by Lauren Esker
Lafitte nodded. "I got the story from her. It's definitely going to open up new lines of research, which I suppose is pale comfort given what's happened, but I don't think anyone knew this kind of thing was possible. I'm sure there have been other shifter donors, and I'm not sure if it's only that no one ever noticed or reported faster-than-usual healing as a side effect, or if this is actually something new."
"Did she tell you she's having problems with rejection?"
"She did. We're going to try some experimental transfusions, although first we need to find a compatible donor. Apparently she was compatible with most of the Penstock family, as they were the original organ donors."
Penstock. Nicole realized she'd never known Chester's last name. "Not the kids," she said firmly. "When they're old enough to choose, that's one thing. But not right now."
"We can talk about it later. There's time." Lafitte gave her a crooked, tired smile. "It's been a very long day for everyone, I think. Don't you want to go home?"
She did. Oh, how she did.
***
Jack and Casey's car, waiting at the curb, turned out to be a rental.
"The behemoth is in the shop, I take it," Avery said. He was walking stiffly, leaning heavily on a cheap rented cane from the clinic's supplies. Nicole stayed close to his side, clutching a small bag of replacement meds from the clinic's pharmacy. She had Sophie in her arms; Jack and Casey were carrying the other three.
Jack snorted. "The behemoth may never be the same again, judging from the look on the mechanic's face when he saw the engine."
"If they can't fix the Explorer, we might be looking into a Yukon," Casey announced, freeing a hand from Ginger to unlock the door.
"You're trading up?" Avery said in disbelief. "Why not just get a Hummer while you're at it?"
"Thought about it awhile back," Jack said. Once Avery and Nicole had gotten themselves arranged in the backseat, he passed the puppies in to them. "Figured it wasn't worth dealing with the gas mileage, but after today, I think it's back on the table again. One of those babies would've sailed through that overhead door like a dream."
"If you actually end up driving a Hummer around Seattle, I am going to have to find a new best friend."
"Hey, man, if you'd been driving something bigger, the perps never have been able to get away with the snatch-and-grab they pulled on you. You ought to look into trading up, too."
Despite Jack's joking tone, this hit a little too close to home. There was a brief silence in the car.
Nicole broke it at last. "I liked Noah's muscle car." She grinned across the backseat at Avery. "Why don't you get one of those?"
"Ha!" Jack barked. "That Camaro, a muscle car? For old ladies, maybe. Now, if you want to talk horsepower—"
Car talk, mostly between the two guys but with Casey chiming in with informed opinions from time to time, carried them through the glimmering lights of nighttime Seattle. Eventually Nicole—drowsing in her seat with her lap full of puppies—realized they'd been driving for awhile, and she had no idea where they were going. Avery voiced the thought first. "Are you taking us to my place?"
"I am absolutely doing that," Jack said. "And then we're going to make sure you have food, after which Casey and I will take the kids for the evening, and let you kids have fun. Or sleep, whichever you'd prefer."
"You know what?" Avery leaned wearily into Nicole. "I am absolutely going to let you do that."
***
It was strange to be back at Avery's apartment after so much had changed. Nicole felt as if she'd aged months in the time they'd been gone. And she felt as if she and Avery had been dating for months, too. She was staggered to think they'd known each other for such a short period of time, and hadn't even managed a proper date yet. It seemed as if he had sunk into her life and become such an intrinsic part of it that she could no longer imagine living without him.
They'd left Jack and Casey downstairs, with a carful of sleepy puppies and vehement reassurances that yes, they were entirely capable of ordering takeout themselves—except, Nicole realized halfway up the stairs, they had no phones because EGL had trashed their personal effects. The only reason why Avery had a key was because he and Jack had, at some point in the past, swapped spares. Nicole dashed back downstairs and found Casey on the sidewalk, grinning and holding out her own phone.
"You guys are the best," Nicole said, and couldn't stop herself from impulsively hugging her. Casey stiffened for an instant, as if she wasn't used to receiving hugs, and then cautiously wrapped her arms around the older woman.
