No 2

POV Penelope.

I push open the door of the café with a shaky hand, and once out of the café, I breathe normally again. I didn't even realize I had stopped breathing. It's like this every time I get close to him, I lose my temper, I get all gooey, so I hide my embarrassment behind some dirty talk. Calvin makes me lose my temper. I have never felt this way, not even for Mason, who I loved more than anything in the world. 

He was my fiancé, we went to college together, he was the insecure geek and I was the most coveted cheerleader. I immediately wanted to bring this uptight boy out of his shell and finally I fell in love with him, we were supposed to get married when he came back from Afghanistan. But he never came back, I was in our house in Los Angeles, we had chosen this city because of the sun, the beaches, far from the hell that was Mason's life as a soldier, from his missions in the arid desert of Afghanistan.

 He had been in Afghanistan for six months, two months, and I was in the garden stroking my belly, imagining his reaction when he came home and found my belly huge. I had learned the news of my pregnancy just a few weeks after his departure and I wanted to tell him in person and not by a letter, I wanted to read the emotion in his eyes. 

So I waited impatiently for his return, the doorbell rang, I was going to open thinking it was my mother, what was my surprise when I found myself in front of Mason's superior, the dark face, the lowered face, my face decomposed at once, I knew why he was there, there was only to see how he avoided my glance. An unparalleled fear knotted my guts, my greatest fear since he had joined was coming true. He came to tell me that Mason had been killed by a vehicle bomb in Afghanistan. I was seized by a violent headache, everything became black around me, when I woke up I was in a hospital, my relatives around me, my mother's face was bathed in tears, my father was giving me a pained look, everything came back to my memory, the coming of the General, the death of Mason. 

"Mama Mase. "

 She knelt down and put her hand on my forehead. 

"My little darling," she said, crying. I am so sorry. "

I didn't cry, I didn't have the strength, I just looked at my mother without saying anything, put my hand on my belly and started to caress it. My mother's sobs grew louder. My father took my hand and began to caress my arm.

My darling," he said with emotion. You have lost the baby. The shock was too brutal, the baby didn't survive it. We are so sorry."

 Again I had not cried. I had just looked at my father and mother, without saying anything, without any emotion in my eyes. I just pulled my hand away from my stomach. Then it all came together, the funeral, my depression, my downfall. I sank without really mourning my family, drugs, alcohol, everything was good to anesthetize the pain. 

 Until Annie came to pick me up like a wreck and brought me to this particular city. Lakecity. She told me wild stories of werewolves, at first I didn't believe it, they don't exist, they are fictional creatures. Until I met him. 

I had managed to escape Annie's surveillance, who was watching me a little too much. And I was going into the forest to get drunk, when suddenly I saw someone or rather something in the bushes. I moved forward slowly to see better, and the thing metamorphosed into a man, naked. And what a man! The lines of his back were drawn, his buttocks were round and shapely, a soft wetness spread between my thighs. 

"Who's there? "

He had asked as he turned. I was tetanized, I did not understand what was happening. His face was austere, his black hair a mess, he had a square jaw, and an authoritative look. Fear clenched my gut, but something was wetting my panties lower. 

"I can feel your excitement from here. " 

He looked down at his sex, my eyes following his. Oh my God! He was perfect. I had only known Mason, compared to his, the sex I had before me was the representation of my image of a man's sex. The glans wide and pink, the length and size perfect. Imposing, to say the least, I wonder if it could enter me. Impossible, it's too big. He put a hand on his sex and moved back and forth, closed his eyes and moaned.

 

"Is that what you want? Because if it is, come your smell turns me on too. " 

I closed my eyes and counted to three, then started running in the direction of the house.

Why? Because his words really made me want to give in, to put my hand on his to accompany him in his movement back and forth. Because his words really made me want to give in, to put my hand on his to accompany him in his movement back and forth, I wanted so much for him to take me there, in that forest. But what kind of person was I? My fiancé and my baby had just died and I was already wetting myself for another man. I disgusted myself. And I decided to change, to stop the drug lifestyle I had started and to take my life back. 

