Chapter Nine #2
He frowned down at a hole in the floor in front of him. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“Not to be mean, but I don’t think you know much about me at all. I wanted to tell you everything, but you didn’t ask much.”
He chewed the side of his lip and nodded slowly at her. That warm yellow light reflected eerily in his gold eyes. He looked like he was from another world.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” he said.
“Dangerous hobby,” she quipped.
He chuckled. “I do remember you asking me questions. I just didn’t know how to hear them or care to answer back when it happened. You asked a lot in the beginning.”
“You got frustrated quickly,” she said.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the wood stove.
Delta inhaled deeply. “You are invited in for starting fires only.”
He strode across the squeaking floors and knelt by the small pile of wood she’d hauled in here from the pile he’d stacked outside.
There was a stack of ancient newspapers nearby, and he balled some up.
The paper sounded old and crinkly. He took a small axe near the wood and chopped little slivers right off the edges of one of the logs.
He did it again and again with such precision, barely missing his hand each time.
“Like this,” he said, showing her how to set the small pieces with the paper. “Where are the matches? I had them in the end side table drawer when I left the furniture outside earlier. Are they still there?”
She made her way to the single end table she’d placed beside the couch and opened the drawer. Inside was a big box of matches, her jewelry box, and an upside-down picture frame.
She pulled that out and looked at it, but it still had the picture of the store couple with the price tag on the glass.
She didn’t know what she had expected and also didn’t know why she felt disappointment swirling inside of her chest.
“I thought maybe you would want it for something,” he explained. “I don’t know. I just saw it in storage and thought you could print a picture and hang it up or something.”
“What kind of picture would you like me to print?” she asked.
Still kneeling by the wood stove, Nathan shook his head slightly. “I have no right to say. This is your den.” There was a somberness in his glowing eyes that she didn’t understand.
This was what he had wanted.
Delta handed him the box of matches, and he struck one against the rough side.
A tiny flame flared to life, and he held it into the organized pile of kindling he’d made.
The fire caught, and he fed the flames with wooden pieces that were a little bit bigger.
And a little bigger, and a little bigger until he fed two full sized logs in there and shut the door.
He tinkered with the metal pipe that extended from the stove to the roof, and then turned, and looked around the room.
His eyes lit on the couch, and the coffee table, and the end table with the still-open drawer.
He looked into the kitchen at the cluttered counters, still littered with half emptied grocery bags from earlier.
There were piles of debris in the corners, but she would tidy those up tomorrow, when she had the time.
Her bedding was sitting in a neatly folded pile on the only standing rickety dining chair.
The others were in splinters in the corner, and the table had probably been long-ago used for firewood.
The floors were still filthy, and the rafters still adorned with cobweb décor.
She loved it.
“This place isn’t good enough for you,” Nathan said softly.
She pursed her lips into a smile. “You can’t mean that. It’s at rock bottom, but it can improve. I belong.”
“It’s dirty.”
“I think you have trouble seeing potential,” she whispered. And no, she wasn’t talking about the cabin.
From the look on his face, she thought he heard her loud and clear.
He checked the fire once more and held out his hands to catch some of the heat coming off it.
“Cold?” she asked.
“Trying to imagine leaving you here when I know you could be cold.”
“I’m not. In fact, I’m hot.”
He stood and turned, glanced at the gooseflesh on her legs, and then leveled her with a gaze. “Want me to help you make the bed?”
It was the sweetest thing he’d ever offered. This felt dangerous. It felt like she was crossing a line as she nodded ‘yes.’
She moved to help, but he gestured to the recliner he’d dropped off for her that sat in the corner. “Let me. Please.”
Stunned, she sank down into the recliner gingerly and watched as he pulled the bed from the couch, and carefully put the fitted sheet on it, then the sheets, then the comforter.
He put the two pillows he’d dropped earlier onto the bed and then folded down the corner of the bedding and gave her a half smile. “I feel better.”
She couldn’t help her smile. He was going to make a great mate someday to someone else. Someone he actually cared deeply for. For her, she knew what this was. It was guilt mixed with relief that they were done. It was a pressure taken off his shoulders. It was no promises, and no future.
