Changing Hearts

by Marilu Mann

  He waited until she dropped her arms and met his eyes. Smiling slowly and letting his eyes glow, he leaned forward to lick and gently bite her chest above the top of her bra. He wanted to suckle her, wanted to roll her nipples around in his mouth, but he held back. She sighed as she leaned into him.

  Slade pulled her closer so that his erection hit right where he wanted it, right between her nether lips. Only a thin piece of cotton kept him from entering her. At that thought, another popped into his head. One he should have had long ago.

  “Condom,” he rumbled against her neck. “I need a condom, baby.”

  “What?” Joie kissed his face, trailing her soft, sweet lips over his cheeks and chin.

  Slade closed his eyes as he throbbed against her, reveling in her softness. “I need a condom. I need to get inside you.”

  Joie leaned back to meet his eyes and he hissed as her action forced him even closer to her warm, wet heat. “I don’t have any.”

  It took a moment for her words to penetrate the sensual haze that wrapped around his brain but finally he gained control again. Slade shut his eyes as he fought his base side down. “First rule, no condom, no sex.”

  “Malcolm, it’s okay.” Despite the blush covering her face and neck she smiled softly at him. “I use the patch. Birth control isn’t an issue and I’m clean.”

  “Shifters don’t get or carry STDs.” Slade rumbled against her throat.

  It took every ounce of self-control he had to move her off his lap. “I don’t take chances, Joie. No condom, no sex.”

  Her look of confusion, followed by hurt, as he got off the bed tore at him but he made himself grab his jeans off the floor.

  Slade shoved his legs into the jeans and yanked them up over his hips. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t let the sound of her tears rip him apart any more. If he did, he’d go back to the bed, he’d take her in spite of his vow not to do so. He snagged a shirt and his shoes as he left the cabin, slamming the screen door behind him.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” he shouted as he entered the woods with the taste and smell of her clinging to him. Slade advanced on a fallen tree. Dropping his shirt and shoes on the ground, he tore into the rotting wood. Using all the strength he could, he reduced a good section of it to kindling as he growled, releasing some of the frustration, anger and lust from his body.

  Breathing hard, he pulled his shoes on then stood and finally zipped his jeans. He grabbed the shirt off the ground and took off through the woods. He hadn’t even gotten her out of her underwear, damn it all.

  No condom, no sex. The one rule he’d always maintained. It didn’t matter if his lovers could have kids or not, didn’t matter if they wanted them or not. No condom, no sex, no kids, not for him. He’d never put a child through what his life had been like. No way, no how. She’d hate him now. She would probably pull her godmother’s pistol on him if he went back to the cabin right now.

  Slade walked without a firm direction in mind. He found a deer path and followed it. His awareness of his surroundings extended only to the very minimum basic safety. Nothing else caught him. Not the copperhead slithering away, not the deer watching from the shadows, not even the pirogue being poled down the bayou could drag him away from his thoughts of Joie.

  He’d walked nearly a mile before the sound of cars on gravel drew his attention. He veered toward the faint sound. As he drew nearer, he heard music, and people talking.

  Slade stopped before a small clearing to watch as an ancient pickup pulled into a small gravel lot. The house looked a little bigger than Joie’s cabin but that’s definitely where the music came from. As he watched, two men got out of the truck and walked into the old house. When the door opened he smelled cigarette smoke and booze.

  Great, a bar in the fucking boondocks. Slade grinned slowly as he walked across the gravel. No neon lights announced its presence. No speakers directed music into the parking lot. Definitely no tourists would ever be here, unless they were lost in a scary Deliverance kind of lost.

  Perfect. A workingman’s bar. The kind of place that men came to for the type of action they didn’t want their wives and girlfriends to know about. It fit his mood. He needed to blow off some steam.

  All conversation stopped when he walked into the small bar. The jukebox wailed a country song in the corner. Men of all ages stared at him. He wasn’t dressed that much differently than they were, so he knew it was the whole “stranger” mentality. Slade approached the bar as he would approach an unfamiliar Pack.

