by james
“It’s pretty red,” he said after a long moment. He was leaning so close, she could feel his breath on the swollen peak, and shifted her weight again.
Suddenly her shorts felt too tight, in a pleasantly irritating way. “But I don’t think it’ll bruise.”
“How—” Her mouth was suddenly very dry, and she coughed. “How do you know it’s red?”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he smoothed her hair away from her eyes. “If you steal out of my house in the middle of the night again,” he said, quite pleasantly, “I’ll beat you.”
“No you won’t.”
He sighed. “No. I won’t.”
“Drake, seriously. Why d’you care?”
He sighed again. “I care.” Then he pulled her up on her tiptoes and kissed her with bruising strength.
She dropped her clothes. Fuckit.
Kissing Drake—well, being kissed by Drake—was an entirely novel experience. For one thing, the man didn’t have an ounce of flab anywhere. For another, she had the distinct impression he could snap her spine like kindling. But this thought was as exciting as it was slightly scary.
He pulled away and she stumbled forward. “Oh, no, don’t stop,” she gasped. “Kiss me some more—I’m not dizzy enough.”
“I can’t,” he said, and she was delighted to see his breaths, too, were coming hard. “I don’t want to take you in the alley like a—come on.”
He grabbed her hand, hauled her out until they were under the streetlights, and flagged a cab. He practically threw her inside, then slammed the door and tersely told the driver his address.
“My clothes,” she said, staring out the back window. “And after all the stupid trouble I went to…”
“I’ll buy you a Gap store,” he replied, and didn’t let go of her hand until the cab pulled into his driveway.
Drake fumbled for his wallet, then grabbed a bunch of cash and threw it at the driver, dragging her out in the same instant. She heard the driver’s gasp of surprise and appreciation, and then he was pulling out of the driveway and, in typical Boston driver fashion, pulling into traffic without looking.
She jumped into Drake’s arms. He held her easily, his hands cupping her bottom, and she nibbled his lower lip. “I think you tipped him ‘bout a thousand percent,” she teased.
“Ask me if I give a fuck,” he growled back. He shifted his grip, reached, and tore her shirt from the neck down.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. They didn’t even make it to the front steps. Instead, he took her in the lilac bushes, and to the end of her days she would associate that scent with Drake’s urgency.
“This is insane,” she panted, helping him tear out of his coat, his shirt, his pants. “We don’t even know each other.”
“I know you.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.” Except she felt as if she knew him, too. Independent and proud and kind and gentle, but a hard man when he had to be. A velvet fist when circumstances demanded it.
He tore her panties off and then gently parted her. She was slippery and he groaned when his fingers slid through her, into her, and while his fingers were busy stroking and parting the slick folds between her legs, his thumb was on her clit, gently rubbing, and his lips were on her sore nipple, licking and kissing.
“Later,” she groaned. Oh, Christ, had she ever wanted anyone this badly? Had anyone? “Later for that stuff. Fuck me, before I go out of my mind.”
He left her nipple after one last kiss, then caught her hand, brought it between them, and let her fingers curl around his enormous length. He throbbed beneath her touch and she could feel his slippery tip. She ran her thumb over it and he shuddered in her arms.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re so small, I don’t want to—”
“Yes.” She wriggled beneath him and licked her lower lip. “I’m small and you’re big, and it’s going to hurt just right. Now stop talking and…fuck…me.”
He obliged, parting her and surging forward, filling her up, forcing her to open for him, and still he came forward, pushing, thrusting, until she thought she would soon feel him in the back of her throat.
He withdrew, and in the waning light of the moon she could see the sweat on his brow, the way his eyes were shining, almost glinting, and then he surged forward, shoved forward, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and shrieked into the night air.
They rocked together in the grass, and when she put her hands on his taut butt, she could feel the muscles flexing as he worked over her, as he thrust and withdrew and pushed and surged. She opened her mouth for another yell—it
was too sweetly divine to keep quiet—when his hand clamped over her mouth. She writhed in silence beneath him and, several seconds later, heard the couple walk by on the sidewalk a bare ten yards away.
“They’ll hear you,” he murmured in her ear, his voice so thick it was nearly unrecognizable. “They’ll come over her and see me fucking you in my side yard.”
The thought was so blatantly exciting she came at once, actually felt herself get wetter. He groaned in her ear, then bit her earlobe.
It went on like that for some time—she would never be able to guess how long they went at each other in the lilac bushes. Every once in a while his phenomenal hearing would pick up something and he’d cover her mouth again, without missing a stroke. But when he finally came, his shout was a roar that made her ears ring.
“Oh, Christ,” he gasped, collapsing over her.
“If anybody heard that, you’ll have some explaining to do, Doctor.” She tried to sound saucy, but mostly, she just wheezed.
“Umm.” He was kissing the side of her neck, wet snuffly kisses that made her shiver and press closer to him. “Don’t leave in the middle of the night anymore.”
“All right, then. Think we can make it inside without showing the neighbors our bare butts?”
“We’re about to find out.”
CHAPTER NINE
“I think I got something caught on your bellybutton ring,” he said later, simply because it was much too soon to ask her to be his mate, and he had to say something.
