Bears of Burden: THORN

by Candace Ayers

  "Kiss me again," she said finally. He moved to pull away, but Kira reached up to grab hold of his wrist. "Kiss me and prove it if that's the truth. Otherwise I know you're lying."

  "Maybe I don't want to kiss you," he said.

  Kira's eyes narrowed. "If that's true, then it will be over quickly."

  He could give her a swift peck on the lips and call it good. Hell, he didn't have to rise to her challenge at all. This wasn't a freshman lab where experimentation was required to prove a theory.

  Donovan leaned in, and Kira parted her lips against the seam of his mouth as he gave into her demands and kissed her. She was determined not to make this easy for him. Her approach brought with it all the wetness and warmth that he normally would have had to work toward; she opened like a flower to him, urging him on wordlessly. Her hand alighted on his neck and her fingers flared up toward his jaw. She didn't hold him with any force, but Donovan couldn't have pulled away if he wanted to.

  "Like hell this is going to be over quickly," he growled. He surged forward, pressing her back into the couch, and Kira sighed against him blissfully as he escalated the kiss past what he had promised himself he would. His tongue delved against her mouth, testing her defenses, and she gave herself over to him. Despite her eager submission, they both knew who held the real power in that moment.

  Donovan parted her knees with his hand and pushed his aching body between her legs. Kira shifted to accommodate him, but he wouldn't allow an inch of her to escape; his hand alighted on her thigh and smoothed up the denim that sheathed it, cupping the curve of her backside. A tug had her sliding back beneath him as he moved to align himself atop her. Again, she went willingly, melting into the strength of his embrace, as Donovan continued to do for the next hour what they both knew he shouldn't: he kissed them both into a state of lightheadedness that even his earlier bottle of wine had failed to achieve.

  CHAPTER 12

  Kira returned to her apartment without incident the next morning, but over the course of the next several days, she started to feel… strange. It wasn't a feeling she could put into words, but she guessed it had begun with her long make-out session with Professor Donovan on his couch.

  She felt lighter; her hips rolled more deeply when she walked; her legs seemed longer, and the swells of her body seemed somehow more ample. It was an overnight change, if it was a change, and it confused her. Was it just her body reacting to feeling good? To finally scratching the surface of what it wanted? Was she less tense now that she knew Professor Donovan, without a doubt, reciprocated her feelings for him?

  By the time the weekend concluded and Monday rolled around, it was obvious that the changes were taking place in more than just her imagination. She was used to getting occasional appreciative looks as she walked between classes on campus, but today it felt like male students and teachers alike were stopped in their tracks by the sight of her. She noticed that even Dr. Kilman paused overlong to stare at her on his way to the faculty break room. Kira nodded to him uncomfortably, and was grateful when she was finally able to duck into Professor Donovan's classroom.

  She wasn't the first student to arrive by any stretch, but she was earlier than even Professor Donovan today. Kira took her usual seat by the window and stowed her bag beneath her desk. When it became apparent that the awkward boy who sat next to her was about to find the courage to strike up a conversation, she quickly pulled out her copy of Jane Eyre and hid herself behind the text. Her heart was racing—just trying to get to class had felt like an event in and of itself. What on earth was going on? Was she just anxious to see Donovan again? Her lips still felt raw from their last heated session together, and she passed her tongue over them unconsciously. The words blurred together on the page as she lost herself in memories of his passion, his skill, his taste…

  Something crashed to the floor at the front of the room, and every head raised itself in alarm. Professor Donovan had entered his class and knocked over his chair in almost the same stride. His eyes were riveted on Kira.

  After a loaded moment, she sank back behind her book once more as he bent to pick up his chair. Her pulse was racing in her veins, and she felt like she was running a fever. Was that why he had knocked over his chair? Because he felt the same reaction upon seeing her?

  What the hell was going on?

  Professor Donovan didn't call on her for the entire lesson, which should have come as a relief to Kira, but whatever was mounting between them was decidedly the opposite of relief. She found she couldn't hold still as the minutes ticked by; she squirmed constantly. Was she imagining it, or did Donovan pause every time she moved in her seat?

