MYSTERY BOX

CHAPTER 3

A/N: This story is rated NC-17 for a reason. Do not read if you are underage (sorry, Jake is not in this lemon).

Thanks to Project Team Beta including TearsofMercury, Feriel_Muriel for being first beta, BlueandBlack for being a character beta, HotandCold for creating a Twilighted Forum (link on profile). Thanks to the reviewers: Snow Wolf Alpha, Stephanie is Amazzing, Noelly, Otspock.

And no, Jacob did not imprint on Molly in Chapter 2. That does not mean an imprint will not happen in this fic, there are multiple chapters between now and then (if that happens, of course, wink wink).

***

Jacob and Billy had a long drive ahead of them, and luckily left Seattle before afternoon rush hour.

They sat in silence for a while, until Jacob spoke.

"Don't you think it might be a bit…dangerous…to have them snooping around La Push looking for wolf images? I think it's a bit risky-- they could find out that that sculpture wasn't just a myth, but an actual event."

Billy thought for a moment before he answered. "We can keep them focused on the art itself. I have a good feeling about this."

"Dad, not even everyone in La Push knows about us! Why are you bringing in outsiders? Something might slip."

Billy looked at Jacob and smiled. "The vampires haven't been here in 8 years. No other teenagers have phased. You all stopped phasing regularly years ago. No more imprinting either. It's been years, Leah was the last one to imprint."

Jacob frowned. He didn't like to think about imprinting. To him, it was a loss of choice. He preferred to meet and fall in love the normal way. However, he found it hard to have relationships with women because he always feared that he might imprint while with someone else and break the woman's heart. Sam broke Leah's heart when he left her for her cousin Emily. And Quil and Claire, he didn't want to go there. Quil was like a big brother to Claire, but imprinting on toddler was still a bit too odd, something not mentioned if possible.

So, the result was that Jacob had a few women in Port Angeles who were happy to relieve some of his tension. He never mentioned them to anyone. He thought Billy could probably guess what Jacob did when he would go out weekend nights and not return until early morning hours. He never stayed the night. He did not take them on dates. They knew the boundaries of the relationship and were happy to oblige.

But Molly…Jacob thought of her and smiled. She was lovely. Smart, funny, passionate, gorgeous. Taken. However, she didn't seem very serious about her boyfriend. Her eyes did not light up when she mentioned him. Actually, she hadn't really mentioned him until Jacob brought him up. She had been quite reluctant. And he could tell she was attracted to him; Jacob was accustomed to that reaction from women. If they didn't react that way, he'd be surprised. But it wasn't often that he felt the same way.

Billy seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Jacob. "You don't mind showing Molly around?" He chuckled softly.

Jacob laughed, "Why do I feel like you're being a matchmaker? I don't need any matchmaking, Old Man. I can do fine on my own."

"Oh, really? How come these women haven't come by the house?"

Silence.

"Dad, you know why. I'm worried about imprinting. I don't want to start seeing someone and then suddenly—bam! Imprint! And I'll be Sam to someone else's Leah."

Billy paused before responding, "Jacob, you cannot live your life expecting the worst. There hasn't been an imprinting in years. You're not really happy, are you, Son? I mean, you're successful at the shop, with the pack, with the tribe, with your friends and family, but don't you think something is missing? Don't you want someone special to share your life with? To share your future with?"

"I have Embry and Quil, Seth and Leah."

Billy snorted. "None of them are going to give me grandkids."

Jacob gripped the steering wheel. "Shut up, Old Man. Let's talk about how to make the best of this situation you brought us into."

They spent the rest of the drive discussing the strategy to bring everyone on board before the council meeting.

Billy agreed to talk to the Elders (Sue Clearwater and Old Quil) before the meeting. He would meet with them as soon as possible and discuss any concerns they might have. Jacob's point was a good one, but Billy was sure that no one at UW would consider the werewolf legend historical fact. American Indian tribes had legends. They were not all shape shifters. And he knew the academics would be too…academic to think the myth could be reality.

