Maybe it was just the feeling of lightness in his chest from being so close to her, wanting her in ways that were completely illogical, and knowing that she didn't see him as a monster or a freak.
However he looked at it, this was his first meaningful relationship with a woman.
(Hallard) The following morning was hard. When Hallard awoke, Melody was already out of bed. He looked for her in the bathroom, then feared the worst and headed for the hotel door. He hadn't noticed her standing by the window, staring out into the dusty parking lot.
She was chewing her finger nails and shaking her head. "I need to get out of here," she said. "I know I told you I could do this, but it's not the time, not now. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Hallard had expected her to back out, but it was still disheartening. "It's going to be okay in the end. Trust me,"
"I fucking need to get out of here," she said louder. "Why is the door locked? Where's the key? Why did you lock me in anyway?" Her entire demeanor became menacing in a seamless shift.
"You asked me to help you beat this. That's what I'll do," Hallard answered as non-threateningly as possible.
"I'll just smash the window. Give me the key--please." There was nothing polite about how she said it.
"You're not getting the key," he answered flatly. Hallard was doing his best to show respect and kindness, but he was man enough to know that it was for the best. Life alone in the woods didn't make a person soft, especially when they knew they were doing a good thing for someone.
Melody started to scream and punched the window, hard. It didn't break but that wasn't bound to last for long if she kept it up. She pulled her fist back and prepared to strike the glass again--harder this time.
Hallard grabbed her firmly by the wrist and turned her around to face him. "Please try to calm down," he said. It was upsetting but he stayed strong.
Even as she yanked herself back and attempted to wrench her arm free, hitting him with her other hand, Hallard did not try to protect himself. Instead, he let her punch him--in the chest, arm, and even once in the face.
"Let me go you animal!" she yelled at him. "You're hurting me, Hallard, stop it!"
But he knew he wasn't harming her. Besides, he was doing the right thing. Satisfied that she'd given up hitting the window for now, he let go of her wrist.
Again, she hit him in the chest, this time without holding back. Her eyes were mostly shut, with tears starting to fuse to her eyelashes. She stopped and looked up at him with cruel resentment. "Let me fucking go,."
"I promised I wouldn't."
"You promised to take care of me. How the fuck is this helping? Can't you see I'm not strong enough?" She hit him again, and again, locking onto his eyes this time. She hit him as hard as she could, so bad that it made her wince from the impact on her tightly clenched fists.
And still, he didn't move or make her stop. She scratched him with her overgrown nails, so hard that it made him bleed.
If that was what it would take to get her to calm down, Hallard didn't care. He'd had worse.
She kneed him in the groin, and that was when he grimaced and shot his hand down to protect his privates from another assault.
That made her smile, but it was an evil smile now. The opinionated, yet compassionate, woman Hallard had come to admire wasn't there. Melody didn't have a single ounce of love or caring inside of her at that moment.
Instead, Hallard was facing the beast that had been living inside her body for all these years, the one that fed on dirty chemicals and self-abasement. The thing was being killed off at last, and that had made it understandably angry. Melody kept hitting her would-be-protector, and he let her.
He knew the feeling too well, and felt that no one else could relate to it better. That's why he let her continue to abuse and beat him. Yes, some of her strikes genuinely hurt, and she focused on the same spots again and again when she noticed this. She was nothing like a waif, didn't have the body of a sickly junkie at all
That's when he realized how truly this woman was a force to be reckoned with.
She pushed him and shoved him and caught her bare heel behind his leg so that he fell to the rough, hard carpet.
Hallard didn't resist, didn't want to belittle her by forcing her away from him, and he wasn't about to risk making her even more upset.
Standing above him, she said, "You're not going to let me out of here? What's wrong with you? You think I would ever want to be with a monster like you?"
That hit too close to home, and Hallard couldn't bite his tongue. "Did you ever think you'd be like this again?" he said without thinking.
"What? What's that supposed to mean?"