"Tell you the truth, I feel like I've fallen down a weird rabbit hole," Casey admitted as they broke apart. "A few months ago I was an orphan with literally no friends, and I'd only met a handful of other shifters in my life. Now I've somehow I've become part of this big SCB family. It's so strange. I'm babysitting. That's such a normal, white-picket-fence kind of thing to do. It doesn't even feel like me."
"You're babysitting werewolf puppies with your grizzly bear boyfriend. Nothing normal about that."
Casey gave a semi-hysterical shriek of laughter that made Jack look over from the rolled-down window of their rental car. "Okay, you have a point. Everything is back in perspective now."
"Seriously, though, I think Avery is lucky to have you and Jack in his life. And I'm glad I do too, now."
She left Casey on that thought, and hurried back upstairs. Avery was trying to set the living room to rights, limping around picking things up.
"Oh, stop," Nicole said, taking a wad of newspapers out of his hands. "You know what I want? A shower, and food, and sleep, not necessarily in that order."
"God, a shower. Yeah. I'm putting that one at the top of the priority list. Flip you for first go."
"I have a better idea. We're grownups, yeah?" She grinned at him. "And grownups know you can fit two people in a shower."
They left a trail of shed clothing on the way to the bathroom. Nicole adjusted the water temperature, leaning naked over the tub, while Avery sat on the closed lid of the toilet and worked his jeans off with gritted teeth, using only one hand. His right one was no longer splinted, but it was swollen and bruised, and she had noticed him favoring it.
She turned around and gasped at the sight of the bruise across his side, where Ray had kicked him. The bruises on his face paled next to that great splash of dirty violets and greens, mottled with red splotches, and fading to a rotten-banana yellow around the edges.
"Yeah, I'm colorful." He tried to lean over to get his socks off, and groaned at the attempt.
"Let me." She knelt on the floor and pulled his jeans free of his feet, then the socks. "Hey," she said, running her hand lightly up the calf of his unscarred leg. "I found somewhere you don't have any bruises."
Avery huffed a soft laugh. "Tell you what. Could you get something out of the medicine cabinet for me? There are some prescription bottles in there. Find me the Vicodin."
"I didn't know you took it." She straightened, watching the way his eyes followed the mobile curves of her body, and hunted through a veritable sea of different over-the-counter painkillers for the white-capped prescription bottle.
"I don't much anymore. I tapered off the harder painkillers awhile back. But I still have a few for emergencies, and I am, by God, going to treat myself to one tonight. It's even Lafitte-approved."
She filled his toothbrush cup with water and handed him that along with the pill. The second toothbrush he'd bought for her was still there with his. "You know," she said, "if you don't mind waiting a few minutes for the shower ... I think there's something I want to do even more ..."
"Me too," Avery said, with feeling.
Moments later, with both of them feeling a lot more minty-clean, Nicole stepped into the tub and grinned at Avery's expression as the water sluiced down her naked body. "Don't just stand there, come on in. What are you waiting for, a custom invitation with a ribbon on it?"
"I think I just want to enjoy the scenery first."
&nb
sp; Nicole glanced down at herself. She'd lived in this body all her life, but it was almost like seeing it afresh, through Avery's imagined gaze. The heft and weight of her breasts, with their erect nipples; the wide hips and heavy thighs that Avery seemed so drawn to; even the rolls over her hips no longer bothered her, not with Avery looking at her with that expression—the one that said he'd just found the tastiest treat on Earth, and planned to eat it up later.
And then she looked at him, really looked. Compact and muscular, his body was a map of scars and bruises, every one of which told a story. Survivor's scars, she thought. She carried hers too, but hers were under the skin. After the last few days, they both had a few new ones.
