by Amy Star
“I think they’ll come back,” he muttered, after they had been quiet for several minutes.
She turned, her eyes following him over the lip of her cup as she sipped. His black hair was still wet where he’d washed the blood off it, and she caught the edge of his green eyes glaring into the empty fireplace. Behind them, an ember popped in the stove. A drop from the faucet landed on her dirty plates from morning before.
“Why do you think that?”
“They were poachers, weren’t they? That’s the only explanation… and now they know that there’s a bear on this island. Shit, two bears. More than that, they know that the bears are also… us. This is bad, Sarah.”
She merely nodded. She’d already grasped the gravity of the situation, but she let him get there on his own. “And Chris injured… maybe, even killed… one of them,” she breathed aloud. The image of the screaming young man trailing blood was still blazoned like a terrible nightmare in her memory.
“I suppose that’s the one thing we have in common,” he said, “shifters and poachers. Hurt one of us and we’ll hunt down the people that did.”
She shivered, despite the warmth of the hot tea in her hands. “I’m… scared, Dylan…”
He looked toward her, and set his tea on the small oaken table. “I know, me too.” His face straightened in the shadows of the lamps, his gaze a green reverie suddenly frozen like a river mid-winter. “But I won’t let them hurt you…”
She was momentarily alarmed by the devotion in his voice, the firm commitment that seemed unwavering, almost as if she were staring at another person, someone she had never met. Maybe, she thought reluctantly, I haven’t.
“You, or Chris,” he added, and looked at her.
She set her tea on the table as well and watched the steam rise into the air. The ghost sensation of Dylan’s hand on her thighs returned, like a phantom limb; something that wanted to exist, even out of its non-existence. Or its death, but that thought made her immediately sad again and she scooted closer to him. She was intently aware of the fact he was watching her – staring, in fact – as if he couldn’t keep his eyes from her. Or if he did look away, that something tragic would happen.
It was like a kind of heat, like the bright penny of the sun was staring down at her, and she couldn’t bear to meet it lest she go blind. But she didn’t have to. She felt something else, his hand reaching toward her and she let the tips of his fingers guide her face toward him. His face was static, neutral but there was a power behind it that leeched out through those eyes. The gash on his head flickered like a white moth in the lamplight.
Her throat moved again as she tried to say something, but her eyes were already blurring with tears – it was so unlike her. She had always prided herself in being strong, all through her training, even when she’d been thrust from the comfort of her clan to this secluded island, even when she’d seen the hunters departing and one of them raising a rifle.
“You saved him,” she heard Dylan say, and was momentarily taken aback again. “I heard you… I think I was still groggy from the bullet. Chris must’ve changed forms and attacked them… but it was your voice that pulled him back.”
“I… I didn’t know what else to do.”
Dylan smirked and his fingers left her face and fell back in his lap. “Chris has always been the voice of reason. I was the troublemaker when we were younger. Always was. It wasn’t that I tried to look for troubles or make messes… they just always seemed to follow me. But Chris, he was always there to save me. Fix things. I guess I needed that,” his voice drifted, “but that’s my problem. Fact is, the only time Chris becomes as reckless as me… is when someone he cares about is in danger. If you hadn’t called his name… called him back…”
She lowered her eyes. She hadn’t thought about that. It had simply been an impulse to tell him to run. It was pointless to worry about what might have happened – she couldn’t bear that, and more tears began to stream down her face.
“Why are you crying?” Dylan asked, leaning in.
How could she tell him what she felt? She wasn’t certain she even had the words herself, and even if she did, her throat felt constricted, too tight, as if fear had swollen her voice and strangled it out. She merely lifted her chin again and leaned her head toward his. It was like kissing a statue, he was so surprised; her lips met his, warm and smooth, and one of her hands unconsciously went to his face.
