I follow the tracks for a couple of blocks, going deeper and deeper into the city. Only one taxi passes me in all this time--the snow is really coming down, and it’s still very early Christmas morning. Just when I wonder if I’ll ever be able to feel my toes again, I follow the tracks around a corner.
And there she is, just like I knew she’d be.
Paige stands next to her sister, who’s leaning her flank and shoulder up against a Dumpster. Two wolves standing together in an alleyway in the middle of Boston is a really weird sight, to be sure. They both stand about as tall as my hips, and Anna doesn’t look that great as she staggers, trying to remain upright as she leans against the Dumpster. I think she’s going to fold to the side, but then she straightens again, panting, her long tongue hanging out of her mouth.
Paige folds forward, bending and elongating, her fur patching up and then disappearing entirely, and then she’s in her human form again, utterly naked and standing in the blowing, freezing snow and bitter wind. Though, honestly, she doesn’t seem remotely put out by this fact. She stands tall, lifting her chin as she places her hands on her hips, her face softening as she turns back and takes me in.
Crouching down in front of her sister, she coaxes the wolf to sit back on her haunches. When she’s certain Anna’s not going to keel into the snow, Paige stands fluidly, and then she prowls over toward me.
“Thank you so much for helping us,” she tells me, her voice low and husky. She tilts her head to the side and gets a mischievous sort of glint to her eyes, but then she has to turn back to her sister, who’s standing (though not very well) and walking down the alleyway, staggering a little to the right and a little to the left.
It’s odd to see a hungover and slightly sedated wolf, running her shoulder into trashcans and the brick wall as she tries to maintain a straight line. And fails.
“Her boyfriend lives in that apartment,” says Paige, pointing up and to the right, toward an apartment that was created above an old warehouse. “He’s coming down to get her,” says Paige, as Anna collapses down in front of the fire escape leading down from the apartment, her tail flopping once against the snow before she places her chin on her paws and closes her eyes.
And then Paige looks at me a little questioningly. I blush, handing over the sweater and jeans, and she tugs them on quickly, pulling on each sneaker while hopping around on one foot and still maintaining eye contact. “I wonder, Mandy...” she says then, quietly, “if you have a little time,” she says, her mouth turning up at the edges. “You must be very cold. And I live kind of close.”
“Do you, Doctor Paige?” I ask, my heart thudding against the inside of my ribs as I absolutely, positively flirt with her. I realize that I’m blushing terribly, but I can chalk it up to windburn, right? That’s totally why my cheeks are pure scarlet red now.
“Yes, I do,” she tells me, her smile deepening. “And you do look awfully cold,” she murmurs then, her head to the side as her eyes glint with mischief. “You should stop by, come inside, warm up. You know, before you head back to your apartment.” She hesitates for a moment, then her grin becomes practically wolfish. “I could make you tea.”
“God, thank you! I got her, Paige!” shouts a man’s voice, and then we see Anna’s boyfriend making his way down the fire escape. He looks young--early twenties, maybe, with his hipster beard and mustache, all decked out in plaid. He looks overjoyed, smiling from ear to ear as he slides down the metal ladders toward the ground.
As I watch, Anna’s wolf begins to transform, slowly and a little painfully. This transformation is much different from the fluid ones that Paige initiates. Anna stays in each stage for a few seconds, panting so loudly in the snow storm that I can hear her, even though she’s twenty feet away. There’s a low, guttural moan as the last of her fur disappears into her skin, and by the time that her boyfriend lets the final ladder down to earth, Anna’s standing, still wobbly, but fully human.
She looks a lot like Paige, though her face is a little different, more uncertain, and her hair is brunette, not black. Like her boyfriend, she’s young--though I remember Paige saying she was pretty young, early twenties. Her face is very pretty, though she looks like she’s in pain as she wobbles to the side and her boyfriend gathers her in his arms, embracing her tightly.
