by Roxie Noir
“Yes, daddy?” she asked. Her heart beat faster in her chest, and she started to panic.
He couldn’t find the two of them alone together, in a bathroom.
“Are you all right up here?”
“I’m fine,” she called. Leah tugged on Nathan’s arm and pointed to the shower. He got the hint and stepped in silently, pulling the curtain shut behind himself.
“Someone said they heard sounds coming from up here.”
I can’t get even a moment to myself, Leah thought. She’d have been furious if she wasn’t so giddy.
Certain that Nathan was hidden, she opened the door. On the other side, Jonah Whitehorse saw her and frowned.
“You’ve been crying,” he said.
“Just nerves,” she told him, eyes on the floor.
“Leah, listen to me,” he said, touching her under the chin and tilting her face up. Leah flexed her jaw, grinding he teeth in anger, but she did nothing. What could she do?
“Your ancestors have all done this,” he said, sternly. “Arranged marriage is a long, happy tradition, and your union will bring our clans together. Your mother did it. Your sisters did it, and now that it’s your turn, I expect better of you,” he said.
“Yes, father,” Leah said quietly.
“You’re missed at the barbecue,” Jonah went on. “Wipe your face off and go back downstairs.”
Leah nodded, and he let go of her face. She turned to the sink, taking toilet paper and wiping her eyeliner from where it had run, under her eyes.
Her father stood in the hallway and watched her.
She prayed that Nathan wouldn’t do anything — cough, sneeze, make a movement.
Finally, with her face clean, she left the bathroom and descended the stairs, her father close behind. Right before they left the house to return to the yard, he took her by the arm, stopping her for a moment.
“Respect your husband,” he said.
“He’s not my husband yet,” she said. It was the most she’d ever defied her father.
His grip tightened.
“He will be,” he said, and then descended the steps into the yard.
Not anymore, thought Leah, a strange lightness taking hold in her heart. Not now.
She followed her father outside, and even though she spent the rest of the barbecue hovering at Ian’s elbow and getting him more lemonade whenever he wanted it, she felt cheerful, almost giddy.
It was nearly ten thirty when she found the note on her bed, scribbled on a page torn out of the book she’d been reading.
Meet me on the road where I left my bike the other night. Bring anything you need. Midnight.
Love you,
Nathan
Down below she could hear the sounds of the rest of her family slowly getting ready for bed, brushing their teeth. Her sisters doing the last of the dishes, leaving a couple to soak in the sink overnight.
As quietly as she could, Leah rolled a few of her dresses into a neat pile, along with underwear and socks and a few personal effects.
For her wedding dress, she grabbed the blue one that she’d gotten betrothed in. She hated that it had that associated with it, but it was by far the nicest thing she had available. The dress she was supposed to wear to marry Ian in was somewhere downstairs, being tended to by her sisters.
Besides, she’d been wearing the blue when she met him. That had to count for something.
Finally, everything downstairs was quiet, and Leah didn’t think she could wait another moment. She imagined Nathan deciding she wasn’t coming and getting back on his bike at ten after midnight.
When she reached the bottom floor, she realized that the light was still on in the den, back behind the staircase, by the kitchen. Standing on the bottom step, she froze. Leah knew that someone in that room couldn’t see her if she stayed on the staircase, and the front door was only a few paces away to the front of her, but what if they could see her? What if they heard the door shut?
The screen door practically beckoned to her, promising freedom outside of it.
Freedom and Nathan, waiting for her on the road. Waiting to making her his, once and for all.
That was the point of getting married. Her father wouldn’t dare to try and undo an official mating union. He couldn’t. Nothing could.
“We always preferred to stay out of the way of the humans,” her father was saying. The topic sounded familiar, and it came up a lot when different shifter clans came together.
“Hmm,” said another voice, and Leah felt cold shoot down her spine.
It was Ian.
“Most of the humans in Fjords have some sort of unofficial knowledge,” he was saying. “There are old Native American legends about shifters, that sort of thing. Noting official, though.”
“We’ve worked hard in Yukon City to keep it to a minimum,” her father said.
They didn’t sound like they were moving. As best Leah could tell, they were sitting on the couch together, and her super-sharp nose could just barely pick up a hint of alcohol. Whiskey, maybe; she certainly wasn’t an expert.
She knew her hypocrite father kept a bottle in the house, though.
“I agree with you,” Ian was saying.
Brown noser, thought Leah.
“We shouldn’t let any humans know that we exist,” he went on.
Satisfied that they wouldn’t see her, Leah hoisted her bag over her shoulder and studied the door. It was a metal screen door, the kind that would slam shut loudly if you let it.
She slid her shoes off and put them in her bag. Then she took a deep breath and, on her tiptoes, crossed the two steps to the front door.
As slowly as she could, she pushed in the latch, exhaling softly when it went in silently.
Then, she pushed the door open, a millimeter at a time. She could still hear Ian and her father talking gravely about shifter-human relations, but she wasn’t listening to their words.