"When you were having fun getting high, feeling like a million bucks without a care, didn't you ever think that you'd have to quit before you died?"
Melody didn't answer him. Instead, she sat down on top of him, blackened eyes boring down, the overhead light making her face an eerie silhouette. And she burst into tears. "I wish I'd never met you," she said amid the gushing droplets.
They flowed onto Hallard's face but he didn't mind. Everything about her was enriching to him in a deeply primal way that he constantly fought to ignore. Although, his defenses were being worn down by the flippant and raw emotion. "That's fine," he said. "I'm going to get you through this just like I said."
"Fuck you," she said coldly. "Oh, but you don't want me unless I'm sober, do you?" She wriggled on him overtly, forward and backward over his cock, which was bent over in his shorts.
"But maybe under this whole goodie-goodie act, there is actually a man with selfish needs and wants. Do you think so? Would you stick it in me if you thought it would save my life, Hallard? You said you'd help me any way you could."
"Melody, I'd love to."
She gaped down at him, her face softer. "What?"
He continued, "You know that. I know that. But not like this. Please, let me up if you're done abusing me."
She lifted her knee so he could move out from underneath, and then she sobbed on the floor for a good hour, while Hallard sat beside, patting her back and offering up comforting clichés.
After that, Melody didn't have another similar outburst. There was plenty of quiet crying, and he felt like joining her at times, watching how bad it hurt her to go without something so ingrained in her being.
"Knowing that it's always going to feel like this is the worst part," she told him during one of many bouts of vomiting into a bucket. "This is the end of my life."
"You only believe that now. I can see you're strong enough to get through anything, if you can put up with all this. I respect the hell out of you for that." He was happy that the addiction was finally going away, being purged out of her through the pain and suffering, vomit and tears.
Chapter Twenty
Melody woke up and it wasn't quite morning yet. She felt exhausted, even though she'd been doing little but sleeping, mixed with blurred periods of sadness, depression, and gnawing pain. Beside her on the bed was Hallard. Her heart broke to look at him and remember patches of how she'd behaved the previous day.
"You poor man," she whispered, stroking his hair softly.
"Is everyone okay?" he mumbled through his sleep. "Melody?" He opened his eyes.
"I think the worst of it's behind me now. You should rest."
"Are you sure?" He still sounded half asleep.
"Yes." Still stroking his hair, which he didn't mind at all, she added, "Hallard ... I don't think I could ever begin to repay you. What you did for me ... what you've done for me since we met. I just can't even--" But she couldn't go on or she would have cried. Tears ran down her face but she fought hard to remain quiet, to avoid ruining Hallard's rest. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, moving slowly and tenderly.
Later that day, when Hallard was better rested, they packed up their things and gladly left the hotel room. In the pickup, there was a nice breeze coming through the busted rear windscreen. The day had been pleasantly mild, ev
en a little warm.
"Do you think it'll stick this time?" Hallard asked, unable to fully mask his doubt.
"Either way, that monkey won't be getting on my back until this is all over. That's what matters right now, right? And if I'm too weak to stay off the shit, it's not going to be your problem next time, I promise."
"I might want it to be my problem. If that's alright with you ..." He was behind the wheel, the engine idling, and he pulled away from the hotel back toward the freeway.
Maybe a couple of hours later, Melody started getting edgy being cooped up in the car. God, wanted something, anything, to take the edge off, even a drink. "I feel like shit," she muttered.
"Do you want me to tell you a story?" was Hallard's reply.
"True or made up?"
"True. It's about me. I've never told anyone my real story. I would love it if the first to hear were you."
"I would be honored. But it's not going to be a happy story, is it?"
"No, but I can give it a happy ending if you'd prefer."
"I'd like that.
"Alright," said Hallard as he took a deep breath. "My parents used to be just like any other people, well, my mother was. My father was like me. Wanted to be like other people though, I guess, enough to get himself a family anyway." His words were staccato, well chosen, like it would be painful to use too many syllables in telling his story. "I was already born when my mother found out about his shifting."
