Nicky watched as Embry walked shirtless into the kitchen and proceeded to stare at her for a moment. His hair was a little longer than his friends. It wasn't in a short army cut, it was a bit more shaggy. His gorgeous green eyes reflected off of his dark skin. His six-pack abs were gleaming right at me in a sexy, alluring way, right above his khaki light brown shorts.
"This is Embry, my roommate." Paul said as he gestured towards Embry's big frame, standing a couple feet from her.
It got awfully quiet in the room. Embry didn't register anything Paul had just said. Nicky nervously looked back at her pancakes and continued to eat and chew, avoiding Embry's intense gaze.
Embry's thoughts were running in circles. He had just imprinted. He was in awe of the kid eating in his kitchen. He wasn't prepared for her to be just sixteen years old though, or be Paul's little sister. He and this little girl were six years apart and she was most likely in high school and had apparently just run away from home.
Embry didn't know how to address the age gap. But he would be anything for this angel eating in his kitchen. He'd be her protector, her friend, her best friend, and her big brother.
He was confused with himself by how beautiful he found her. He looked at the way her long black hair fell down her shoulders and over her breasts. He noticed the way her hips and ass filled out her sweats.
Embry wondered how her skin would feel on his. What would the contrast of her pale skin look like on his? He desperately wanted to touch her. He shook his head, trying to tell himself thinking of her in a sexual way was inappropriate.
But Embry couldn't help the carnal desire that leaked out of his thoughts, just from looking at this gorgeous young woman.
Embry took another moment to adjust. It's like his world had just tilted, and all the magnets re-polarized, and north wasn't north anymore. She was.
He had to act normal. He had to go slow. He didn't even know the girl's name, and she had just moved to find her father, found out he was dead, and then moved in with Paul, after finding out he was her half-brother.
She'd been through a lot today. Embry couldn't come off as too possessive or come on too strong to wanting to befriend the young girl. First, he'd have to find out her name.
"Hey, I'm Embry. I heard you're Paul's sister and you're moving in with us. That's pretty cool." Embry said, trying to be as casual as he possibly could.
Nicky peered back up at him after she'd finished chewing the last of her pancakes.
"Yeah." She giggled.
"That's the short version." Nicky stated, still smiling.
Embry revelled in the way she had giggled. It sounded like music to him. He wanted her to be laughing all of the time.
"I'm Nicky. It's nice to meet you. And thank you so much for letting me stay in your spare bedroom. I promise I won't be a bother." She added.
A bother? Nicky could bother him as much as she wanted, Embry thought. He chuckled.
"Don't worry, you can bother us as much as you want. Paul's practically family, so you're family now too. Our home is your home. So why'd you decide to come to LaPush?" Asked Embry.
Embry wanted to know why she wasn't living with her mother. He wanted to know everything about how she came to be in LaPush. He wanted to know anything and everything about her life. He was barely able to not burst out with a hundred questions at once.
"I- my mom isn't very active in my life. She probably doesn't even know that I'm gone and it took me four days to drive here." Nicky giggled nervously as she intimately shared her personal life, just a bit with the two men.
"I'm from Toronto, Canada so it took me about four days of straight driving to get here. I didn't feel like paying for motels for just a couple hours so I slept in my car. I came here to like— hope I could live with my dad instead of my mom but well—" Nicky finished mid-sentence with a frown unsure of how to proceed with her story.
The two men obviously knew how that story ended.
Paul and Embry kept their faces gentle but inside they were both concerned that Nicky had spent four days getting to LaPush by driving non-stop and sleeping at rest stops arbitrarily. Those places were like truck stops. Random people stopped there. Any random guy could have physically or sexually assaulted Nicky while she was there by herself, at night.
They didn't like the idea that Nicky had travelled so far alone. Those rest stops were dangerous and Nicky could have crashed her car, driving ten straight hours a day, and that's what it sounded like she had done.
Paul's balled his hands into fists. If anyone hurt Nicky on her way to LaPush he would track them down and kill them. But Nicky was clearly nervous about opening up so much.
She was vulnerable and probably didn't fully trust him or Embry yet, he couldn't think so violently like he wanted to. They were trying to gain Nicky's trust. He relaxed his fists and spread his hands out on his shorts.