“Wait,” he said, softly, and touched her hand. She pulled back, an inch from his face, her eyes fastened to his, irretrievably. “You’re scared…”
“Scared, yes,” she agreed. “I don’t want to be…”
CHAPTER FOUR
Her eyes were pleading, wide and suddenly vulnerable in a way Dylan had never seen before. It gripped at his heart that there should be anything in the world that might make her vulnerable. She was the decisive one, the honest one, the strong one, like Chris. He cursed the poachers in his mind, not just for shooting at him or for injuring Chris, but for wounding Sarah’s bravery such that she looked at him now with a child-like apprehension.
“Never,” he managed to choke, and this time, it was Dylan who leaned in.
Sarah’s head tipped back gratefully as he plunged his mouth against hers, rough and textured, and his eyes shut. She let out a long ponderous moan, mingling pleasure and surprise, and tilted her head back further, as if offering herself to him.
His hand touched her cheek again as his mouth worked against hers, kissing her frantically, until she opened her lips and he licked them inside and out. Another long moan and she shivered, as if overtaken by a freshly kindled desire. Her tongue moved out to meet his, and they grappled in the lamp-light, the wet sounds of their kisses filling the small room. His hand moved lower, over the supple flesh of her neck, along her collar-bone, and gently traced her small breast through the fabric of her tank-top.
She stifled another moan as his thumb circled the small bud of her nipple and it hardened under his touch as she stuck out her chest, craving more of him than he was giving. His whole hand began to knead her breasts, and she placed her own hand over top of it, guiding it in a swift motion. She gasped as his hand dipped lower and moved under her shirt, and almost rocked backward with the sheer pleasure of his skin against hers.
“Harder,” she whispered in his ear, “rub them harder.”
Dylan’s breath was sharp as he kissed at her neck, eliciting more sounds from her, and he pulled her tank-top off over her raised arms in a jerking motion. Sarah’s breasts caught the lights and pooled shadows in their arcs. He moved from her neck, tracing her jugular vein, over top of her breast bone and she looked down dreamily at the top of his head as his mouth took her breasts. She made a sound that was like pain as his tongue circled over her right nipple, causing it to harden and grow dark before her very eyes, and another spasm rocked her body as his hand slid around her waist, trapping her in the wet embrace of his lips.
Gently, he pushed her back, until her head was propped against the end cushion of the couch and she turned her head to one side and let him lick her body in its entirety. Her skin was the color of peaches in the light, and he worked on her noisily, his tongue carving his own name on her in a dozen ways, until at last, he moved over her navel and his lips brushed the fine white hairs above her pelvis.
“I’ve never…” she began.
“Can I try something?” he asked, another whisper, and she nodded, biting her lip and letting out a timid sigh, spreading her mouth in an expression of pleasure.
His fingers plied at the rim of her shorts, inching them further down over her waist until she was only in her thong and his hands went to the black lace of them as well. She let out a little gasp as he pulled them over her knees, revealing the full dark beauty of her sex. Both of his hands cupped her knees and caressed the inner softness of her legs. She awkwardly slanted both legs, as if to cover herself, some latent Victorian sensibility suddenly awoken. But it was too late, his hands moved further down, b
rushing the soft white flesh with his finger tips, and causing her to squirm as she widened her legs until her pubis was a small mound in front of his nose.
She had little pubic hairs, a little field of straight black hairs that all converged at the tip of her clitoris. He leaned in without warning and the top of his tongue scoured over the top, forcing back the fold, and she squirmed again, both legs locking against his head and her hands digging into the fabric.
“Oh, geezus,” she gasped.
Dylan seemed to smile and began to lick at her labia, forcing back the layers of skin as he tasted her and she moaned deeply and looked down her chest at him, her hips already rhythmically moving with the motion of his tongue. She felt her loins filling with a kind of energy, a linger of passion that promised to burst at any moment. She reached down and gripped the top of his head with one hand, pulling him harder and harder into her, willing his tongue into the opening of her vagina where he pulsed against her insides – entering some sort of Braille that only he, only Dylan, would ever be able to decipher.
