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I’ve always considered myself a rational being, which is why I’ve never been the type to believe in the so-called butterflies that start batting their wings viciously in your stomach whenever you see your crush – but then again, life is about being proven wrong for the sake of getting to know the truth, no matter what about, and my beliefs regarding love were shattered to pieces not long ago when I met one Derek Hale.
It all happened during the last day of school before we graduated. My best friend, Lydia and I, had plans for the afternoon before starting our heavy study sessions in the upcoming days, but out of the blue, she said it wasn’t good for her after checking a text message that she had been sent seconds ago.
After our last lesson, I walked to the parking lot with her, where she said goodbye to me before approaching a man who was leaning against his black car, hands tucked away safely into the pockets of his leather jacket, sunglasses hung in the collar of his grey V-neck shirt. The sunbeams gleamed on the hood of his car and since the burning celestial body was behind him, it highlighted his features appealingly – his sharp frame, chiselled face and his hair that was straining upwards messily in haphazard directions.
He had an overwhelming charisma to him that trapped me the second I saw him, and there went my theories about love at first sight being a hoax. There was a tingle in the pit of my stomach, an itching hotness started to churn in my lower belly, and my heart leaped into my throat as though trying to choke me. I could hardly breathe, and I didn’t realise I was holding back my breath until Lydia left me. The only thing that registered in my mind was the feeling that something was still hanging in the air – either Lydia’s words, or my sudden numbness, or feeling frazzled, or my empty thoughts – I couldn’t tell which one was it.
I couldn’t, because at that moment, nothing else existed to me besides the fact that the guy was boring his eyes into me. It didn’t matter that it was more like an unfriendly glare than anything, because it was directed at me, and it showed me that he recognised me , and nothing was more important than that. My body always responds with a shiver whenever I recall how we maintained eye contact sternly, neither of us wanting to break it like it was a competition between us, as pathetic as that sounds.
That was my first ever time meeting Derek.
The second time came around when my younger brother, Stiles, offered to take me home from my workplace, being paranoid that something might happen to me. He threw me a text just minutes before the end of my shift that something had come up, and he wasn’t coming to pick me up, so he asked Scott to do it instead. I shrugged it off and proceeded to wipe the coffee maker and counter clean, arrange the cups nicely on the shelves, then take the mop and clean the floor. I was sweaty and I was irritated with myself and the entire world by the time I finished everything, mentally cursing myself for telling Heather she could go home earlier and I’d close up the shop. All I wanted was a nice foamy bath and my bed.
With my hair dishevelled, entire being reeking of caffeine, dark circles decorating the underside of my eyes and my cheeks dusted with patches of ground coffee, I left the shop and closed the door. Scott was nowhere to be seen, so I opted to pull my book out to read while waiting, but just as I was rummaging around in my bag, a familiar vehicle rolled down the street, halting in front of me. My eyes widened to the size of a saucer. What was he doing here? Especially when I look like this ?
Mortification engulfed me in a fraction of a second, and I could only pray that my cheeks weren’t getting red, albeit I could feel them heating up. I forced a smile on my lips as I did my best to refrain from yelling at Scott. I didn’t want the man to think I’m a lunatic or something for shouting with Scott for no apparent reason.
What shocked me was that both of them got out of the Camaro – Scott to greet me with a hug, whereas the man to introduce himself to me. I was thrilled that I could finally touch him skin on skin as we shook hands, and the contact sent a jolt of electricity zigzagging through my entire body, prodding and twinging my very soul.
From then on, I kept glimpsing Derek at random times, at random spots of Beacon Hills – mostly around my home and my workplace, though. He started coming to the shop in the mornings, and since he ordered the same thing for a whole week, I knew what to prepare for him by heart. He always arrived half an hour after opening, just like clockwork, and spent hours and hours there, sometimes merely sitting there, watching his environment and sipping his order, sometimes working on something, sometimes reading. And sometimes, when the traffic flattened in the shop, he came up to me to talk.
They were all light conversations, mostly small talk that I normally hate, but with him, I didn’t mind it, because we were speaking to each other . After a while, he boldly asked me about my work schedule, and since then on, he always came to pick me up when I finished at an ungodly time and it was too late for it to be safe to let me go home alone.
Then the small talks took a turn and they eventually switched to being more serious topics. The change was gradual, both of us wary and careful not to push the limits of the other and not to cross any kind of line of discretion. We started sharing more personal details about ourselves, and we realised we had a lot in common, hence more and more topics came up that we could converse about, including series, books, music and so much more.
Before we knew it, we were a couple. At first, we didn’t notice it for what it was – it was Heather to call Derek my boyfriend, and I immediately felt a spark of hotness inside me. I protested, but we kept getting similar comments and looks from our circle of friends, and so, he ended up asking me out for a real date.
I was clued in to the supernatural not long after. I had gone to his flat the previous afternoon, and I slept in his bed with him spooning me for the whole night. Turned out he’d already invited our common friends over, which I got to know when I staggered down the stairs, still rubbing my eyes drowsily, determined to make a beeline for the kitchen to ease the demanding growling of my stomach, only to find myself face to face with the others. Needless to say, I instantly blushed and wanted to turn around to make myself look more decent and presentable to them, but Derek chuckled and, with a gentle hold around my wrist, pulled me down, right into his chest so that my hands were trapped between us, resting on his chest as he hugged me.
