Chapter 104 - Star - Becoming The New Me
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Star
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Chay and I devised a plan for me. I was going to start learning new things and going new places. We started off small. Once Chay had fully healed we went out to lunch with Artem and Bailey, just the four of us.
I was a lot more comfortable this time than I was the first time we had went to the diner. We had opted to go to the same place as before because it was familiar to me yet new to me at the same time.
Following that lunch Artem got busy at work along with the interviews he was holding. He was finding a capable staff that could help out around the house. Most of the people he was interviewing were coming from a different pack so there were fewer issues he had to wade through.
While Artem worked on his personal and work issues I continued to go places and try new things. I wanted to learn new skills as well so Chay and I signed up for cooking, art, and writing classes. They were things that anyone could sign up for at the community center in the city.
The cooking classes were the most difficult, but I liked them. I went to them twice a week and was gradually getting more and more used to it all. The art classes were fun. We explored drawing first, which I found that I was surprisingly good at. The time I tried painting I made the canvas look a sad mess and basically just figured out it wasn\'t my forte. We are supposed to be starting sculpting soon.
The writing classes ended up being my favorite. Chay didn\'t like them that much, but I loved the idea of telling a story. I actually used a lot of the details of my life to begin a fiction story about a young woman who was working on becoming a better person. When the instructor asked me where I saw the character going as she developed I told her that I would let her know when I knew that part myself.
I still spent time with the boys who were still suffering from the effects of their talismans. We would need to look for a way to get them freed sometime soon. The good thing was that all the boys were learning really quickly. I joined them frequently, especially Julian since he was the oldest and was learning the most advanced curriculum.
I was happy to see that it wasn\'t hard for me to learn everything that I needed to know. Chay told me that I could take a test that proved that I had learned the equivalent of a high school education and I could then start taking some college courses. I was working hard with Bailey, Reed, and the others to get to that point. I wanted to prove that I wasn\'t an idiot and that I wasn\'t useless.
I know no one saw me that way here, but that old mindset was hard to break. I know that if anyone here actually thought I was nothing more than a burden, a nuisance, or unwanted and unneeded they would be saddened. It was these things I was working on the most. The more that I couldn\'t do for myself the worse I felt.
I had Chay teach me more ways to do my hair. I wanted to learn how to fully do my makeup and how to plan outfits properly. I wanted to learn how to clean the house and do chores. I wanted to learn how to drive. I wanted to learn it all.
And I found out that it wasn\'t all that hard.
I enjoyed a lot of the things that I never knew how to do before. I learned that I wanted to keep doing them and that I wanted to keep improving myself.
I still enjoyed a few dates with Artem. On the first one we went out to a movie for my first time ever. It was a date that was just the two of us. We saw a movie that I thought was really good. It was a little childish but I didn\'t mind. I think it also helped to keep Artem\'s mind a little more pure at the time. I love him and all, but I didn\'t know if I was ready to go to that point again, not yet anyway.
After the movie Artem and I went to dinner. He took me to an Italian restaurant and told me what it was he recommended. We ordered more food than we should have but we shared it all and it was actually really good. And I had noticed that since I had regained that connection with my wolf I ate a lot more than I usually did. Chay said it was something to do with shifter metabolism or something like that.
I also learned that Artem trained everyday no matter what. Well, he did skip them the day I had been kidnapped and the day I was recovering. Artem would run ten miles a day in his wolf form, he followed that with pushups, situps, and fight training. Most of the time Kent, Toby, and Morgan trained with him. Even Reed and Bailey trained most days.
More often than not, Chay and I could be found spying on them. I know that we were just staring at our own mate while we did that. If Ella, Criztie, Dakota, or Sydney were at the house then they would also be watching some of the training.
It was nice watching Artem training. He was the strongest of them all and would fight against three or more at once. I loved watching him move around without his shirt on. The light glistening off his rippling muscles. The fluid, effortless way that he moved. The sexy appeal of it all.
More often than not I left there feeling like my heart was racing and my body sending me strange signals. I knew what it all meant. I knew what I was subconsciously telling myself. I wanted Artem.
Of course I did. What was there to not want? He was perfect. At least in my eyes. He was sweet, strong, handsome, toned, nice, sexy, sexy, and did I mention sexy? Just looking at him and thinking about him made my body hot and an aching need course through my body.
I had to wonder if I would have felt this way if I hadn\'t already had sex with Artem. I know that the heat and the aching need I was feeling was my desire to feel his body pressed against mine again.
I often thought about that night. I thought about the things we had done and the way he had made me feel. I remembered the way he had touched me ever so gently. I remember the painful pleasure of him entering my body.
More often than not, when I thought about these things I ended up touching myself. Touching the places he had touched, following the ghost of the memory as it moved across me like a phantom hand.
What was happening to me?
I don\'t know what all was happening to me, but I know what it all meant. I wanted Artem, that was the sum of it anyway. I wanted him to look at me with those heated eyes. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to have him touch me while I touched him in return. I wanted to feel him inside me.
I was becoming a deviant. That was all there was to it. I had had sex with him once and now I couldn\'t stop myself from thinking about it all. These last six weeks were good and bad because of it.
I enjoyed the memories, and they got me through a lot. Like when my brain started to dwell on the things that I had endured because of Uncle Howard, it was during those times that I would make myself remember what real love making was like. What a real kiss felt like. What it was like to have a man that loved you touch your body. When I would think about Artem I would stop dwelling on the bad memories.
Artem had been right, he was helping me to forget about those negative memories. He just didn\'t know about it.
Right now, I was laying in bed with a memory of Artem playing through my mind. I was able to remember the way he smelled as he held himself above me. It was an intense vivid memory and I was gearing up for another one of the times that I mimicked what he had done to me. I was going to repeat the movements of his hands. But then I smelled his scent again, this time for real. He was coming to my room for some reason.
I barely had time to fix my clothes before he knocked on the door.