His cunnilingus quickened, and again found the ripe berry of her clitoris and she gripped at her fallen tank-top and smothered herself with it as a scream erupted, only barely muffled, and her other hand tore at his hair, so wracked with the pleasure that overtook her. Dylan’s head was locked between both quivering thighs, his lips buried up over her pubic hair, and his chin dripping with her by the time she stopped flailing, and the tank-top fell away from her mouth, damp with her saliva and her breathing a sagging pant.
“Oh, geezus,” she repeated, and met Dylan’s mouth as he swam up between her legs. Somehow, he had already shed his shirt and she relished the sweet warmth of his skin against her bare breasts, and instinctually opened her legs wider. “More,” she asked, and he came away from her lips. She could taste her own nectar on him, and licked her lips.
As he undressed, she covered her mouth, beholding the full size of his member again. It wasn’t just the candlelight, she realized, he is truly massive, and for a moment, she feared what was to come next. She was still a maiden by all accounts, and she had heard only stories, passing rumors and whispers shared amongst friends or gossiping women, of a pain that was both excruciating and filled with ecstasy in one.
“Be… be gentle,” she said, her eyes trapped on the full engorged member that struck straight up from the mass of his pubic hair and rubbed against the flesh below his navel, leaving a small wet smudge there. “It’s… my first time.”
“I will be, Sarah…” he said, leaning down to kiss her neck again. “I promise.”
She couldn’t help but look down as his body pressed her thighs further apart until she was fully spread-eagled, and her legs pulled back. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life, exposing herself so readily to a man. And yet, as she looked up, she saw that Dylan was only staring at her, beckoning her own eyes with his, and she instantly relaxed against him, the muscles in her legs softening as he eased into her. I promise, lingered in her mind and on his lips, and she forced herself to hold his stare even as she felt something hard and warm prod the divot between her legs.
She let out a huff and closed her lips tightly together, her eyes closed in expectation. He reached down and gripped his penis, causing the head to swell red and purple, vivid in its rage and desire, and butted it against her. At first, she was certain he would not fit inside her and wanted to cry out, but his eyes calmed her, never flinching as he pressed slowly, slowly against her vagina.
She was learning muscles she had never had to work before, and started to breathe heavily, until she feared she might hyperventilate, and tried to steady her breathing. When she looked down she saw her labia enfold the head of his penis fully and let out a long merciful sigh through her closed mouth and tipped her head back as her vagina accepted him fully and she relaxed.
“Sarah, oh God, you’re so tight,” Dylan blurted, through a gasp of his own.
Her hands found his wrists, planted on the sofa, and tightened around them. “Further… further into me,” she pleaded, almost in tears. “Please fuck me, Dylan. I want you inside me… all the way inside me…”
She was babbling, and she was aware of the fact she didn’t make sense – there was only this moment. She was surprised at how similar the act of sex was to transforming into a bear; the same present, the same now, burning like a spark, hot and blinding as you neared it. Until it filled everything, your whole being. She tilted her hips back further, and Dylan moved all the way into her, his pubic hair tickling her glands and labia, and she felt like she was going to explode and her eyes rolled back.
“Fuck me,” she murmured but it was only a breath.
Dylan began to squirm inside her, moving his hips into her with wet squelching movements that caused her to pull her legs back even further, like she was squatting on her back. He looked down and saw her vagina fully distended, his member moving smoothly in and out of her, the pink flesh as he slid out. Her fingers were like talons around his wrists as he pushed into her again, gazing down over her naked body, and trying to remember everything about this moment – the swaying of her small breasts each time he thrust against her sex, the way the muscles stood out in her arms, easing her toward a climax. The sharp angles of her lips pulled back in a grimace that was the delight of coming.
“Sarah, you’re so beautiful,” he sighed and leaned down over top of her, his buttocks pushing into her again and again, and causing her to cry out from between her sweat-stained lips.
