Clearer in the Night

by Rebecca Croteau

  “So, where are we going to eat?” he asked.

  “How do you feel about Indian food?”

  The pause lasted just a beat too long. “Fine. Where do I go?”

  “If there’s something else you’d rather do—”

  “I said it’s fine.”

  “Sure, but if you don’t like it—”

  “I promised you your favorite, now could you knock it off and tell me which way to turn out of your damn driveway? I’m heating up the deep sea temperature here.”

  Probably he was trying to be funny. And not a complete ass. Obviously, that was his goal. “Left,” I said, instead of “Go to hell.”

  He followed my directions towards the center of town. Parking downtown was always an experience, even more so when you drove a small tank. Not that I was judging. Much. Still. Other than asking if this street was a dead end, or if that parking garage was halfway safe, he seemed to have even less to talk about than I did. He didn’t turn on the radio. Some silences are easy, comfortable, and friendly. This was not one of those silences. The urge to blather endlessly was almost irresistible, so I settled for staring out the window at the maple and birch trees that lined the streets. They were contained, just like they would be in any city, but I always had the sense that they might push out of their confines at any moment, stretching their roots up to break through the concrete and blacktop, smashing the streets and sidewalks into so much rubble. The wildness might be contained, but it wasn’t tamed. At any moment, it might make a scramble for freedom.

  “The trees always make me sad,” Wes said, reading my mind. “It’s like they’re trapped in the street. Like we’re driving into a tree zoo.”

  Okay, kind of reading my mind. The theme, not the direction. Or something. “It’s better than no trees at all, anywhere.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe there’s something to be said for leaving the wilderness in its place, and keeping cities to themselves. Maybe combining them is a mistake.”

  “So, what, people who live in cities don’t deserve to see trees?” I fiddled with the knot on my sweater, and straightened the clasp on my necklace. What had happened to that easy peace we’d had in the backyard?

  He gave me another noncommittal shrug. “We all make our choices. Maybe we should just live with them instead of pretending that we get to have everything at once.”

  “But I am, currently, having both. This morning, I was running through the woods, and now I’m driving on paved streets. Look at me, urban and wilderness, melding together.”

  The tone of his laughter was as far from polite as it was possible to get. “Did you go running on your man-made trails that were carved out from forest that has been allowed to stand only because a bunch of idealistic tree huggers chain themselves to it on a regular basis? Do you think that’s what wilderness is? The trees here don’t know anything more about being wild than a pet dog, and for the same reason. Dogs aren’t wolves, and that collection of trees and bushes is not a forest.”

  Well, then. Glad we weren’t worrying about sticking to safe first date topics. I’d hate to feel constrained, or like there were some things that I probably shouldn’t say to people I don’t know very well. The urge to lash out rose in me, and his posture—his tight hands on the steering wheel, his demanding eyes, his straight-locked spine—brought it up to choke me again. Only instead of wanting to fight or tell him off, I watched my hand reach out and stroke up his thigh. When he turned to glance at me with those hard eyes, I turned mine slightly down and away, turning my head to the side so he could see my bare neck.

  Some of the rage left his expression. “Sorry,” he said. “Kind of a touchy thing for me.”

  “Sure,” I said. I left my hand on his thigh, but with a spark of brilliance, I understood why Shannon was so adamant that someone know where I was. If I just didn’t come home tonight, who would know where to start looking? I reached into my purse for my phone.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. The edge was back in his voice.

  “I promised a good friend of mine that I’d let her know where I was going and when I’d be home tonight.”

  He laughed in a way that made me think of fava beans and nice Chianti. “Doesn’t trust me?”

  “She doesn’t know you,” I clarified, not that there was a difference. Not really. Because neither did I. And yet here I was. He made a huffy sound that annoyed me more than I expected it to. “What?”

  He shrugged again. “Do whatever you want. Tell your little friend where you’re going and when you’ll be home. Keep to the trails, Caitie. Stay where it’s safe.”