"Then you found me." Smiled Paul, paternally, trying his fucking hardest to stay calm.
"Yeah!" Nicky proclaimed, smiling again.
"What do you mean by your mom not caring that you're gone?" Said Paul, asking what was on everybody's mind.
"Well, she's kind of an addict. It's not that she won't care, she just won't notice. I wanted to find my dad here so I wouldn't have to keep paying the bills for my mom and having to take care of her. I was hoping I could live with him because lately it's been a lot to take care of my mom." Nicky explained, intertwining her fingers with the hem of her shirt as she spoke, obviously nervous to explain her situation.
"So uh— thanks for letting me crash here until I figure out what to do next." Said Nicky.
"I appreciate it so much." She drawled.
Paul didn't realize that Nicky didn't just run away because her mom took away her phone or because she got in trouble. She left a bad situation to find a better home and found out that she had no one. No mom or dad around who could take care of her.
Paul was furious with Nicky's mother. What kind of mom just doesn't notice that her daughter left the country for four days? It was ridiculous. Nicky made the right choice by leaving.
When Nicky explained why she had left home to find her dad, Paul decided that Nicky didn't have to stay temporarily, she could stay as long as she needed. This was her home too.
He'd see if he could get her enrolled in high school on the rez, and he'd become the only parent this girl had. He'd have to. For her.
This tiny girl sitting at his dining room table had no one and he'd have to step up. She seemed kind, funny, respectful, and completely and utterly alone.
She's obviously gotten a job and paid the bills for her mom for who knows how long. She just wanted a break. She just wanted a parent. Paul would be that for her.
"You can stay here as long as you want Nicky." Said Paul in a gruff voice.
"If you came here to live because your mom can't take care of you, I can ask the chief to enroll you in the rez school here. I have pull, you'll get in for sure if that's what you want. If you want to stay." Said Paul with authority.
Nicky was taken aback by his offer and his kind words. She didn't know Paul well, but the fact that he wanted her, wanted her to stay made her feel light headed.
He didn't know her or know what kind of person she was but Paul had just offered Nicky to live here permanently and enroll in school. Nicky felt like she was about to cry but she held back her tears. She finally felt like someone cared about her.
"Yeah, I'd love that." Nicky said to Paul, as she held back her tears of joy.
Embry was watching Paul and Nicky's interaction from in front of the dining table. He was overjoyed that Nicky would be moving to LaPush but disturbed by the reason why she had to stay here.
Embry knew what it felt like to have no one care about him. He had lived it. He drowned in his grief daily for the relationship his mom and he used to have. How easy it had been when there had been no secrets between them.
Embry knew how it felt to have no one care about you and he wouldn't wish that feeling on his worst enemy. Well, the leeches could take his pain. But it was something he could see in Nicky's eyes and he hated it.
He looked into Nicky's eyes and he could see how much it pained her to not have her mom care. He saw her distraught at finding out she didn't have a dad either. He saw her hopelessness and misery.
She had come to LaPush to find a parent who could take the burden of taking care of herself off of her shoulders. Paul was going to lighten the load and and Embry vowed to himself that she'd never have to bear so much weight on her shoulders ever again.
"We'll, I'll clean up the dishes, then I'll call the chief and get you enrolled in school. What grade are you in?" Asked Paul as he started to stack plates onto his large hand.
"I'll be in twelfth grade in August. A senior." Said Nicky as she passed Paul her plate covered in syrup and stood up, tucking in her chair as she stood.
"Okay, you'll be enrolled in grade twelve for the next school year then." Said Paul.
Nicky nodded in confirmation. Embry wanted Nicky to keep talking. Her voice sounded like sweet candy. Every sentence she spoke, breathed sugar and honey into his ears and through his body. He was in awe. Absolutely captivated by her every word.
As Paul began to clean up, Embry walked up closer to Nicky.
"I heard you went swimming this morning. Some of the guys saw you. How was the water?" He tried to casually start a conversation between him and this angel.
"It was cold." Nicky said laughing.
Fucking honey to his ears. Embry loved her laugh.
"Who are 'the guys'?" She asked while making quotation mark fingers around her ears.
