He cleared his throat. “I was always close, Mabel. When I heard you were coming home, I’d always hope to catch a glimpse of you. To see you. I needed to know you were okay. That you were happy.”
“You were close?” she asked.
“As close as I could get without freaking you out.” He didn’t say anything more.
The pictures in his photograph album. They were taken by him.
She started to eat her breakfast, all the while, completely aware of him by her side. “Have you watched the weather?”
He chuckled. “You notice every single time our conversation gets strained, you want to talk about the weather?”
“I got the sense of a storm coming.”
“I did as well.” He looked out the window. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to check.”
She pushed some hair off her face. “Do you want to walk until it does?”
“I’d like that.”
Eating their breakfast in silence, memories of his hands on her, the way he held her, commanded her body, flashed in her mind. It was like a constant taunt and tease to what they could have. Her body started to burn at just the reminder. His hands were bigger than hers, but the pleasure he’d given her had been out of this world. Watching him now, she wanted those hands back on her body, touching her.
With the full moon already finished its peak, they could either run tonight or not. There was no sudden need to. In the city, when the moon was high, she’d take some medication to help subdue her. She didn’t always make it home.
Now as she sat in Lucas’s company, she felt more like a fool in denying herself. They finished their breakfast and took a walk together. This time, the storm didn’t strike quite so fast. The moment the clouds began to darken, they headed back to the house. Enough time had passed for her to start dinner.
Again, they ate in companionable silence, and still, her thoughts were pulled back to the photograph album.
He’d kept it and added to it.
What did it all mean?
After the dishes were done, Mabel excused herself to take a shower. She expected Lucas to follow, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The shower she took was long as she let the water fall down around her while she thought of Lucas. Closing her eyes, it was like she felt his touch on her body.
Go to him.
Her wolf was beginning to be a demanding pain in the ass.
She climbed out of the shower and went to the bedroom. Opening the wardrobe, she looked at the items of clothes on offer. Nothing really called to her.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she glanced back at the drawer. It taunted her.
Ten more months alone with Lucas.
She wasn’t playing a game anymore. Her mother had warned her about severing from Lucas. In the few cases it had happened, the people had been recorded as being nothing but shells of themselves.
That image wasn’t something she wanted for her life, or for Lucas. There was no way she could be that cruel to him.
****
Lucas sat reading his book.
The hour grew late, and still, he kept reading the same page he had for the last half an hour.
Was Mabel back in her room or asleep in his bed?
He wanted to go up and see, but he held himself back. Disappointment was a feeling he knew and had experienced often.
He continued to stare at the page until he finally gave up. Reading was supposed to relax him. Not make him even tenser than ever before.
He ran fingers through his hair and expelled a breath. He wasn’t in the best of moods. Mabel was different. At breakfast and dinner, he’d noticed her stares, and he was too fucked up to even ask her why. Like so many times before, he ignored it.
At the moment, their relationship was too volatile to keep on questioning everything.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Mabel said.
He turned to find her wearing a silk nightgown. “I thought you’d be in bed by now.”
“Is that why you’re here? Hoping to avoid me?”
The silk molded to her waist but flared out, covering up way too much of her body. She stepped into the room.
“I never want to avoid you.” Arguments, he did. They tended to draw the worst out in each other.
“Is it a good book?”
“Apparently.”
“You’ve been reading it since we got here.”
“It started out great. I don’t know what the fuck I read tonight.” His hands itched to touch her. She’d walked closer so she was right in front of him now, their knees practically touching. All it would take was for him to reach out and he’d be able to hold her.
He stayed perfectly still.
“I was thinking about you upstairs, us.”
“Anything good?”
She played with the belt of her robe. She tugged it open and he watched in amazement as she removed the robe from her body and stood before him naked. Her long hair fell around her, framing her body.