  “That’s total crap,” I said, fury rising up past the fawning desire to snuggle up to him and make him not mad at me anymore.

  “Is it? No wonder you live in the tree zoo.”

  “I sincerely hope you’re joking,” I said. I tapped out a quick message to Shan. There weren’t any details to give, but I told her that, at least, then turned the phone to silent and tossed it into my purse. “Now, you can ruin the night by making drama where there isn’t any, or we can go to dinner and have a good time.”

  He gave me a big, wicked smile with too much tooth. “Oh, Caitie, we are going to have so much fun tonight.”

  “Are we?” I stared at my purse, already regretting my big, dramatic move.

  His hand landed on my knee and rapidly slipped north. My mouth slipped open, and I was made of want. “Do you really want to go to dinner?”

  “No,” I said. If my panties just burst into flame, would he notice? Would I burn, or just be incredibly glad that they were gone? I was thinking the latter.

  “I know a place,” he said. “You’ll love it. I’ll show you wilderness. Okay?”

  “Yes.” His fingers were tracing tiny circles on the inside of my thigh, and I wanted to whimper, or arch, or just unzip my pants and let him slide inside right here. The tips of my breasts were hard against the lace of my bra. Thank God I’d put on pretty underthings. I’d almost not bothered.

  “We do need to talk,” he said, “with actual words. But that can come later. First, I think we should get this out of our systems. Do you agree?” His hand moved ever closer, so slow that he was going to kill me with need.

  “Yes. I agree. Anything.” It wasn’t just me wanting him, I could feel that, I could feel the thing in my belly pressing down, reaching for him. I couldn’t keep my hips still anymore, I lifted them, and his fingers pressed into the seam of my jeans. I was soaking wet, and the pressure was unbearable. What was happening? I wasn’t this easy, I was never this easy.

  “I’m so glad,” he said. “What you’re going to go through in the next few weeks, Caitie, it’s ugly, there’s just no other word for it. But you don’t have to do it alone. I’ll be here for you. In every way that I can be. You should remember that.”

  “Yes,” I said, because I had no other words when his finger was gently circling through the center of me. It wasn’t enough, not with my jeans in the way, for an explosion, but it was enough to drive me crazy. When he took his hand back to the steering wheel, I made a soft, sad sound of sorrow.

  He smirked, but focused on driving. He went right past the restaurant I’d directed him to, and headed out of town. I curled into my seat, letting my mind wander away from grinding and sweat and panting. I hardly ever drove this road; it was lovely, all farms and rolling hills abraded by glaciers a millennia ago, and soft and beautiful shades of green. Vermont in late summer, when the heat of July and August had been balanced with enough rain to keep the grass green and healthy, was beautiful. But it was tame. He was not wrong about that, not really. There was nothing wild here. Nothing at all.

  My mind wandered while we drove, hypnotized by the trees and fields rushing by. We drove through little towns that had rolled up the sidewalks an hour ago, and a couple of bars that looked like they’d be roaring until dawn.

  And then he turned off the main road, onto a small dirt road. A “state park” sign flashed by, and then, another mile o
r so along, he stopped at a bend in the road, pulling into a tiny dirt lot. Maybe three cars would fit there. Cars like mine, not like his.

  The sexiness had faded a bit. As he turned the key in the ignition, I gave him a long, measured look. “This barely maintained lot off a dirt road I didn’t even notice until we pulled onto it, as dusk is getting closer and closer to night? None of this is helping your ‘I am not a serial killer’ argument.”

  He smiled a bit. “I have excellent night vision. And also flashlights.”

  “Oh, flashlights,” I said, as I climbed down out of his absurd vehicle. “Now I know I’m safe.”

  He came around to my side of the car and threaded his fingers into mine. I slid into his side, and he wrapped his arm around me. My body almost vibrated with the pleasure of being close to him. “You are,” he said. “Safe. I told you. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

  Yes, yes, but why? Why was he so concerned about me? Who was I to him, and why did this all matter so much? “Thank you,” I said, and squeezed his hand back. And then he leaned in again, with another one of those light-me-up kisses, and my knees were shaking.

