Kidnapped

I watched from the front window as Stiles drove his jeep up and parked behind my car. Even through the windows I could hear him talking to himself, both urging himself to talk to me and listing the reasons he should turn and run. I stepped onto the porch, leaning against the wooden post as he rambled on. I was hoping he would come to the right decision but if he tried to run I was going to do my best to stop him. It was past time we talked.

He lifted his head and looked straight at me and my cheat clinched. I hated seeing him like this, torn and indecisive. I missed the young man that acted so purely on emotions and feeling, hoping that he hadn't lost that in the pain of his ordeal.

He paused by the door of the jeep as if waiting for my permission to come closer. "Stiles," I called trying to sooth him. He jerked forward a step as I called his name, then walked quickly toward me, his eyes locked on the dirt and gravel at his feet until he was half way to the porch. He stopped and looked up at me for the first time and froze.

At first I thought he was going to panic again, the sound of his heart pounded in my ears and I could hear the blood rush beneath his skin. I tried to stay still so as not to spook him but then the shifting breeze brought me his scent. Yes, there was fear but under it all was the heady scent of his attraction.

He bit his lip, a nervous habit that I had grown to love. Running a hand through hair that was becoming almost shaggy he started a rapid flow of words, words that carried the changing scents of terror and shame with them.

"He said you would never want me. In your pack, I mean. That I would never be pack especially after what he did to me. That you would never want me after he touched me like that." He didn't look at me as he spoke, not until the last word and then he met my stare with a look of resignation, as if waiting for me to turn him away, expecting me to agree with that bastard's words.

I held on to my anger, swallowed it down. I wouldn't let Stiles see how much his belief that I would feel that way hurt me. It wasn't his fault. He had been through so much and if he needed to rail against me, throw pain filled glances that cut like knives then I would take all he had and more.

Quietly I asked, "Why would you believe him? Why listen to the monster that took you from the people who care about you, tortured you for days and almost killed you. Why believe anything he says."

I was trying to reach out to him, ease his way to telling me more but his response had me thinking for a second that I had sent him into another panic attack. He wrapped his arms around his waist so tightly that I could all most feel his ribs creak under the pressure. His breath became shortened and labored, wet gasps sucked from between clinched teeth.

"Because it's what I think, what I've always believed. You never wanted me. I've never been pack just the stupid weak human that insists on tagging along and getting underfoot and has to be saved every damn day."

He sobbed once on the last word, body swaying from the strain of exposing his fears and opening himself up to his expectation of more pain. Pain from my hand. I wanted to growl, to howl my frustration to the heavens. He thought, he believed to his very core the words that spilled from his lips.

My first thought was to tell him he was an idiot but that was how I treated the old Stiles, not the open wound of a man standing before me. This Stiles needed a gentler touch, one that I wasn't sure I was able to give.

While I fought with my own demons, Stiles seemed to overcome his own. Standing straighter he waited for my answer. I listened to his heart, the quick double thump, for another second and then I did what I should have done so many days before- I listened to my own.

"You have always been pack." I took a slow measured step toward him, listening for a change in his rhythm, not wanting to scare him away. "You were never the weak human." There was an uptick but it wasn't fear, it was hope. "You were never under foot." That scent was back, the sweet smell of his want and I was pulled toward him, quickening my pace to reach his side. "And you have saved the day more times than the rest of the pack combined."

I stopped in front of him trying desperately not to touch him, to allow that first touch to be on his terms, knowing that him reaching out to me would be so much more meaningful.

"And I have always wanted you."

He didn't throw himself into my arms; it was more of a stumble. He took a hesitant step toward me and tripped right into my arms. But once there he clung and didn't let go. He pressed his face into my chest, arms squeezing and his breath hitching while I let my nose press into his neck to rest along his pulse, taking in his scent.

Some things bear repeating. "I have always wanted you, Stiles." I eased him up the stairs and into the house, both of us falling onto the couch in a tangle of arms and legs. Stiles pressed his head against my abdomen and just clung as I ran my hands through his hair and stroked his back, trying to offer comfort as he trembled in my lap.

I would have been ready to hold him like this for ever but SOME parts of my body didn't understand the concept of taking it slow. I tried to twist, searching for some way to get a pillow under Stiles' head before he realized. Damn, after all he had been through he didn't need THAT popping up in his face.

"You really do want me." Stiles' voice held a note of awe as he slowly uncurled to look up at me. He pushed up, nose skimming along my shirt until we were eye to eye. Cautiously he leaned in as if to give me time to pull away. I let my hand slide up his arm to rest on his shoulder pulling him closer. His lips hovered for a second, warm moist air filling in the millimeters between us with his scent.

"Stiles." I offered his name up like a benediction, a prayer, a reverent plea. His first touch was just a press, lip to lip. He leaned back, biting his lower lip as he contemplated my face and then slanted his head to kiss me again. Aside from holding on to him in a grip that was just shy of bruising, I let Stiles dominate the kiss. He licked his way in, traced the outline of my mouth and swirled and sucked my tongue until I was heady with desire.

I ran my hand up his back slipping under the thin shirt to trace the ridges of his spine and Stiles froze. Shit! I'm an idiot. "Sorry," I whispered dropping my hands to my sides. "Sorry."

Stiles flopped back on the couch and smiled sadly at me. "Not your fault. But it's going to take a while, ya know. I wish I could just let you rip my shirt off and…" Stiles blushed and ducked his head. "Um, yeah, and you know."

Chuckling I kissed his forehead. "I know. I can wait for as long as you need. But one day I hope you will let me kiss and lick away the memory of that night from every scar on your body. I want it to be so that each time you touch them all you think of is me touching you, loving you."

I would have said more but suddenly my arms were full of brown eyed human, my lips kissed passionately. "I want that too." We stayed that way, kissing and curling in each other's warmth until the sun began to set.

Walking him back to his jeep I tugged him closer by his belt loops before he had a chance to open the door to kiss him one last time. "There's a pack meeting tomorrow. Maybe I could pick you up for it? We could have dinner and watch a movie or something afterwards."

Stiles let his whole body rest against mine, a long line of perfection. "That sounds like a date."

"A first of many I hope." With a quick nod and a smile that lit up his eyes, a smile I had almost lost hope of ever seeing again, Stiles hopped into his old jeep and waved as he drove away. I stood there long past the point where the tail lights faded away and the sound of his engine went beyond even my hearing. I stood listening to the sounds of the forest as I breathed in the last lingering scents of Stiles and mentally counted the hours until I could hold him again.

AN: This feels like the end. Does it feel like that to you?