by Zoe Chant
He was watching her like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Their eyes locked, and Stella shuddered and came.
Nate kept his hand moving all through her spasms, dragging the orgasm out until her muscles were weakly clenching and shuddering and she wasn't sure if the jerking twitches of sensation were aftershocks or the ramp-up to another climax.
“Okay,” she managed breathlessly, “it's time for pants to come off.”
Nate laughed. “Sounds like a plan.” He pulled his hand away. Stella had to bite her lip to keep from protesting, reminding herself that she'd suggested this.
His whole hand was wet. He glanced up at her, a twinkle in his eye, and then brought it to his mouth. Stella sucked in a quick breath as she watched him lick it clean.
“You taste good,” he said when he was done. His voice was deep with desire.
“Oh. Good.” Her own voice was high and breathy. “Pants,” she reminded them both.
“Right.” He took hold of her hips and lifted her effortlessly off his lap—Stella made a startled noise; she was a generously-curved woman, and while she wasn't insecure about it, she wasn't used to men being strong enough to just toss her around like it was nothing.
He set her down in front of him, keeping his hands on her hips until it was clear that her legs would, in fact, support her. Stella breathed deep and steadied her muscles, then stripped her pants and underwear off, leaving them in a damp heap on the floor.
Then she raised her eyebrows at Nate, who was unapologetically watching her naked body.
He grinned, looking almost boyish for a moment, and then lifted his hips and ditched his own pajama pants. He was commando underneath, and Stella was treated to the sight of a very, very impressive hard-on, flushed with blood and curving up toward her. Her mouth watered.
But before she could decide to drop to her knees right here in front of the couch, Nate was pulling her back onto his lap. He kissed her deeply—tasting salt-sweet with her own flavor, which sent another flush of heat through her body—and settled her right where she wanted to be.
She kissed back, sliding her hips along his length, getting him wet. He groaned, and then muffled the noise in her shoulder, biting down for a long moment. Stella shuddered.
Then he lifted his head and said, “Ready?”
Stella nodded, her breath speeding up. “Five minutes ago.”
He laughed a little, and then lifted her up again. Stella reached down, wanting to feel his cock in her hand. He made a low noise as she positioned him, which turned into a long, sustained groan as she sank slowly down onto him.
“Oh, God,” he said finally. “Oh, that's good. Stella, you're—”
But whatever she was got lost in his indrawn breath as she seated herself fully on him. His head tipped back onto the back of the couch. Stella closed her eyes and let herself adjust to the feeling of him inside her. He was big, and felt bigger like this, pressing so deep. Her inner muscles rippled with pleasure.
Then she started to move. Slowly at first, little shifts of her hips, barely lifting up at all. And then a little faster, his hands clenched against her, rising up a little more. God, he felt good, thick and heavy inside her, touching places that felt like they'd been loveless and aching for years.
As she started really thrusting, he lifted his hips to meet her, coming together in a slick slide, pleasure sparking. Again, and again, his movements tapping her clit each time, making her clench and moan. He moaned with her, kissing along her neck on the downthrust, reaching for her when she lifted again, hauling her back down. Thrusting deep into her, their thighs sliding against each other, sweaty and desperate.
Stella lost the rhythm as the pleasure started to overwhelm her. She ground down against him, loathe to lift up and away, wanting the pressure on her clit and the feeling of his tip so deep inside her. His arms came around her and he bit her ear. “I'm going to flip us,” he murmured. “Ready?”
She nodded desperately. “Yes, yes—”
He came up off the couch entirely, holding her tight and steady against him, and then the world whirled, and she was on her back on the couch cushions, and he was above her. He thrust in hard, deep and true, and Stella bit down on her hand to muffle a shriek.
The pleasure came over her in a wave. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before, as though the climax started in the pit of her stomach, but spread through her entire body, heating a spark inside her chest. It was like Nate's blue eyes, darkened with passion, were looking right into her. Like he was nestling himself inside her forever, instead of just...for now.
Stella reached for him, and he caught her close, moving with her, thrusting into her body, kissing her like he couldn't keep any part of him away from any part of her. She let herself go then, shaking and shuddering against him, pleasure carrying her up to a greater height than she’d ever reached before.
Slowly, slowly, she came back down. Nate was resting against her chest, catching his breath. Stella was struck by the sense that they were still joined—he wasn’t inside her anymore, but somehow it felt like he was.
And it felt good. Strong and safe, a comforting warmth deep within her. Stella watched him breath, his eyes softly closed, and felt a smile spreading helplessly across her face.
Warm and content, she let her own eyes drift shut.
***
Stella woke to the same feeling of contentment she’d felt when she fell asleep.
Hot on its heels was surprise. She hadn’t expected that.
Stella had had a lot of sex in her life. She’d had relationship sex, and breakup sex, and post-fight sex, and just-for-fun sex, and plenty of other kinds. And she knew what ‘bad decision with someone you shouldn’t have slept with’ sex should feel like. In the moment, it was fantastic. Irresistible.
