While You Were Creeping - Poppy Rhys Page 0,7
off me. When he held out his hand, I stared at it before slapping it away.
“I’d appreciate it if you left now. I think,” I straightened my cami after standing, “you’ve overstayed your unwelcome intrusion.”
He cocked his head, appearing confused.
“What? Should I scream—”
“No,” he grumbled. “My ears are still ringing.”
I snorted, my acrid tone bubbling up. “Oh, are they? Well, how terrible for you. Should I call the doctor? Would you like a ride to the hospital? Please, let me know what I can do for you.”
“No but thank you.”
If steam could physically roll out of my nostrils right now, it would have.
“If you don’t leave, I’m really calling the police. And—” I flipped on more lights, “how the hell did you even get in here?”
The alarm was still set and none of my windows were open.
What fuckery was afoot here...?
“You want me back in the prison?”
I stopped short on my way across the room to double check the door. A cold chill skirted through me as the word prison registered in my brain. “What did you just say?”
“Isn’t this part of my punishment?” He stroked his hairy neck with his long black claws, face skewed in deep confusion. Just as much confusion as I felt. “You don’t want me to spend Christmas with you like your predecessors?”
So much of what he just said—everything really—made no sense. “My predecessors?”
“The other witches.”
“Are you high? Ah stars,” I moaned, burying my face into my hands. “Of course a drunk alien would break into my home.”
“I wish I were drunk,” he muttered, yet his voice still had that velvety rumble which no intruder should have... “But some water would be nice.”
I dropped my hands to my sides, dumbfounded. “Are you hinting that I should offer you a drink after you broke in?”
One of his eyes grew wider and I thought if his horns didn’t take up most of his forehead, he’d be lifting a brow as if he wouldn’t be opposed.
The nerve. I couldn’t help but laugh incredulously. “No.”
He sighed, scrubbing his neck again and slowly moving through my living room, touching things and inspecting pictures. The clip-clop of his hooves loud against the wood floor, but muted whenever he tread across a rug.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch that.” I yanked a small crystal figurine of an earth marine mammal from his big hands. It didn’t deter him. Instead, he moved along, buck naked and rudely putting his hands on more of my things.
I tried not to pay attention to the short and blunt, fluffy tail that twitched just above his furred, muscled ass cheeks.
“I didn’t break in.”
“Please put that down. You’ll crush it.” Again, I snatched something else from him. And another. And another, until I was carrying an armful of my belongings as I trailed him.
I gently laid my stuff on the couch and then quickly skirted around him to smack his hand before he could touch my decorative plates.
“Don’t touch those either.”
“Why would you have stuff in your home that can’t be touched?”
“They can be touched. By me. Not you.”
He hmphed and mumbled ‘rude’ under his breath as he doubled back, brushing past me close enough that his warmth tickled my skin, and sat on my lounger.
Naked.
His furry ass and balls were on my upholstery.
We stared at each other, and I nearly gnawed off my bottom lip in irritation.
Get it together Holly.
“When you said prison,” I let that word hang in the air, trying to digest it, “what did you mean?”
I’d call the police in a minute. I needed to assess the situation—the situation being this furry alien—before I made my next move.
And maybe my curiosity was getting the better of me. I wanted to hear how he ‘didn’t break in’.
I gingerly sat on the arm of my couch, a fair distance away. The giant watched me, a curious slant to his eyes. The bridge of his nose was wide, leonine, reminding me of a felid species.
“The crystal prison your kind banished me to. What other prison would I mean?”
My kind?
He’d referenced witches twice tonight. Called them my predecessors. And what the hell was a crystal prison—
Oh!
“You mean the paperweight?”
“The what?”
I dashed into the kitchen, snatched the glass cube, and held it up. “The paperweight I got from the elves.” It was the only thing I could think of.
“That’s no paperweight,” he grumbled, eyeballing the cube in my hand with what could only be loathing. “A new punishment, I guess? Pretending ignorance while I have to look at that