He kisses her forehead as she lolls her head against his shoulder, and he easily picks her up, one arm under the backs of her knees, one arm around her shoulders.
“I got you, baby,” He tells her quietly, pressing his chin to the top of his head. He turns back to look at us, and he actually has tears in his eyes.
“God, thank you so much, Paige--I was worried sick.”
“I got it, Bernie. She’s safe now,” says Paige quietly, her mouth soft and smiling.
They look really in love, the two of them together, I think, as he begins to carry her back up the fire escape ladder--no small feat, but he makes it look easy, taking each rung one at a time, holding tightly to the rung above him with the arm under Anna’s knees. He scales the rungs slowly and steadily, and then he’s lost from view, disappearing into his apartment with Anna.
“Well,” says Paige, a little tiredly. She glances at me with a gentle smile, and then she reaches out in the space between us, and she takes my hand.
“Let’s get you inside, too,” she says, and then we’re walking slowly down the alleyway, toward a bigger street.
It’s so cold, and I’m shaking so much, that I realize it’s only a block to her apartment, but I can’t remember which way we turned out of the alleyway, only that when we reach her apartment building, I breathe the biggest sigh of relief when we enter the lobby, shaking the snow off of my gloves, my boots, my coat and my hair.
Melting snow begins to drip off me, because the lobby is really as warm as an oven. I glance around in surprise--the floor is made of marble, there’s gold accents everywhere...the place looks like it was built in the art deco era, with strong lines and a doorman standing just inside the door, warming his hands around an honest to goodness mug of hot cocoa.
“Hello, Doctor Englewood!” he calls out to Paige, standing straight and giving the both of us a big smile. “Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas to you, too, Cliff,” says Paige easily, flashing him a big smile as she hits the “up” elevator button. The elevator doors themselves are gorgeous, indicating this place was definitely built in the art deco era--the design on the doors is alternating arches, colored by different stained wood and jet black.
When the elevator does eventually ding open, the inside is a gilded, golden cage. Paige puts her head to the side and indicates the open elevator with a sweep of her hand and a small, sexy smile. So I step inside that elevator, and she follows, the doors shutting closed behind us.
My blood is rushing through me as the elevator begins to climb slowly toward the number of the button she pressed--twenty-two.
The two of us are standing about a foot apart, but every inch of my skin on the right side of my body--the side that’s closest to Paige--feels like it’s coming alive after falling asleep, like delicious pins and needles are gently pressing into me. I shiver a little, glancing sidelong at her.
She’s watching me with bright, clear eyes, her mouth turned up at the corners.
“Paige...” I begin, but then my eyes follow the lines of her, her curves encased in my sweater, in my jeans and right down to my sneakers. Her jet black hair has snow melting off of it in soft drips, but even though she’s wet and obviously very tired, there’s such a brightness to her gaze, and her mouth betrays that she’s thinking very much about something...
And because it’s the end of a very long, very strange night, and because we’re only at around the third floor (the elevator, while being very pretty and antique, is also very, very slow), I step forward.
I’m hesitant in that first step, and then--like I’m falling forward in a roller coaster--everything speeds up and I do exactly what my heart is begging me to do.
She raises a single brow, her smile deepening, and when I reach up to kiss her, she bends her head to me elegantly, and then she’s wrapping her arms with appreciative tightness around my waist as our mouths meet.
Paige tastes like first snow, all biting cold and peppermint and chill, as I drink her in. It’s exhilarating, the taste of her, coupled with how hot her mouth is against my own frozen lips. Her warm hands at my waist hold me close, and when I wrap my arms around her shoulders, bringing her closer to me, I can feel the thunder of her heartbeat against my own as the two of us press together.
