by Dena Christy
“My God, you are so beautiful. I never thought we’d have this again,” he said, and he pulled his T-shirt up over his head. She drank in the sight of his large, naked chest. He had little chest hair, only a small trail that started below his navel and traversed down to disappear under the waistband of his jeans. She reached behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, longing to have her naked breasts pressed against the warm, firm skin of his chest. He stopped her with his voice. “Let me do that.”
She brought her hands back around to her front as he stepped behind her. He moved her hair over one shoulder and her bra tightened slightly before coming loose as he undid the clasp. The bra fell from her body and her breath came in a sharp gasp as he stepped up closer to her and ran his hands up her stomach to cup her breasts. She shivered as he pressed his naked chest against her back as he kneaded her breasts.
“God Lee,” she moaned.
He turned her around, pressing her body flush against his, and his mouth crashed down on hers. Her nails dug into the firm, hard flesh of his shoulders as tiny moans came from the back of her throat. His erection strained against his jeans, and she reached down to give him relief. She undid the button and the zipper, springing him free. Her hands circled him, and he was as big as she remembered. His breath hissed in through his teeth as he pulled away from her.
“We need to slow it down,” he growled as he reached for the button on her jeans. “I haven’t been with anyone since you, and I don’t want to be like a horny teenager with his first girl on prom night.”
Simone laughed as she stepped out of her jean and underwear. He stepped out of his remaining clothes, and the smile slipped off her face at the sight of his hard male body. She remembered every muscle, but it was like she was truly seeing him for the first time. He ripped back the covers on the bed and held his hand out to her, and she took it. He drew her down on the bed and they lay side by side, their fully naked bodies pressed together.
“Touch me, Lee,” she sighed as she rolled over on to her back. She cradled his head as he took her breast in his mouth while his hand traversed her stomach to the apex of her thighs. He touched her where her body had grown slick, and she moved her hips against his hand, the excitement building inside her. He knew just where to touch her, knew when to be gentle and when to be just a little rough. It was like all the times they’d made love before were just a dress rehearsal for this one night. And she never wanted it to end.
He moved over her, putting her legs on either side of his hips. She looked up at him, into his deep blue eyes. He wore a fierce, aroused expression on his face, but his touch was gentle as he eased inside her, filling her. She moaned, her eyes closing for a moment. She’d spent the past year without him with an emptiness in her, a hollow void she’d thought would remain unfilled. His body inside her took that emptiness away, and as he moved her throat prickled. She looked up at him, his face swimming in front of her for a moment.
“Are you okay?” he asked, stopping while fully seated inside her. His lips pressed against the skin of her cheek, catching a tear that had escaped her lashes.
“Just love me, please,” she said, her voice coming out in a husky plea. He brought his mouth to hers and kissed her with a tenderness that did nothing to stop the tears freely flowing down her face. He continued to kiss her as he moved inside her.
The tension built inside her, and she embraced it. His movements remained gentle as he made love to her in the way he’d always had. She sensed that he was holding back out of consideration to her. He may have needed to when she was a human, but he didn’t need to now that she was his equal. She pulled her mouth away from his and dug her nails into his shoulders.
“Don’t hold back,” she whispered as she brought her hips up to meet his. “I want all of you, I want everything you can give me.”
He growled as he slammed into her. She brought her legs up around his waist and held on as he took her with a fierceness he’d never shown before. She ground her hips against him, meeting him stroke for stroke, proving herself to be his equal match. He bit her shoulder, and her orgasm slammed through her, tearing a scream from her throat. She called out to him as wave after wave of pleasure shuddered through her. His movements grew faster and harder until a harsh growl was torn from him and he held her tight against him.
She cradled his body to her, her hand coming up to stroke the damp hair at the back of his neck. Their hearts beat in unison against each other as their breathing slowed. After several moments he rolled to the side and pulled her against him. She rested her head against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart soothing her.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice rumbling against her ear.
“I’m more than okay,” she said as a soft smile pulled across her lips. She closed her eyes, too lazy and satisfied to have any desire to move. He shifted slightly and pulled the covers over them.
“Sleep now,” he whispered as he cradled her against him, pulling her into a protective cocoon. As she drifted off, she realized that she could truly sleep for the first time in a year. He was beside her, fitted against her, and she knew that as long as he was there, nothing bad would happen to her.
* * *
Lee stretched in bed, and his hand encountered Simone’s warm flesh. A smile drifted across his mouth as he remembered the night before. Their lovemaking had blown his mind, and although he hadn’t thought it possible, it had surpassed all the times they’d been intimate before. He reached for her, pulling her to him so her back snuggled up tightly against his chest. She stirred against him and opened her eyes to look at him.
“Morning,” she said, her voice husky with sleep.
“Morning,” he said as he pressed a kiss to the tiny bruise on her shoulder where he’d bitten her. When she was human, he would never have dared to take her as he wanted to, fearing he would hurt her. She hadn’t seemed to mind the bite and how rough he’d gotten toward the end.
