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I’ve read about nesting. My girlfriends described it. I always nodded politely and thought it sounded a little unhinged. Who drags all their bedding into a pile like a damn hamster?
It’s eleven o’clock at night. I’m standing in my bedroom doorway holding the throw blanket from the couch, both couch cushions, the decorative pillows from my guest room, and I’m looking at what I’ve done to my bed.
The duvet’s pushed into a ring. My pillows, stacked around it, all six. My softest cashmere sweater is there too. And so is my winter robe. And in the center, laid out like the crown jewels, is a men’s white undershirt, prison-issue, size triple-XL.
“What in the fuck, Zahra?” I say out loud.
I add the couch cushions to the left side. It’s better. And I hate that I know that.
I climb in. I’m in an old law school T-shirt and nothing else, and the second I’m inside that ring of pillows, every muscle in my body lets go all at once. Ooooh… this is nice. I pick up Declan’s shirt and press it to my face, and moan. Out loud… It smells like him. Like us. Like sweat and sex and that dark, smoky thing that’s just my man. My Alpha. My big, scarred, gorgeous wolf… My nipples go tight. My pussy gives a slow, greedy throb, and I feel myself get slick from huffing a convict’s undershirt like it’s fucking oxygen.
I curl up around it. His bite-mark pulses. The faint hum in my chest gets warmer, and I wonder if he can feel me, too. If he’s lying on his bunk right now with his hand over the mark I left on him.
I sleep for ten hours straight. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.
* * *
I notice the SUV on Monday night. I probably wouldn’t have if I’d been sleeping normally. But turns out undershirts only holds scent for so long, so I’m up at two, standing at my living room window with a glass of water, looking down the street. It’s a quiet block. Everybody’s got a driveway or a permit, and after four years, I know most of the cars. And the black SUV across the street, two doors down, is not one of ours.
Tinted windows all the way around. Engine off. Lights off. Parked just outside the reach of the streetlamp, which is either a coincidence, or exactly what I’d do if I didn’t want anybody reading my plate.
I tell myself it’s nothing. Somebody’s boyfriend. An Uber driver taking a nap.
But it’s back on Tuesday night. In the same spot. And this time, standing there in the dark with my robe pulled tight, I see a tiny orange glow behind the windshield, there and gone. Somebody’s sitting in there. Smoking. Facing my building.
The hair stands up on my arms.
I’m a defense attorney. I know what surveillance looks like; I’ve spent years taking it apart on the stand. I know how long a legitimate reason to sit in a parked car lasts. It’s not two nights.
I don’t turn on a light. I get my phone, kill the flash, and zoom in as far as it goes. The picture’s grainy, but you can see the last three characters of the plate where the streetlight catches.
I send it to Cillian.
Me: This car has been outside my apartment two nights in a row. Someone’s in it. Am I being paranoid?
The reply comes in under a minute. He wasn’t asleep either.
Cillian: No.
Cillian: Step away from the window. Lock your deadbolt. Do not go outside and do not go near that vehicle.
Cillian: I’m putting someone on your building tonight. I’ll see Declan first thing in the morning.
I read it twice. Then I back away from the glass, slowly, until I hit the wall. I check the deadbolt, check it again, then go back to my nest, pull my Alpha’s shirt against my chest, and I lie in the dark with my eyes open and my hand over the bite on my shoulder, scared…
Seven
Declan
I wake up at two in the morning with my heart going crazy. It’s not from a dream or a noise on the block. I lie in the dark with my hand over the bite on my shoulder, and it takes me a minute to understand the fear isn’t mine.
It’s hers.
It’s thin. Far away. But my wife is scared right now, somewhere across the city, it’s coming down our bond, and there’s not one goddamn fucking thing I can do about it from here. And I’ve never felt so fucking useless in my whole entire damn life.
Mate. Scared. GO.
We can’t.