Billy would tell Sue and Old Quil that this would be a great opportunity for future generations. They could use Molly and Bob's enthusiasm to put in place a record of artifacts that Quileutes could learn from in the years to come--to celebrate their past and embrace their future. It could be the foundation for a little museum at La Push, a museum that could be used to show the tourists who the Quileute people are, and be a source of pride to the younger generations. He was sure they would agree.

Jacob's role would be to get the pack, especially Sam, behind them. Jacob would need to rely on the importance of displaying Quileute heritage and pride, and emphasize that the academics were interested in the art, not seeing if the legend was true. Once the pack was on board, the rest of the younger generation would follow.

***

"You're going where for how long?!"

Spencer was upset.

Molly and her boyfriend, Spencer James, were seated in a nice white tablecloth restaurant. Molly had wanted to tell him about the Quileute project and her upcoming weekend trips to La Push in a very public place.

"Spence, sweetie, this is an amazing opportunity. We may have found a new style in Native American art. I need to do research. It'll just be weekends for a few months. I'll still be in Seattle during the week and we can see each other then."

"Weekdays I focus on law school, you know that."

"Sweetie, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Dr Wilson asked for me specifically. Me, not Blaine, not anyone else. And he's planning to write a paper that I'll co-author with him. Sweetie, when you go clerk in New York this summer, that's even further and longer. And I'm not stopping you. I know you have an amazing opportunity too, and I'll still be here when you get back. This isn't nearly as long or as far." She gripped his hand across the table. "Let's not fight. This isn't changing our relationship at all." She neglected to mention that she spent the two hours prior to this date telling Karen in detail about every moment of her brief time with Jacob. But now that Molly was sitting across from Spencer, her time with Jacob seemed like a fantasy. Spencer was real. Still, she hated how when she talked to Spencer, her voice turned girly and she used silly endearments like "sweetie". Since when did she turn into that type of girl?

Molly and Spencer had started dating 14 months ago. They met at a grad student mixer. Molly arrived with a bunch of female friends and Spencer was with a bunch of male friends, playing wingman to his friend, Klaus. Klaus was interested in Molly's roommate, Karen. While Klaus and Karen got to know each other, Molly spent time with Klaus's cute friend.

Molly found Spencer attractive: a couple inches taller than her (at 5'9", Molly was taller than the average girl), sandy blonde hair, nice-looking WASP-y features; kind of like Brad Pitt's not-quite-as-attractive younger brother. He was well spoken, poised, confident, and found her eye-catching. She liked spending time with him, and when he asked for her number, she gave him her actual number, instead of the number for pizza delivery. They went on a couple group dates first. Klaus and Karen fizzled, but Molly and Spencer went strong. She could not believe someone as cute as Spencer was interested in her. She had dated in the past, and had not-too serious boyfriends, but they tended to be nice, geeky boys.

Overall, it was a pleasant relationship that appealed to Molly's analytic nature. It was as if a matchmaker set them up. Their backgrounds were similar: parents were professionals, his father was a lawyer and Spencer would follow into the family business as a corporate lawyer. His mother was an event planner and active in volunteer work. He had a younger sister who was at Vassar. Molly's parents were a physicist and an engineer. Her older sister was at Harvard medical school and her younger brother was applying to ivy league colleges.

There was nothing wrong with Spencer. He was cute, smart, ambitious, well-bred. There were no big sparks, but Molly did not believe in falling in love. She saw love as something that happened over time. That crazy love that's found in books and movies was a fairy tale and short term at best, as far as Molly was concerned. She did not believe in it and did not look for it. The sex was nice. Not worth screaming, but pleasant and not too messy. She could imagine sex with Jacob would involve furniture breaking and neighbor's brooms hitting on ceilings to get them to: shut the fuck up. Yep, she could definitely imagine sex with Jacob….

Molly smiled and stroked Spencer's arm. She could see him start to relax.

He lifted her hand and stroked his cheek with it. He gave her a slow smile. She returned it. It was working.

"Hey, Babe." He was almost cooing.

