by Renee George
Have mercy! The way he kissed me made me think he wanted to enter my body through my tonsils. I vibrated against him as he ripped my shirt over my head. “Pink bra must go,” he said.
With one little click of his fingers, the bra snapped open, releasing the girls for his eager hands. I moaned as he lifted me off the floor. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his waist, grinding my sex against the growing bulge in his jeans. He tore away from the kiss, his mouth nibbling and nipping the skin along my jaw and neck, until his lips found my right nipple. He worked the nub between his teeth, his tongue laving it until it stood tight and erect before he moved to my left side and gave it the same attention. I fisted his hair with both my hands, moaning as I ground myself against him. Wet heat blossomed between my thighs. Goddamn! I was going to have an orgasm without ever taking off my pants.
His hand cleverly rubbed over the middle seam of my jeans, finding just the right pressure to make me groan and tremble with pleasure. “Oh, hot damn. Hot damn,” I murmured, grabbing his flannel shirt and yanking the front apart. Plastic buttons hit the hardwood floors. I’d always wanted to do that, and damn if it wasn’t as sexy as I thought it would be.
“I think you need to be punished for that,” he said playfully.
My eyes widened. “Bring it on.”
He threw me over his shoulder and gave my ass a slap.
Kicking and giggling, I let Babel carry me through the apartment to the bedroom. He tossed me easily onto the bed. I landed with an unflattering bounce, but it didn’t matter at all. He stripped the damaged shirt off first, giving me the full-on benefit of his wide chest and ripped abs.
I whistled low and soft, “There ought to be a law.”
He snarled, not mean-like, but oh-so-mind-blowingly-hot. “There is.”
I laughed. Until his pants dropped to the floor, along with my jaw. Soft, he was big—hard, he was super-sized. And yes, I’d seen it the day before, but not in this context. The context where he was planning on inserting it into me. “Holy schmoly.”
“It gets better.” He grinned.
“As long as it doesn’t get bigger.” As it was, I wasn’t sure if it was going to feel really, really good. Or really, really bad. “Don’t break me. I may need my shit at some later date.”
He retrieved his wallet from his pants and pulled out a condom. Funny enough, it didn’t bother me that he carried them around. I was actually glad the gorgeous slut practiced safe sex! I swallowed hard as he rolled the condom down the length of his shaft. It didn’t quite reach the base. I swallowed hard again.
“I’ll be gentle.” His low voice caused my belly button to feel like someone had tied a string to it from the inside and tugged. I was so wet and ready, gentle or otherwise.
He crawled up the bed with the confidence of a predator stalking its prey. His shoulder-length hair falling forward, giving him that primal something-something that made my thighs quiver with anticipation. He started at my ankles, tenderly licking and nipping, making the nerves in my body raw with excitement.
The farther up he went, the more my legs spread to accommodate his wide shoulders until his tongue met my…
“Ah,” I grunted as his mouth found the sweet spot. His hands reached up to my breasts, caressing and tweaking. The simultaneous stimulation made my back bow, raising my body to meet his every manipulation.
My sex slick with heat, my throat thick and heavy with desire, I muttered, “I want you in me.”
Babel growled his own eagerness as he raised his body over mine. He entered me slowly, inch by languid inch.
“Oh, God,” he rasped. “You’re so tight. I don’t want to hurt you.”
It felt too good and we’d gone too far to stop. I raised my hips to meet his, taking him all the way in. A moan fell from my lips unbidden. I could feel the pressure mounting inside me as his thick shaft slid deep and withdrew in a slow, easy rhythm.
He arched his back, taking my nipple into his mouth again, teasing it with his tongue. My hips thrust upward, driving him deeper inside me.
Babel’s growls and moans only heightened my excitement. His rhythm quickened. I rocked my lower body, meeting every hard thrust with the same enthusiasm. The musky scent of his skin added to the wild feeling growing inside me like a ticking time bomb. A burning rapture of ecstasy exploded through my body. I cried out, the intensity overwhelming all my senses.
