by Ruby Ryan
Suddenly my clothes were an unacceptable hindrance, and I heard buttons pop off in my desperation. I pulled back and unclasped my bra, giving my breasts to him.
He kissed me with deeper frenzy, hands pawing along my belly up to my nipples. He savored my feel with masculine lust, squeezing and testing, the first touch always the most precious. And then his lips left mine, and he pushed my head back to expose my neck, kissing underneath my jaw and then at my throat and then down to my breast bone.
I gyrated against him, tortured by his lips.
His mouth found my left nipple, brushing against it in passing which made me sigh, then returning with shocking fervency. His lips wrapped around it and his tongue flicked like a snake's, sudden and intense and wonderful all at the same time, and I squirmed beneath his muscular body on the grass and moaned a desperate moan.
"I love how your body feels," he breathed.
"Don't stop!"
He moved to the other nipple, sucking gently while nibbling with his lips, and his hand moved along my side to my thigh. I closed my eyes and reached between us, eager to find him, to touch him the way he was touching me. His cock was on fire, hotter than the rest of him like it was still feverish, and he moaned into my nipple as I wrapped my fingers around it.
"Ohh..." he said.
I wrapped my other hand around his neck and pulled him to me, demanding he continue his caressing kisses. I sighed and tilted my head back, gazing at the sun and the blue sky, the sky where Ethan had flown and swooped and saved me.
I stroked his cock harder, and in return he licked my nipple faster.
His touch was incredible, something I'd needed without knowing until then, my instincts surrendering to the feeling.
And then it wasn't enough.
I opened my mouth to tell him what I needed, but somehow he knew. His hands moved at my waist, unbuttoning my dress pants and pulling down the zipper. I raised my butt off the ground in surrender, allowing him to slide them all the way off, and then my panties, and then I was open to him, legs spread wide and wet and ready.
"I need you," Ethan whispered, the same thought I'd been about to say.
I kissed him in response, and felt him guide the tip of his cock into my dripping slit. I moaned into his kiss while I felt the head push me open, taking me, forcing the walls of my sex open with his strength. That's what I felt then: strength of this man, this beast, a wall of muscle covering me like a blanket and keeping me safe.
He moved gently, a slow inch at a time. And it wasn't enough, it wasn't what I needed, so I gyrated my hips against him, taking his cock faster, demanding every inch of it while he groaned. He obliged my demand, and thrust forward roughly, and I felt that familiar ache laced with a flicker of pain, but only for an instant, and then he was filling me to the brim with every inch of him.
"Oh my God," he moaned, breaking the kiss to look into my eyes.
I could feel his heartbeat like it were a drum, pulsing through our joined parts. It dimmed as he pulled back slowly, every grain of his cock rubbing against every nerve of my pussy. And the pulsing returned with his thrust, filling me.
I sighed and rocked my hips against him, urging him faster.
Ethan reached a strong arm underneath my head and grabbed a fistful of my hair. He squeezed it tight and pulled back on my head so he could nuzzle my neck again, and I let him, because I was his, my body was his to do whatever he pleased.
"Give it to me," I moaned into the air.
His legs pumped harder with exactly the right amount of force I needed, sending jolts of pleasure through my body while he kissed my neck. Oh my God it felt so good, and I raked my fingernails across his muscled chest, down his navel and into my pubic hair, rubbing at my sensitive place like I did when I was alone, rough circles that moved my clit back and forth.
"You're so beautiful," he whispered into the skin of my neck.
"So are you," I said, and whether I meant his human form or the beast I'd seen I wasn't sure. But it didn't matter, because as Ethan made loved to me on the soft grassy hill I felt both of them at the same time. "So are you, ohh..."
Faster and faster we went, my body and mind surrendering to the climactic cliff I was hurtling towards, being pulled over, thrown into the open air of ecstasy, and I welcomed it because I knew Ethan would be there to catch me.
