Dear Enemy, You're My Mate

Chapter 15 **

Patricia

My room is dark and silent, and my bed seems so inviting where it's waiting for me to tuck myself under the duvets.

Smiling, I spit out toothpaste, then rinse the basin under running water while meeting my reflection in the mirror.

There is finally some hope radiant in my eyes. I'm thrilled that Alice and I found an apartment already, and tomorrow the big showing will take place to see if it's something for us.

With happiness bubbling up within me, I turn off the light and walk over to my bed. I can't wait for tomorrow to come and slip under the covers with sweet reveries of the future. A scent of detergent hits my nose, and I hum happily.

I smile like a freaking fool in the dark and hug my warm and cozy boyfriend, only to scream when I realize I don't fucking have one—who the hell is in my bed?!

My arm stretches for the bedside lamp, and my eyes instantly get caught on a man covering his eyes with his hand. His lips are pressed together so tightly one could think the light is harming him.

"Do you mind turning off the light?"

The older Dior again?!

He glances at me through a crack in his fingers, and our gazes clash. It's frightening how my heart kicks up dust clouds in response. And unwelcome. This guy is the older version of that jerk I hate! I'm not supposed to get breathless when I look him in the freaking eyes, but the mate-bond is almost impossible to fight.

Almost.

I grab the bedlamp and smack his head with a scream. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY BED?!"

Dior shrieks like a girl, shielding himself from my attacks and then laughing at me as I keep trying to beat his arse.

"Is that how you welcome your mate, love? No wonder you've stayed single for so long!"

Damn! He has a beautiful laugh. It's deep and reverberating and making my brain cells jump around like sizzling bacon pieces, but I'm not falling for this fool! I'm naked, and grownup Dior is in my bed uninvited! Mate or not, we aren't that intimate!

My cheeks heat. "It doesn't matter that we are mates! You can't just randomly appear in my bed!"

Dior's lips quirk up when I'm hovering above him with the bedlamp held in the air. I'm heaving and feel all air leave my lungs when his eyes travel to my naked breast. His smile turns feral, and I shriek, releasing the lamp to hide my hardened nipples.

I hastily pick up a pillow to shield myself with, yet the too-amused-than-I'm-comfortable-with expression on Dior's face remains even when I'm covered up.

What makes the situation worse is that my insides are stupidly fluttering and swooping. My fingers are stiff around the pillow, but my skin is painfully flush.

Gosh, I'm so annoyed with myself! At this rate, I might as well yell out loud how annoyingly attractive I find Dior's grownup self!

"We meet again," Dior says before knitting his eyebrows together as if in deep thought. "Out of curiosity, how long has it been since the last time I was in your dimension?"

I glare at him, suspicious and breathless at the same time. "You were here earlier this same day."

"Oh, I see..."

Dior scratches his head, and I try to tell myself that he is too pretty for my taste in men. I like manly faces and guys with tattoos—not trimmed muscles and butterfly-awakening eyes.

I clear my throat. "So, are you going to explain what the hell you're doing in my bed?"

He grins wickedly, scooting closer, but stopping once he catches my suspicion, which I must convey through my body language. He stills and then towers above me while on his knees. The Dior in this world is scarily tall, but this one is bigger and more muscular with a presence that fills the entire room.

"I can't control my ability to travel through time and worlds, but I guess I missed your pretty face so much that I somehow ended up here—it only took me two days of focusing on your smile."

"And you teleported to my bed?"

Guilt washes over his features. "No, I found myself in your room, but I thought I would wait for you in bed."

"You're such a pervert!"

Dior breathes a laugh, aiming his smile my way. His eyes are dancing over my form, and once more, it gets harder to breathe. I'm hyperaware of his presence, struggling not to let the mate-bond overwhelm me. It's trying to pull us together, but I'm fighting it.

Dior leans closer to my stiff body with a smirk, whispering in his husky voice. "You say that, yet I suspect I excite you more than you're willing to admit, Patricia."

A shudder wrecks my body when I hear Dior say my name, not my nickname, but my actual name.

"I'm not excited." If I had been named Pinocchio, then my nose would be a hundred feet long.

Dior laughs, then lies down in my bed without asking, resting his head in his massive palms. I have to force myself not to let my gaze drift to his naked chest but fail for a moment, which, of course, the bastard notices. Luckily, he doesn't comment on it.

"You can lie down in the bed, Patricia—I won't bite."

"I'm not that eager to share a bed with you."