Suddenly, I was on the street outside the restaurant. A large dog—again with reddish-brown fur, but not the one I’d been hallucinating—jumped on top me, its lips pulled back in a snarl as it growled and bared its teeth.
Screaming, I scrambled backward, its hot breath licking at my skin. I shut my eyes tight, waiting for it to tear into me.
The bite came, the teeth digging into the flesh of my shoulder. Searing pain ripped through me.
I screamed again, and didn’t stop until the vision ended and I was back in the bedroom, Babel shaking me as he shouted my name.
“Stop. I’m okay. I’m fine.” I was panting, breathless with fear. I was anything but fine. When he released my shoulders, I could feel the tears burning my eyes. I brought my hands up to cover them. “Oh, God. It was horrible.”
“Sunny, what happened?”
“I don’t know why. I don’t know when,” I managed through the shock. “But I’m going to be attacked soon.”
Chapter 6
“Let me get this straight,” Babel said for the sixth time. “You think you’re psychic?”
“I don’t think I’m anything.” I was beginning to feel a little bit like Bruce Banner. He was making me angry, and he wasn’t going to like it if I got angry. “I know I’m a psychic.”
He made a “pah” noise. (Irritating.) Then shook his head. “Prove it.”
If it were possible at the moment, I would have turned green and started busting muscles out everywhere. “What about your clothes? How did I know that your clothes were in the walk-in freezer?”
“You could have stumbled on them when you were looking around.”
“Okay, I didn’t want to go here, but I know that skank Sheila made those scratch marks down your back.” Which, come to think, were remarkably healed for just one day.
He had the good sense to look embarrassed. “Lucky guess?”
Hands on my hips, I harrumphed. “Fine! How about the fact that she cold-cocked you with a bottle of cheap whiskey after you finished doing the nasty!”
His eyes widened than narrowed. “You talked to Sheila. Easy explanation.”
I blamed Babel completely for what came next. He’d left me no choice. “I saw your brother…You were much younger.”
Babel sat down on the bed, eyeing me wearily, the rawness of his pain nearly forcing me to stop. But I had to make him believe.
“He didn’t want to…integrate.”
Babel’s so-serious face grew hard. He grabbed my arms and pulled me close. He stared accusingly. “What do you know of integrating?”
“Nothing.” I consciously slowed down my breathing to belie the panic. “I only know what I see. He said something to you. Something about being what you are.”
“Stop, please, stop.” Babel could no longer look at me. “How? How can you know this?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to see your past. I can’t control the visions. If I could, I’d use them to find Chav. But they don’t work like that. They take me back and they take me forward, but they don’t always make sense, and I can’t see things just because I want to. This curse of mine…I feel fucking useless. Chav knew. She understood and helped me. I wish I could control it, but I can’t. But the important thing is that my visions are always true. That’s why I know I’m going to be attacked by an animal. Right out in front of the diner.”
Babel stood suddenly and grabbed my arms, his expression fierce as he kissed me. “It’ll be dark soon, Sunny. Lock your doors. Double-check your windows. Don’t go outside. Whatever you do. Don’t. Go.
Outside.”
I think I’d seen this scene in a horror movie. It was the one that occurred right before the hapless female who, moments after having sex, is hacked into tiny pieces of gore.
“I have to go now.” He kissed my cheek, tenderly, carefully. “Be safe.”
Before I could ask him what the hell was going on in this town, he took off out of the apartment.
“Great.” I sighed. “I’m going to be attacked by a vicious animal and he leaves me alone.”
I sighed again, but did what he told me. I went downstairs, locked the door, made sure the windows were all locked down, then went back up to my apartment to wait out the coming storm.
Three hours later, around eight-thirty in the evening, I watched through the cracked shutters in my bedroom as the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon came up in the east. The sky, clear of clouds, made me wonder what kind of storms they had in Missouri? It looked like a beautiful night out.