  This was a disaster. She couldn't believe her fellow students hadn't picked up on it with the way they were carrying on. Donovan had been right to protest a romantic relationship with her—they were way, way too obvious.

  The clock struck the hour, finally, and Kira was out of her chair in an instant. She tried to pack up her materials quickly, but her hands shook, and her fingers fumbled, until it was a sure thing she would be the last one out of the classroom. Once she finally thought she had her shit together, both literally and figuratively, she turned to make a break for the door. She wanted to say something to Donovan, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, much less speak—she had no idea what had come over her. She needed to get this figured out, and fast, before…

  As she passed his desk, his hand shot out to seize her inner thigh. She shot a startled look toward the door and watched as it only narrowly eased shut behind the last student. Professor Donovan's grip on her couldn't be mistaken for anything other than intimate.

  What was he doing? Someone could walk in on them at any moment!

  He reeled her in and out of view of the window inset into the door. His face looked unusually flushed, and his glasses lay forgotten on his desk. "What did you do?" he demanded. The pressure of his hand between her legs was exquisite agony, too much and yet not enough. He gripped her in a way that Kira knew meant he wouldn't let her go until he had an answer. The only problem was, she didn't have one. It was like the early days of English 101 all over again.

  "Something is different," he continued.

  "I know." Being this close to him, Kira felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe. The classroom was the exact wrong place to be having these feelings, but she felt as if her carefully-guarded attraction for Professor Donovan was rapidly overrunning her. She could get in a quick kiss, couldn't she? Maybe even more than that? She imagined how it would feel to have the pressure of his hand higher up at the junction between her legs and shuddered. She had guessed all along that they would probably take things slow in their relationship, but this was a new and unexpected development.

  "Well, what the hell is it, Bentley?" Donovan demanded in a hard whisper. "Are you wearing perfume?" She didn't flinch from the temperamental tone of his question; she was mesmerized by it. She had never seen Professor Donovan acting this way before. His loss of composure made her feel raw and achy, almost as if she wanted him to turn that aggressive energy on her.

  "No," she gasped. "I don't wear perfume, professor."

  "You smell different. You're… everything about you is different." He drew her closer, until she was practically seated in his lap. His hand inched upward, and Kira bit her lip to keep from making any sound. "I think I know what this is. Jesus."

  "What?" she demanded tersely. "Is there something wrong with me? If there is, just tell me. I've felt like this all weekend ever since I left your apartment! I feel…" She struggled to form the words. The hand creeping up her thigh was doing nothing to help her concentration. Had he forgotten it was there?

  "I feel… like I need something. Desperately. But I don't know what it is."

  Professor Donovan dropped his bomb. "It's possible you've gone into heat," he murmured. "I've heard about it happening in the wolf world. Your body senses that there is a viable mate around, and it begins to produce pheromones to let them know you're sexually av
ailable."

  "That's creepy," Kira said, but she couldn't hide the fact that she was blushing behind her unhappy tone. "And clinical. How do I stop it from happening?"

  "It's unconscious, from what I understand. I doubt you have any real control over it."

  "It would explain the way everyone is acting," she mentioned. "At least, the way the males on campus are acting."

  Donovan's steely eyes narrowed territorially. "How are they acting, exactly?"

  "Like they're attracted to me," Kira said despondently. "Like they're' stupid attracted to me. But I don't understand how anyone else would even pick up on it, if what you're saying is true. Isn't that something only a werewolf would know?"

  "Pheromones are something that every species gives off to varying degrees. You're a wolf, but you're also a human woman." Professor Donovan paused, and she saw his throat work. "Those poor fools probably have no idea what's hitting them now."

  "Are my pheromones affecting you?" Kira asked in a breathless whisper.

  "To say the least."

  The hand that gripped her flank drew her all the way in against him, and Kira settled into straddling his lap. The magnetic pull between them only grew stronger the closer they were. She had a hazy awareness that they were still in his classroom, but it seemed somehow less important than it had been only moments before. She slipped her arms around him as he lowered his mouth to her neck. It felt so easy to come together like this, so natural, so…

  "This is a mistake," Donovan insisted huskily. His hot breath gusted across the base of her throat, but he held back from giving her what she wanted. Kira wanted his lips on her, not hovering maddeningly close to her skin in a state of unbearable indecision. "I don't want to do this with you now. Not when it's some… biological imperative."