He moved his mouth up to the side of her neck and she shivered against him. He remembered many lazy mornings, when neither one of them had to work, that they would spend in bed. He opened one eye and peaked at the clock. He needed to be at work for six, and if he didn’t get out of bed now, he was going to be late for his shift. For once, going to work wasn’t what he wanted to do. And since he was always disgustingly healthy, he couldn’t believably call in sick.
“I’m sorry, I have to work,” he said as he lifted his lips off her skin.
“Not yet,” she purred as she rubbed her backside against his groin. Since he was already sporting morning wood, she didn’t need to put in that much effort to get him to stay.
He rolled over onto his back and pulled her on top of him.
“Convince me to stay a little longer,” he said as he clasped his hands behind his head and raised an eyebrow at her. She pursed her lips for a second, and then a wicked light entered her eyes. As he watched, she raised her hands up to stroke her breasts, tweaking her nipples until they grew hard. She leaned forward and brushed a nipple against his lips. He captured her breast in his mouth and sucked on her until she moaned. She sat back up, pulling her breast from his mouth, and he swallowed hard as he watched her hand slowly traverse down her belly until she stroked herself between her legs.
His hands reached for her, and she grabbed him by the wrists, pushing his hands down on either side of his head.
“I thought I was supposed to convince you,” she said as she bit his bottom lip. His hips bucked, and he tried to capture her mouth with his, but she turned her head away. “I don’t think so. I have more work to do.”
She moved down his body, her tongue slowly traveling down his chest. He shuddered and clenched his hands into the sheets when the wetness of her tongue circled his navel. His head lifted off the mattress as he watched her mouth move closer and closer to his cock, and he held his breath. It came out in a sharp moan when she took him inside her mouth. Her hands stroked him as her mouth moved up and down, and he grabbed fistfuls of the pill
ow to keep his hands from her.
“I can’t take much more,” he growled, and she looked up at him, her eyes sultry as she gave him another stroke. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything sexier than her at this moment. She came up to straddle his hips, putting him inside her. She rode him, slowly. He was already so turned on, that slow wasn’t cutting it for him, and he could tell from the teasing look in her eyes that she intended to torture him more.
He brought his hands up, grabbed her by the upper arms and flipped her onto her back. He spread her legs wide with his thighs and thrust into her.
“Yes,” she said as she dragged her nails down his back. “Fuck me, Lee.”
He moved inside her as fast and hard as he wanted. She felt so right, her body surrounding him, moving with him. He watched her face, looking directly into her eyes, and he knew the exact moment that her orgasm was upon her, as the muscles in her face tightened and her body squeezed around him. He let go, his own orgasm pulsing through him as he emptied himself inside her.
He collapsed on top of her, being careful not to crush her with his full weight. It took several moments for his heart rate and breathing to slow. Her soft kisses pressed against the skin of his shoulder. He rolled to the side, holding her loosely to him.
“You may go now,” she said as she smiled at him in a supremely satisfied way.
“It will take me a few minutes before I can walk after that,” he said, chuckling as he squeezed her against him.
“Do you have to go to work today?”
“I do, I’m sorry. I’ll try not to be late tonight though, if that’s any consolation,” he said as he kissed her.
“It will have to be,” she said as she pulled away from him. “Now I have a feeling that if you don’t get out of this bed now, you won’t make it into work.”
He could see that she was right, so he kissed her one more time, and rolled out of bed and headed into the bathroom. He jumped in the shower, not lingering as he usually did. He towelled off and didn’t bother shaving. Walking back into the room, he glanced at his bed and saw Simone curled on her side, sleeping. A soft smile pulled at the side of his mouth. She looked so right in his big bed, and he was tempted to say screw work and join her. He turned away and quickly dressed, being as quiet as he could so he wouldn’t disturb her.
He walked over to the bed, bent forward and pressed a kiss to her temple. He heard her sigh his name as she snuggled further into the pillows, and he walked out the door with a smile on his face that would linger there for the rest of the day.
Chapter 10
Simone walked up Lee’s driveway on her way back from her daily walk. They’d fallen into a rhythm over the past couple of days, spending time together when he didn’t have to work, and she kept herself busy on the days he did. Neither talked about the real reason she stayed at his house. He didn’t ask if she’d been in contact with his father, and she didn’t tell him that she had. Things had been silent on the Dany front since the day he’d texted her, so it was easy to keep her contact with him from Lee.
It was like they both agreed to live in the fantasy that things were like they had been before. Just Lee and Simone, two people who were getting to know each other again and growing closer. And she didn’t have the heart to shatter the illusion, and apparently neither did he. So when he worked, she went for daily walks, puttered around the house and tried to keep busy so she didn’t have to think about her bargain with Cadric. She didn’t think he would let the situation linger for too much longer, and she half expected a phone call from him telling her to hurry.
She reached for the front door, and something on the porch caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. A small box sat tucked beside the chair Lee kept on the porch, and she bent over to retrieve it. The address label said her name, and she went into the house, trying to think of what could be inside the box.