Suddenly, howls and yaps sounded in the distance, making me shiver. I rubbed my arms, trying to ward off the feeling of foreboding. While the defiant part of me had been determined to stay in Peculiar, the chicken-butt side of me wanted to jump into my truck and head for the sunny coast of California.
I checked out the window again.
What I saw frightened me as much as the howls.
Deer, opossums, raccoons, and all sorts of wildlife skirted the street, running as if their lives depended on it. I read about animals acting weird when a storm was brewing, but what the hell kind of weather would make them all to run through the middle of a human-populated town?
Not watching was impossible. I hadn’t experienced this much craziness since the night a friend drunk-dialed me at four in the morning to ask me if she could date my cheating ex. (Totally breaking girl code—thou shall not date thy friend’s ex ever.) I never forgave her.
A fawn ran out from between the general store and the antique place right into the stampede. My heart thumped in my chest as it wove itself into the fray. I thought about Ruth’s little boy, running around his house with his father’s antlers clutched to his head.
My anxiety upped a notch.
Biting my fingernails, I watched it stumble and couldn’t hold back a gasp. This was worse than when Bambi’s mother got shot.
A raccoon whacked the fawn in the side, sending the creature tumbling to the ground outside in front of my building.
It was horrible! Even the squirrels were running it over. Its little mouth opened as if to scream.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I know I’d been warned to stay inside, and the logical part of my brain told me the move was TSTL, but I had to do something to help the poor baby animal.
I hit the stairs running and nearly tumbled myself. Sliding across the restaurant floor, I grabbed the keys off the hook near the door and unlocked the deadbolt. The noise outside had grown to a roar. Keeping myself pinned against the building, I waited for a small break then dashed out into the road and grabbed the fawn’s leg.
The damned thing kicked the shit out of me with its back legs as I pulled it to safety around my 4X4 truck. As soon as I had it cleared of the chaos, it jumped up on all fours and bounded off down the street without a glance at me.
No thank you, no sorry about the bruised ribs, no nothing. Ungrateful beast!
I turned to get back into the store, but I’d done something wrong when I’d unlocked it from the inside. Somehow, it had stayed locked on the outside. I heard a roar, not just the roar of the multitude of animals, but a real, honest-to-goodness roar.
A large black bear stood on its hind legs, then dropped into a gallop, coming up the street my way. I fumbled for the keys in my pocket, dropped them once, and panic had me shaking so bad I couldn’t get the right one into the damn hole!
Why couldn’t I have just left Bambi alone? After all, it was nature that only the strong survive.
Dropping my keys, again, I bent to retrieve them. Then it happened. It felt like a giant tree branch whacked me hard across my back, hammering me to the concrete sidewalk. I rolled over with a groan, and a dog or dog-like animal, maybe a coyote like Babel had mentioned, with the darkest brown eyes jumped onto my chest.
It was the vision. It was coming true. Right fucking now!
I screamed as it snarled and snapped, ready to make me a Sunny-snack. Throwing my elbow up, I managed to knock it off me once, but the damn thing was quick and vicious. It twisted its body and was back on me in less than a second. I screamed again as its warm breath panted across my skin.
I wrenched sideways, the animal’s maw barely missing my neck as it sank its teeth into my left shoulder. The adrenaline rush of being attacked dulled the searing pain a little as I used my right hand to punch at its head and body with everything I had. It twisted and pulled at my shoulder. My left arm began to tingle with the first signs of numbness. So much better than the pain, but scarier.
I screamed again.
Its neck pressed against my face and I bit it until I felt my teeth break through the skin under the fur. It yelped, releasing me, pain flooding back into the damaged arm. I kicked it in the side as hard as I could and it caught my jeans by the cuff and started to drag me. I kicked the animal in the jaw, but the coyote wasn’t going to let go twice. It pulled me out into the street.
With my useless arm bloody and dragging behind me now, I started feeling lightheaded.
No, no, no. This was not the time to pass out. Not now.