She lightly caressed his cheek. "Hey, Sweetie."

They stared at each other. "Molly, I'm going to miss you."

"I'm gonna miss you too, Sweetie."

They kissed over the table.

"Come back to my place."

"It's a school night! I had a long day."

"Molly, I want to see you as much as I can when I can." He leaned into her hand again and gave her that disarming, easy smile. He knew Molly well enough to know what buttons to push.

Molly frowned slightly. She was tired, but she felt guilty about not spending enough time with Spencer. "I'm gonna regret this, but… okay."

"Let's get the tiramisu to go. Where's the check?" Spencer looked up and signaled the waitress. Molly was quickly calculating the last time she had shaved her legs. She had known they were going out, but she didn't expect to go back to Spencer's apartment. She really ought to be more prepared. Thank goodness she was on the pill.

Spencer's apartment was unlike any student housing. His parents were very comfortable financially, so he lived in a modern high rise apartment, like the young hotshot lawyer he would soon become. His furniture was sparse with clean lines, the type of apartment you'd expect the cool rich single guy in a movie to have. Like the comatose guy in the movie, "While You were Sleeping." Molly forgot the name of the guy, but she loved Sandra Bullock in that movie.

They kissed once Spencer unlocked his front door and Molly tossed her purse on the couch. He led her by the hand to his bedroom and the modern king sized bed. They did not need to talk. After a year of dating, each knew their roles. They kissed for a while, and then Spencer moved off the bed and extinguished any lights that were on. That was their signal to strip naked and get under the covers. Then they would kiss some more, rub their bodies together, and Spencer would enter her. No breaking furniture but…nice. And Spencer got a nice orgasm out of it, and Molly would feel…nice.

Afterwards, Molly lay nestled into the crook of Spencer's arm, and Spencer lay on his back idly rubbing Molly's side.

"Babe," Spencer spoke first.

"Hmm?"

"When are you gonna start your MBA?"

Molly was awakened from her stupor. She uncurled herself from Spencer's side and sat upright.

"Excuse me?"

Spencer tried to pull her back onto the bed. He started rubbing her breasts and sucking on them. Molly was trying hard not to be distracted. She enjoyed the sensation, but tried to push him away.

"Your MBA. We talked about this before." His tongue was traveling the valley of her chest. His hands were on her breasts. He knew exactly where her erogenous zones were, and he was using them.

Molly pushed herself to the other side of the bed. "I am not getting an MBA. How many times do I need to tell you until it sticks into your head?" She was getting angry. He had that lazy smile again and moved his body smoothly, like a cat, towards her. His head was about to drop between her legs.

"No!" She jumped off the bed and stood there, naked and angry. He was lying on his side, propped up on an elbow. He still had that lazy smile. Molly was seeing red. "You're distracting me on purpose! Damn you! Stop that!"

"Babe, you can't do anything with an Indian Studies degree. I really admire what you're doing, but it's not practical. Hey, you've got a great mind. You took a ton of business admin courses at Cornell, you told me you could have majored in it. Why don't you take the next logical step and get an MBA? It makes so much sense, babe. I'm just looking out for you."

Molly blinked and shook her head. She could not believe this was happening. It was a replay of an old argument – old arguments, actually— but Spencer never did this in bed, while trying to seduce her! It was a new low for him.

She grabbed her clothes. Spencer realized he pushed her too far and jumped out of bed, his smile gone.

"Babe, I'm sorry. Come back to bed." He blocked the doorway with his naked body. He moved toward her, pulled her by her hips into his. "Come back to bed," he breathed lustily into her ear.

Molly was tired. She was angry. She was hot. "Oh my god, Spencer. No. No, no, no!"

She was aroused, but able to pull away from him. She dressed quickly. Spencer gave up trying to stop her, and just lay on the bed on his side, watching her.

Molly swallowed once, tried not to get emotional, and faced Spencer. She was fully dressed and he was nude. She was standing and he was lying down. She was angry, and he just seemed…uninterested? Accepting? Waiting for the next battle? Molly could not read him. It made her angrier, but for some reason, she wanted to leave in peace.