I opened a bookstore, which is doing quite well, I even have an assistant. It was much later that I learned who this mysterious man was. Calvin Lloyd, the alpha of the Twilight Pack. He had given me a mischievous look before holding out his hand, eyes as blue as the sky, he must have been twenty-eight years old. It was his hand that he had caressed his sex, I think I blushed when I recognized it. I didn't grab his hand and for three years now we've been fighting a cold war, me to hide the attraction I have for him, and him because he's a big jerk and nothing else. I wonder if he knows it was me that day in the forest. I'm walking towards my store when I run into Alex who is also a werewolf. Calvin's cousin. Sometimes I catch him looking at me strangely, if he wasn't married and I wasn't friends with Cyndie his wife, I'd almost think he had a crush on me.    

"Hey there. "

"Hi Alex, how are you this morning?" 

"Much better now that I've seen you. " 

I'm embarrassed by all the confusing remarks. 

"Is that how you seduced your wife?" I say as I open my store door. 

"Maybe it is. "

 He walks in the back and closes the door. I take off my coat and purse and place them on the dresser. 

"So tell me, what can I do for you? " 

"I brought you a gift. " He says as he pulls a package out of his bag and hands it to me.

"Oh, what is it?"

I remove the cloth that covers the package, it is a very old book with a blood red cover and despite the years is still in good condition. I caress the cover of the book, on it we can read the pack of the twilight. 

"This is a very old book, the family tree of our pack. "

I opened the book, my fingers shaking. I had been wanting to know everything about this community that piques my curiosity for so long, I couldn't believe it. 

"Oh my God! " I said, looking at him. "Are you sure I'm allowed to read it? "

"Yes! Since I gave it to you. "

"Thank you, Alex," I said, giving him a hug. 

He didn't answer anything and just hugged me. A little too long for my taste. But I don't say anything, he made me happy today so I can well allow him that. Except that at some point I pull myself out of his arms and head behind the counter.

"I promise, once I've finished reading it, I'll give it back to you."

"Oh especially don't rush. "

I continue to look at the book in question fascinated, by all that I will learn there, when I raise my head it is still there. An awkward silence settles in. I thought that once he had given me the book, he would have left.

 

"Well, goodbye then. I'll give it back to you when I'm done. " 

"Goodbye Penelope. " 

Once outside, he continues to wave at me, which of course I return out of courtesy. Olivia, my assistant, enters. I hand the store over to her and go to the back. I sit on the floor with the book in my hands, once again I caress the cover of the precious treasure, and I open it, I have this feeling of joy that comes over me all at once, excitement. It looks like a physics book. There are drawings on the first page caricaturing the wolves' physique, talking about their transformations and the stages of them. I keep flipping through and I come across a portrait of my beautiful alpha, a drawing of him as a boy, then as a teenager and finally one of him that is very recent. There is even a portrait of him once transformed into a wolf. A huge auburn wolf with a magnificent coat, huge eyes, it seems that he too is staring at me. I find myself caressing the drawing, done to perfection, with the greatest attention to detail, it is magnificent. I find myself wondering what it would be like to slide my hand through his fur. How would I feel at that moment? 

 My phone vibrates in my bag. It's Annie. 

"We are invited to the wolves' house tonight. "

"Us or just you to spend time with your beautiful Michael?"

"Both of us. And he's not My Handsome Michael. "

"If you say so. What time?  "

I know she has a crush on the handsome werewolf.

 

"At 8pm we'll meet you there. By the way your mom called, call her back she is worried. "

"Kisses. "

" Kisses. "

 It's been a long time since I called my mom, not that I didn't miss my family. Just that sometimes I'm so comfortable here that I forget about them a little. I know that's no excuse. So I dialed my mom's number to apologize for being such an unworthy daughter and tell her how much I love her.