If I lost consciousness, there would be no coming back. I used my good hand to undo my pants, desperately trying to get them off. I finally got them unzipped and down around my thighs, but I couldn’t get them down my legs.
I screamed in frustration, my heart beating a mile a minute, my brain trying to come up with an exit solution.
My saving came in the form of another coyote.
It was nearly twice as large as the one attacking me, and it barreled into the brown-eyed devil with a ferocity I’d never seen. It grabbed the smaller one by the back of the neck and shook it before casting it aside. The smaller coyote yelped and whined but the bigger one held its ground, standing between me and death.
My hero, I thought. Then another thought came to me. The animal probably saved me so I could be its next meal. I scootched backward to the storefront, grabbing my keys where’d they’d fallen. The large coyote turned its face to me.
Blue eyes.
It raised its upper lip, baring sharp white teeth.
The better to eat you with, my dear.
But instead of attacking, it took off down the street after the rest of the animals.
In severe pain, lightheaded, and completely panicked, I ran to the passenger door of my truck, hitting the unlock button on the key chain. Thank heavens for remote-control locks! I pulled the door open and crawled into the driver’s seat.
I managed to get the key into the ignition, though I was shaking so bad, I don’t know how. The truck started and I had one thought in my head. If Peculiar didn’t want me, well, who cares, I didn’t want Peculiar anymore, either. So there!
I was going back to California, and I wasn’t going to waste a moment of time getting there. Then I noticed the blood. Lots and lots of blood. Oh boy. “You cannot pass out, Sunny,” I said firmly. “You will not pass out. Hold it together, girl.”
Normally, I didn’t talk to myself. Not aloud, anyways. But I so needed a pep talk. “We’ll go to the nearest hospital. You’ll be fine.” I had lost feeling in my left hand. “Stop thinking about it. Just drive.”
And that’s exactly what I did. I put the truck in gear, and peeled out of my parking spot. I’d forgotten Ruth had told me the one-lane bridge was the only way in or out of the small town. I headed for the west side, dodging creatures big and small, and found there wasn’t an exit. I did a U-turn and head back the other way.
Fishtailing out of town, the pain in my arm intensified, and I wished like hell the whole damn thing w
ould go numb, that I could just go numb.
I saw the bridge up ahead, signaling freedom. I’d be out of this insane town and, after a visit to the emergency room, out of this horrible state.
No such luck.
A large gray wolf jumped in front of my headlights and stopped. I slammed on the breaks and cut the wheels. The 4Runner hit the ditch with a jarring wham! The air bag deployed, smacking me hard in the chest and face. For a second I saw pretty colors, then as had become my habit, everything faded to black.
Chapter 7
Smoke? I sniffed the air again before opening my eyes. Yep. Smoke.
I turned my head and blinked. Steam rose in front of me. I heard the hiss of water hitting something hot. I tried to sit up, but the pain in my shoulder kept me down.
Groaning, I rubbed my eyes. A man, at least I was pretty sure it was a man, sat across the steam from me. His face and body, what I could see, was painted with thick paint in red, black, and yellow. His hair, a tangle of long, silvery-gray dreadlocks, spilled over his shoulders. He chanted softly, rocking gently, as he poured another ladle of water over a pit.
I touched my wounded shoulder. A thick dressing covered it entirely, smelling of herbs and earth. I gazed wearily at the man covered in leather and fur. Then I noticed the room I was in. It was hand-sewn leather held up with thick saplings.
Huh. It appeared I’d been rescued and tended to by a Rastafarian-Native American. I wondered where he hid his good shit, because weed and peyote both sounded like they couldn’t hurt at this point.
“You were badly injured,” he said, raising his eyes to me. They were the clearest gray I’d ever seen. His voice held a slight drawl, as though he was from farther south than Missouri.
“Yes.” To avoid impoliteness, I added, “Thanks for helping me out.” I managed to get up on an elbow, and the fur covering me slipped down.