I wrapped my legs around his back and pulled him close, because it ached where we didn't touch. "Come with me," I begged, not wanting to reach my climax without him. "Hurry. Please."
His hips moved chaotically then, wild thrusts that were more animal than man, ruled by his desire. He kissed me once more but then the kiss turned into a moan, and his eyes widened, and mine opened wide with him to drink his pleasure as I felt my own overwhelming.
"Oh God, Jessica," he said, surprise and shock on his face.
I screamed my wordless scream then, and clenched my eyes shut at the feeling in my sex. It gushed out of me, and inside me, and all around me like a tide, wave after wave rocking my body against the grass. Ethan roared too, and I felt his throbbing cock spasm inside of me, and I clenched the lips of my sex around him as tightly as I could.
His fingers squeezed inside my hair and along my thigh, and my own fingers clawed at his back as if I had talons of my own, and we came together for what felt like an eternity.
*
"Are you going to lay me a golden egg?" I asked.
Ethan was reclined on his back in the smooth grass, while I rested across his chest and legs. The warm Texas wind felt good along my nude body, cooling my behind and the wetness between my legs. Ethan leaned up to look at me.
"Am I going to do what now?"
I ran a fingernail along his chest, tracing the lines of muscle. "The ancient Greeks believed gryphons protected vast stores of gold, or even laid golden eggs themselves."
Ethan snorted, and leaned back on the grass. "I'll let you know if I do."
I wasn't an impulsive person. That's why I liked computers: they allowed me to take my time, carefully make a decision and then put it into place. They were simple, and predictable, so long as you knew how to use them.
Yet doing this with Ethan was certainly impulsive.
I even hated Tinder, the immediacy of it. Find a person, swipe the appropriate way, and then get down to business. What happened to getting to know someone naturally, going on dates, meeting their friends? The excitement of a first kiss on your doorstep at the end of a date, then making out, and eventually rounding the bases at a steady but predictable pace?
But with Ethan...
I couldn't explain my feelings for him. Yesterday he'd pissed me off with his lack of IT documentation, and today I felt inexorably drawn to him. We shared a connection, sexual and emotional and intellectual, even though the latter made no sense for someone I'd known a scarce 24 hours.
Yet the connection was there all the same.
There was something animal to it. Primal, that was the word. My brain still bucked against the idea, but seeing Ethan transform into a gryphon and soar through the air, graceful and beautiful, excited me in a way that was new and intriguing. I wished I could watch him transform again right then. I couldn't wait until I got to.
"Is this real?" I mumbled.
"I'm still not sure myself."
"Then let's enjoy it while we can," I said with finality, snuggling closer to his warm body.
7
ETHAN
"Then let's enjoy it while we can," Jessica said, snuggling her gorgeous--and naked--body against mine.
I was having the weirdest fucking day.
Waking up feverish in my office, being led home in a daze of medicine and shivering and blankets.
And then, you know, the whole gryphon thing.
And as ridiculous as that whole ordeal was, it wasn't even the highlight of the day. I'd been sitting there, naked and embarrassed and confused on the grass, and a totally hot woman threw herself at me as if I were irresistible.
I knew I ha
d a good body, but I wasn't used to that kind of reaction.
Even weirder, it felt right. During the sex, it felt like I had a connection to her that went beyond our physical bodies. It was as if I had her brain on speed-dial, and could feel her every emotion as she felt them. It made the sex more of a dance, or a duet, rather than two bodies bumping together.
Which made the sex pretty fricken awesome. And not just on my end.
Beyond that... something else had changed within me. Before shapeshifting into the gryphon there was a strange rumble in my chest. Like a cell phone on vibrate, but extremely faint. It wasn't a bother, not compared to the rest of the weird flu-like symptoms I'd had, but it was a persistent sensation.
And now, laying back on the grass with the weight of Jessica's body on mine, I could feel that vibration again.
"I, uhh, think I can do it again."