It’s this perfect, suspended moment of weightlessness, of tender, soft affection that crescendoes in an instant as she moves me against the far wall of the elevator. It’s a single step, and I move with her, and then I’m pressed against that wall, our kiss becoming fevered and fast, her right hand moving around to the front where my coat is unbuttoned. She presses her fingers up and under the hem of my pajama shirt, and she rests her fingertips then against the cold skin of my stomach. I shiver, aching, under that singular touch--her warmth seems to melt every inch of me as I shake under her calm, warm hand, still against my skin, unmoving but delicious all the same.
She backs away for a moment, her body still against mine, but her face a few inches away now, as she gazes down into my eyes. “Thank you,” she tells me then, and the words come out softly as she shakes her head. “I could never have done this without you,” she tells me, searching my gaze with her clear blue eyes. “You saved my sister.”
“Hardly,” I tell her, shaking my head, too. I smile a little shyly up at her as I wrap my arms around her neck. “I was happy to help, but I hardly did anything,” I argue.
“There you’re wrong,” she breathes, and then her hand that had been so stilled against my stomach begins to trace a patterned path around the curve of my hip to the small of my back. “I could never have done it without you,” she repeats, her voice low and throaty, so low that the rumble of it makes me shiver with delight against her. “And I don’t...” Here her mouth turns up at the corners again, so mischievous that I smile, too, infected by her mirth. “I really don’t know how to repay you,” she tells me, her head to the side.
Her smile is utterly wolfish.
Surprisingly, the elevator dings open, and we’ve reached the twenty-second floor. I gaze out the elevator door in alarm (we’re not exactly in an uncompromising position), but there’s no one out there in the hallway with its lush red carpet and long row of doors. It’s deserted.
“I’m the first condo on the right,” she says, regretfully stepping away from me and letting me move off of the wall. I’m still shaking a little as I run my hands through my hair, tugging my pajama shirt down and drawing my coat closed in front of me. I can feel the heat of my blush radiating out from my skin as I follow her, mystified, toward that first door on the right.
She pushes it open. It was unlocked.
I really don’t know how to repay you, she said.
Well. My blush intensifies, and then certainty moves through me as I follow her into the condo.
I know a couple of ways...
I have no idea what’s gotten into me, but once we’re safely in her darkened condo, once that front door is shut behind us, I do what she just did. I press her against the wall behind her door, my body the catalyst to move her there, my hands at her shoulders, moving quickly down. I trail my fingers up and over her jeans and under the hem of her black sweater, against the heat of her skin.
She laughs a little, throwing her head back and letting the delicious cadence of her chuckle surround us. I lean forward, on my tiptoes, and I plant a kiss against that curve of neck that she exposed.
Her chuckle turns into a soft, slight moan, and my heartbeat feels electric at that sound.
“Who’s the wolf here?” she asks, breathlessly and with a little bit of laughter at the end as I begin to unbutton the sweater she wears from the bottom up, my fingers moving fluidly over the buttons I know so well.
“You,” I tell her, pressing my mouth to her neck again, licking her skin. “But,” I tell her breathlessly, “I think I just might have a little wolf in me, too.”
She laughs again at that, but it’s a throaty, deep laugh that I feel as she moves her hands to my hips and grips them tightly, her long fingers curling over my curves under the coat. She begins to peel off that coat, and I help her, shouldering my way out of the arms of it until the coat drops, wet and discarded, on the floor.
Her sweater is now unbuttoned in the front, and though I’m highly familiar with Paige’s naked body at this point, it’s electrifying to be touching those perfect muscles, those soft curves of skin that lead to harder curves of muscle, tracing the swells of her breasts and muscled stomach, the angled lines and arches of her ribs. I’m taking my time, going slowly, tracing just my fingertips over her hot skin as I begin to memorize her form.
I leave a path of hot kisses down her neck, to her clavicle. Here, where the wild, good scent of her begins to invade my senses, I begin to lose all of my self control of teasing. I taste her skin, and then my fingers are slipping into the band of her jeans.