“What can I say? Life with me is a constant adventure.” She yawned and flopped over on her back. “And, may I add, not bad for an old guy. Seriously. You must take, like, super Geritol, because…”
“Thank you so much,” he said wryly. They were in his bed, watching the stars through the skylight. “I was just about to compliment you on being adequate in bed despite an obvious lack of experience.”
She smacked him on the bicep. “Hey! And…ow…that was like slapping a rock. FYI, dude, I’ve got gobs of experience. There was that time in the movie theater…um…and once during a snowball fight a boy fell down on top of me…”
“Stop it, you’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Drake, what is it with you?” she asked abruptly. Her scent shift warned him—from playful soap bubbles to fresh green leaves—even if her tone hadn’t. “Seriously. I mean, you swoop down on me all Knight in Shining Armani, which is nice, if weird, and you don’t ask for anything at all, and you’re super nice, but
you must want something.”
“Well,” he said, sliding his hand up her thigh.
“Oh, spare me. Like you were going to kick me out for not putting
out…don’t think so. I mean, here we are, and frankly, most men—”
“Spare me your knowledge of most men.”
“Okay, okay. But seriously. What’s your deal?”
“It’s a double deal,” he said after a long pause. “And either one will, as you might say, freak you out in the extreme.”
“Oh, dude, I’d never say anything so lame…well, why don’t you try one, see how that goes.”
“Uh…”
“Come on, come on! Then I’ll tell you something about me. Something
nobody else knows.”
“You mean besides the fact that y
ou have smelly feet?”
“Draaaaaaaaaaaake!”
“All right, don’t yowl. Okay. Well. Here it is, then.”
She propped her chin up on her fist and waited.
He coughed.
She kept waiting.
“Well. Ah. You see, it’s difficult to just—you know—blurt it out like this—”
“Are you hoping I’ll die of old age so you won’t have to say it?”
“Fine, fine,” he practically snapped. “I’m a werewolf.”
Silence.
“I know,” he continued, emboldened when she didn’t run screaming from the room. He patted her thigh tentatively. “It’s startling, but you don’t have to be afraid, because I’d never hurt you or eat you—ah, that is to say, outside the bedroom I would never eat you, and—”
“Oh, Christ! That!” She batted his hand away. “I knew about that! You were supposed to tell me something I didn’t know.”
He actually shook his head to check his hearing. No, there was her heartbeat, lub-dub, lub-dub, and her breaths, and the hum of electricity, and the cool clink of the freezer making an ice cube…everything was working fine. “What?”
She lunged upward, hopped off the bed, and started pacing back and forth. Moonlight splashed her as she stomped; an enraged goddess etched in cream. “Well, what else would it be? You’re super-strong, super-fast, you’re blind but you get around better than I do…plus, you’re a doctor, for God’s sake. How could you be such a good doctor without, I dunno, super everything else? It was either that or I figured you were an alien. But after just now—the bushes, you know—I figured you probably weren’t an alien. Besides, this wolf stops me from throwing myself off the roof, and then you just happen to show up a few hours later?”
He blinked at her. “Oh. I must say this is very anticlimactic.”
“Serves you right for assuming I was a dumb-ass.”
“I did not! No one’s ever guessed before. And I’ve had…ah…lady friends who have hung around quite a bit longer than you have.”
“Oh, that.” She waved ‘lady friends who have hung around’ away. “Well, that’s the thing about me—the secret thing—I was gonna tell you. I can tell things about people. That’s why I came home with you. I didn’t just think you wouldn’t hurt me, I knew you wouldn’t. It’s like I can get into a person’s head and tell exactly what they’re feeling.”
“Empathic, hmm? That’s interesting. Well, Crescent, for heaven’s sakes, why do you keep giving that gang of yours a second chance?”
“I think they might be a little crazy,” she replied matter-of-factly. “When we meet up, they never feel like they’re going to hurt me. Then they get mad, and…anyway, obviously my radar isn’t 100% right all the time. Close enough for jazz, though.”
“And this fixation with flying?”
“Dude, I totally can! I know it! You just have to stop getting in the way when I jump off of things.”
Empathy…flight fixation…and her build, small and speedy…but surprisingly heavy for her height…could it be? He had assumed they were legend. Rather like werewolves.
“Crescent,” he said abruptly, “have you ever had an X-ray?”
Startled by the abrupt subject change, she blinked at him like a blonde doe. “Uh…not in the last few hours.”
“And you never knew your family?”
“Nope.”
“Hmmm.”
“Have I mentioned you’re sexy when you go all ‘pondering physicianesque’?”
“No,” he said, pouncing on her and bearing her back on the bed like a cat with a new toy. “You haven’t. Please elaborate.”
“Nah…I’ve had enough of talking.” She grabbed his ears and pulled him down for a kiss. He could feel her tongue dancing in his mouth and suddenly everything was much louder, much clearer. It was amazing to make love with a woman and be able to see her, really see her. He couldn’t get enough.
He broke the kiss, having forgotten about her origins and regained new interest in her breasts, which were small, like winter apples. He sucked a nipple into his mouth and tongued it gently. She squirmed beside him and wriggled closer. He slipped his hand between her thighs and slid his fingers through her curls, still damp from their lovemaking. In fact, she was deliciously hot and sticky down there.