Jessica let out a giggle that made both our bodies tremble. "I'm still trying to decide if doing it once was a good idea."
"No, not that." I paused. "Although that was definitely a good idea."
She twisted her head on my chest to smile up at me. "I think I agree."
"But what I meant was my... transformation." I looked up at the sky. "I can't explain it, but I know I can change into a gryphon again."
She pushed up onto one elbow. "Then let's see it, bird-brain. Spread those wings and fly!"
"Your teasing isn't helping."
She sneered playfully. "Sorry, I didn't realize weird gryphon-human dudes got stage fright."
"But I don't think I can do it myself right now. And when it happened the first time... it was like it was happening to me, rather than controlled by me. Does that make sense?"
"As a matter of fact, that does make sense," she said, poking me in the ribs, "because it's exactly what I told you earlier: you transformed when I pressed the emerald into the figurine."
She frowned, and looked off in thought. "What?" I asked.
"Totem."
"Totem, yeah. The stone one with the aforementioned emerald."
She shook her head. "No, I mean, what you mentioned earlier. You said, he called it a totem. So? Who is he?"
"Oh. That." I drew a shuddering breath. "You're gunna think I'm crazy."
She laughed in my face. "I promise you, there's literally--literally!--nothing you can say that would increase the crazy-o-meter of this whole situation."
I stretched my arms out to the side and slowly rose into a sitting position to buy myself a few seconds. Jessica slid off me and sat cross-legged on the grass, casually grabbing her blouse to cover her chest. Modesty sometimes returned slowly, but return it always did.
"When I was a gryphon, flying here with you in my arms, I heard a voice inside my head."
Jessica froze while putting on her blouse, one arm halfway in a sleeve. Slowly she looked up at me, her face a mask of thought.
"Okay, I was wrong. You're fucking crazy."
I felt a pang of embarrassment, and the hurt must have been obvious on my face because Jessica quickly leaned forward. "No, hey, I was only joking!" She put a reassuring hand on my chest. "A cruel joke. I'm sorry."
I looked off in the distance. "The voice was deafening in my head, so loud that it shut out all other thought. It... told me things."
She waited for me to continue, and when I didn't she said, "Things like what?"
But I was looking off at a growing cloud of dust. A truck on a dirt road, and driving in our direction.
"I think the farmer whose cow I killed is here," I said, getting to my feet. "Hand me your bra."
We watched the farmer approach, park the truck, and walk up the hillside toward us. He took one look at Jessica, and then swung his confused eyes at me, completely naked save for the peach-colored bra I was using to cover my junk.
"It's not what it looks like," Jessica quickly said.
The farmer stared, slack-jawed.
"His fraternity pranked him," she continued, giving me a quick follow my lead glance. "Kidnapped him from his dorm, then dumped us out here. Thankfully they had enough decency to leave me with my clothes."
He looked at me for confirmation, so I bobbed my head in agreement. But then the farmer twisted to examine the dead cow.
"And, uhh, a pack of wolves found us," Jessica added. "I was able to jump out of their way with only a few scratches. But I'm afraid your cow wasn't so lucky."
A light finally went on in the farmer's eyes. "No wolves around these parts," he drawled.
Jessica faltered, so I quickly jumped in. "Coyotes, maybe. It happened really fast, we're not sure what it was. We're exhausted, and dehydrated..."
The farmer didn't buy our story, but he didn't question us any further before leading us to his truck. Because two people without any weapons or tools certainly couldn't have caused that much damage to the bovine. That would have been crazy.
I hoped there wasn't the smell of blood on my breath as he drove us back to his house.
8
JESSICA
The farmer gave Ethan a pair of cheap shorts and a shirt that was so filthy it looked like he'd been using it as a rag, which Ethan accepted them gladly.
But he didn't know what Uber was, and neither Ethan nor I had our cell phones on us, so in the end he called us a regular old taxi.
