Wanda

I stared at my computer screen glumly, the words all jumbled and meaningless. It had been three days since I left Tasha’s penthouse, and I was starting to realize she wasn’t going to contact me. I’d been worried that her sudden desire to be with me forever was related to the adrenaline and forced proximity of our situation, but I’d still hoped that our time together meant something to her. I’d thought that once we were apart, she’d feel this hollow pain deep inside the way I was, and the strong desire to be close to each other again.

Turns out I was wrong. Any feelings had been one-sided and now I was clearly destined to live the rest of my life alone and unhappy. I sighed deeply.

“Christ on a cracker Diaz, you’re sighing so loud every fuckin’ supe in the building is getting depressed.”

I looked up as Lois strode into the room, dressed in her trademark outfit of camo pants and a tank top. She looked a little sweaty, which meant she’d either just come from working out or her mate had stopped by for a lunchtime quickie.

“Are you finished viewing those security camera recordings?” Lois asked.

“Yeah,” I lied. Damn it, I needed to get on that project right away.

“They were blank,” Lois barked. “Plus, have you forgotten shifters can smell a lie?”

I slumped down in my chair. “I’m sorry, Boss. I’m just not on my A-game this week.”

Lois plopped down in the chair on the other side of my desk, her gaze uncharacteristically soft. “You’re missing your mate, Diaz. How long are you going to let this go on?”

“I left the ball in her court,” I said. “I want her to come to me freely.”

“No one comes to love freely, Diaz. It’s all fate and biology and whatever else makes us fall in love with someone. Love isn’t a choice. Nurturing it, that’s the choice.”

She leaned forward and patted my hand, which was weird because Lois was not a touchy person. “Take the rest of the day off. Go find your mate and figure things out.”

When I opened my mouth to argue she held up a finger, fortunately a pointer finger. “That’s an order Diaz. Get the hell out of here and don’t come back until you’re mated up.”

She pushed to her feet and stomped out. I waited about two minutes before deciding that Lois was right. I logged off the network and locked up my laptop, then took the elevator down to our private parking garage. And that’s where I ran into Tasha.

She was standing by her car with a bunch of balloons and what looked like a stuffed animal. Behind her, her driver Nate gave me a friendly wave through the window.

“Tasha. What’s going on?” I asked in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“Chloe said I owed you a grand gesture,” she said quietly, her voice uncharacteristically unsure. “So, I spent the last couple of days trying to think of something. I thought maybe I could do the thing with the posterboard flashcards...”

“What?”

She gave me a small smile. “You know, like in ‘Love, Actually’?”

“I have no idea what that is,” I told her.

“It’s a movie. Then I thought, what if I showed up in a trench coat holding a boom box over my head?” she said.

I walked slowly towards her, desperate to be closer to her and believing for the first time in days that maybe this would all work out.

“Do they make boom boxes anymore?” I asked.

“Apparently not. Besides, you wouldn’t know what song I was playing anyway, unless I was blaring Mozart or something. And nothing about a piano sonata screams ‘grand gesture’ to me.”

I smirked. “I don’t need a grand gesture, Tasha.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” I said. “I just need you. But I also need to know that you’ve thought about our differences. I’m older than you and we lead very different lives. It won’t be easy to be together.”

“I don’t want easy, I want you,” she said, reflecting my words back at me.

I flew towards her, pressing her back against the side of the Town Car, kissing her like we’d been separated for years instead of a couple of days. When I pulled back, we were both breathless.

“I love you,” I told her, pressing my forehead against hers and staring into her eyes. This close, I could see the little flecks of green in with the brown of her iris.

“I love you too,” she said. “Lois said you have the rest of the day off. How about we spend it naked in my penthouse?”

“You talked to Lois?” I asked in surprise.

Tasha nodded. “She said, and I quote, ‘that damn vamp ain’t doin’ any work anyway, you might as well get her out of here’ so I took a chance.”

As we pulled apart, I picked up the stuffed animal she’d dropped on the ground.

“Is this a stuffed bat?” I asked with a laugh.

“Yes.”

“You know that I can’t actually turn into a bat, right?”

“Did you want me to give you a bear?” she asked. “That seemed a little too cuddly of a gift for you.”

I couldn’t help but grin at her weird reasoning. “How about we get home, and I’ll give you a gift of my own?”

“Is it orgasms?” she asked with an answering smile.

“Yep.” I popped the ‘p’ for emphasis.

Tasha practically ripped the door open. “Nate, take us home please. Fast!”