  He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, just let his eyes sweep the entire bar. He didn’t show any fear, but curtailed his arrogance at the same time. When he reached the nearly empty bar, he pulled a five-dollar bill out of his pocket and put it down in front of the bartender. “Beer.”

  The bartender spat into a foam cup then set it down before reaching for a Mason jar. Slade leaned one hip against the bar as he gazed around the room again. Six tables with three or four men at each. Two pool tables and an electronic dartboard occupied the far corner. None of them held anyone’s interest at the moment. None of the men met his eyes but he could feel their gazes as his own eyes swept past them.

  Another of Tonio’s lessons rolled through his mind as he caught sight of a small hallway that probably led toward the bathrooms or the back door. The hallway stood directly opposite his location. Good to know. Always know where the nearest exit is.

  Slade turned back to the bar. Conversations resumed slowly, some of the men watching him, some ignoring him. He could feel the tension from one table off to his right. He glanced that direction to see four men sitting there. All of them had on work-worn clothing, all about his age, all obviously drunk. Their murmurs were slightly louder than the rest of the people in the bar, their eyes glassier, the tension at their table almost strong enough for him to touch.

  Slade finished his beer and ordered another. The bartender stared hard at him for a moment as he refilled the jar. When he set it in front of Slade, he leaned closer. “Look, mister, I don’t want no trouble here.”

  “I’m just drinking a beer.” Slade let his eyes glow slightly and the bartender nearly swallowed the remaining bit of tobacco in his cheek. He backed away from Slade even as he surreptitiously made the sign of the cross.

  Slade snorted as he picked up his drink. One of the men from the table behind him got up and started past him. He purposely bumped into Slade, knocking against his arm. Only Slade’s shifter reflexes kept him from spilling the beer down the front of his shirt.

  “Watch it, buddy.” The drunk human spat the words at him.

  Slade simply set his beer down and turned to face the man. “You want a piece of me?” The glow in his eyes brightened, and the man’s face blanched as he headed for the bathrooms.

  Slade turned back to the bar. He could feel the anger simmering just below the surface and knew he would have to do something to get it out of his system.

  When the drunk had gone back to his table, muttering to his friends that he wasn’t going to fight this one, Slade went down the hallway. He entered the door marked “men”, closing and locking it behind him.

  He stared at his reflection in the rusty, flyspecked mirror. His eyes glowed like mini-suns. Joie had done a good job on his hair. As he thought of her, he took a deep breath. Slade washed his face and hands. As he pulled paper towels out of the container on the wall, he saw it. The one thing that all bars have.

  With a fierce grin, he grabbed the edge of the vending machine to give it a good yank. When the door popped open, he snagged a handful of condoms and stuffed them in his pockets. Next time, by God, he’d be ready. Not tonight, though. Tonight he wanted something hard and fast. Tonight he wanted to fight.

  Slade went back into the main room of the bar and picked up his glass. The tableful of drunks still eyed him, so he faced them with an insolent grin. Sooner or later one of them would approach him again and then the fight would be on.

  The faint smell of cheap perfume
reached him just as the outside door opened again. Every man in the room looked toward the door as the woman entered. Blonde hair pulled up on top of her head, a sleeveless tank top over a pair of cutoff shorts and long but skinny legs. She walked in, accepting the stares as her due, then took a seat at the nearly empty bar.

  The bartender put a glass of whiskey in front of her before she had a chance to ask for it. She reached into her oversized bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The bartender lit her smoke then turned away from her. Slade grimaced. He hated the way smokers smelled.

  He watched her for a moment, watched as she took a sip of the straight whiskey then set the glass down and gazed around the bar. She looked at him then away, and then let her eyes come back to him for a second, longer look.

  Slade knew how he compared to the rest of the men in the bar. That wasn’t vanity. It was fact. He oozed sexual need at the moment and a woman like her, human though she was, could probably smell it, or at least recognize it. Sure enough, she smiled faintly as she picked her glass up again.

  Keeping her eyes on him, she took a sip of the drink then let her gaze roam over his body, pausing at his crotch, as she set the glass down. She licked her lips then took a long drag on the cigarette, her eyes still focused on his crotch. The message she sent couldn’t have been much clearer.