It was friendship and understanding as they began the process of moving forward, and for that, she was grateful. He could’ve just left and ignored her for a year, moved on in front of her immediately, and rubbed it in her face. He could’ve hurt her more, but he was being kind instead.
This tenderness was his ‘thank you’ for her ending his suffering.
“Do you want me to tuck you in?”
“I…” She swallowed audibly. “I have to get ready for bed still.”
“I can wait.”
“Oh.” Feeling awkward, she told him, “I have to wash my make-up off.”
“Take your time.”
Here was the thing. She’d never let him see her without make-up before.
She’d damaged her skin and slept in full make-up just in case he saw her early in the morning.
She only took it off when he was at work, or she was right out of the shower.
Why? Because she had wanted him to be attracted to her, and it was clear he already wasn’t, so she didn’t want to make it worse with her bare face.
But what was the harm now?
“You’ve never seen me without make-up,” she pointed out.
He frowned. “I haven’t?”
“No. I made sure of it.”
“You hid.”
She nodded. “I guess we were both guilty of not being ourselves.”
Nathan scratched the back of his neck and approached, offered his hand, and helped her out of the deep comfort of that recliner. “Go get ready for bed. You don’t have to hide anything now.”
“Do you know how much my skin broke out because I was sleeping in make-up?”
He snorted and sank into the recliner as she headed for the water jug near the kitchen sink. “That was your decision.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. She’d bought the big water jugs that had the push button on the side, settled directly over the sink.
She busied herself with washing her face and brushing her teeth.
She put her hair up into a messy bun and put on her moisturizers that she’d lined up along the back of the counter.
Face tingling and cold from the skin products, she made her way to her duffel bag and pulled out a pair of clean sweatpants, and one of her oversized sleep shirts.
She let off a little gasp as she realized the shirt was one of Nathan’s. “Here,” she said, making her way to him, with the shirt offered in her outstretched hand.
“I gave that to you.”
“For rags. You gave it to me when I asked about dusting the furniture with polish. You didn’t give it to me to sleep in. I just…” She shook her head hard, embarrassed. “I don’t know why I put it in my bag like that.”
He didn’t take the T-shirt. Instead, he searched her face. His eyes were still so bright, like his animal was ramped up. They had barely faded to brown all night. “I want you to keep it.”
“I’ll use it for a rag in here to clean.”
“No,” he gritted out. “You’ll wear it. That’s why you kept it. You like wearing big T-shirts to sleep in. You won’t use it as a rag.”
Her heart was pounding so hard, and she just knew he was going to hear it. Mortified, she clutched the shirt to her chest. It smelled like his cologne. “You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
“I never could tell you what to do,” he said.
Delta pursed her lips and made her way to her duffel bag again. Hesitating, she shoved his shirt back into the side pocket of it and pulled out another. This one was hers, and was tighter, but it would work for tonight.
A soft rumble came from the corner where he sat, and she twisted around just enough to look at his face.
He was leaning forward now, his elbows on his knees, his gold eyes steady on her.
He didn’t know it yet, but she was going to find a way to sneak his T-shirt into his truck soon.
She didn’t have a right to his things. He would have another mate someday, and so would she.
There was no point in holding onto anything that wasn’t hers. That was an unfortunate lesson she’d learned the hard way.
“Close your eyes,” she said softly as she prepared to remove her lace top.
“I can already see your bra underneath,” he pointed out.
“It’s a crop top, not a bra.”
“I have seen you Change before,” he countered.
“Changing out in the woods is different than in here.”
“How?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “This feels more intimate.”
“I had my tongue down your throat two hours ago.”
“Nate…Nathan.”
His nostrils flared with his inhalation of breath, and he turned his head toward the wall.
“Friends shouldn’t want to see friends naked,” she uttered as she kicked out of her boots and slid her skirt down her thighs.
“And friends shouldn’t make sexy little begging sounds in their throats when friends kiss them.”
Annoying. “The kiss was a mistake.”
“Did you like it?” he asked.
She sighed and slid her feet into her sweatpants and pulled them up. She peeled the lace top over her head and glanced up at him. He was looking right at her. “Nathan!”
“It’s just a crop top,” he said innocently. “Did you like me kissing you?”