She set it on the kitchen table, and the return address triggered her memory. The silver nitrate salts she’d ordered. She’d completely forgotten she’d place the order, and the full moon that had triggered the urge to get it seemed so far away. She pulled a knife out of the utensil drawer and picked up the box. What harm would it do to open it?
The small brown bottle she pulled out of the paper wrapping didn’t look like much, and when she shook it she could hear the contents rattling around, like salt in a shaker. She supposed that made sense since it looked a little like salt through the dark brown bottle. She put it carefully back down on the table and stared at it.
She didn’t know what would happen if she took it, she’d place the order in a fit of madness after the ordeal of the full moon. Would Lee still want to be with her if she wasn’t a werewolf anymore? She knew he’d loved her as a human, that had never been in dispute. But he behaved differently with her this time around. Almost as if he preferred her as a werewolf. And why wouldn’t he, she was one of his kind now.
She sat down at the table, and turned the bottle over and over in her hand, watching how the light reflected on the smooth brown glass. She knew if she took it, there would be no turning back either way. Either she’d still be a werewolf or she wouldn’t.
“Simone,” Lee called as he walked in the front door. “I got the afternoon off, so do you want to do something?”
He walked in the kitchen, with a huge smile on his face. He glanced down at her hand and cocked his head to the side. She swallowed hard. He wouldn’t be any happier seeing her with silver nitrate than he had been when he found out about the Quaaludes.
“What’s this?” he asked as he walked over to her. His brows drew together as he looked at the brown bottle she held loosely in her hand. “May I?”
She held it out to him, watching him closely as he looked down at the bottle. He stiffened as he read the label, and he slowly put the bottle on the table, his movements careful, almost as if afraid the slightest movement would make the bottle explode. Uneasiness tightened her stomach, and she eased her chair back and stood up.
“Where did that come from?” he asked, his voice low and controlled.
“I ordered it off the internet,” she said. She swallowed, waiting to see what he’d say next. A dull flush crept up his face, and he closed his eyes for a moment.
“I’d hoped that in the past few days you were reconsidering your revenge quest. I know that my father is dangerous, and in some misguided way you think that slipping him this will be a safe alternative for you, but I can tell you he won’t take this.”
Wait, what was he talking about? He thought she wanted to use the salts on his father? She looked at the bottle, and the uneasiness in her stomach took a sour turn. What would have happened if she’d taken it?
She looked up at him, and some gesture on her part must have told him that she hadn’t intended to use it on his father.
“Simone?” he said as the blood drained from his face. “Please tell me this was for him?”
It would be so easy to lie, to tell him that she was going to use the silver nitrate on his father, and based on his expression she suspected that he would believe her. Because the alternative was something he didn’t want to believe. But she couldn’t. They’d rekindled something these past few days, and she wouldn’t tarnish that by lying to him.
“I didn’t order them to use on him,” she whispered as she looked at him. He shook his head in denial. “I ordered it for me.”
“When?” he asked, his voice low. The muscle worked in his jaw and he turned his face away from her. For a moment she wanted to take it all back, to tell him that she wanted it for Dany, but the truth was out now, and she had to live with that.
“I ordered it the day after the full moon,” she said, hoping he’d realized that she was desperate then. They hadn’t had time together, hadn’t made love. She hadn’t grown closer to him when she’d gone searching on the internet.
“Why?” he asked turning to look her in the eye. There was a wound there, she could see it in his eyes and she didn’t want to answer him.<
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“Why?” he shouted, and she jumped. She looked at him, and she watched his chest rise as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He visibly calmed himself. “Just tell me why.”
“I was going to ingest it,” she said as her lower lip trembled. He reacted like she stabbed him, and there was only one other time she’d seen that expression on his face. The day she’d told him she was leaving him. She swallowed hard, and a lump formed in her throat. “Please say something.”
“Is it really that bad? Have you given up so completely that you think killing yourself is better than moving forward with your life and getting through what happened to you.”
Kill herself? He thought she intended to kill herself? She looked at the bottle again with a healthy dose of fear. “I didn’t think it would kill me.”
“What did you think it was going to do?” he asked with a note of incredulity in his voice. He carefully wrapped the bottle back in the paper it had arrived in and put it back in the box, still not looking at her. She desperately wanted him to.
“I thought it would cure me,” she said, and she heard him curse under his breath. “Someone at the warehouse told me that silver nitrate could cure lycanthropy.”
He turned to her, his movements controlled as the muscle in his jaw jumped. “Well, that someone must have hated you enough to want you dead. Silver is poisonous to werewolves. Do you remember what happened to your wrists when you had the silver cuffs on? Can you imagine what ingesting silver nitrate would do to your insides?”
Simone’s heart pounded. She’d never considered that Amanda Ryder had any malicious intent when she’d told her. And while she knew silver harmed werewolves if it touched their skin, or pierced their body as a bullet or a blade, she hadn’t made the connection with taking silver nitrate orally. It didn’t look like silver at all but like salt.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