  Slade finished his beer then pushed away from the bar. With one last, somewhat regretful look at the drunks behind him, he started toward the blonde. She looked up with bleary eyes as he stopped in front of her. She was older than she’d looked. Slade reached out and took the cigarette out of her hand. He stubbed it out in the ashtray at her elbow then motioned for the bartender to bring her another drink. He pushed moss-green eyes filled with tears from his mind. He couldn’t go back to Joie like this. He had to do something to take the edge off. He ignored the nagging voice of doubt that gripped his heart.

  “What’s your name, honey?” Roughened by cigarettes and booze, her voice grated on his ears.

  “Slade. Yours?”

  “You can call me whatever you want, honey.”

  “Why not Honey, then?” Slade forced a grin as the bartender set a glass on the counter. Before she could pick it up, Slade wrapped his fingers around her hand. “My turn.”

  He took a sip from the glass, tilting his head back slightly as the fiery liquid slipped down his throat. She reached out and ran her hand down his chest.

  “What are you, Slade? Some kind of weightlifter?”

  He laughed as he handed her glass back to her. “Honey” took the glass from him then put it up to her mouth. He watched her take a drink then took the glass out of her hand and set it on the bar. Leaning forward, he nipped at her earlobe. She tasted like sweat. He swallowed the revulsion that threatened to come up from his stomach.

  She shivered as she wrapped her arms around his waist. “You move fast, Slade, honey.”

  “Fast isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” He let his eyes glow again slightly, watching her eyes widen. She started to breathe a bit harder as she ran her hands over his chest again. Her nails dug into him. He grimaced as he plucked her away from him.

  Three men who’d been occupying a table in the back of the bar got up to leave. Slade grabbed the woman’s hand and she grabbed her drink. They moved to the table and he sat down, pulling her into his lap. She immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and started playing with his hair, stroking his neck.

  Slade closed his eyes and tried to banish Joie from his mind again. The woman in his lap was bony where Joie’s form ran to lush. She had nothing on her chest to compare to Joie. Her over-dyed hair smelled like an ashtray, a boozy ashtray. Slade opened his eyes to stare at her. He made himself slide one hand up her leg, letting his fingers brush over the denim that covered her.

  She moaned, then stuck her tongue in his ear. Slade controlled his urge to throw up or dump her out of his lap, and forced himself to nuzzle her neck. Stale perfume overwhelmed him. He longed for Joie’s lilac-scented skin and her full, lush figure. The woman moaned again. The pitch of the sound hurt his ears.

  Slade angled his head to kiss her when the door opened again. He glanced up, then froze. Here he sat with this aging bar whore in his lap, his hand inches away from her crotch and the woman he really wanted just walked in the door. “Honey” moaned again then reached for his hand, bringing it up to cup her tiny breast.

  Slade saw fire in Joie’s eyes as she marched into the bar. Joie reached out, grabbing “Honey” by the hair. The woman screeched as Joie dragged her off Slade’s lap. She came up swinging and Slade leaned forward, blocking her hand from striking Joie.

  While the other woman distracted him, Joie straddled his lap, grabbed his head and kissed him hard. The shock caused him to let go of “Honey” to wrap his arms around Joie. She kissed him again then got to her feet.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Malcolm. And as for you, Missy!” Joie turned on “Honey” who backed up with a grin.

  “Joie Sue Landry, I ain’t never seen you get pissy over a man. You picked you a good one, honey. Hard body and a face like that. Mmmm.” The woman laughed, along with most of the other people in the bar.

  Joie held her hand out to him. Slade shook his head in disbelief, but put his hand in hers. She tugged on him until he stood beside her then the bar erupted in laughter again when he leaned over, picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. Joie’s breasts hit the small of his back with a satisfying thump as he walked swiftly out of the bar.

  If he turned his head, he could fulfill that earlier fantasy by taking a quick nibble of her butt. She stirred him in a way no woman had ever done.

