Page 6

Chapter six

Jake

I curse as I fight to wriggle the outer casing off the busted tablet I scored a few weeks back. The glass screen has a large crack running down the center, but I can replace that and it’ll be good as new. Whoever owned it should’ve sold it to an electronics store or at least brought it to a proper disposal location, but if I’ve learned anything over my years digging through trash, it’s that many people are incredibly lazy. Especially tourists. It’s easier for them to toss something in the garbage than put any effort into fixing it.

Their loss. Now I have a free tablet, and the satisfaction that I’ve turned something that others would call trash into something of value. A metaphor for my life, I suppose. People think I’m weird, but I know I’m a good person. I know my worth.

Which is helpful, because that means I haven’t given in to the temptation of interacting with Hayley again. After years of running my under the table moonshine business and my habit of dumpster diving, I’m used to avoiding people when I need to. I’ve been able to avoid Hayley, with minimal screaming from Beans whenever we caught a glimpse of her.

A tingle of desire spreads through me as I think about her. Followed by frustration and disappointment.

I saw Hayley leave for a date earlier. She walked right past the shop, her pretty pastel hair pinned up to show off her neck, and her luscious curves wrapped in a silky blue dress. My favorite color.

I almost caved when I saw her. I wanted to run out and haul her over my shoulder back into my shop, so she couldn’t go on her date. Keep her there and prove to her she doesn’t need anyone but me, and that having fun with a bunch of other people pales in comparison to being the center of a devoted shifter’s universe.

That would’ve been abduction, though, so obviously I didn’t go with that problematic plan. I also ruled out following her and watching her date like a stalker, mostly because that seemed torturous and would’ve ended in me busting in to interrupt and proclaim my need for her.

Fuck, this whole unrequited mate thing really sucks.

After my third attempt to slot in the new glass screen for the tablet, I give up for now and decide to take a snack break. Beans has given up on his fixation with muffins since that catastrophe at the cafe and moved on to craving cotton candy. It took me a while to figure out that it was because of the colors of Hayley’s hair .

I tear off a chunk of the pastel swirled confection and let it dissolve on my tongue. It’s so sweet, but I bet Hayley’s mouth would be even sweeter. Or her pussy.

Dammit, this was supposed to help get my mind off of her. I shove the rest of the cotton candy in my mouth in frustration, fingers sticky and stomach slightly unhappy when I finish.

I need to find something more distracting. Maybe I’ll go camping. Yeah, it’s bad for business to close randomly in the middle of the week, but whatever. My customers know I keep odd hours. Gabe and the rest of the gaming group will probably be pissed that I’m flaking on another D&D session. But I haven’t been out in nature in a while and Beans has a ton of restless energy, so running around in the woods, far away from Hayley, might be just what we need.

Yeah, I’ll go camping.

Decision made, I head into my bedroom to pack. Then freeze right as I’m about to switch on the lights. A surge of arousal slams into me, my cock hardening so fast it’s painful.

Hayley left her curtains open. The lights are on in her bedroom, which is directly across the alley from mine, and she’s in there.

On the bed.

Legs spread and her head thrown back against a stack of pillows, as she holds a large vibrator against her pussy.

Fuck me.

I move to the window, any thoughts of packing immediately gone, as I try to get a closer look. Her face twists, plush lips parted and cheeks pink as she chases her pleasure. She still has her top on, but I can see how hard her nipples are through the thin fabric. I wish she’d tug it down and play with them so I could see her perfect tits.

Pre-cum oozes from the tip of my cock, smearing against my briefs as I bring my eyes back down between her thick thighs.

There’s a little thatch of dark brown curls peeking out from what the wand covers, and her soft lower belly looks like the perfect place for me to rest my forehead as I feast on her.

I palm my cock over my sweatpants at the thought. Then jolt as my conscience breaks through my horny thoughts and tear my hand away from my dick.

What the fuck am I doing?

I slam my eyes shut and leave the bedroom, which was the wrong order of operations, because I smack my shoulder into the doorframe in my panic.

“Ouch, shit!” I curse, stumbling out into the living room as I clutch my shoulder. I shut the bedroom door behind me so I won’t be tempted to look inside and try to see Hayley again, then collapse on the couch with a pained groan.

This isn’t fair. I was trying to ignore her, and she was over there…

Fuck, I wonder what she looks like when she comes. Would it be so wrong to go back and watch? I mean, I’ve already seen her, and she left her curtains open, so maybe she wanted me to watch.

I’m back on my feet, hand on the doorknob, before I realize what I’m doing and curse again.

“No, don’t be a fucking creep, dude,” I grumble to myself, forehead thumping against the door as I slump into it.

