by user
“You shouldn’t skip dinner,” I reprimanded him.
“I never seem to have the time for it. I usually work in the office until eight, then go home, work for a few more hours, then crash.”
“If you were Amish, your wife would be taking better care of you,” I said without thinking.
He looked regretful for a moment. “My wife walked out on me years ago, so I can’t blame her for my lousy eating habits.”
“Sorry,” I immediately said and sucked on my straw as I gathered my thoughts. “I didn’t know. I thought that woman you were with that time was her.”
It took him a moment to remember, then he said, “That was Adrian. My sister. We’re really good friends, and when she comes to town I always have to entertain her. Big Italian family, you know. And we werewolves have to stick together.”
It was my turn to glance over at him with upraised eyebrows.
“Sorry. Inside joke. My family had a distant ancestor that was accused of being a werewolf back in the old country. Since then, we kid each other about it all the time.”
“That’s really interesting,” I said. “So are you really a werewolf?”
Frank thought about that. “Well, I was accused of being a wolf back in high school, but I outgrew that. And I still eat like one, but that’s to be expected of an Italian boy. My Mamma, God rest her soul, used to say that dinner wasn’t done until someone busted a button on their pants.”
I smiled at that. The way he said it made him sound so homespun, so beautifully mundane and crunchy earthy. I had a hard time reconciling the image of the good Italian boy who ate too much and loved his mother to the chiseled, dangerous-looking man in his mid-forties that I saw everyday in his Brooks Brothers business suits.
Feeling cheeky, I asked, “Are you still a wolf?”
He grinned then, his large, strong teeth shining. “I can be, around the right type of woman.”
“You’re picky,” I half-laughed.
“Wolves can be very picky when they mate, as they should be. They usually mate for life.” He smirked a little. “When’s the last time you mated, Red?”
“That’s a rather personal question.”
“We’re being pretty personal here.”
I didn’t want him thinking I was a naïve virgin, so I said, “Not for a while. But I can be picky too.”
“Are you a longtime-relationship type, or more of a one-night-stand type?”
I squirmed in my seat. “Guess.”
“You first.”
“I don’t know. B.”
He laughed at that. “I suppose I was for a short time after the divorce. Not so much now.”
“I’m A,” I confessed. “I had a boyfriend in college. We were together a long time. Three years. We even started talking marriage, but he didn’t want to come to New York with me. He wanted me to stay home and have children with him.”
“And you don’t like children.”
“I want to do something more with my life first.”
“I’m glad, or we wouldn’t have you on our team.”
I felt my heart flutter with the compliment, the first real one Frank had ever paid me.
We road along in silence for a while before I said, “Do you get lonely?”
“Sometimes. But it’s hard to find the right type of woman these days.”
“What kind of woman are you looking for?”
I noticed there were no other cars on the highway. We were headed into the more wooded, secluded parts of the turnpike. The traffic wouldn’t pick up until later tonight, when New Yorkers began to migrate toward the Poconos for the weekend. I suddenly felt very isolated with Frank, like we were the only two souls on the road, and probably we were, for miles and miles.
Frank thought about that. “Someone who can be sweet, but not too sweet. I’d like a woman who can handle me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Someone not afraid to explore her sexual limits with me.”
I thought about telling Frank that I read a lot of erotica online, the spicier the better, but I was too embarrassed to admit to that. In college, Ben and I had flirted with handcuffs, softcore porn, some of the more mundane things, but it had never amounted to much. I’d always been too afraid to go all the way, the way I’d been in all the other parts of my life. It was at least part of the reason why we had broken up. Along the way, Ben had stopped seeing me as his girlfriend, his mate, and had started looking at me more like a surrogate mom and wife, a proper girl who never did anything dirty or questionable. Our vanilla sex life had died an inglorious death shortly thereafter. But for the first time in my life, I hated my good girl image. It was true that nice girls finished last. And sometimes they didn’t finish at all.
I was a good girl. But I was also alone all the time.