But the next morning, the bad decision came back to haunt you. Always. She should’ve been feeling guilty as hell. After all, Nate had said that it was unprofessional to get close. He’d practically leapt away from her in the kitchen. She should’ve respected that, instead of deliberately cozying up to him on the couch like she had.
But she didn’t feel bad. She didn’t feel guilty at all. Instead, she felt...what was that?
A weird spark of warmth in her chest. A feeling of...completeness. Security. Connection.
Mmmm, her lynx purred. Yes. Finally. We’ve been so long alone, and now we aren’t any longer.
“Oh, shit!”
Stella scrambled out from under Nate, stumbling to her feet and away from the couch. Nate was instantly upright, his eyes going straight to her, no evidence of confusion or sleepiness.
“What is it?” he said tensely, coming towards her, looking her up and down. “What happened?” His eyes darted to the door, the windows. “What’s wrong?”
Stella stared at him. Naked, disheveled, handsome as all get-out, looking at her with protective concern. Wanting to make sure she was all right.
And despite herself, she felt a wave of possessiveness come over her at the sight of him. Like her entire being looked at him and thought, That’s mine.
“We’re mates,” she said faintly.
He blinked at her. Then he flushed red.
Stella took that as confirmation. “Did you know?”
“No!” he said quickly. “Not before. I realized it when we were...together.” He glanced down at the couch, where he’d laid her out and blown her mind just a few hours ago.
Stella tried not to melt a little when hearing this man, who by his own account was extremely experienced with women and dated casually all the time, struggle through using a vague euphemism for sex. And failed.
“I should’ve said something right away,” Nate continued, his posture straightening. “Or at least before we fell asleep. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Stella said faintly. She remembered the feeling of warm happiness she’d drifted off to sleep with. She hadn’t wanted to disturb it for anything. “I understand.” She looked around the room, as th
ough the next step was waiting for her in a corner somewhere. It wasn’t, of course, so she looked back at Nate, and was startled all over again by his naked, handsome glory. “So what...does this mean? For us?”
“Well,” Nate said slowly, “what do you want it to mean?”
“I don’t know!” Stella could feel the edges of panic starting to move in around the warm feeling in her chest, the old sense of what do I want, I don’t know what I want. “I’ve never had a mate before!”
That made him laugh a little; Stella was struck by the dual feelings of wanting to laugh with him, and wanting to punch him for not taking this seriously.
“Neither have I,” he said. “So I guess we’re making it up as we go along. Unless you want to ask your sister.”
Stella pictured Lynn’s little life, going to work in the Park and then coming home every day to the same house where she’d grown up, settling in with Ken and then getting up the next day to do it all over again. She shuddered. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” Nate said, calm and measured. “So then we figure it out ourselves.”
“I’m not a we,” Stella said blankly. She’d never been in a forever relationship before. She might’ve thought about it back with Eva’s dad, but that had been so long ago that it had faded into the mists of time and tired, residual anger.
Since then, the only person she’d been really, truly committed to was Eva. She didn’t know how to mold her entire life around another adult’s.
Especially if she wasn’t getting a choice.
“I don’t think I can do this.” Stella backed toward the door, and then remembered that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. She snatched up her pajamas, and quickly got into her pants, her tank top. She saw her panties lying on the floor and grabbed them, stuffing them into her pocket. “I have to go. I can’t—I don’t know—I have to go.”
“Stella—” Nate’s voice echoed after her as she slipped out the door. She thought about running upstairs, but that felt like she’d be trapping herself. It wasn’t like he didn’t know where her room was.
So she stepped out the back door, her feet soaking in the morning dew, and shifted. She’d run like this, somewhere no one could catch her, and she’d figure everything out once she’d gotten away.
***
Nate
Nate wanted desperately to run after Stella, follow her, wrap her up in his arms and tell her that it was all going to be okay, they’d figure it out.
But it was pretty obvious that she didn’t want that right now.
All right. It tore at him, staying here alone, but he could respect her needs.
When he heard the door, he did go to the back of the house and look out the window, just in time to see Stella’s form blur and shift, and a lynx go running like a shot into the woods behind the house.
That reassured him. He didn’t want Stella going around alone and vulnerable while Todd was out there, but if she was in her lynx form, he was confident in her ability to stay safe in the forest where she’d grown up. She’d almost evaded him, and he was a security professional with a Special Forces background.
Besides, they still hadn’t seen any evidence that Todd was dangerous.
Yet.
He prowled through the house, restless and unable to sit still. Shifter senses confirmed that both Lynn and Ken were gone—it was after dawn, and presumably they were both at work—whereas Eva was sleeping the sleep of a teenager who didn’t have to get up for work yet.
It disturbed him a little that he hadn’t woken up when Lynn and Ken had left. He was used to sleeping more lightly than that. But with Stella curled up with him, he’d been completely dead to the world.
Safe, his panther growled. All safe together.
That...must have been it. The knowledge that everything that was important to him was right here in his arms had kept him slumbering deeply away.
That was an odd thought.