He insisted I stayed and listened to everything they had to discuss, and so, when Stiles mentioned something supernatural for the first time, my eyebrows shot up, and I was sure they disappeared in my hairline. They calmly explained everything to me, and when I asked Derek why did he share it with me so soon, for it being quite personal, he said, ‘Because I’m afraid that if I get too attached to you and tell you about it too late and you can’t bare to stay with me afterwards, I wouldn’t be able to let you go.’
That was also the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me, and I couldn’t help but kiss him giddily in front of everyone, still wearing my pyjamas and my ridiculous fluffy pink slippers, hair still yet to be brushed and freed from the loosened messy knot on the top of my head. I threw my arms around his neck and he returned the gesture, closing me into his embrace by placing a broad palm on the small of my back, the other combing through the stray tresses that escaped from the rubber ring overnight.
As for now, my phone is ringing with a new text message that Lydia sent me.
When are you coming? Derek is going nuts over here, and he’s more annoying than your brother.
I chuckle, knowing exactly how much Stiles can push Lydia’s patience, so I increase my momentum and hurry down the streets to the block of flats where Derek lives. Even down there, in front of the gargantuan building, I’m aware that Derek can already hear my heartbeat. As if on cue, his burly shape appears behind the huge window, and I squint to be able to see him better. I wave to him with wide motions, and he greets me, too. I couldn’t hide my zeal even if I wanted to, taking off to jog to the entrance and up the stairs, straight to his door, where he’s already waiting for me when I arrive.
Without missing a beat, he pulls me inside with a palm spread on my waist and reels me in for an impassioned kiss, which I return with ardent fervour, his plush pink flesh curling up against mine blissfully. He cups my hips and curls his fingers under my chin to keep me where I am, my fingers raking through the short spikes of his hair, elated to be welcomed by him again.
We flutter away from each other when someone clears their throat sharply. Derek reluctantly relinquishes and retreats from me, but doesn’t fail to keep his arm wrapped around me, asserting his territory to the others, ignoring they are already well aware of it. He leads me to the sofa and has me sit next to him closely so that our thighs aren’t just touching – they are plastered together. He continues to rub small circles into my skin through my cardigan as the pack meeting goes on, with Derek intermittently littering tiny kisses all over my temple and cheek, making me grin stupidly in happiness.
Noticing that Stiles, Lydia, Allison, Scott, Isaac and Malia are all watching us, I crane my neck to bury myself in the crook of Derek’s strong neck in an attempt to hide my face, giving myself the impression of a scared ostrich that’s first instinct is to dig its head in sand when something startles it. The only one to roll his eyes at our affectionate fumbling is Peter, but none of us gives him much credit. As for Derek, he tightens his hold around me and just draws me even closer to him, close enough for him to curl his other arm around me, too, holding me protectively, lovingly.
“ You know, dude,” Stiles speaks up. “The first time we met I honest to God thought you were a serial killer or something. So seeing you being all cuddly and gentle is really puzzling me, you know. That’s why I was wary at first when I got to know you were dating my sister.”
“ Serial killer?” Derek asks in amusement, his low voice rumbling through his chest, travelling into me through our contact. It puts me at ease, like a distant brontide.
“ Yeah, with the leather jacket and mysterious attitude anyone would have thought that,” Stiles hedges, flailing his hands in a self-preserving manner. “I mean, not to be rude here, but I should have probably taken a picture. You’d understand what I’m talking about then, man.”
“ I feel you,” Scott chimes in. “I was scared when you first approached us in the woods. I was thinking, ‘Oh God, this guy is probably going to kill us or eat us alive’.”
“ Eat you alive?” Derek echoes, apparently tasting the words, rehearsing what it feels like on his tongue. “I’m not that intimidating.”
“ Yeah, you are,” the boys oppose at the same time, making most of our team chuckle, excluding Peter, who crosses his legs and arms as he leans back on the couch, making himself comfortable. On the other hand, I nestle myself deeper into Derek’s embrace like a kitten, and my boyfriend’s instinctual response to that is to tilt his head to the side to rest his cheek against the top of my head after kissing my hair and inhaling my redolence.
“ He isn’t that bad,” I offer, smiling up at him. In return, he arches a brow at me and asks me teasingly, playfully, “Oh yeah? ‘Not that bad’?”
“ You know I like that about you,” I say, pulling his head down to peck the tip of his nose.
“ Holy mother of God,” Stiles flails, baffled. “Who would have thought that Derek Sour Wolf Hale is capable of being adorable and affectionate? Who knew he had feelings ?”
“ Hey,” I chide him, smoothing my palm over the breadth of Derek’s sculpted ribcage, smattering of dark chest hair peeking out from under the collar of his Henley where it’s riding low due to my ministrations. “He isn’t a sociopath, of course he has feelings.”
“ Thankfully. Just so you know,” Stiles threatens, turning to the werewolf I’m lounging on. “If you hurt her in any way, I’m going to hunt you down. I know where you live, and I have a best friend who can find you by your scent, and whose girlfriend is a huntress who knows how to hunt you down.”
Derek narrows his eyes at him, “How could you kill me?”
Stiles dismisses him with a shrug, “I have my ways.”
Derek snorts under his breath, then kisses my forehead, murmuring against it, “Don’t worry. I could never hurt her, and never will.”