  “It’s just a short walk,” he said. He grabbed a bag out of the back of the SUV, threw a few things into it, and then handed me a flashlight. “This way.”

  There were no trails here. He walked into the trees, moving gracefully between branches. They almost seemed to move aside for him. He tried to hold them back for me, but they didn’t respect me the way they did him. They slapped into my hair, my face, my side. Branches broke under my feet, echoing like gunshots. I wanted to run. I wanted to run forever, but the ground was slippery with loam and greenery, and I’d twist an ankle. Besides, my body was the wrong shape, completely wrong. Profoundly wrong. I pushed ahead, pushed past the one who was with me, because he was wrong, too, familiar but wrong, and when he tried to grab me, hold me back, I ran, even though I didn’t know these trees, this forest. His touch was calming, and I didn’t want to be calmed. I wanted to tear off this wrong-skin, shake off this girl-shape, and press my claws into the ground, and fly, absolutely fly away from all these awful smells and things that wanted to contain me. I wanted freedom. I ran, smashing through the brush, and that was wrong, too, my right-shape moved smoothly and silently through the trees and the forest. I was not this hulking, crashing, clumsy monster.

  The man—Wes, I knew him, Wes—was behind me, shouting my name, and I wanted him to chase me. I wanted him to catch me, to be my—I snarled through this broken throat, there was no word for what I wanted from him, just images, wondrous images and feelings and I wanted them all.

  The ground beneath my feet shifted suddenly, and I was running on crumbled shale, slipping, sliding down a bank into shallow, cold water. I gasped and screamed at the shock of it, but then I was just me again, kneeling and already shivering in fast moving water that was threatening to pull me over. I was damn cold, but I was just me.

  A moment later, Wes splashed down next to me. He stared at me for a second, then gathered me up. Everything inside of me burst open, and I was sobbing, clinging to him like I was going to float away on water that was maybe three feet deep. He was making soft sounds and petting my hair, and I was screaming. Sobbing and screaming. The water tugged at me, pulled at me, but I had nothing left to give.

  It was awhile before I came back to myself. He had lifted me up, carried me to the side of the river. I was freezing cold, and Wes was wrapped around me as I sat in his lap. My face was tucked up into the crook of his shoulder, and I could smell him, pitch and autumn leaves, and I could feel his pulse against my cheek.

  “What’s happening to me?” I asked. My voice didn’t waver, or break, or even stutter.

  Without missing a beat, Wes drew back so we could look at each other. We were wet and dripping, and then he was kissing me. The heat rushed back in, starting in my belly, but when that furred beast tried to rise again, it met the resistance of his hands, gently pushing her down and away. It was me kissing him, for the first time since the club and the slamming beat, nothing else between us. He deepened the kiss, urging my mouth open under his, his hands on my sides, tugging me against him.

  I pulled away this time, panting. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

  His hand slipped up and pinched at the tip of my breast, stopping a hair’s breadth short of pain. “I thought you didn’t.”

  I rested my forehead against his, fighting the waves of enjoyment that were flashing up from between my thighs. “I need to know what’s happening to me. I can’t live like this.”

  Another firm tug from him, and I was straddling him, his firm interest burning up through my cold and clammy clothes. Thoughts scattered, and I let his hands urge me into a rough rhythm, my breath scattered like the wind, and my focus gone with it. There was a waterfall in the background, and the sound of the water tumbling down was beautiful. Amazing. It drove out my worries and doubts. “I think this would be a pretty good way to live,” he said. “God, why are you still dressed?”

  Because we needed to talk. Because he owed me answers. But he’d sat up, pulling me close against him, and his tongue was doing intriguing things at the base of my throat, and one hand was still urging me into a slow, steady rhythm against him, and I wanted to be warm. When his teasing fingers unwrapped my soaked sweater, then found their way to the hem of my wet, clinging top, I helped him strip me. His hands were fire against my cold skin. He paused long enough to lay out a blanket and light some kind of citronella candles, and then slid out of his own soaked clothes.

