Page 34 of Unravel Me

I stop outside the door, my nerves tensing, and I knock softly.

A moment of silence follows before the door opens, and once again I'm standing face-to-face with the fae.

Those glowing eyes study me, almost as if he'd expected me to run away, to disappear for good.

I raise my phone. "A fox got into my backpack. Well… into my sandwich, more precisely. But my phone ended up lying in the wet grass, and I think it's toast." I give him a somewhat helpless look and spread my hands.

For a second, I consider telling him I need to contact someone, but I change my mind. Asking a green entity for a phone seems just too ridiculous.

Without a word, he steps back and lets me inside.

"Sorry, I had to borrow these pants. I don't know if they're yours or someone else's, but I couldn't exactly walk through the forest with my ass hanging out," I mumble apologetically.

The fae still says nothing. He simply stands there, watching me.

My eyes drift lower to his crotch. It's strange how he walks around completely naked, as if the cold doesn't affect him at all, even though it's probably no warmer than forty-five degrees outside now, as the sun sets. I wonder why it doesn't bother him. His thick cock hangs there in a familiar half-hard state, just like before, and the sight makes me swallow as an overwhelming need to touch it surges through me.

Why wait? My heat certainly isn't.

I step over to the bed and begin taking my clothes off.

"I washed up. I won't smell like dried cum anymore," I mutter, cringing at myself, though of course he doesn't answer.

He smells fresh too. Did he bathe while I was asleep? With shampoo? So bizarre…

I should ask for that phone after all. Since the guy is buying himself all kinds of products, he should have a phone too, but I can’t see one anywhere in the cabin, and he’s naked, so the question catches in my throat—again.

In a normal situation, I would be dying of worry if Tommy were missing me. Is he all right? But my heat's powerful energy just forces my thoughts down a lewd path with such impetus that I don’t stand a chance.

I take off the rest of my clothes, undo my braid, letting my hair fall free again, and stand in front of him with my back straight.

I know I look good, yet for some reason… standing here like this still leaves me strangely self-conscious. I want to tell the entity that another wave is building, but I can’t force the words out. I just stare.

Meaningfully, I hope?

Asking for sex when I’m not at the peak of a heat wave seems like a bit of a challenge for me.

Before I met Mark, all I'd ever known was pretending and enduring. Gritting my teeth and acting like I liked it when I actually hated the act itself. That was when the Ring had me. And then Mark came and saved me, struck by my beauty. He wanted to own me completely. As a trophy on his arm, a symbol of his success, something to draw people's attention. And people would say, "Wow, where did you find him? Is he even real? I’ve never seen anyone that beautiful…"

And Mark preened. He lifted me out of the ruins of my previous life, treating me like a fallen angel with broken wings, something unique he'd claimed for himself. His alpha instincts were powerful. He gave me safety, wanting to become my entire world, and back then that was enough because he was shielding me from falling back into the Ring’s clutches.

He was the better alternative to hell, his darker side hadn't shown itself yet. And his possessiveness? I simply accepted it as a necessary part of the deal.

Because of him, I learned for the first time that sex could actually be pleasurable. It was never wonderful, but it was okay for some time.

Then, over the next few years, that changed. Mark had a high sex drive, and he was annoyed by my reluctance and impassiveness. He called me a cold fish and even suggested I was asexual, which I knew I wasn’t.

I always suspected he fucked others. I could smell omegas on him sometimes. He insisted it was just because of how closely he worked with his assistants, but in any case, after Tommy was born, our sex life declined sharply.

I devoted most of my time to our son, while Mark threw himself into his political career with endless trips and campaign events. When he came home at night, he was exhausted and usually in a terrible mood. His stress always found its way to me. We still had sex on occasion, but the more violence I endured from him, the less capable I became of relaxing in bed. The more names he called me, the more hatred he poured into me, the deeper I retreated into myself until I couldn't find anything good anymore in those moments when we lay together in the dark and he reached for me.

Over the last year, it became about enduring it again. Just waiting for it to be over. I'd stopped believing things would ever get better. The only positive side of it was that it became very rare, and during the few months before his arrest, he just stopped initiating it altogether, which was a relief.

Now, as the contractions gradually grow stronger, rolling through my body in waves, I feel like I’m standing between two worlds.

One is filled with painful memories, a miserable sex life, stress, constant fear.

The other is within reach: losing myself in the easy pleasure the entity offers, surrendering to him, taking in the bliss, basking in his gentleness… So tempting, so good. Free of fear, free of consequences, free of dread.