Page 56 of Mate
“Ah. Have you discovered who dropped it off?”
“I have not, which is a problem in and of itself.”
“So it’s not . . . The mother thing . . . ?”
He sighs. “I don’t know yet. I’ll be back in a few hours. If anything weird happens,anything, call my phone. And yell. Amanda is watching the northeast, and Colin the southwest.”
“What about attacks from above?” I tease. There are no chairs in the kitchen, so I try to lift myself onto the counter, but it’s too tall. “No werestork second on air patrol?”
“If a bald eagle dove in from the sky to abduct you, my life would be so much easier.” His hands close around my waist. Lift me up like I’m a feather. “And fine— I’ll get more goddamn furniture.” He lingers for a fraction of a second, his nose hovering by my temple, and I hear a deep inhale. A slower exhale. A gust of warmth against my heated skin. My forehead wants, demands, clamors to lean forward and kiss Koen’s collarbone. I manage to hold it back long enough for him to step away, and for the possibility to be removed.
Safer this way.
Remember? How he said that he didn’t care about you? When he called you a spoiled little girl? It was less than twenty-four hours ago. He’snotnice.
“I’ll get everything ready, then,” I yell after him as he saunters off. “For our little spa session.” He flips me off without glancing back. And it’s not until later, when I’m unpacking the bags and going through what we bought, that I find three important things.
The first makes me blush and roll my eyes and wish that I had a shovel to bury myself in Koen’s garden: every single pair of underwear he selected for me is red. Bright red. Dull red. Wine red. Blood red.
All.
Kinds.
Of.
Red.
I’m not equipped to process it, so I focus on thesecond, which makes me smile. At first, I think he may have replaced the plushie I mentioned. Then I realize that the little pink penguin in the bag is hard, made of plastic. A few seconds of fiddling with it tells me that it’s a pocketknife with a foldable blade.
It’s cute— and thoughtful, especially considering that I no longer have claws at my disposal. It has a different, deeper kind of heat spreading through me, and I don’t want to overthink it, so I shift my attention to thethirdthing.
And I stop breathing.
Because every single thing I glanced at, grazed, examined, eyed, or evenconsideredwhen we were at the grocery store, every single thing I decided to walk past, every single thing I told myself I didn’t need— every single thing has somehow made it here, inside Koen’s house.
CHAPTER 14
He overhears her talking with Pavel.
“Hey, is it true that Humans put gnomes in their gardens?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s totally a thing.”
“Spine-chilling.”
Her laughter adjusts the spin of his atoms.
THEY START ARRIVING IN THE LATE AFTERNOON.
I spend several hours cross-legged on the couch, trying to reconstruct my lost letters, until the door bursts open. Two men walk inside like they were just handed the deed to the place. They’re both tall, both well muscled, and both completely naked.
“Oh, Serena. What’s up?” the first says.
The second just grins, waves at me, and bends over to stretch his hamstrings, giving me a thorough view of his butthole. “I slept wrong last night,” he moans. “Everything hurts.”
“Is that why you were so slow?”
“Fuck off. At leastIhave an excuse.”
