My chest hurts at her words, at her expression.
She looks away and then gets to her feet, taking the peel out of the room. I follow her and see a dish of food waste in the kitchen. She deposits the banana peel there on top of broken eggshells.
“Now you know better than to throw banana peels on the floor. Do you have a compost pile outside?” she asks.
I frown. “A compost pile?”
“Where should we put this? If you have a place to put it and you turn it over once a week or so, eventually it’ll break down into nice soil for a vegetable garden.”
“Do you like to grow food?” I ask.
She nods. “I do. I always grow some herbs in my window and lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes on our little patio. We don’t have much of a yard, we have a tiny piece of a yard because there are two other apartments, but the stuff I grow is the best tasting stuff ever.”
“I’ll do this compost pile for you,” I say.
She gives me a sad smile, one that tells me it doesn’t matter if I do things for her because she won’t be here to enjoy them.
She’s wrong.
“I’m kind of tired. I think I’m going to go to bed.” She goes to her larger satchel and pulls out a white computer screen. I’ve seen devices like these in town before. She pulls a white cord from her bag and plugs it into the electricity outlet over the kitchen counter.
“Goodnight,” she says and then she goes to the bathroom with a small pink velvet bag she’s pulled from her larger bag.
Women I’d spent the night with would take bags into the bathroom to remove cosmetics. Brush their teeth. I lick my teeth and decide I’ll use her toothbrush after she sleeps. Mine is old. I stare at the closed door and listen to the water running, thinking on what I’ll do the rest of the evening while she sleeps.
I’ll refill the generators and chop more wood. Clean that table better and then … I can’t shift yet and run. When she’s more settled and safer, I’ll shift and go for a run. Hunt. I’ll mark the perimeter around the property so any animal will know to stay away. Will Riley Savage and his family heed that warning?
I don’t know if they will. And I don’t like not knowing. No. I can’t run. I can’t hunt. Not until I know they’re not a threat, even if that means eliminating them. Or moving Ivy far away. But, what if I lose my mind away from my territory?
Uncle’s mind wasn’t right. Maybe he was wrong about the territory issue.
Inside, I don’t feel like I want to eliminate them. I feel like I should find out more about them.
***
When she exits the bathroom, I lift her into my arms.
“Tyson.”
She’s protesting something but I’m simply carrying her to bed like I intended to earlier. I set her down and pull the covers over her body.
The room is warm. It’s not as cold outside tonight so with the door open the bedroom should be warm enough with a fire in the sitting room.
“Rest, my only one.” I kiss her lips softly.
Her chin trembles and she stares at me briefly before turning over. When she does, she lifts her arm as if she hurt it before holding it to her chest with her right hand. Guilt sits in the middle of my chest like a stone. I can’t hurt her again. I need to be careful not to.
I want to hunt, I ache to run, I want to tear into flesh and feast, but I can’t. I glance at the painting over the mantle of me and the friends I wished I had when I was a boy. That sits in my chest, too. I think of Riley and those other shifters and that woman by the fence for a minute before I gather up from the chair the pile of clothes and towels as well as sheets she pulled off the bed at some stage. I put them in the machine in the garage and start it up, then wash that table she wanted me to clean until it no longer makes the water dirty when I squeeze the sponge, and then I chop wood until I grow tired.
When I climb into the bed, she’s asleep, but she curls into me and makes a cute sound. I take her mouth with mine and then I peel her clothing off. She doesn’t protest. She whimpers for me. She sleepily kisses me also. And then she whispers, “Ty”.
When I run my tongue over that sweet spot between her legs, she pleads with me to not stop. It makes me happy. I carefully slide my cock into her, and I feel her stiffen and see the grimace on her face despite the dark. I know I’ve given her no time to recover, but then I purr for her and her body relaxes. She rocks into me. I knot and try to be as gentle as I can, moving just a little inside her, feeling her inside walls squeeze around me until I come and come and come. The more she whimpers the thicker the stream of fluids leaving me. Finally spent, I reach for the shirt I had worn and dab between her legs after pulling out, then she climbs on top of my body and tucks her head into the place between my chin and my shoulder. Her arm with the uninjured wrist wraps around my neck and she falls asleep with the other palm on my cheek.