He slid his fingers through her slick folds, found her clit, pressed lightly, then rubbed the tender area around it, and dipped a finger inside her. He licked her cleavage, tasting her sweat and trying to resist the urge to give her a good nip, a mark that would last for days. His mark.
“Oh, Christ,” she gasped. “How do you do that? I thought we were done, but I could fuck you to death right now.”
“There are worse ways to go,” he teased, but his tongue felt too thick in his mouth, and now there were two fingers inside her.
Quick as a fish, she slid away from him, shoved him over on his back, and straddled him. “Stop me if you’ve heard this, like, a hundred times before, but you’re really good—”
“I’ve heard it be—ouch!” She’d reached back to cup his testicles, and her grip had tightened. “Never mind.”
“Good dog.” She giggled.
“I really don’t think you should mock my origins,” he said, but talking was getting much harder, as she had wrapped her fingers around his cock and was squeezing, then releasing, then squeezing. “After all, you—uh—what were we talking about?”
Now her hand was sliding up and down with delicious, if agonizing, slowness. “Origins,” she prompted helpfully.
“Right. You descended from apes. And that’s—actually—that’s quite fine— really—ah—you’re not going to stop, are you?”
“‘Fraid so, big guy.” She must have taken pity at his horrified expression, because she shifted her hips and then he was sliding up inside her. “Why should you have all the—all the—fun?” She’d been riding him while talking, lifting up and then slamming back down. Now she was just as breathless as he, thank goodness, and oh Christ, she was so sweet and it felt so good, it felt amazing. Her hands were clutching his shoulders as she pumped and pumped, and he grabbed her knees and spread her thighs wider on the down stroke. Her eyes rolled up in her head and he felt her uterus contracting around his cock as she came.
“Oh, God!” she cried at the ceiling.
“Too bad,” he panted. He grabbed her hips and lifted, released, lifted, released. She shuddered all over and he felt her clench again. “It’s going to be a while for me, dear. That whole middle-aged thing, you know. Hope you’ve buckled in for a long ride.”
She wriggled, trying to lift herself off him, but he held on because he needed her right where she was, and because he knew she wasn’t truly worried. He used her roughly, because he knew she wanted him to do so, but also because he needed to be a little rough—needed to make an impression on her mind, if not her body. He wasn’t sure if that was a werewolf thing, or strictly a male prerogative.
When she was clawing at his shoulders and begging him, when she was very nearly sore from coming, he finally let himself go. Shooting off inside her was like a dream, the best he ever had.
She collapsed over him, panting. He stroked her back, savoring the fine sheen of sweat he found there.
“Oh, dude,” she said at last. “A girl could fall in love.”
He snorted, and then they laughed together, like mates.
CHAPTER TEN
“Drake. Seriously. How many T-shirts do you think I need?”
“But they’re so versatile,” the Gap saleswoman piped up.
“Not to mention fragile,” Drake whispered in her ear, and was gratified to see her blush.
“You go away,” she ordered the woman, smiling. “You’re helping him spend way too much money as it is. And you—put that down. Khaki—yech.”
“But this is the Gap,” the saleswoman said (“Ask me how to save 15%” was
emblazoned in hysterical red ink on her lapel button), obediently retreating.
“What, so I have to wear the uniform, too? Keep going.”
“I’m offering you any woman’s dream,” he said, “and you’re still making
mischief.” “A) Chauvinist much? Any woman’s dream? Shopping at Faneuil Hall? And
B) put those down. I already picked out pants.”
“You’ll need more than two pairs.”
“Not according to some,” she said, arching an eyebrow.
“Hmm,” he said, advancing on her, momentarily slowed by a whirl of khaki
as she threw the pants at him.
“Forget it, pal. Neither the time nor the place. Excuse me,” she added, bumping into a silver, headless mannequin. “Oh, gross! I hate when I think
they’re people.”
“That’s some empathy you’ve got at work there,” he commented.
“Off my case, Dr. Furball. What, you never ever made a mistake?”
He thought hard. “Nothing springs to mind.”
She let out a yelp of anger and he could tell she was sorry she had nothing in her arms to toss at him any longer. “Dude, I hate to point this out, but you can’t see. You must have screwed up something. Clashing tie, maybe?”
He tossed her a blouse the color of her eyes and said in a low voice, although the saleswoman was across the store, “Homo saps are more handicapped than I, dear.”
“Oh, sure, the one-eyed man in the country of the blind, and all that.”
“Essentially.”
“We’re not that bad.”
He shrugged. “I can smell an iron deficiency. I can hear a heart murmur without a stethoscope.”
“Well, I can tell this blouse doesn’t go with those pants, so put it right back on the rack, pal. God, aren’t you bored? These are all for me and I’m just about bored out of my tits.”
He grinned. “Thanks for the visual. I’ll make a note to catalog order for you from now on.”
“Well, thank you. Not that you need to keep buying me clothes.”
Want to bet? “I suppose taking you to Anne Klein to look at dresses would be a complete waste of time?”