"Was he a werebear?" Melody asked.
"I'd assume so. Never really got a chance to ask her, and he took off as soon as his cover was blown."
"And she didn't stay by his side?" Melody seemed genuinely puzzled, which Hallard like.
"Would you have, if you found out your husband had been hiding something like that? Anyway, I don't think it was the lying that mattered as much as what he was. She couldn't take it ... so much that she," he paused and gulped, "she killed herself. He took off. I ended up in government care."
Melody wanted to kiss him but held herself back. "Hallard. I'm so sorry," she said, placing her hand on his hand over the wheel, guiding the vehicle together for a moment. Then, she withdrew it, still not trusting her own actions. Or, maybe just not trusting that her tumultuous feelings were reciprocated.
"Don't worry, I was too young at the time to know what was going on. Half of it I pieced together or found out in my teen years. Oh, I didn't add a happy ending. Sorry about that."
"Please don't apologize. I'm glad you shared with me, Hallard. Thank you."
"Well, how about this? It didn't kill me."
"True ..." She sighed and felt itchy, cravings.
"And things needed to work out exactly how they did, or our present would never be like it is now. You might be dead in the woods."
"And we wouldn't have met," she said. "Not that this has gone well either."
Hallard added, "Despite the circumstances, I'm still hoping for a happy ending. Aren't you? And this isn't over yet, but I'll feel safer if we get a state or two away, then we can stop looking over our shoulders. Speaking of shoulders, I'm pretty sore."
That was her all fault. Melody said, "Let's pull over and take a break?" She rubbed his arm, such thick muscles, it was easy to forget such a big man had a soft interior like anyone else.
"Sounds good." He took the car down the next dirt road and drove out of view from the freeway, kicking up a tail of dust behind the pickup.
They stepped out and stretched. Melody leaned against the hood of the pickup. The steel was kind of warm on her butt.
Hallard paced around, working his joints and muscles as he moved. His posture was impeccable, straight back, squared shoulders, and his gaze stretched out upon the horizon. The sun wasn't quite in the middle of the sky yet, but the cloud coverage made it not too bright.
"Thanks," Melody said.
He looked at her quizzically.
"I remember a lot, more than I'd like to, any way. It's hazy and easy to pretend it was just some dream I can file away and forget, but it was real. I was a nightmare and you were a rock."
"Don't mention it," he said with dumb male ego and a smile that would melt any heart. "You'd have done the same thing, right?"
"It's sad because we both know that's not true." She wanted to start crying again, although she fought it.
"It doesn't matter. I'm glad you let me help. Melody ... you know you're beautiful?"
"I am? Thank you. You're a bit of a stud yourself, for a wild bear man."
"Doesn't that repulse you?" His face went red.
"Not at all. It turns me on, now that I understand how special that is. How special you might be too." Her face matched the shade red now.
As if more talk might put them beyond the moment forever, Hallard turned and pulled her toward himself, a heavy palm right over the small of her back.
Her body flooded, flush with rising blood.
He moved her as he moved himself, an iron-strong arm bringing them closer.
Melody pulled up her hands between them, fingers spread out with abandon, and caressed his upper chest. She closed her eyes to fight the nervousness as they brought their lips together and kissed tenderly, passionately.
It was the last thing she'd been expecting, that the withdrawn and stoic werebear to make any kind of move on her. That he'd done so, and with such perfect timing, right when she'd needed it the most--that was almost like providence.
Her panties warmed and a wet heat rose between her thighs, making her skirt a nuisance she wanted to rid herself of.
"God damn it," she muttered when they stopped kissing and came up for air. "Talk about timing."
"You're telling me," he said. "I wish I'd done that when we were in the hotel room?"
"I wish you'd done that the first time we met."
"Really?" he said, taken aback. "I thought hated me."