The door was open just enough for her to get out, so she did, praying that the old wood of the house’s front porch wouldn’t creak under her weight.
Now, all that was left was to carefully shut the door, making sure the lock didn’t click too loudly, and she was free.
In moments, she was running across the yard, her feet getting soaked in the dewy grass, but she didn’t care. She ran until she reached the bushes along the road and battled her way through.
On the road, she looked left and right, though she didn’t see anything yet. It had been ten ’til midnight when she’d left, and the run through the yard had left her breathless and disarrayed.
She smoothed her skirts down and walked along the road, trying to move quickly while she caught her breath. It wouldn’t do to meet Nathan sweaty and out of breath, right?
Then, she saw it: up ahead in the road, a car pulled off to the side.
He didn’t bring the bike? she wondered.
As soon as he saw her, he waved, and she waved back, grinning and unable to keep it inside any more.
When she got to him, Nathan leaned down and kissed her, his thumb on her chin, his lips soft and pliant. Leah felt like he was holding something back, for her benefit, and she pressed herself into him, that warm, liquid feeling traveling through her body again.
“You came,” he said.
“Of course I came,” she said.
“I’m going to pick you up and twirl you now,” he said, his face very serious.
Then he did, hoisting the curvy Leah like she was made of feathers. She gasped and laughed, suddenly flying through the air in a circle, trees and stars and the empty road flashing by in front of her face.
Then he put her down and kissed her again. This time, she was the one to break away first.
“Hey, focus,” she said, her big eyes finding his in the dark. “We’ve gotta go before they realize I’m gone.”
“Don’t we have all night?” Nathan asked. “They won’t know you’re gone until morning.”
Leah shook her head, sobering up for a moment.<
br />
“My father and Ian were still downstairs,” she said, her voice suddenly dropping to a whisper. “Talking about human-shifter relations.”
Nathan’s face changed, his jaw clenching. Suddenly he seemed businesslike.
“We’ve gotta go,” he said. “The passenger door’s unlocked.”
They got into the car and drove with just the parking lights for a long time, both of them silent.
“I don’t see anyone behind us,” Nathan finally said. “When we get on the highway, I think we’ll be good.”
Once they were there, even though the highway was still a two-lane road, only better maintained, Leah heaved a sigh of relief.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Nathan glanced over at her, looking a little nervous.
“I think our best bet is an Indian casino just outside Anchorage,” he said. He flicked the headlights on and took Leah’s hand in his own, his eyes still on the road ahead. “They’ve got a twenty-four-hour chapel, I made some calls this afternoon, and a justice of the peace is meeting us there tomorrow. We’ll need witnesses, but we can just grab a few people from slot machines or whatever.”
Leah laughed.
“How romantic,” she said.
Nathan grinned and shrugged a little.
She felt incredibly light, now that she was in a car with him, speeding away from her old life. Even though she knew she was probably speeding away from her family for a long time, at least she was doing it on her terms, she thought. Besides, that had always been the plan: she’d stay in Fjords while they went back to Canada.
Only now, she got to stay with Nathan.
She squeezed his hand.
“Let me know if you want me to drive,” she said.
“Do you know how to drive?”
“Of course I know how to drive,” she said. “We’re not Amish.”
Nathan looked over at her quickly.
“Okay, I know I dress like it,” she said, sounding a little miffed.
“You dress beautifully.”
“My clothing options have been limited,” she said, pretending to frown at Nathan. Then she went quiet. “Actually, all of my options have been limited.”
“I don’t care if you walk around Fjords wearing a bikini and nothing else,” Nathan said.
Then he frowned.
“Well, maybe I care,” he said. “But you understand what I’m trying to say.”
Leah leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, still holding his hand.
“No bikinis. I promise not to get more risqué than booty shorts,” Leah teased.
Nathan frowned harder, and Leah just laughed as they zoomed on toward the casino.
Chapter Twenty One
Nathan
Even though it was the middle of the night, nearly two in the morning, when they got to the casino, the place was still hopping. Leah had fallen asleep in the passenger seat and woke up when they pulled into the parking lot, blinking sleepily at the display of lights on the outside of the building.
“I guess they’re still open,” she said.
“Gambling never sleeps,” Nathan said.
He leaned over and kissed her, letting his mouth explore her just for a moment.
“Shall we?” he asked.
Leah was still half-asleep, so they were quiet as they walked toward the glowing entrance of the casino, her eyes getting wider and wider as they approached.
Inside was a cacophony of light and sound, the constant flashing and dinging and buzzing of a hundred slot machines, everything in the building vying for their attention.
As he searched for the front desk so he could get a room, he realized that Leah seemed almost overwhelmed. She’d probably never been anywhere like this, he realized.
“You okay?” he asked, tugging lightly on her hand, trying to bring her back to earth.
She shook her head a little, those red curls bouncing, and then looked up at him.