"Yikes, such a feisty thing you are—how come you were acting so much sweeter toward me earlier?"

"It was before I had fully realized you were you!"

Curiosity flares in his eyes, and the ghost of a smile touch his lips as he studies me. "And who am I?"

"Dior fucking Lavigne!"

"Yes, my middle name has always been 'fucking’, and most women I've dumped like to remind me of it."

"Ugh!" I grimace. "I hate womanizers..."

Dior chuckles. "Lies—your eyes keep drifting to my body, and your panties are damp but don't worry love, it will be our secret. Once you're ready to admit that you're attracted to me, then I will show you what you're missing out on."

"I'm not attracted to you!" I fucking am.

Another chuckle comes from Dior, louder this time with teeth and everything. "You can't hide your arousal from me, Patricia. Nothing slips past the mate-bond, not even your flaring heartbeat."

I'm about to snap at the guy again but pause when I realize his lips are amused and eyes watching me, clearly waiting for me to fight back. It's then it hits me—he is enjoying this bickering back and forth.

"I..." I hesitate, then take a deep breath. "Can I ask you something personal?"

His pupils seem to dilate in the dark, causing my heart to beat faster. I remember reading somewhere it's a sign of affection. Oxytocin and dopamine affect the size and shit—I'm thinking too fast, and I'm nervous, and Dior is smiling!

"Go ahead." The amusement rolling off his tongue can't be missed, which doesn't help the situation.

"When I died in your dimension..."

I roll my lips into my mouth and furrow my eyebrows, afraid I might be wrong. This idea is tickling my senses, whispering into my ear that Dior is enjoying every minute spent with me. I want to believe my intuition, but what if I'm wrong and Dior reverts to his asshole-self and makes fun of me for assuming he missed me?

Dior's expression turns more serious as if a thousand dark thoughts enter his mind before he calmly replies. "Yes?"

I breathe out my answer. "Did you miss me after I died?"

Dior is silent, and I close my eyes, not daring to open them. I clench my hands, regretting my question the minute I hear a nearly inaudible laugh coming from the older man next to me.

"Of course I did," Dior speaks in a soft tone, and when I face him, his lips curl into a secretive smile, as if he is nervous. There is even a tint of rose on his cheeks. "I can't speak for the version of me living in this dimension, but-..."

I giggle. "But?"

"I was stupid, Patricia, weak too. When I was younger, I treated you like shit, and you deserved so much better. The past me was incapable of accepting his genuine emotions. Back in high school, I thought my popularity was more important than-..."

"More important than what?"

Only now do I realize how close we have gotten to each other, that I'm leaning over him, gazing into Dior's face. The slight crease between his eyebrows narrates an entire story of pain and grief. His expression says more than a thousand words, and suddenly I'm flooded with the need to touch him, yet I hold myself back.

"I thought my werewolf pack and popularity were way more important than the truth—that I had always been deeply in love with you. But I was wrong because after you died, everything else lacked meaning, and my life turned into an endless tunnel of darkness."

I stare at him, try to read his expression to find a hint of the asshole I've grown to know—color me shocked when I only find regret. Dior has aged like a fine wine, his body is honed to perfection, and his face is a piece of art, but what gets to my heart is the life experience found in his eyes.

The man sitting before me isn't one interested in making fun of me—it's a man who has shed tears and lived long enough to understand actual loss. And he is beautiful in a way that scares me because the more we talk, the harder it gets to hate him.

My eyes lock on the mattress. "It feels ridiculous to hate you over a water balloon right now."

Dior snort laughs, catching my eyes with a dimple forming on the left side of his face. "We both know I did more than that, Patricia. It baffles me how you didn't murder me in my sleep back in the day. I didn't include you in the pack activities, and I made your life hell."

"You did." I agree.

"And yet you never gave up—you stood up for yourself. Even though you were young and your wolf smaller than everybody else, you never backed down from a challenge against your alpha."

"True."

I'm sitting on pins and needles here, so incredibly apprehensive when Dior opens that darn mouth again. I only stare into the slight smile on his lips, wondering which direction he will take. Can someone remind me how to breathe again?

"I'm so stupid. I should have realized it back then."

My voice is a whisper, and shivers are crawling up my back. "Realized what?"

Blue eyes seize mine. "That you were my luna all along—you were born strong, made to lead others, and I must have been blind not to have realized that before it was too late."

I sit entirely still, and while I don't kiss the gorgeous man before me, I sure as hell want to.