In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.
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http://writeworld.org/post/102297965855/are-you-bleeding
“Are you bleeding?” she asked
Emyr, as she tried to lift his shirt to check. He was sitting on one of her
kitchen chairs. Again. She didn’t know how he kept getting into her house. She
was thinking of just leaving it unlocked. Giving him a key seemed like a big
step.
“You noticed?” His face lit up
with delight that she had both got close to him and taken notice of him. And
she had touched him. He tried to grab her hand but she sidestepped him.
“Soon, Valeria, you will
accept me.”
“Uh, huh.” She gave him a
look. “Lift your shirt.”
He rose to his full height,
stood inside her personal space and just took his shirt off. He let out a
pained noise as he did it. He was hurt.
She rolled her eyes. “I said lift.”
He had an amazing body and he
took any opportunity to show it off. Especially to her. He was young, gorgeous,
and a werewolf. He was also the son of the wolf alpha and had, she suspected,
never had anyone who had ever said no to him.
She said no... repeatedly, but
it didn’t matter to him. “You tricked me, and you know it,” she pre-empted
before he said anything.
“No, I didn’t. It is common
practise for a wolf to offer food to his mate.” He stroked one finger down the
top of her arm.
It made her take a shaky
breath. “I wasn’t your mate and I didn’t know.” He did affect her; she had to
admit that. She just wasn’t convinced about the mate for life thing and she had
no idea why he wanted her; she wasn’t a were-anything.
“You took the food and you
know now.”
She rolled her eyes. She had
even eaten it from his hand and in front of witnesses. That made it ten times
worse. They had had this argument a hundred times. He considered himself her
mate. She considered him an annoying irritation.
“Let me see that wound,” she
scolded before looking down at his ribs. She blinked. “That is not a bandage.”
“It is.”
“Not. It is duct tape
and... what is that?”
“Kitchen towel,” he said.
“Ugh.” She tore it off in one
quick movement and he yowled. “Oh, you big baby.”
“It’s bleeding again,” he
whined.
“It was anyway. That’s how I
noticed it.” She tossed the ‘bandage’ in the kitchen trash. “Stay,” she
ordered, “While I get the first aid kit.” It was actually much worse than she
had first thought.
”I can stay all night,” he
called after her.
She tried to ignore that.
When she got back, he was
leaning against the sink, legs crossed at the ankles. He lifted his arm up
helpfully so that she could put antiseptic on the wound; even though she knew
he said he didn’t need it. They’d had that argument before too. They had also
had the one about hospitals and stitches.
“This looks bad.”
“It’s healed a lot.” As he
spoke, he was looking at her hair as if he wanted to touch it.
“What was it?”
“Werebear.”
His eyes closed and he let out
a small sigh when her hands pressed the tape against his skin.
“There,” she said and looked
up at his face. She stopped. “Emyr?” He looked miserable and his colour was
bad.
“Please let me stay.”
Her mouth opened.
“Please?” he interrupted.
She frowned. He seemed too
upset. “Why?”
“It’s the mate thing.” He held
one hand up. “And before you say what I know you are going to say... it does
matter; it matters to me.”
“Healing,” she said. Merely
because he was in her life she was learning more about shape shifters than she
had thought she needed to know. Being with a pack member hastened healing.
“Yeah. Hurt wolves go to-” he
paused and then substituted, “-people they want to be close to.”
She was silent.
“Please, Val.”
He had actual puppy dog eyes.
She sighed. “Fine. But you
stay on the sofa.”
“That’s not close,” he argued.
“You’re inside the house. It’s
close enough.”
More beseeching eyes. “Won’t
you be going to bed soon?”
He knew her routine. She’d
process that later.
“I have some reading to do.”
“You could read in bed?” he
asked hopefully.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I
don’t have time to argue with you and I need a shower.” She was walking away as
she said it, but threw over her shoulder, “And no, you cannot come with me.”
“The bandage will get wet.”
“Yeah, that’s the only
reason,” she muttered to herself. He could probably hear her anyway.