She held out a hand. Avery took it with his left, and carefully stepped under the shower's warm rain. With two of them in the small tub, it was unexpectedly crowded. At least there weren't many bottles of toiletries to risk knocking down. It was very much a single guy's bathroom, with only the most basic amenities: a bottle of shampoo-conditioner, a half-used bar of soap, a razor, and a small can of shaving lotion.
For a moment they stood looking at each other, hands linked together, before Nicole grinned. "I have to admit I've never done this before. Showered with someone, I mean. How are you supposed to do it? There's only room for one person under the water."
Avery ducked his head and looked up at her with a quick, almost shy smile. "I could start by washing your hair. I'd like to do that for you, if you don't mind."
In answer, Nicole went down to her knees under the sheeting water, and she heard Avery draw in a soft breath. He reached for the shampoo-conditioner bottle on the edge of the tub.
Nicole bowed her head and closed her eyes, letting the hot water soak through to her scalp and pour over her shoulders.
His first touch was hesitant, a light brush against her wet hair. Then his hand settled on her head, fingers spreading across her scalp. She found it unexpectedly exciting that she couldn't see what he was doing, or where he would touch her next. When his other hand settled on the other side of her head, the cool wetness of the shampoo made her jerk, sending a frisson of thrill skating across her nerves.
"Okay?" Avery murmured.
"Yes." She kept her eyes closed. Water ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. Avery's hands, callused and sure and gentle, rubbed the shampoo into her hair. His fingertips massaged her scalp in slow circles. In the darkness behind her eyelids, every sensation was magnified: the silken caress of the water, the firmer pressure of his hands.
Now his fingertips pressed to her temples and the sides of her head, thumbs resting lightly on the points of her jaw as he spread his hands across her scalp and gently tilted her head back. She relaxed; her hands rested lax in her naked lap, and he tilted her head back into the flow of water. One hand diverted the cascade from her face, cupping lightly around her forehead, while the other worked through the wet tangle of her hair, over and over, massaging out the shampoo.
She opened her eyes, blinking wet lashes, and found herself on face level with the nest of damp curls between his legs, and the half-erect cock resting there. Caught by an impish urge, she leaned forward and darted her tongue across the tip. It was only a light, ghosting touch, but he sucked in a breath. His hands didn't pause, though, smoothing through her hair, finger-combing out the tangles.
Nicole reached for the bar of soap. Kneeling before Avery, she soaped him as far as she could reach, sliding the slick soap over his muscular thighs, the narrow hips, the tight curve of his ass. The scars she paid special attention to, all those knots of scar tissue ridging his right thigh and the twisted, deformed hip. She reached up to rub the bar of soap across his flat belly and chest, exquisitely careful of the massive bruise across his side.
When she'd soaped every inch of him in reach, they moved together, carefully, shuffling around each other until he was under the flood of water and she knelt before him in the clear. The air in the bathroom, though objectively warm, brushed her wet limbs with tingling chill.
Avery reached for the soap bar. Nicole gave her head a small shake to clear the water from her face, and stood up, enjoying the glint in his blue-gray eyes as he watched her body flex. She took a step forward, entering the circle of his arms, and wrapped her arms around his back to smooth the palms down his spine. Pressed against his soap-slick front, she rubbed with short thrusts of her hips, and grinned up at him while her nipples slid deliciously across his damp, lightly furred chest.
It was certainly one way to get soapy.
Beneath the cascading water, they twisted and swayed and turned, passing the bar of soap back and forth until they'd both soaped up completely, and rinsed, and gone through the cycle again. Avery took a moment to rub a palmful of shampoo into his dark hair. Nicole reached up, sinking her fingers into his hair. As he'd done for her, now she did for him, massaging his scalp and watching his eyelids drift shut in bliss.
There was still a sore spot on her neck where the dart with its payload of drugs had gone in. Avery soaped carefully around it, and Nicole tilted her head to the side to let the hot water sluice over the sore area. They were both moving more easily now, their beat-up, tired bodies relaxing in the heat.
