by Jadyn Chase
I laid my hand on her arm. “Slow down. We’re almost there.”
The headlights swerved around another bend to light up the cabin tucked down at the bottom of Whistler’s Gulch. She hit the brakes and the Jeep lurched to a stop. I bit down my groans of agony. At least we were here. The Clan would be safe.
Only one thing bothered me. I had to get up Smokey Ridge somehow to warn my family. I had to tell them what the Lynches were up too, and I had to alert them that more would be on the way.
I couldn’t do that in my condition, though. Piper set the emergency brake and got out. She came around to my side and grabbed me. I flinched and tried to fight her off, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. Before I could stop her, she dragged me out of the Jeep.
I locked my teeth and snarled at her, but she ignored me. I didn’t want to think about how she got so good at ignoring the groans of a man in pain. She looped my good arm over her shoulders and hauled me toward the cabin.
“Is there a key somewhere?” she panted into my ear.
“It isn’t locked,” I gasped between moans.
She balanced me on the porch while she flung the door open. It yawned into blackness, but Piper didn’t hesitate. She marched me inside and stopped in the dark.
She looked around to study the place. I struggled for the breath to tell her there was a bed in the corner, but she saw it first. She supported me to it, but when she got there, her strength gave out before she could lower me down easy. She turned my back to the bed and my weight tumbled out of her grasp.
I collapsed on the mattress howling in agony, but Piper didn’t stand around to apologize for hurting me. She barged out of the cabin and came back with that pathetic excuse for a first aid kit.
She tossed it on the bed and left again. I closed my eyes and tried to hold it all together. Pain ate away at my insides. I should have let her take me home. Screw the Clan. At least my Ma would have some painkillers to give me. She could stitch me up better than any doctor.
A hand touched my forehead. I cracked one eye to find the cabin lighted by the lamp on the table. Piper stood over me and studied me with inscrutable eyes. “You’re in bad shape. We need to get you to a hospital.”
I shook my head. “Can’t. Need stitches. That’s all.”
She inspected me a lot closer than I wanted her to. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the hardened expression on her face. I didn’t want to know what she was thinking right now. That woman was capable of anything.
I should have known that when I decided to get mixed up with her. I should have known she would pull a gun on a dragon and shoot out his damned eye. That was just the kind of thing she would do.
She sat down on the bed next to me and laid a hand on my arm. “You really don’t want to go, do you?”
I clamped my lips closed against the pain. I couldn’t look at her without seeing myself reflected in her eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw.
She picked up the first aid kit and unzipped it. The unzipping sound made me take a look. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to stitch you up. Somebody has to do it, and since you won’t let me take you anywhere, I have to do it.”
She unpeeled a foil pack and laid it out on the patchwork quilt. It contained a curved needle already threaded. She took out a pair of medical clamps and locked them around the needle. I eyed her sideways. “Have you ever done this before?”
“Nope,” she chirped, “but I’ve seen every episode of MASH ever made.”
I groaned and closed my eyes again. “Oh freakin’ great.”
“What choice do I have?” she returned. “You can’t stay the way you are. You’ll be dead by morning.” She took hold of my shoulder. I tried to cringe away from her. “Come on. You said you needed stitches, so you better let me take a look. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You could nick a blood vessel and I could bleed to death. That’s the worst that could happen. Besides, we don’t have any painkillers.”
She cocked her head to study me. The more she looked at me, the more uncomfortable I got. I never wanted her to see me vulnerable and in pain and helpless like this. I would give anything to remain her knight in shining armor who protected her, not the other way around.
She tugged my arm. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
I could only whimper in submission as she started to unwrap the bandages. If only I could crawl into a hole and die right now, she wouldn’t have to see me broken and torn up. She refused to let me withdraw, though. She unwound the bandages and laid them aside before she touched my shoulder with gentle fingers.
“Christ, Wyatt! Look at the state you’re in!”
I clenched my eyes closed and turned my head away. “Just do it. If you’re going to do it, just do it and be done with it. Don’t talk.”
“All right,” she breathed. “I’ll do my best.”
She took hold of the clamp. The next thing I knew, explosive pain rocketed through my chest. I howled out loud. It took all my concentration not to jerk away. I grabbed a pillow off the bed and crammed it into my face. I sank my teeth into the downy softness and bit down hard.
She didn’t stop. No matter what I did, she didn’t stop. I lost track of exactly what she was doing in the blinding agony ripping me apart. I suffocated my screams in the pillow and let myself go. I shrieked myself hoarse just trying to hold myself together.
At one point, she held me down on the bed with one hand while she worked with the other. If I moved too much, she pressed me down so I had no choice but to keep still. I could have broken away. I could have run out of the cabin to hide from her, but that hand commanded me to obey her. I couldn’t ignore it.
I became aware, in the distant reaches of my mind, that she was finished. She wiped something over my chest and ribs, but I didn’t take the pillow off my face. My screams turned to sobs, and I definitely didn’t want her seeing that.