“Sorry,” she said. “This place is crazy.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit much,” he said. “I promise we can just stay in our room until later tonight, though.”
Then he winked.
Leah’s face was unreadable, and suddenly, something occurred to Nathan.
She was a virgin.
He’d known, of course. She’d told him she’d never been allowed alone with a man before who wasn’t a family member, so obviously she was a virgin.
Nathan had never really thought about it, though. But of course she was nervous about going from zero to sixty in the span of a couple of hours. Before last night she’d never even kissed someone, let alone taken her clothes off, let alone actually touched someone else who was also naked.
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, smiling comfortingly at her.
At the front desk, he requested a room with two double beds, and he thought he could feel Leah relax at the thought. Together, they went up the elevators and walked down the hall.
The casino-hotel wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t nice. The carpeting everywhere was insanely ugly, and the walls were starting to get dingy from all the smoke. The flowers on the table by the elevator were fake, and the keycard for the room took a couple of tries before it opened.
For a moment, Nathan thought about the last time he’d been in a motel room, not even a week ago, with those two women from the cruise ship, taking each other’s tops off, licking at sucking at their nipples.
The memory still held nothing for him. Nothing erotic whatsoever.
“This is nice,” Leah breathed behind him, and he opened the door to let her through.
Very carefully, she put her single bag — a backpack — down on the luggage rack, then walked slowly through the room, looking everything up and down, spinning in a circle before stopping and looking at Nathan again.
He clenched and unclenched his hands, over and over again, fighting himself. More than anything, he wanted to walk toward her, run his hands over her magnificent curves, and then tear her clothes off, take her on the bed right there, right then.
It was something deeper than pure, raw lust he felt for her — though it was that too. He wanted to be part of her, meld with her, become one.
“You should get some sleep,” he said. “You had a long day.”
“So did you,” she said.
She walked toward him, placing her hands on his chest, in a way that made his blood turn hot and his pulse race. He put his hands on her shoulders, carefully, sure to keep his raging, horny bear in check.
“I’m gonna take a shower first,” he said.
A very cold one, he thought, just looking at her.
“Do you, um,” Leah said. She got flustered and looked down at the ground, grabbing at her hair with one hand. “Do you need any help or anything?”
It was the most adorable come-on Nathan had ever heard, and he couldn’t help but break into a wide grin and laugh.
“What?” she said, quickly turning bright red.
“Was that a pick-up line?” he teased.
He didn’t think it was possible, but Leah turned even brighter red, and then moved away from Nathan, slumping to sit on one of the beds.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she said, sounding like she was about to cry. “This is the first time I’ve ever even been alone with a man,” she said. “I’d never even kissed someone before you, and I really just have no idea what I’m doing.” She sighed, looking to one side. “I’m thirty-two, and I’ve never even gotten to second base.”
Nathan sat down next to her, the mattress sagging under their combined weight.
“I don’t care,” he said, kissing her on the top of the head and pulling her close to his side. “You’re still the sexiest, most arousing woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on, even if you wear a muumuu all day, every day.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Nathan hung onto her for a moment.
You should tell her, he thought. She has a right to know.
“I�
�m not exactly a virgin,” he said, slowly, his hand still rubbing her shoulder.
Leah sniffled.
“Of course you’re not,” she said, sounding very practical. “I know that my life hasn’t been typical, but still, it’s the only one I’ve had.”
“I’m really not a virgin,” he said.
At that, Leah went silent.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve been with a lot of women,” Nathan said.
“How many is a lot?”
He had no idea. He’d been going down to Seward, the port town, every couple of weeks for how long, years?
“Fifty?” he said, not even sure of the number himself. “Seventy-five?”
Leah recoiled, pulling herself away from him and scooting across the bed by about a foot. She turned to face him.
“You’ve had sex with seventy-five women?” her tone was somewhere between astonishment and disgust, and Nathan felt his stomach plummet downward.
“Something like that,” he said. “I didn’t really keep count, honestly.”
She just stared at him.
“It started when I was in my early twenties,” he said, the words spilling out of him. “I tried to date a couple of the girls in Fjords, and it never really worked out, for one reason or another, and so I started just... picking up women in bars and taking them home for the night, you know? Everyone else in town was meeting their soulmates, finding real happiness and having relationships, and I just never thought it would happen to me, so I thought it didn’t matter who I had sex with.”
Leah swallowed and began tracing the ugly pattern on the bedspread with her finger.
“I didn’t think I would meet you,” Nathan said, his voice bordering on desperate. “Leah, if I’d have known, if I’d have had some inkling, I swear I would have waited. I’d have waited fifteen, twenty years for you to show up in my life, but I didn’t know.”
He put his hand on the bedspread and moved it toward hers until their fingers were just touching, and she looked up at him.
“I would have waited forever if I’d known I was going to feel this way,” he whispered. “I thought that was the closest I was going to get to happiness, but I was wrong.”