Beans is putting up a fight, yelling at me to go over and give Hayley a hand. Show her how much better I’d be at making her come than any toy. I know if I stay here, I’ll lose that battle, so I forget the camping idea and grab my wallet and keys. I’ll just get in my car and drive. Far away. Doesn’t matter where. I have to leave before I do something I’ll regret for the rest of my life.

I throw on my jacket and head downstairs and out the back door to where I’ve parked my car behind the shop. A loud clanging and a muttered curse stop me in my tracks.

The sound came from the alley. Against my better judgment, which was never that great to begin with but is severely lacking lately, I peek around the building into the dark alley. I glimpse pastel hair and Hayley’s pert ass in a pair of clingy sleep shorts before she steps back inside her building. Beans tugs me a few steps towards her, then freezes beside the dumpster when her scent hits us.

Not just the smell of her that I catch a hint of wherever she’s been, but that rich, musky smell that permeated her panties. It’s even stronger now, and it’s coming from inside the dumpster. Did she throw away another pair of underwear?

I look inside and startle when I see the source.

It’s her vibrator .

I blink down at the wand, struggling to process why she’d throw it away.

Is it… a sign?

Wait, did she actually want me to see her and then got frustrated, and put her vibrator out here when I didn’t keep watching?

Does that mean she knows I’m the one who stole her panties?

Oh god, what if this is actually an elaborate trap to catch her panty thief in the act?

I stand there next to the dumpster for an embarrassingly long amount of time as my thoughts race. I need to get out of here in case she comes back, but I’m paralyzed by indecision.

Should I take it? Would it be wrong to take it?

It’s not any different from the tablet, right? She took something and threw it away, and I found it. It looks like the charger is next to it, so maybe it would be a simple fix. I could take it inside and fix it for her and then…

And then what? Knock on her door and present her the vibrator I fished out of the trash like I’ve done something helpful and not something supremely weird.

The scent of her arousal clouds my mind and Beans makes the decision for me. I grab the vibrator and charger and race back inside my place, heart slamming in my chest as I wait for the police or someone to knock on the door and tell me they know what I’ve done.

A tense few minutes pass, but nothing happens.

I look down at the wand clutched in my hands, and bring it up to my mouth. It didn’t touch anything gross in the dumpster and I’ve licked far more suspect things in my raccoon form.

Hayley’s potent taste makes my taste buds sing the second my tongue makes contact with the rounded head of the wand, and I shudder, balls aching to unload at this small sample of her. If my mouth were bigger, I’d put the entire head of the vibrator in my mouth and suck on it like a lollipop until I get every last trace of my mate’s essence.

I tug my cock out and stroke it, savoring Hayley’s taste as I imagine that my tongue is on her hot little pussy and not this lifeless toy. She’d buck against my mouth and whine, oversensitive from the orgasms I’d already given her, but I’d be greedy for more of her arousal. I wouldn’t stop until my beard was completely soaked with her and I could smell my mate on me for days afterwards.

I come so hard at the thought that my vision whites out for a second. I moan, stomach bunching as I keep stroking despite how sensitive I am, milking all my cum out until my hand is coated with it.

The vibrator clatters from my hand down to the floor as my body sags, my fevered need for Hayley sated for the moment. I grimace at the mess I’ve made, tucking my cock back into my pants and scooping up the vibrator and charger before heading out of the stock room and back upstairs to my apartment so I can wash off.

With each step I take up the stairs, my stomach sinks further.

That was a mistake.

A big one .

Not only have I violated Hayley’s privacy and stolen something from her again , but now my crazed jerkoff session has crumbled the shoddily erected barriers I’ve been using to keep her out of my mind.

She’s my mate, and I can’t ignore that. Not after I’ve seen her and tasted her.

I reluctantly set the vibrator and charger down on the workbench in my office, when really what I want to do is keep it close to me like some kind of perverted security blanket. It’s bad enough that I’m keeping her panties inside my pillow case so I can get a faint hint of her smell as I fall asleep at night.

Ugh, what a mess.

I head into my bedroom, both sad and thankful that Hayley’s window is dark. I shut my blinds just in case, then strip and go into the attached bathroom to shower off my shame.

As the hot water pelts my over-sensitized skin, I make a decision.

If I can’t avoid Hayley, I have to figure out a way to convince her I’m better than any of her other romantic prospects. That I’m worth staying in Hallow’s Cove for.

Fuck. For the first time since I was a kid getting bullied for digging through the trash instead of playing during recess, I’m worried my weirdness is too much. I don’t want to be anyone but myself, but that person seems incompatible with who pretty, sweet, and decidedly not a weird trash gremlin, Hayley would want for her mate.