“Let’s switch,” she said a moment later, and they both awkwardly turned on the couch until she was riding on top of him. Her white thighs moved like pistons and she reached down and rubbed her own clitoris as his hands cupped her breasts, squeezing her nipples tightly between the spaces in his fingers.
Sweat was running down both their bodies now, wending between Sarah’s breasts even as Dylan brought his hands underneath them, sliding down her waist, which pulsed with each jutting gesture of her hips. Her legs spread wider, her thighs coming apart to give him a full glimpse of the soaked black mat of her own pubis, sticky with both of their own fluids, and he bit back on an overwhelming sensation to plunge his face against her bosom.
He didn’t need to, she let out a deep moan and collapsed onto his chest, her face hunched over his shoulder. With one hand he gripped the back of her head, as if he were consoling her, and with the other, traced the slick groove of her spine to the base of her buttocks which plunged heavily onto his member.
“I’m… I’m going to come… hold me,” she breathed through rapid gasps.
His hand went lower, and he inserted his middle finger in the groove of her buttocks, even as she began to ram herself harder into him. Her legs were like desperate animals unto themselves, gyrating quicker and quicker even as her breathing reached a climax and she moaned with ecstasy into his ear.
She came all at once, her whole body a quivering mass of white flesh that suctioned itself to him, and he held her, feeling her vagina cramp and spasm, squeezing on his penis, which was still in her. It was too much and he came too, in one lunge, shuddering up inside her with such force she let out a scream and lifted her head for a moment, her eyes closed and face arching toward the ceiling.
“Fuuuck!” she cried aloud, and reached down between both their legs, and collapsed onto him again, this time in exhaustion. Dylan held her, panting himself, taking in the damp scent of both of them. There was something animal in the sweat and saliva that seemed to cover both of them, and then something more pungent as he felt his member soften out of her and her hand plying the wet mess of their crotches.
She pulled her hand to her face, almost as if in curiosity. Her fingers glistened in the lamplight with his semen and her own cum. He could smell it; he almost came again as he watched her rub it across her lips and suck them both, then she leaned down heavily and kissed him. She was hot, like a burning ember on his chest, and he gripped her by the neck and kissed her lewdly, savoring again the taste of her.<
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“That was….”
“No words,” he hushed her, and hugged her tightly.
She slid off him and buried her face against his chest, letting the afterglow settle on both of them. It was only when she felt Dylan gently combing his fingers between her hair that she finally slept again. Outside, the stars were like fixed eyes, telling their narratives in the dark. Even if the story they told would have blood in it.
But just for tonight, she wanted to tell herself. Just tonight, let me forget about tomorrow. Let me be the bear that I am, nestled in the arms of another. It was enough.
*
Morning seemed to come too soon, and with it a mixture of emotions. Sarah looked up to Dylan, who was already awake, his fingers still grooming her hair, and he was smiling at her. She smiled back and nuzzled his chest hair playfully.
“Morning, you,” he said.
“Morning, you.”
In the daylight, he looked less grim. She remembered last night with almost fluid detail; the smell of blood and the panic of death, of sitting on Dylan’s lap and the excruciating task of sewing his head. She reached up and touched the bandage, as if to ascertain that none of it had been a dream. He kissed her hand.
“How does it feel?”
“Better,” he said, “but I’ll probably have a cool scar.”
“I like scars,” she admitted, “but you probably have a concussion, too.”
“Good thing I didn’t go to sleep right away then,” he winked, and she blushed. “I heard you’re not supposed to do that if you get a concussion.”
She playfully swatted him in the chest and sat up. Her small upturned breasts flashed at him, and she yawned. He ran a finger over the smooth skin of her stomach and she flinched, tickled by his touch.
“You really are beautiful,” he said, and before she could blush again, he sat up and kissed her on the cheek, then the forehead. She wanted to cry. Not for the old reasons – out of fear, or stress, or panic – but because of something else. Something she hadn’t dared to believe would ever happen to her, and which she still kept from entering her thoughts in any meaningful way.
