Chapter 19
Twenty minutes later Cristie and Remi walked out of the woods, hand in hand, thoroughly soaked as rain continued to pelt them.
“I cannot believe what tonight turned into. I never, ever thought that I’d be flying through the sky with my mate, much less through a storm! It’s got to be the most exciting thing I’ve ever done!”
Remi chuckled. “I’m glad you had fun.”
“Fun?! I had the time of my life!”
“I’m glad you trusted me enough to let me share it with you,” Remi said.
She leaned against him, looking up into his eyes. “How could you think I didn’t trust you?”
He looked down at her. “There was a time I didn’t trust me. I always prided myself in making the right choices. But eventually, no matter what choice I made, it would be the wrong one for someone.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t understand for so long. And I’m sorry you ended up in that position.”
“Wasn’t your fault. It’s like I said before, how could I not see you? What you are to me, why didn’t I see that before?”
“I guess fate knew we weren’t ready,” Cristie said.
“Are we now?” Remi asked.
“I’m having trouble planning. The we’re going to do this, and then we’re going to do this, and then that will happen, and we’ll…
it kind of freaks me out. It’s easier for me to just follow my instincts and let them lead me,” Cristie said honestly.
“I do want to be near you. I find myself looking out of the window at home and over toward your house, wondering what you’re doing.
I keep finding excuses to go into the storage room at work to look out of the window to see your house, and the waiting room to look over at the restaurant.
I don’t run into the store to grab breakfast anymore, I come to you in the restaurant.
And you always have it ready and waiting for me.
And it’s more than food — it’s a reminder, a reinforcement of the fact that you’re always going to be there, even for the little things, quietly making sure I’m where I’m supposed to be, doing what I want to be doing, and supporting me every step of the way.
But still, I struggle when I begin to think of planning for a life beside you and making all the steps the world thinks we have to make.
And I don’t understand that, because when I don’t think about all the formality, when I let my Panther take the lead, everything falls into place.
Everything feels right. So, is it okay if I don’t want to verbally lay everything out on a schedule and deadline? It feels...”
“Overwhelming,” Remi said.
“Yes! Can we just move forward as we move forward?”
Remi let go of her hand as they reached the tree they’d left their clothes under. He picked up the soaked bathrobes and helped Cristie into the smaller one before putting the larger one on himself.
“Instinct, huh?” he asked, looking at her as he picked up their shoes.
“It’s how I got here. It had me moving my favorite books, and collectibles over to your house,” she said exasperatedly as she picked up their clothes.
“And your shampoo and soap in my shower? And the matching bathrobes?” he asked.
She shrugged sheepishly, with a little grin on her face.
“And all the changes you made in my house,” he said.
“I wanted it to feel like mine, too,” she whispered, looking to him for approval.
“Me, too,” he said, leaning forward to peck his lips against hers.
“So, it’s okay?” she asked.
“It is. We’ll just follow our instincts and see where they take us,” Remi said.
“Is it enough for now?” Cristie asked.
“I think that’s all any of us can do. We fit into society because we feel we need to.
Even that is instinct. Everyone has an innate sense of instinct — whether they listen to it or not, is their choice.
But for us, I think it’s the right thing.
We’re finding our way. It’s what we’ve been doing all along,” Remi said, taking her hand in his again as they started toward his house.
He fidgeted a little in the heavy, wet robe covering his body. “This is heavy when it’s wet, but it’s so much better than forcing your wet body into your even wetter clothes,” Remi said, looking down at his bathrobe.
“See? I have good ideas,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” he said.
It was still pouring, though not as torrentially as it had been, and the darkness and stillness indicated the electricity was still out everywhere.
Remi looked at the other homes as they walked past, his gaze wandering out beyond the trailer park as far as he could see. “Electricity must still be out.”
“Yeah. It’s dark everywhere,” Cristie said.
He joking held up his hands, her hand still clasped in one of his. “Let there be light!” he said jokingly.
The lights flickered on and off a few times, then stayed on as they walked through the trailer park.
Cristie stopped in her tracks, pulling Remi to a stop as well.
Remi looked at Cristie questioningly.
She looked at him wide-eyed. “Something you want to tell me?” she asked, wearing the hint of a grin.