We made the trip back to Dallas in silence. I thought it was becoming awkward, that period after you've made an irreversible step when you both began to regret it, but then Ethan grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and I smiled, and he didn't let go until we reached his apartment.
"I, uhh, left my wallet upstairs," Ethan said as we got out. The sounds of the city, traffic and distant police sirens, were a welcome relief. "Stay right here and I'll be back with your fare."
"Meter's still runnin'," the driver grumbled.
Ethan opened the door for me and said, "I don't know about you, but I'm going to take a long, hot shower and then get something to eat."
"Sounds like a plan..." I said, trailing off as we entered the lobby. People stood around with their arms crossed, chatting quietly. And a dozen pairs of eyes swung toward Ethan when they saw him. And not because of what he was wearing.
"Hey," one man said, "thank a lot, asshole."
Another shook his head and muttered, "Made me waste my whole damn morning."
My heart dropped. I hadn't thought about it until right now, but clearly other people had seen his transformation. Who would handle that sort of thing? The CIA, or FBI? Or some crazy secretive government program nobody knew of?
Ethan pressed the button for the elevator and said, "Hey Matt, uhh, what are you talking about?"
"Fuck you," the guy spat, pulling out his cell phone and walking in the other direction.
I smiled nervously at the people around us until the elevator opened.
When it reached Ethan's floor, it was immediately obvious what had happened. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, though none was actually visible. Ethan's door, only ten feet from the elevator, was open wide and firemen in heavy gear walked around inside.
A man stood next to the door, and his eyes widened when he saw Ethan.
"You!" he said, intercepting us before we made it inside. He jabbed an accusing finger at Ethan, rage now plastered on his face. "You are a bloody idiot, Mr. Masterson."
Ethan put up his hands and said, "I don't know what's going on..."
"Leaving food on the stove is the kind of idiotic thing I've seen tenants with dementia do," he snarled, "but not someone your age."
Food on the stove. Oh no. The soup.
Ethan gave a nervous grin. "Hey, now that I can guarantee is a mistake. I slept at the office last night, and have been dead sick since then. Jessica can..."
He trailed off when he saw my face.
While his landlord berated him in the hallway, I stepped into the apartment. The kitchen was charred black, with grey foam spiderwebbing all over the walls and corners. I didn't see the pot of soup that I'd started anywhere near
the stove, but then again it was so thickly covered in ash and foam that you could probably hide a body in there.
A fireman glanced at me while walking by, and rolled his eyes.
"Don't look at me, this isn't even my apartment!" I snapped. It was a lie of omission, since it was obviously still my fault, but he didn't know that.
As if by magnetic force, my eyes were pulled away from the kitchen and to the other half of the studio apartment. I felt the totem before seeing it, a pulsing sensation like a heartbeat. Stepping through the foam, I found it against the far wall next to the bed. A ring of foamless floor surrounded it like snow melted around a fire.
I snatched it as if it might disappear, and once it was in my hands the pulsing stopped.
Now he's safe. It was an emotion more than a thought, but I knew it to be true. Somehow, Ethan was safe while I held this.
Careful not to depress the emerald--that would be tougher to explain than the kitchen fire--I tucked it in my pocket.
It took the better part of five minutes thanks to the foam, but I eventually found my cell phone by the window. Surprisingly, it still worked.
I had three missed calls, all from the same person.
"Whelp," Ethan said, finally entering the room. "My landlord insists I started the fire, and I got sick of arguing with him."
"Can't win them all." Then I changed the subject by saying, "Mrs. Arnold isn't happy I skipped work."
"I thought you left her a voicemail?"
"Sure, but I told her I would only be a few minutes late because of rush hour traffic." I held my phone screen out to show him the time. "Now we're dealing with the afternoon rush hour traffic. The whole day's been wasted."
"I wouldn't say wasted," he grinned.
"Not that it matters," I mumbled, putting the phone away. "She's not gunna hire me when my contract's over anyways." I checked to make sure everyone was gone from the doorway and pulled out the totem.