  The light filtered in through the trees, highlighting the smooth planes of his arms and chest. He came to me again, helping me slip out of my soaked underwear. His lips on mine were flaming as he reached into his bag and pulled out a condom. He pulled back for a moment as he opened the foil package and slid the latex into place with a practiced motion. Then he was back against me, nudging into me, his mouth heavy on my neck, his hands tight on my breasts. I was cold, so damned cold, and I used my ankles to urge him deep inside of me, even though I wasn’t ready, even though I wanted more before, but now I just needed to be warm. He slid into me with a rough groan, and then all I could hear was the water crashing down.

  Afterwards was awkward. His arms were circled gently around me, and I wasn’t entirely faking as I snuggled into him—I hadn’t thought I could explode that many times without dying of the pleasure—but still. The awkwardness was everywhere, and growing.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  Questions like that. Awkward. “Wonderful,” I said, and snuggled closer into him. That was what I was supposed to do, I was sure of it. Hollywood to the rescue.

  He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. ”I’m glad,” he said. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Um.” My stomach felt like I’d swallowed boiling acid. I could even taste the sharpness on the back of my tongue.

  “Is the beast sleeping?” He touched my stomach as he spoke. It was odd to hear someone else speak of it in such plain terms. I’d been thinking it, in various ways, for a week now, but for him to so clearly acknowledge what was happening to me felt…awkward. I turned my attention inward for a moment, and I felt the place where Wes had pushed her down. It was still and quiet.

  I nodded. “Is this really happening?”

  He pulled me tight against him; his thigh between my legs sending a quiet frisson up my spine. “You tell me,” he said. His hand was tracing patterns down my back again, making me move against him in slow, lazy strokes. It wasn’t quite sexual, but more than just pleasant.

  My forehead rested on his chest, and my breathing was just a little ragged. “Feels real.” Real and wonderful.

  “Tell me what happened that night in the woods.”

  There was a soft slow swirl of heat in my belly, a pleasant heat that was a promise of good things to come later. “If you want me to talk, you should stop doing that,” I said, quietly.

  “Talking about it withou
t distracting the beast will not take you to a happy place. Please believe that. If you can’t sate her hunger one way,” his lips drifted down to brush my temple, and even as exhausted as I was, I was still eager and at attention. “You need to feed her another way. Tell me what you remember from that night.”

  He’d told me that first night to stop talking about it, and I had, because I didn’t want anyone to think I was completely insane. It was a relief to let the story out, finally. To stop pretending like I didn’t remember what happened in excruciating detail. I focused my mind on the sweet warmth of his body, close to mine, and let the story flow forth. I didn’t edit out anything. Not the huge wolf, or the strange new senses that came and went, or the wounds healed like I was Wolverine. I even told him about hallucinating my sister in that clearing, my sister who’d been dead for years. I told him everything while his hand moved between my legs, slow and soft but no less insistent for all of that.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I said. “Or, I do. I guess I do.”

  He sighed gently, nuzzling into me. He’d rested long enough, apparently. The world spun sweetly. This was new territory. Cuddling. Second times. Softness. You didn’t get this with strangers. “Tell me what you think it is. Saying the name gives you power over it.”

  “I can’t even think it. It makes me sound like a stupid kid in a cheesy movie.”

  He laid back and lifted me on top of him again like I weighed nothing. He was firm and hard, and I was already wet and eager and open for him. He teased at my body, and it took everything I had to back off and pass him another condom from his bag. He didn’t take it; instead, he sat up, his length pressed between us, and found me with his fingers. My mouth opened wide as my back arched, his fingers moving swiftly and surely inside of me, his thumb teasing over the sweet spot that made me want to scream. The sounds that echoed against the water and danced back to my ears were barely human, and I didn’t know which of us was making them.