“I swear it wasn’t me,” he said, looking around them again.
“I’m going to pretend I believe you, but we’re going to have to test that soon.”
Remi laughed.
“For now, I’m just glad you turned the power back on.”
“It wasn’t me!” he said on a laugh.
“You said it, it happened. I’m pretty sure it might have been you.”
“It wasn’t. Besides, we didn’t need it. We can easily see in the dark,” he said.
“Yeah, but, when I’m wet and cold I need the power on.”
He looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
“A hot shower!” she said.
“Ohhh, yeah! That does sound good.”
“I’m first!” she claimed.
“Hey, it’s my house!” he objected.
“Technically, it’s our house. I mean, you’re my mate, right?”
He looked down at her. “I am. But you don’t live here, do you?”
“Not yet! But you gave me a heart shaped key chain with the house key on it!”
“I did that?” he asked, as they finally reached his carport and were sheltered from the rain.
“Yes, you did. I have it in my pants pocket. I’ll show it to you,” she declared.
He grinned at her. “You don’t have to. Anything I have or will ever have, you are welcomed to,” he said earnestly, looking up at her as she walked ahead of him up the steps and onto the back porch.
Cristie turned with her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him.
“What?” he asked.
“I just, I’ve never had anyone feel like that about me, other than my mom and dad. It’s almost surreal.”
“Why does it feel surreal?”
“Too good to be true?” she asked, then turned the door knob and walked into his kitchen.
“Nah, finally good enough is more like it,” he said, quickly walking past her and rushing down the hallway to his bathroom.
“Hey! I called first!” Cristie yelled as she realized he was racing toward the bathroom, and started down the hallway after him. Just as she reached the door to his bedroom, he closed the bathroom door and almost immediately she heard the shower turn on.
“Cheater! I called first,” she yelled through the closed door.
“Bwahahahahahah!” he forced out loudly, mimicking the evil laughter of the old horror movies he’d seen as a child.
“Fine! But I’m making hot chocolate and you don’t get any!”
“Yeah, I do! It’s my chocolate!” he answered.
“Not any more!” she yelled, then turned and walked out of his bedroom.
She made a quick pit stop in the bathroom in the hallway and dropped her wet bathrobe into the tub and grabbed a towel to wrap around her body.
After wringing some of the water out of her hair, she went to the kitchen and took a gallon of milk out of the fridge.
She poured a third of it into a medium sized pot, added cocoa, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg and half a pinch of salt, then set it on the burner and stirred it gently as she waited for the mixture to heat up and the sugar to dissolve.
Cristie leaned against the counter right beside the stove as she stirred.
She could hear the sound of the shower and imagined the water running down over Remi’s soapy body.
Which had her thinking of the vision he’d been when he stripped down in the storm a little earlier.
Her heart skipped a beat at the memory of his body glistening in the rain.
The foam from the top of the hot chocolate just almost boiling over touched her fingers, reminding her that she needed to be focusing on what she was doing, not what she wanted to be doing.
She quickly stirred the chocolate, then turned down the heat to stop it from spilling over the edges of the pot she was using.
She stirred a few more times, even tasting it from the spoon she stirred before her entire being focused on a sound she heard coming from the opposite end of the house.
She’d just about convinced herself she was hearing things, but then she heard it again.
A soft moan. Cristie turned off the stove and moved the hot chocolate to a back burner, then set off down the hallway again, her body tingling and shivering in ways she’d never experienced before.
When she reached Remi’s bedroom door, she concentrated, and while there was no moan, she could hear the erratic rhythm of his breathing.
Approaching the door and putting her ear to the door, closing her eyes and concentrating on the sounds coming from the bathroom until she’d heard enough to convince herself she was right.
She thought about it for only a second before she dropped her towel and quietly opened the bathroom door.
The scent of his pheromones flooding the bathroom just confirmed what she already knew.
He was pleasuring himself, and he was so concentrated on the task at hand — literally — that he didn’t realize she’d walked in.
“Cristie,” he whispered huskily, lost in stroking himself and apparently thinking of her as he did.
Cristie, caught up in what she’d discovered him doing, moved quickly to the shower and pulled the curtain back.