“So do you have fantasies?” I asked, surprising even myself. I thought about all the stories I had read online.
Frank looked impressed, even behind his dark glasses. “Of course I do. Would you like to hear one?”
I felt so warm and comfortable in his presence…and yet, excited. Maybe protected was the right word. I trusted Frank, as ridiculous as that sounded. I barely knew him, but my instincts told me to trust him implicitly.
“Yes,” I told him. “Tell me.”
“I have this one where I’m driving to my cabin in the Poconos when I see this hot Amish girl standing on the side of the road, hoping for a ride. So I give her a lift, and while we’re alone on the highway, she gives me a show.”
I smirked at that, wondering if Frank had slipped something into my iced coffee because I felt positively giddy and decidedly not at all like proper little Sadie Redner. “What does she do?”
“First she unbuttons her blouse. Then she slides her skirt up and touches herself for me.”
“While you’re driving?”
“I slow down.” And he did, to just about twenty-five miles an hour, and divided his attention between me and the road.
We were passing a cattle farm and the only life for miles around were cows. I didn’t think the cows would care, and suddenly neither did I.
I undid my seatbelt and sat back in my seat so I was more comfortable. I started sliding the buttons loose on my white business blouse until it gaped around the shells of my bra-clad breasts, then dropped my hands and slid them up the sides of my smart, dark business skirt until it was crumpled like a wreathe around my hips on the car seat. My lacy bra and panties were a matching bright red. I almost felt embarrassed about that. I had bought them for myself on Valentine’s Day last year because I had no valentine.
Frank had removed his sunglasses and his blue eyes swept over me, fierce, warm and demanding. No one had ever looked at me that way, not even Ben. My heart ticked away in my throat, sounding louder than it ever had before. I’d never done anything like this for anyone, and I wondered if this was how some exotic dancers felt when they stripped for their male audience, not vulnerable but powerful. In control.
“Touch yourself,” he told me. “Start with your breasts.”
I reached up and undid the front closure on my bra so my breasts spilled out into my hands. My nipples immediately puckered up in the coolness of the jeep. My skin felt like it was sparkling and alive. I felt both thrilled and terrified as I arched up into my hands. I watched him while I encircled my nipples with my fingers, pinching them periodically, impressed by his driving skills. He never so much as weaved on the road.
I half expected him to laugh at me, to tell me he was just screwing with me, that I was a fool, but when he didn’t, my confidence built. I thought about the stories I had read, how women seduced men in all those fantasies. I thought about his fantasy about the naughty little Amish girl. I slid my hand between my spread legs and pressed against the damp sheath of my panties. A spark of desire made me shudder.
His face grew stern, then, and very concentrated.
I slid my panties down my legs to my ankles, then slid my fingers up my bare leg and d
abbled at the wetness between my legs. The closeness of the car suddenly smelled of sex instead of fast food.
“You’re wet,” he said, his voice a low, deep growl.
“Yes,” I answered as I lounged in the bucket seat and slid my fingers along the dampness of my seam.
“Slide your fingers inside your cunt for me,” he told me. “Rub your clit until you come.”
I parted my labia and slipped a finger inside my sudden, wet heat. I had touched myself before, of course, in private, but never with this reaction. I usually had to work hard to draw out any kind of reaction from my stubborn body, but this time it was no trouble at all. I added a second finger, and as I rubbed amidst all that slickness and the wall of my cunt contracted around my fingers, a shiver of pleasure raced from my loins up into my head, making me feel dizzy. I raised my legs a little more, until my knees hit the dashboard, and slid another finger inside. I stroked, tapped and rubbed over my sweet spot in a slow, lazy fashion that quickly picked up rhythm.
“That’s unbelievably sexy, Red,” Frank urged me on. “Fuck yourself. I want to watch you come.”