"Spence, I need to go. I had a long day and I cannot deal with bullshit arguments right now."

His response was to turn his back to her. She was staring at his ass.

Fuck this, she thought as she stormed out of the apartment and tried not to slam the front door. He'll have to get his ass off the bed and lock the damn thing himself.

***

"Molly, where the hell have you been? Doing the walk of shame? I thought you'd be home hours ago."

Molly had tried to sneak into her apartment, but Karen was still awake, eating cereal at the kitchen table and looking at her roommate.

"Ugh! I need a shower!"

"You didn't shower at Spencer's?"

"No, why take a shower to wear used underwear? Gross!" Molly wrinkled her nose.

Karen was quiet and took another spoonful of cereal. "You look pissed off. Another fight?"

Molly fell into the chair across from Karen and placed her arms on the table. Her head collapsed into her arms.

"We had another fight," she moaned. "He just can't understand why I'm in American Indian Studies. He wants me to get an MBA."

Karen was not a grad student, but she knew Molly's frustration. She often heard about it. Karen was an accountant, a good one, but she knew that people needed to like their jobs or they'd be crap at it. The same thing went for a grad school degree—why major in something because someone else told you to? Especially if that someone is a smartass boyfriend? Karen was glad she didn't say that out loud.

Karen met Molly at Cornell when they were undergrads taking business courses (called Applied Economics and Management at Cornell), and was thrilled when she learned Molly was going to UW for grad school. Karen was from Seattle, and was moving back after graduation. They had found this apartment together, and Karen had introduced Molly to her old friends from high school. Molly fit right in.

Karen was not thrilled with Molly's boyfriend, however. Molly just did not seem to realize that she could do better. Karen found Spencer egotistical and manipulative. Molly just seemed grateful to have a boyfriend, and one as pretty, smart and rich as Spencer. But Karen, at the wise old age of 23, could tell they were wrong for each other. She often wondered who would break up with whom first. Karen had guessed Spencer was worried Molly would dump him when he gave her the Claddagh ring for their one year anniversary the month before. It was a ring that said "mine", if worn the right way. But Molly made sure the meaning was ambiguous; the way she wore it did not say "taken". Karen knew Molly loved the ring because it appealed to her half Irish heritage, and her father's grandparents were from the part of Ireland near Claddagh in the southwest. Karen also knew that if Molly and Spencer got serious, if they married, and heaven forbid had kids, it would be the biggest mistake of both their lives.

"So…" Molly knew when Karen started a sentence with a long, drawn out "so", it wouldn't be good. "You mention Jacob to Spencer?"

Molly stared at Karen as if she had two heads. "And why would I mention that? What's there to say? I met some Quileute and I'll be spending weekends there. What are you inferring?"

Karen smiled.

"Okay, Molly, Kill, fuck or marry?"

Molly smiled ruefully. She knew where this was going.

"Kill … Blaine, fuck Jacob and marry… Billy." She smiled. Molly had already told Karen all about the meeting the day before and how something about Billy just appealed to her.

Still, Karen nearly choked on her food. "Billy? The father in the wheelchair? Do you have a father complex or something?" Molly laughed.

"He's so sweet. He reminds me of Yoda. I had the feeling he genuinely liked me and wanted me to look good in front of Dr. Wilson. Oh, Karen! It started so horribly, with Dr. Wilson thinking I flaked and missed the meeting, and then having to take Blaine down a notch in front of everyone! I had no idea I had the balls to do it! Then, seeing Jacob the sex god and getting flustered over him!

"I want to prove I'm worthy of this project and I'm ready to jump this guy's bones! But Billy comes in and makes everything calm. He then hands me this opportunity to redeem myself. I really like him. He's marriage material."

The girls laughed and Karen raised her glass. "To Molly and Billy! May you live happily ever after!" Karen then paused to state the obvious:

"Molly, you know you didn't mention Spencer."

Molly's head fell back onto the table. "Fuck, I am so screwed."