She knew, though. She couldn’t exactly miss my shoulders shaking. I bellowed all my rage and rebellion into the pillow. She didn’t say anything or try to talk to me. She covered the wound with another bandage. With tender pressure, she steered me onto my side and rewrapped my shoulder before she eased me onto my back and left me alone.
I hid from her. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I concealed my face with the pillow until I knew for certain I could face her without breaking down. When I finally pitched the pillow aside, she sat on the bed at my side with a serious expression on her face. “Are you gonna be all right?”
I gave the pillow a punch for good measure. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
She shrugged and turned her attention to putting her first aid kit away. Piles of blood-soaked gauze and towels lay scattered around the bed and on the floor. Jesus, what did she do to me? Curiosity compelled me to look under the bandage at the job she did, but I didn’t dare touch it. It hurt too much.
She zipped the kit closed and stood up. “You should probably get some sleep.”
“I won’t sleep tonight. My shoulder hurts too much, and anyway, I’m hyperalert after that fight.”
She nodded. “I thought so. I’ll be right back. I just have to put this away.”
She left. In a few seconds, she came back and busied herself cleaning up the room. She took all the towels and garbage away. When she came back, she stood near the bed looking around. She rubbed her hands together and slapped her thighs. “Well, I guess I’ll…you know….”
I patted the bed next to me. “Here. Sit down here next to me.”
She fidgeted for a second before she gave in. She perched on the edge of the bed being extra cautious not to touch me.
I took hold of her hand. “Thank you, Piper. Thank you for doing this.”
She blushed and lowered her eyelashes most enticingly. “It’s me who should be thanking you. I didn’t know you were…I mean, I didn’t know about the…. you know….”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you like that,” I blurted out. “It wasn�
�t fair to you when you didn’t know about me and….my people. I wasn't completely honest with you, and that was wrong. I’m sorry.”
A flash of a beautiful smile flickered across her face. She glanced up into my eyes, just once, before she went back to studying her hands in her lap. “You don’t have to be sorry about that. I liked kissing you. You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
I couldn’t join in the joke. “You know what I mean. You probably wouldn’t have kissed me if you knew what I was and…..what all of us are. You wouldn’t have given me your number or hung out with me yesterday. You wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
She shrugged. “You might be right, but I know now and I don’t regret kissing you.”
My heart stood still. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? “Listen, Piper, I understand if you…..”
She laid her hand on my arm. That touch sent a burning path of excitement to the very center of my being. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”
“No, you don’t.” I summoned all my resolve to get this out. I couldn’t have her touching me like that without laying all my cards on the table. “You don’t want this. You don’t belong to this world. You’re human and I’m not. You deserve someone who can give you what you want. You deserve someone who’s the same as you, who can go out into the world with you. You deserve someone who’s not going to hold you back from what you want to do in life.”
Her eyebrows shot together. “What do you mean—what I want to do in life? How do you know what I want to do in life?”
“You’re a biologist, aren’t you? You work at a Wildlife Sanctuary in Charlotte. You’re going back there when this is all over. You don’t want to get mixed up in someone who would stop you from doing that or from pursuing the career you want.”
She dropped her eyes to the quilt. “I see what you’re saying. Do your people have a law or something against mating with outsiders? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Of course not!” I snapped. “My aunt Caroline is human and I have three cousins married to human women, too. It happens all the time. I’m just saying….”
“Yeah,” she interrupted. “What exactly are you saying?”
I took a deep breath to control my emotions before they ran away on me. “I’m saying you belong to another world, the world out there.” I waved toward the door. I didn’t understand exactly what I meant, either, but I had to get it out. I couldn’t sit here next to her until I did. “You have a career in another state. You came here to study the bats, not to get mixed up in me.”
“What do you mean—mixed up in you?” she asked. “What are you suggesting?”
Now it was my turn to blush. She really painted me into a corner with these questions of hers. “I mean…..”
She waited for me to say something. “You mean what?”
I looked away. “I guess I don’t really know what I mean. What exactly do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you. I just met you at a bar. You showed me those bat holes and I’m grateful for that. I’m also grateful to you for saving my life tonight.”
“And the other part?” I asked.
“What other part?”
I smacked my lips and threw up my one good hand. “Oh, come on, Piper. You know good and well what other part. I’m talking about the part where I kissed you and you kissed me. Now we’re sitting here in this isolated cabin in the woods and you’re touching my arm. What does it mean? Are you trying to get mixed up in me because if you are, I need to know your intentions.”
Slowly and deliberately, she withdrew her hand from my arm. “You keep using that expression—getting mixed up in you. I still don’t know what you mean by that.”
“You know what I mean,” I growled. “I mean what are you trying to do with me? Is this just a game to you? Are you just toying with me before you go back to your own world?”
“I’m not playing any game,” she replied. “I kissed you, but I’m not doing anything in this isolated cabin in the woods except trying to stop you from bleeding to death. I touched your arm to thank you for saving me from that dragon. That’s all. I wasn’t implying anything or suggesting anything or intending anything.”