Shit. The first casual question Embry had asked led to her having to explain her mother's addictions and now Embry's second try at a casual conversation leads to the pack. What wasn't Embry fucking up?
Embry had been a fuck up for the past couple of years. After watching his best friends, Jacob and Quil imprint and fall in love and then he had to watch almost every one of his pack members get imprints and become completely and utterly absorbed in them, his mood had only gone downhill.
Embry had spent the past couple of years womanizing, starting fights and drinking crazy amounts of booze to try to drown out his dark thoughts.
He didn't think of what his imprint would think of his lifestyle or if he'd be a good role model once he imprinted because he honestly had been starting to believe he never would.
Most of the guys imprinted when they were between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. And Embry was twenty-two going on twenty-three.
He just bagged random girls, drank until he couldn't see and fought until he had too many broken bones to count, to block out the noise in his head telling him that he wasn't good enough to imprint. His head had been a dark place and he wasn't thinking about his future imprint because he'd been trying to drown out his thoughts.
Then when Embry's mom left the picture, his thoughts grew even darker. He went from being human and having everything he could ever want, to getting a gene that turned him into a wolf and having nothing of his own left.
Embry was concerned if he'd even be a good influence on Nicky. He doubted it. He didn't deserve her. His imprint was innocent, sweet, just a kind teenager.
And after she spoke every individual word, here he was lusting after her, after every breath she took. He wanted to inhale her. He was scared he'd take her into his home and spit her out worse than she'd been when she'd arrived.
Embry had felt pain, fury and depression over the past couple of years, but never fear. Now his whole body was doused in fear. He'd never been so scared in his entire life.
He hadn't ever been this scared. Not when he'd first phased, or was fighting leeches, or thinking that maybe he'd never get an imprint or when his mom left. The most scared he's ever been was right now. He was absolutely terrified about how to deal with having an imprint.
He didn't know how to tell her she was his imprint. She didn't know how to introduce her to his supernatural life. He was deathly afraid of everything the imprint entailed. Embry felt vulnerable.
"The 'guys'—" Embry said as he made the same quotation bunny ears with his fingers as she had made.
"—Are my friends. The guys. There's ten of us who hang out regularly." Embry said.
Embry traded in the word 'pack' for friends. Bearing in mind they considered themselves brothers, he wasn't too far off.
"We're practically brothers." Embry stated.
"Wow, that's a lot of friends. They're Paul's too?" She asked, scrunching her brow in apparent curiosity.
"Yeah." Said Paul from behind them, as he washed dishes in the sink.
That's when Nicky let out a huge yawn and then rubbed her face. Her eyes darted back to the chair she had just been in, eyeing it as if she wanted to sit back down, but then Paul spoke up.
"You're probably exhausted from staying in rest stops and driving for four days straight, kid. Why don't you take a nap or get some sleep? Our house is yours too, you know?" Paul added, looking concerningly over at Nicky.
Nicky was exhausted. Between driving for ten-plus hours a day and sleeping in her car, she'd never felt more worn out. She was dead on her feet.
And Paul was right. This was her house as much as theirs. She didn't have to placate anyone with small talk just to feel like a good guest. This was her home now.
The bags under Nicky's eyes were prevalent. She looked ragged, worn out and exhausted.
Embry still found her absolutely gorgeous. Jaw-droppingly stunning. Utterly sexy. But Paul was right. Nicky looked like she hadn't slept in days.
It was a miracle how she managed to drive all the way from Canada to LaPush without crashing. She looked like she was seconds away from passing out. Thank god she wasn't still at the wheel.
"Yeah, I might." She said as she yawned again.
"I'll be upstairs." Nicky said, waving goodbye to Embry and Paul.
She sleepily trudged up the stairs and headed to her bedroom. Nicky lay on the bed, sweats, socks and all, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.
Embry listened to the little pitter patter of Nicky's feet reach her bedroom, and then moments later he heard her breathing even out as little snores emanated from her bedroom through the ceiling.
He was wondering how the fuck he should tell Paul that he imprinted on his little sister. He needed advice for the first time fucking ever.
Embry was going to talk to Jacob.
Word Of The Day:
Arbitrarily: on the basis of random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.