I was one of those girls who needed a lot of time and stimulation from her lover to reach orgasm. There had been many nights when I had faked it with Ben only because I wanted him to stop trying already and I was getting too sore to keep going. But this time, with Frank watching in the seat beside me, commanding me, it didn’t take long at all. I listened to my fingers moving in all that squelching wetness, imagined them as his fingers, smelled the heady perfume of his cologne and my arousal mixing together, and rubbed and plucked at my swollen clitoris until my hips began to jerk of their own volition and a few choice sounds came out of my throat—not words, exactly, but primitive groans and deep-throated cries.
Frank narrowed his eyes and wet his mouth at my display. Through the haze of pleasant pressure slowly building in my body, I was aware of the tent in his jeans. He was as turned on as I was doing this. I pushed my back into the leather seat as I climbed toward what was usually a very elusive orgasm.
“Come for me, Red,” he said. “Come hard.”
With one last thrust inside I came hard just as he asked, and it was definitely in the top ten orgasms of all time for me. The hours of tension in my body gave way to an all-over shudder and a deep-seated, orgasmic ripple that had me jerking uncontrollably in my seat and gushing wetness all over my fingers. I felt a brief flash of shame, but it felt so good to do it. I felt so bad, so out of control, so unlike the almost-Amish girl I usually was.
When it was over, I slumped in my seat and glanced over at Frank, who had managed to drive without looking at the road for the past two minutes. His eyes had softened but his look had hardened. It was a very male look. “Better?” he asked.
“So, so much,” I said, wriggling around in my own juices on the leather seat. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, Frank,” I added with genuine remorse, sounding hoarse. “I think I stained your leather.”
“It was worth it, Red, believe me. It was worth it.”
* * *
We reached my grandmother’s house around three in the afternoon. I had decided to stop in and get her a nightgown and robe and maybe a few toiletries before we hit the hospital. My grandmother, though ex-Amish, was still a very proper woman, and I knew she wouldn’t approve of the hospital Johnny. Frank helped me throw some things together into a canvas bag, but as we were about to hurry back to the jeep, I heard the key turn in the door and my grandmother walked in, accompanied by old Mr. Philips, the man who lived down the street and who used to yell at me all the time for riding my bike over his lawn.
I was surprised to see them. “Sadie!” Gramma said and threw her arms open wide. “Why didn’t you tell me you were on the way, girl?”
“I wanted to but you weren’t picking up your phone!”
“Miriam forgot to charge her phone again,” Mr. Philips helpfully pointed out, smiling down at my grandmother in a fond way.
“Oh you! Be quiet!” Gramma said.
“What happened?” I said, hugging her again. “Are you all right? You scared me half to death! Elsie called and made it sound like you were on your deathbed!”
“Oh, Elise’s always been a bit dramatic,” Gramma said. “I blame all those cats! And I’m sorry she frightened you, my dear. I explicitly told her not to call you until I knew what was wrong. I didn’t want you to worry about me!”
“Oh, Gramma, of course I worried! You’re all alone here.”
She looked over at Mr. Philips and something passed between them. I suddenly had the feeling that my grandmother had a new beau.
“So what’s happened?” I demanded to know.
“It seems I’ve a touch of angina, my dear, nothing to be too alarmed about. The doctor says I just need more exercise.”
“Which she will get, because I’m getting her out of this house whenever I can,” Mr. Philips said with authority and winked at my grandmother.
Of course, after that, things quickly turned to Frank. I introduced him as my boss, but I think my grandmother knew there was something more between us. She seemed by turns delighted and fascinated by him and insisted we stay for dinner, seeing how we had driven all the way up to see her. Frank was delighted to indulge in some genuine Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. He even said the meal was as good a feast as his own mother’s, which I knew was a huge compliment. He ate everything off his plate and even asked for seconds.
By then, it was almost full dark out. Gramma offered to put us up in my old room, but Frank explained that he had a cabin only five miles north of here. All of us were sitting in the living room, drinking my Gramma’s homemade wine, and I couldn’t help but notice the furtive glances between her and Mr. Philips. I looked over at Frank and noticed the same hungry look in his eyes.