I whirled away. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it, that’s just fine. We can keep it that way until you do leave.”
I positioned myself sideways on the bed so I no longer faced her. Her evasion made me so steaming mad I could spit. She sat there without moving. Her eyes bored into the side of my head, but I refused to look at her.
After a long pause, she murmured low. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I shouldn’t mess with you like that.”
I didn’t answer. So she knew after all. She just didn’t want to talk about it.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t have any intentions,” she went on. “I never really thought about it until right now. I was just trying to do my job and get out of here. I didn’t mean to kiss you like that. It just happened, and when it did, it turned out to be so much more than I ever realized it could be. If that happened with any other guy while I was out on a field job, I would have paid it no attention and gone about my business.”
I held myself still. My ears strained to catch every nuance, but I still couldn’t face her. I had to know what she really meant and what she wanted when it came to me.
“I don’t know what happened to me on that mountain.” Her voice weaseled into my brain on a shimmering tide of magic. “I only know I can’t sit here next to you and feel nothing. It meant something. I just don’t know what. I don’t know if it means I’ll go home and I’ll never see you again and it will become nothing, but even if that does happen, I can’t forget you. It meant something. It will always mean something. You will always mean something to me, but isn’t it as much your decision what that is as it is mine? Isn’t it as much up to you to decide what happens as it is up to me? What do you want from me? What are your intentions toward me? I mean, after all, you kissed me on that mountain, not the other way around.”
I glanced toward her, and those bottomless eyes caught me so I could never look away. What did I really want with her? Why did I kiss her on the Ridge? I didn’t plan to. It just happened to me, too.
Without meaning to, my hand went out to her. I picked up her fingertips where they rested on her knee and I closed her hand in my grasp. I pressed it between both my palms. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know why I kissed you. I only know I had to. It meant something, like you say. It couldn’t mean nothing. You never could. I couldn’t be with you up at the lookout and do nothing. I don’t know if I want you to stay or if I just want to go back to the way things were before I met you. I only know you mean something to me, too.”
Her eyes darted to the left. “So…. what do we do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I breathed. “I really don’t know.”
Some force beyond me made me draw her to me, and she sank into me with the weight of gravity. Her tousled hair came to rest on my sternum. She steered her head to the side to avoid my bandage.
Her face nuzzled into my chest. Her hair scattered over my ribs and her breath warmed me to the very bottom of my soul. She turned her face into me, and her lips grazed my skin. My eyes drifted closed in ecstasy. She was here. She was with me. She wasn’t going anywhere—at least not right now.
My arm closed around her shoulders, and the majestic bliss of her sweet caress transported me somewhere I never imagined possible. She exhaled into the hair on my chest, and she kissed the bare skin where my arm met my shoulder. She glided her mouth and cheeks and nose and eyelashes over my chest and stomach, kissing, burrowing, breathing, experiencing.
I cupped the back of her neck, but I could never stop her from touching me like this. The unspeakable tenderness of her lips and hair stunned me beyond belief. How could a woman—any woman—do this to me? How could she? How could she give me such mind-blowing pleasure�
�and not just bodily pleasure?
She made contact with my heart and spirit and being in a way no one else ever did, not even my own mother. I couldn’t remember any living person touching the deepest reaches of my life this way.
She dragged her hair over my midsection. She mouthed my navel and the sensitive skin down my sides. I couldn’t look at her head sliding across my chest. Wave upon wave of delirious, agonizing rapture carried me beyond lust, beyond desire, beyond the highest heights.
Nothing could match this. Nothing could be better than just lying here on my back and letting her ripple over me in all this leisurely euphoria. She rotated over onto her stomach, and one of her legs slipped over my knee. She stretched her body across my leg so she lay half on top of me. Her arms surrounded my torso and her hands began a mesmerizing dance over my skin that rocketed me even farther out of the world I knew.
She laid her slender fingers on my arm. Then she moved to stroking my chest before she dragged her tantalizing caress down my sides. She cradled my midsection in both hands while she grazed her lips up my ribs.
My breath raked in my throat trying to cope with all the sensations and emotions competing inside me. How could this be happening? How could I grow to adulthood without ever realizing someone could touch me like this? I couldn’t remember anyone or anything in all my experience that gave me any inkling that this was possible.
Sure, I knew all about sex. I knew about men and women getting together. Who doesn’t? This had nothing to do with that. This went so far beyond that I couldn’t put it into words if I tried.
It made me think she might be worshiping me—if that was possible. How could anyone worship me—me! I wasn’t worthy of that kind of reverence—not by a mile. She made me humble, more humble than I ever felt before, but the more humble I felt by her attention, the more convinced I became that she worshiped me. Why would she do that? I was nothing but a mountain man from a non-human subspecies of dragon shifters.
This touch didn’t make me think of sex. Her hair and her breath and her lips didn’t make me want to throw her on the bed and starting pounding. Quite the opposite. It made me want to give her the same sense of worshiping her. I wanted to bow down before her and make her understand how much I…..