When she got out of the shower
she made sure to wear pyjamas. He was stretched out on her bed. He was naked
and on top of the sheets; lying on his uninjured side with his knee up and his
arm stretched across the bed. He was also sound asleep; his face buried in the
pillow.
She stood and allowed herself
to look at him for a minute before she collected her papers and climbed into
the bed to start reading.
It was quiet, just his low
breathing and the small sounds as she shuffled papers and scribbled in the
margins occasionally.
At one stage, he moved and let
out a noise of pain. She couldn’t help it; she put her hand on him and patted
his shoulder. He shuffled a tiny bit closer to her. Still reading, she chewed
her pen and put her hand on top of his head. His hair was cut short on the
sides, but the top was longer and started to curl before he cut it again. He
needed a cut now. She liked it this length but she’d never tell him.
As if he felt her in his
sleep, he shuffled closer. He was definitely asleep; it was just instinct.
She kept reading.
When she woke with a jolt and
an ugly snort sound, his head was in her lap and his arm around her back. Her
papers were scattered. She was very warm and didn’t feel too bad given she was
asleep sitting up. His colour looked much better.
She tried to shuffle her
papers together and dumped them on the side table. Pushing at him woke him up
enough for her to slide down and lie flat. When she lifted her hair up onto the
pillow, he just grabbed her again. His arm under her neck was uncomfortable, so
she rolled onto her side with her back to him. That arm folded up across her
chest and gripped her other shoulder. His other arm slid around her waist and
he pulled her back until she was held firmly spooned against his body.
“This was a bad idea,” she
muttered to herself.
She took a moment to be glad
that the sheet was between them before she fell asleep.
~~~~~~
Yep. It was definitely a bad
idea to let him stay.
When Val opened her eyes, Emyr
was no longer on top of the sheet; he was under it.
Under it.
Naked.
And all of that extraordinary
body was pressed up against all of the back of her.
Naked.
And it was morning, and most
parts of his body were constructed from muscles that were hard but now there
was a part of him that was harder.
“Gah,” she said.
He was awake. His lips pressed
delicately against the back of her neck; right where the hairline started.
“Gah,” she repeated and tried
not to moan it.
She did try to move, but those
arms held her like steel bands.
Against him.
All of him.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
“No.”
“It is.”
“No.”
“Val... you really should
think about it.”
“Believe me, I am thinking
about it and the answer is still ‘no’.”
“Why?” he sounded hurt and
confused.
“You are younger than me. You are
gorgeous. You are sexy. You are naked in bed with me and all of that is
incredible and amazing-”
“Amazing?”
“Yes. But I don’t belong in
your world and I can’t help but believe that you have made a mistake and that
I’m not any kind of the sort of woman that it would be possible for you to
choose to have as your mate-” a quick breath before she continued in a rush,
“-because I am just ordinary and you are spectacular and high ranking in your
world and I can’t see why you would ever want me for a night, let alone
forever, and I might be rambling and overtired but that is exactly what I think
every time I see you... that you are so rare, and so beautiful that I can’t
possibly see why you would choose me.”
“What are you like after
coffee?” he asked.
“Humph.”
“I hear you, Val. You said it
enough times, but I don’t agree.”
“You’re a were,” she
argued, “You should be with another were.”
“I thought you didn’t know
anything about weres?”
“I don’t.”
“Ha,” he said, with a note of
triumph, as if he had won the point.
Silence.
“Why do we fall in love with a
particular person?” he asked her.
“You’ve been in love?”
“Yes.”
“And they weren’t your mate?”
“It was different.” He let her
go, slid out of the bed and bent down to pick up his clothing from the floor.
“I know what I am doing, and for you to suggest that I don’t is rude.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude-”
“I’m fully healed because I
slept with you. That tells me everything.” He stalked off towards the bathroom.
“I knew this was a mistake,”
she muttered.
~~~~
© AM Gray 2014
An: yes, I know, it feels
unfinished. There is clearly a heck of a lot more to this story.
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