Page 19 of Mating Season
And I can barely remember why I was trying to. Oh yeah… freedom and painting, and he might be secretly evil. I should write these top reasons of resistance down so I don’t forget them again.
That brings us to today. He’s out again. I think he had another client meeting. But he said he’d be back by sunset. And I can finally breathe. The sticky hot irritation of his hands not being on me has finally receded, and I feel somewhat normal in the calm peace of his absence. I’m only getting occasional mental flashes of his wet sudsy body in the shower now.
Oh yeah, that’s another thing that’s started happening these past few days. When he showers, I get these vivid technicolor mental pictures. And it comes with sounds and smells. It’s like I’m in there with him.Oh… Rosalie don’t think that thought. Shut it down!
I think he’s sending me these images telepathically—in fact I’m sure of it. I remember the night I met him when he was in bear form and I heard “Mine” in my head. I thought I was imagining it, but Iheardhis thought. How could I not? He aimed it right at me. He wanted me to know. I would say that’s not possible, but… given all the other fun new facts I’ve learned about reality, I’ve decided not to call anything impossible.
I heat up a bran muffin in the microwave and grab a glass of milk. Then I go up to the rooftop again. I’m starting to get cabinfever and need to be out in the fresh air. It’s early fall and the air is crisp but not cold. I can still walk on the rooftop with bare feet and the concrete feels perfectly warm against my skin.
Not too hot, not too cold. It’s weird to be so high up you don’t have to worry about fallen leaves. Even in my third floor apartment, if I left the window open, sometimes a leaf would blow in during the fall months.
I know he’s got a hot tub, but I wonder if his pool is heated, then I shake that thought away. I tell myself I’m not going to be here long enough to need a heated pool, even though escape seems futile.
I peer down over the ledge. We’re thirty stories up, I counted. And the elevator door won’t open, no matter what I try. I’ve tried picking the stairwell lock with no luck. It’s not as easy as they make it look in the movies.
I’m leaning over the side of the building when I hear some construction sounds below. Saws and hammers and drills on the floor just underneath the penthouse. The window is open. Actually it’s not “open”, because windows in high rise buildings like this don’t open. It’s a safety hazard. Nobody wants a small child to open the window and fall to their death.
The window is just... missing. They’ve started working on this floor. And they must have just started in the last few minutes because I would have been able to hear all this noise from the main floor of the penthouse, I’m sure of it.
I shout down. “Hello! Hey!”
A bolt of fear runs through me. These are strange men I’m yelling at, and I can’t exactly tell them I’ve been kidnapped and am missing. For all I know they’ll try to capitalize on my already “missing” state.
But then I reason that I’d just be asking them to call the cops. It’s not like I could let them up here even if I wanted to. But what if the deadbolt on the stairwell door doesn’t have a keyed lock onthe other side? What if Cooper just installed that to keep me in but there’s nothing to keep anyone else out? I have no idea about the layout of this building.
But the workers don’t hear me for all the drilling and hammering and sawing. I decide not to yell again—at least not for now. Cooper probably won’t be home until around six-thirty if his pattern on the other days he went in to the office holds. And I’m betting the construction workers will be off work for the day before then.
They’ll take a lunch break, of course, but there’s no guarantee they’ll go off site to eat. They might just stay and have bagged lunches in their work space.
I go back inside and search through Cooper’s closet. He may be rich and polished in one side of his life, but he’s also a bear. He has wild in him. Nature in him. Plus he’s very fit. That’s a level of activity that probably isn’t maintained with just two visits a week to the gym.
So I’m not at all surprised when I find not only a lot of camping gear but hiking and mountain climbing gear as well.
I can’t possibly be about to do what I’m thinking about doing. It’s completely crazy, and more than a little dangerous. I could die. Am I willing todieto get away from this guy? And why do I want to get away from him so badly again?
But then on the other side of the coin, why would I want to stay? He’s keeping me in a gilded cage and even once I give him what he wants, there’s no guarantee my circumstances will change. And this is not okay. This… civilized cave man routine. It’s ridiculous to just throw my life away to live in a pretty cage with a hot guy.
Whodoesthat? I blame all those princess movies we watched growing up.
I pull the equipment out of his closet and untangle the ropes and rappelling gear. Then I go downstairs and change into jeansand a T-shirt and some running shoes, because I will definitely be running in this adventure I have chosen. I just hope when I turn to page 132 that there’s an ice cream cone and laughter and not a dragon waiting to eat me. Though the more likely horrifying scenario is just falling to my doom and splatting on the pavement outside. Lovely.
I find some cash on the bedside table in Cooper’s room and stuff it into my pocket. I’ll probably need to get a cab or something to get back home. I need to let Nikki know I’m okay, but I also probably shouldn’t stay at our apartment. If he was a vampire he’d need an invitation to get in—assuming that’s not a myth.
I’m not sure which formerly assumed fictional realities are true and which are not.
I wonder if there’s someone who could do some kind of spell on my apartment to keep Cooper out or even mask my scent so he can’t find me. But my mind immediately revolts against this idea. Shifters and vampires are enough supernatural elements. The idea that there could be witches and even more magic is something I don’t even want to contemplate right now.
If I hadn’t been forced to contend with the obvious magic of Cooper shifting into a bear right in front of me or the powers of the mating link, I’d still be denying the few things I’ve grudgingly allowed to co-exist in my reality.
I take the equipment I need up to the roof, and then I wait. I watch the clock all day, distracting myself in the meantime with food and TV. By midafternoon it occurs to me that I probably should know what the fuck I’m doing before I end up dangling off the top of a thirty story building.
He obviously hasn’t left me with access to the internet, but I do find some mountain climbing and other nature magazines under his bed, so I skim the articles looking for information that will aide me in my escape.
Finally at five-thirty, all the drilling and hammering stops. I rush back to the rooftop and lean over the ledge to listen. I hear some muffled speech and then a door close, and then… silence. Still I wait. About ten minutes later I see men walk out of the building onto the street below.
I take a deep breath and look over the ledge again. It is so high up. But I have a way out. I wouldn’t have been given this means of escape if I wasn’t meant to take it. Maybe fate decided to let me out of this. Maybe if you can resist your fated shifter mate’s glorious scent for six days in a row, you get a Get Out of Mating Free card.
If some mystical force of the universe can command you to be with someone for all eternity, can’t that same force have mercy on you and give you a means of escape?