Nate suddenly felt as though he understood part of what had obviously been freaking Stella out.
He was forty-six years old. He’d built a life, a full and busy life, with responsibilities and routines and people who depended on him to behave a certain way. He’d never had any plans to get married, never set his life up to accommodate another person like that.
Now—everything was going to change. He could see how frightening that might be.
Intellectually, he could see it. Inside, though...there was just a rising excitement.
Yes, his panther chimed in. Everything will be better now.
Better. Nate tried to picture his own life, but better.
Coming home every day, not to his empty, sterile apartment, but to Stella’s smiles. She’d probably decorate. He tried to picture his place with something reminiscent of Stella’s brightly-colored flowy outfits, and had to smile a little.
Taking time off not because Connie bullied him into it, but because he wanted to take Stella to Paris or Tokyo.
Going with Eva to visit college campuses.
Because he wasn’t just getting a mate. He was getting a daughter.
A smart, funny, hardworking daughter, filled to the brim with teenage disdain for lame adults.
Better.
He shook out his hands. He was filled with an antsy energy, a need to go find Stella, pick her up and twirl her around and delight in being mates.
But she wasn’t there yet.
So he set to work installing cameras around the entrances and in the front hall, because that had to get done sometime, and he needed somewhere to put his energy.
He wasn’t used to this. Normally, Nate was a calm and measured man, who could move fast when it was necessary, but who otherwise smiled slow and thought before he acted. He didn’t bounce around like a Superball because he was excited for the future.
Better.
He’d never realized he wanted a mate. But now that he had one, he couldn’t imagine wanting anything else, ever again.
***
Stella
Stella settled on the rock where she always watched the dawn. Today the sun was already up—she and Nate had slept in.
It had been the best sleep she’d gotten in a long time. No nightmares, no restlessness—they’d been squeezed together on that narrow couch, and apparently neither of them had moved at all, because if they had, someone surely would’ve been knocked to the floor.
Stella tried to imagine sleeping like that every night.
She’d always been a restless sleeper, even as a kid. It had gotten worse after Eva was born; she always seemed to have one eye open, waiting for a baby’s cry. And now with Todd, she was hardly sleeping at all.
Not sleeping put a patina over the world. It made everything harder, sharper, less forgiving.
Everything had felt soft and perfect in Nate’s arms.
She shook her head hard. That wasn’t the issue. That wasn’t the issue!
The issue was—
Stella was a middle-aged single mom who couldn’t focus long enough to live in the same place for more than a year. She worked as a waitress and lived with her sister so that she could make any money at all, because she hadn’t planned well enough to send her daughter to college.
And she’d never wanted to be tied down.
It was like two impossible problems at once. On the one hand—how could she shackle herself to a man like Nate, a professional, successful man who had his own busy life, presumably his own plans for the future, and no need for a flighty waitress with looming college debt?
And on the other hand, how could she lock herself in like this? Sweep away all future possibilities and replace them with this man?
Even if this man was...this man.
Unwillingly, Stella started to imagine what the future might hold. Nate traveled for work. Maybe he could take her with him. He was smart and thoughtful—Eva seemed to like talking to him. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for Eva to have a real steady male adult in her life.
And what do you bring to this
equation, Stella? she asked herself furiously. What sort of contributions are you making?
Nothing, she knew. She didn’t have any money or a glamorous job. All she had were problems that Nate was already helping her fix.
Suddenly, wildly, she thought of going back to the house, waking Eva up, and telling her that they were moving again. Getting in the car and driving somewhere—out of state, probably. Washington or Oregon, maybe. Leaving all of this behind.
No.
The thought was simultaneous: both from her own human mind, and her lynx’s growling instinct. No. Don’t leave.
If she hadn’t run away from Todd, determined to stay somewhere where she could work for a living and try to give Eva what she deserved...she sure as hell wasn’t going to turn around and run away from Nate.
She could probably at least have a conversation with him before she committed her entire future to one choice or another.
Stella laughed at herself, a little hysterical, but slowly calming down. Getting older did have some advantages, she guessed—back in her twenties, she probably already would’ve been in the car right now, too freaked out by the prospect of real commitment to think at all. And talking it over wouldn’t have occurred to her for a second.
When she’d been focused on teaching Eva how to deal with conflict, back in kindergarten and elementary school, Stella had learned a lot herself.
Like, Use your words.
Taking a deep breath, Stella stood up from her perch, shifted back to her lynx form, and started home.
On the way, she tried to figure out what she’d say. I don’t deserve you? No way. Nate was too nice to accept something like that.
I’m afraid of the future? Nate would say that they’d figure it out together.
I need time? For what?
She didn’t know how to encapsulate all of her weird worries and hesitations and fears into words. At least, not into anything shorter than a novel.
When she reached the house, she wasn’t any more clear on what she wanted to say. But Eva was yawning on the porch, clutching a cup of coffee—and if Stella knew her daughter, it would be three-quarters milk and sugar, one-quarter coffee—and sitting on the little wicker loveseat that their grandmother had had for decades.