I unbutton the jeans and do my best to lower the zipper slowly, but I’m shaking with want. When I cast a glance up at Paige, a shock of desire ripples through me, washing through me like a tidal wave as I take in the darkness of her eyes, how hooded they’ve become as she looks down at me, watching what I’m doing to her. Her mouth is parted, her lips are wet, and when I lock eyes with her, she growls from somewhere deep inside of her, a growl that rumbles through the both of us.
“Now,” she says, and then she tells me a word that travels right through my body to the wet center between my legs: “please.”
In some far away place (ie, the logical part of my brain), it’s funny how much a single night can change you. The old me would never have taken charge like this, would never have followed a werewolf out into the night, would never have broken into an animal shelter to save someone.
The old me would never have pressed a woman she’d just met--but a woman she knows she could fall in love with--against a wall on Christmas morning.
The old me couldn’t begin to dream of what’s happening now.
But I’m not the old me anymore.
I pull her jeans down to the knees on this beautiful woman, this woman who has an animal’s spirit and a wolf’s heart...this woman who has enthralled me utterly. I press my heart against hers, and then I trace a single line down around the curve of her hips, down the hot skin of her thigh, and then back up again, curving to her center. I let my fingers rest for just a second against her softness there, against her wetness, and I lock eyes with her.
Her blue, piercing eyes roll back as she lifts her chin, as she moans softly, pushing her hips off against the wall and against my hand. I reach up, gently, as slowly as I can, gathering her wetness with my fingertips, and then I’m curving my finger again and again against her clit, feeling her shudder against me, feeling the strength and guttural growl of her moan wash through me.
I reach up and capture her mouth with my own again, and she wraps her hands so tightly around my hips that I wonder if I’ll be bruised later, as her fingers dig into my skin.
It feels so natural, so easy, as I learn the lessons of her body, as I discover every inch of skin that makes her shudder in delight and moan against me. She’s a new discovery to me, an uncharted territory, but I move by instinct, and my instinct is strong as I don’t second-guess myself, as I kiss and taste and tease, as I trace and touch and suck. I’ve never felt more confidant, and--I realize, as she wraps her fingers tightly in my hair, arching against me on that wall--that I feel more alive than any other time I can remember.
Maybe I was right. Maybe there is a little wolf in me as she sh
udders against me, as she cries out in the darkness that’s turning to light. I kiss her mouth, and I taste the cold silver of a moonlit night, I taste the crisp blue of moonshine under pine boughs. I taste the wildness of a creature of the earth, unfettered and free.
She shudders against me, and after a few long moments where the rhythm of our two bodies seems to merge together, she stills. Paige opens her mouth, licks her lips, and slowly--tiredly--she places her hands on either side of my face, her warm palms gently pressing against her cheeks, and she brings me to her. She kisses me sweetly, with a tenderness that makes my heart ache, like she’s tasting me for the first time and is savoring every heartbeat of it.
There’s no awkward moment as she pulls up her jeans (my jeans) and zips them up. There’s no awkwardness at all as she pulls me to her and--together--we move out of the hallway and into the living room.
The living room, like the entryway many floors beneath us, reminds me of the art deco era, with its bold lines along the crown molding and the height of the ceilings, but that’s not the first thing I notice.
The first thing I notice are the two wide french doors looking out onto a narrow, wrought iron balcony.
And, in front of those two doors, rises a Christmas tree.
It towers above the two of us, and I realize it must be at least twenty feet high. It’s covered in dazzling Christmas lights and richly purple blown-glass ornaments, and--at its apex--rises a bright silver star.
Paige’s sweater is still open down the front, but she’s beginning to strike me as someone who isn’t ashamed of her body in the slightest. Paige and I cross the room to the plush brown sofa, positioned in front of the tree, and then in our various states of undress, we wrap our arms around one another companionably, warmly, and together, we stare up at the lights.
My ear is pressed to her heart as she holds me close, as she breathes evenly and gently, the brightness of the day casting the room in a soft, warm glow. Just like the lights. Just like being here with her.
Holiday Wolf Pack Page 6