When she tipped her head back to kiss him, his lips were warm and wet and water-slick. She explored his mouth, thrilling to the feeling of his body pressing against hers, and as she did so the realization broke over her that there was still so much to learn. She could spend a lifetime getting to know him, body and mind, and still there would be new things to discover. It was like standing on the edge of a wholly unknown country, one with a wealth of treasure yet to find.
She could start here and now.
She touched his face, his neck, mapping out the first roads of that new country as the warm water rushed over them and glistened on his skin. She kissed her way down his neck and found that he liked the drag of her teeth across his throat, so she nipped him gently between kisses, feeling his body jerk with pleasure each time she did.
One of his hands was wrapped around her back, holding her to him; the other cupped her breast. She could feel his erection pressing into the top of her thigh, and she rubbed against him and scraped her teeth lightly across his neck, just above the collarbone. He moaned softly into her wet hair.
It thrilled her that she could elicit such a response from him with just a few light touches. Wait until I really get started. She slid her wet hand down his body and felt him shiver as she gripped his cock, stroking her thumb across the head.
Avery's breath quickened, growing ragged. Nicole started when he caught her wrist with his hand and stopped her rubbing. "Keep that up, and you'll get me off before I have a chance to give you any fun at all."
Nicole laughed into his damp neck. "I'm having plenty of fun, buddy. Trust me."
"You'll be having a lot more in a minute."
He let her wrist go with a gentle squeeze, but his fingers wandered only as far as the soft nest of curls between her legs. The rush of heat when he touched her, fingers separating her folds, made her knees wobble.
He could not comfortably, she realized, get down on his knees, not with his leg and hip the way they were. But there were other ways, and right now his clever fingers stroked her with light touches, sparking off electricity behind her breastbone.
She tipped her head back and he seized her mouth as if he'd been waiting, his tongue teasing her while his fingers drove her half mad. Her sensitive nipples rubbed against his wet chest every time either of them moved.
He slid a wet finger inside her, and she gasped into his mouth. Her muscles clenched around him and she felt the edges of his grin in his kiss. She was slick and open, heat pooling in her core, and when he guided himself into her, she forgot for a moment to breathe.
His first thrusts were slightly awkward, mistimed. She realized, then, that it was hurting him, even with the painkillers, using his bruised core muscles and his damaged hips to thrust against her. "Here," she murmured, "let's try something," and
shuffled them around in the narrow confines of the shower until his back was pressed against the wall. Now the water was hitting them from the side, sluicing across both their bodies and cascading down their fronts. She could feel it hitting her clit, chasing thrill after thrill through her.
She braced one hand against the wall behind Avery's head, then lifted her left foot and curled her toes on the rim of the tub. Now she had leverage for thrusting. All he had to do was brace himself against the wall.
"Good?" he murmured, looking at her anxiously through dripping lashes.
"Wonderful," she gasped. In this position she could choose the depth and speed, working their bodies together. Sweat was washed away as fast as it could bead her skin. Avery threw his head back against the wall, and she relished the look of bliss on his face, the sounds he made that were audible above the cascading water.
As she could feel herself nearing climax, waves of pleasure mounting in her, Avery pulled out with a soft gasp. "Condoms," he breathed.
"Don't want to stop." She wrapped her fingers around the slick length of him; he slid two fingers into her slippery wetness. She clenched on his fingers and felt his hips jerk reflexively, thrusting into her hand.
"I'm going to—"
"Me too," she panted, and then seized his mouth with hers, and the waves caught her and lifted her and made lightning dance behind her eyes.
She came down slowly, her head dropping onto his wet shoulder. Avery was shuddering and breathing hard. Nicole leaned into him, as both of them began to relax. The water continued to pour over them, and she realized that she finally felt clean.
"Food?" she murmured into Avery's shoulder.
"Food."
***
Nicole made a call to the first restaurant in Casey's phone presets, and so they dined on Asian fusion takeout, sprawled on the couch, sleepy and giggling and feeding bites to each other.