  “You miserable, sorry cochon! Let me down!” Joie beat on his back as he moved through the parking lot and into the woods.

  “Just wait. You better not put me down ‘cause when you do, you’re gonna be howling three octaves higher and even Missy won’t want you.”

  Her nails dug into his back as she continued to list the ways she would unman him with whatever she could get her hands on.

  “Okay, that’s enough, Joie.” Slade yanked her back down off his shoulder, setting her on her feet none too gently. He gripped her arms hard enough to hold her in place but not hard enough to hurt her. When she tried to kick him, he swept his own foot out, taking her to the ground and following her down.

  Straddling her body, his knees at her hips, his hands holding hers at her shoulders, he spoke sharply. “Stop it. What are you trying to prove, Joie? That I heel? Forget it, baby. I don’t heel and I don’t fetch.”

  “I cannot believe you were about to have sex with Missy Tarbeaux!” Her voice rose dramatically as she bucked under him. He couldn’t stop the grin that stole across his face.

  “Jealous?”

  “Let me up, you-you-you jerk!” She bucked under him again and just like that, he was hard as a brick.

  “Dammit, Joie!” Slade slid down until he lay full length on top of her. He knew when she stilled under him that she could feel him, hot, hard and ready at the juncture of her thighs. She stared up at him.

  “It’s too close to the fucking full moon for you to be pulling this on me. I’m in control for now but I can’t promise I’ll stay that way. You’d have done better to let me leave with her and fuck her senseless. At least that way I’d know I hadn’t hurt you!”

  She stared at him in shock. “You don’t think knowing you’d had sex with her would hurt me?”

  “No! Damn you, that’s not what I meant.” He shook her hands, staring straight into her eyes. “I’m talking about physically hurting you, Joie. I’m bigger than you are, stronger than you are, and I want to fuck you so bad I’m almost crazy with it. Moonlust isn’t something I can fight when I want you this badly.”

  “I won’t let you fuck me, Malcolm.”

  He stared at her. She dragged him out of a bar, chewed him out and then said she wouldn’t let him touch her? He shook his head to clear it.

  “I will let you make love with me. But not if you
have sex with Missy first!” Joie’s voice came out low, colored with anger.

  He admitted to himself that she had a right to be angry. He’d stirred her sexually then walked out on her. Had their positions been reversed… No, he’d never have let her leave him. Or maybe she might have insisted on easing his frustration. At the thought of her mouth on him, Slade groaned and dropped his head to the curve of her neck.

  Joie pulled one hand out of his loosened grip then cupped the back of his head as she spoke softly right next to his ear. “I want to make love with you, Malcolm. I want you to touch me and I want to touch you. That’s what I want. I went to the store while you were gone and bought some condoms. They’re in my nightstand at home, just waiting for us. Let’s go back to the cabin. Tante won’t be home for at least another hour.”

  He choked on his laughter. While he’d been out trying to pick a fight, or find someone to satisfy his lust, she’d gone shopping for condoms. Slade grinned as he propped himself up. He gently brushed her hair away from her face, another first for him, then reached into his front pocket.

  Pulling a condom out, he held it up where she could see it. “I did some shopping of my own, baby.”

  Her moss-green eyes turned tornado green. “Is that for me or for Missy?”

  “Want the truth?” He cocked his head to one side, keeping his eyes on hers.

  “Always.” The definite tone in her voice convinced him of her sincerity.

  “Right now, even with you pissed off at me, I’m hard. With her sitting in my lap and her tongue in my ear, nothing. Not even the slightest rise out of me, baby. You walked in the door, kissed me and I got hard. I could take you right here and still be hard for you an hour from now.” He felt her shiver as he moved slightly.

  Joie sighed then slipped both arms around his neck. “Let’s go back to the cabin, Malcolm.”

  Slade got to his feet then pulled her up. She wrapped her arm around his waist and smiled up at him. “Missy was right about one thing, you’re quite a man.”

  “And you’re quite a handful, Miss Joie.” He cupped her buttocks and kissed her soundly. When she smacked at his chest, he laughed and pulled her closer.