop.”
I should tell him to stop. I should push him away, lock my door, spend the night having a very serious conversation with myself about appropriate boundaries.
Instead, I fist my hands in the nothing of his chest, he’s not wearing a shirt, he’s not wearing anything, and I pull him closer.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I whisper.
His eyes flash gold.
And I bolt.
Up the stairs, through my apartment door, heart pounding and face burning and body aching with want I don’t know what to do with.
I don’t close the door behind me.