While helping my grandmother clean up in the kitchen, I said, “Gramma, I have something to ask you—”
Gramma turned away from the sink, drying her hands on a tea towel, and gave me a stern, wise look. “Good lord, girl, go with him! You don’t need my permission! And I certainly don’t need supervision!” She threw her arms around me, and we hugged and giggled like schoolgirls over our respective beaus.
“I’m so happy you’ve found someone,” I said and kissed her white curls.
“As I am you, Sadie. And your handsome Englisher is headed for his car, so I think you should hurry!”
I smiled, kissed her on the cheek, and hurried out to the jeep, snatching my red coat off the hook by the door as I went.
Frank looked surprised when I opened the passenger side of the jeep and boldly slid into my place beside him. “You weren’t going without me?” I said.
“Do I have a choice, Red?”
“No,” I told him with authority. “I’m yours tonight. And you’re mine.”
That vulpine smile spread across Frank’s face. “Do you mean that?”
“I can be a wolf too,” I told him.
He laughed as he put the jeep into gear. “And wolves know what they want and aren’t afraid to go after it.”
* * *
We were only a mile or so from Frank’s cabin when he pulled the jeep to the side of the darkened road. We were in one of the most heavily wooded areas of the Poconos. The roads were rough, gravel with patches of asphalt, and we hadn’t passed a house in at least a half mile. Frank turned off the engine but left the headlights on. It was the only light as far as the eye could see. He turned in his seat and said, “Did you mean what you said about being mine tonight?”
I shivered in the dark with his eyes on me. “Yes.”
“Not afraid to be with a big, bad werewolf?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“My cabin’s just down this road about a mile, but you can reach it faster if you cut through the woods here. It isn’t far, and there are trails to follow. I’ve done a lot of hunting up here.”
“You’re a hunter.”
He smiled at that.
“Why are you telling me
this?” I said, my voice breathy and my skin electric with a tingling of fear and anticipation.
“I want to give you a head start.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll give you a handicap. Five minutes. If you find the cabin before me, you can do whatever you like with me tonight. I’ll be your slave, your wolf. But if I catch you before you reach it, you’re mine. You’re my mate, mine to do with what I want. Are you in agreement?”
I shivered in my seat. “It’s cold out there.”
“September. It’s not too cold.” He hesitated. “If you’re afraid…?”
“I’m not afraid,” I told him, and I wasn’t. I felt both weak and powerful around Frank, but not afraid. I had even made the decision to ask him to help me learn to drive when we got back to the city. I slid the door open and climbed down to the edge of the road. “I won’t need five minutes.”
“I’m a very good hunter,” he told me. Then his face grew fierce and wild. “Go!”
I went.
* * *
I found one of the paths that Frank was talking about easily enough. It quickly became apparent that he’d spent a great deal of time in these woods. But that didn’t make me feel any better. If he knew these woods that well, and was that good a hunter, I was sure I didn’t have a prayer of escaping him. Still, it was fun.
Sticking to the path, I tried to move between the trees and over the rocky ground as quickly and soundlessly a possible. A twig snapped in the dark and I jumped as some large animal bounded across the path that I couldn’t make out clearly just by the light of the full moon. I thought about the bear in this region of the mountains, but then a large dog started barking somewhere not very far off, and I felt a wave of relief. I knew from living up here in the mountains most of my life that bear don’t like big dogs and usually avoided the areas where they lived.
As I searched for the cabin in the almost perfect darkness my breath came in short, hard gasps, and I was hyperaware of everything around me—the cool prickling of the Indian summer on my skin, the cooing of a distant owl, the thrill of the chase. Something crackled on the path behind me and I picked up my pace, my heart racing in my throat like a terrified jackrabbit being pursued by a predator. But ducking under some low-hanging trees, the hood of my coat got stuck, and by the time I managed to untangle myself, my business coiffure had long since fallen down so my long, straight hair showered around my shoulders and stuck to my sweating face. Gathering my hair, I pulled up my hood to keep it tame and continued down the path.