"Oh, Hallard ... I didn't like you, but I didn't hate you. Really though, I only hated how my lifestyle made me feel. I still hate it, but I have hope it will get better.." She leaned in for another kiss.
He took her fully in his arms this time, wrapped them around her, and enclosed her upper body in a cocoon against his own.
Melody reflected on the purity of the green in his eyes, as their affectionate gaze pushed down through her, reverberating her insides in a way that was irrepressible. "I do understand why you'd wait. I'm kind of glad."
"So am I. Come here," he said, pulling himself away from the old pickup and taking her with him. "This is such a nice place for a break."
"You're telling me." She was getting excited.
Hallard took her hand and lead her over to a patch where the grass consistently covered the soil and sat down on it without ceremony or concern for getting dirty.
"Have you ever had sex outside?" she asked, suddenly wondering if that was a stupid question, if he was in fact a virgin. God, I hadn't thought of that.
"Not outside," he said. "Only on a boring bed, and not since I was a teenager."
Feeling relieved that this wasn't to be his first time, Melody said, "I'll need to give you a very warm welcome back then." Her chest was moving quickly in and out. Her lips had been dry but were now slick with saliva, as she climbed on top of Hallard. The dirt cooled her bare knees as she straddled him. "Can I ask you, do you really go around in the woods naked?"
"As much as possible."
"You really hate wearing clothes, don't you?" she said.
"Never been so uncomfortable in all my life."
"Alright then." Melody leaned back and took off her top. She hadn't put a bra on that day, couldn't even remember eating breakfast or getting out of bed after such a big ordeal, let alone dressing properly. That was fine--great, even. Her nipples kissed the sun and became erect at the sheer excitement of stripping down outdoors.
Hallard was enamored at the sight of her breasts. He groped one of them with his rugged, hard, hot fingers.
"Wow," she said when she felt his shorts expand against her. Her skirt wa
s bunched up and rested on his lower abdomen. Melody imagined the hard abs beneath, those masculine lines she had fought so hard to ignore all this time. And now she could finally unleash her carnal desire in all those ways that felt right and good.
Hallard was still cupping her breast eagerly, massaging, tweaking her nipple tenderly with complete dedication.
Melody breathed in deeply and let her head lull back to embrace the sky. With her eyes closed, she breathed in all that was around her: the blue blanket of the planet, shifting clouds of white and off-gray, the smell of the soil, the living sounds of critters and crawling things occupying the very earth the two were caressing upon.
The thick cock bulging out against her pelvis, kept apart by just two thin layers of clothing--his shorts and her panties--nothing that could ever keep raw passion aside. No, only stubbornness, naive and selfish behavior, had ever stopped this super-man from putting his animalistic cock up her desperate pussy.
Hallard took her hand and brought it down between them, against the bulge in his shorts.
Melody rubbed it, pleased with the impressive size, and happy because she couldn't remember feeling so alive and sensual. But also, she just wanted to fuck. "That's so nice," she said. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't wondered if you have a bear sized dick too."
"Take a look, at you pleasure."
Melody shifted backward on him so she could unzip his shorts.
Hallard sat up so their heads were nearly at the same height, and pulled his shirt off. The muscles in his shoulders and chest pounced upon one another.
It played on Melody's already burning desire, her pussy drowning itself for more, more, everything he could give to her. She imagined him as a powerful bear, hunting and taking what he desired, only because of a need to fill primal urges that could never be denied, not for long.
Melody straddled his thighs, holding his dick in her hand but letting it remain inside his shorts.
They looked into each other's eyes, something at least as hot as the sun being exchanged between them. She wanted to tell him how fucking hot she was for his cock, how badly she needed to suck and taste and gag on the length of it, bend over and beg him to penetrate her so deeply, so forcefully, that she would cry out for more and more until she was completely numb ... unable to feel anything other than pleasure and finally release: all that in just a flash of wet pupils, glistening with the light of a lovely day.
Shifting Solitude (Outlaws, Fangs and Claws Book 1) Page 8