  "But you've been wanting to do this," she said. She was getting better at reading between the lines of his words. "Haven't you?"

  Donovan groaned. "God, Kira, you can't say stuff like that to me. Not now."

  She had never seen him like this before. She had found herself on the receiving end of his overwhelmed passion for her, of course, but she had never had him eating out of the palm of her hand. The animal in her wanted to take full advantage of it.

  "We can't do this here," she whispered against the shell of his ear. "What is someone sees us?"

  Donovan shoved her off of him immediately and rose to his feet. "My office. Five minutes," he ordered.

  Apparently 'biological imperative' was about to take precedent over romance. Not that she was complaining—she needed this heat inside her extinguished.

  Kira recovered her bag hastily and moved ahead of him out the door. Her heart beat wildly in her ears. It felt like it hadn't ceased pounding this hard all morning. She walked briskly down the hall to the water fountains and occupied herself with slaking her thirst, but it definitely wasn't the thirst that needed to be quenched. When she was finished, she turned and stared hard at the bulletin board as she waited a few minutes more.

  Then she was mounting the steps to the upper offices, trying not to sprint in her eagerness to get where she was going. She strode down the hall to Professor Donovan's office and pulled opened the door.

  The moment it was secured closed behind her, the man was upon her. Kira gasped, and the door thudded hard in its frame as he thrust her up against it in a sizzling encore of their first kiss. He lifted her off the ground and pinned her beneath his insistent body as his hand shot behind her to lock the door. Their mouths collided in a fevered exchange; her teeth caught on his lower lip as he tried his best to devour her whole.

  His thumbs glanced beneath her rib cage and hooked themselves on the hem of her shirt, yanking it up and over her head without even the briefest break in contact. Now the black pushup bra he had first seen at the Fun Fair bleeding through her wet T-shirt was in full evidence. He palmed one of her proud breasts and squeezed, and Kira went wild; she wanted to throw her head back, but his mouth kept hold of her, swallowing her impassioned moan.

  He whirled away from the door, carrying her with him. She wrapped her long legs around his waist to secure herself to him as he deposited her on the edge of his desk. Papers scattered beneath the careless sweep of his hand and fell to the floor in fluttering clumps. He pushed his hard body between her legs, and Kira opened to receive him, her form-fitting camel-colored skirt riding all the way up her thighs. His right hand detached itself from the desk to aid in its ascent, and she shuddered.

  "I can't count the number of times I've wanted to throw you across this desk," he growled into her neck. He followed up his dark admission with a nip beneath her ear, and Kira gasped. "Did you ever think about that, Kira, all the times I had you in here? Did you think about what you would do if I tried to have my way with you? Would you let me?"

  She cried out as his hand delved beneath her skirt and cupped her between her legs. Only the cotton of her panties remained as a barrier between them, but it suddenly felt as thin as tissue paper. Donovan's hand rubbed her, and she moved her body in time to his deep caresses, latching onto him with her mouth once more.

  "I'll take that as a yes," he concluded as he thrust his tongue past her parted lips. His kiss was hot and penetrating, and her awareness narrowed instantly in that moment to the way their mouths danced and joined. She barely noticed how he shifted their lower bodies closer until his pelvis was grinding her back against his desk.

  The fingers caressing her between her legs gave a firm, intrusive press over her entrance, and Kira nearly shot off the desk. Donovan's strong body barricaded her, forcing her back until she was situated precisely the way he wanted her to remain. There was nowhere for her to escape to… nowhere to turn except to the release his touch promised… she opened her legs wider, and the pads of his fingers slid at last beneath the damp fabric of her panties…

  A low knock at the door had them separating from one another in an instant. Kira gave a flying leap across the room as Donovan dove for her T-shirt, which was still hanging off the door handle where they had left it. He turned, reared back, and pitched it to her like the outcome of the ninth inning depended on it. Kira caught it handily and yanked it down over her head as Donovan straightened himself out.

  "Yep! Just a minute!" His voice sounded rough around the edges and much deeper than usual, and he hastily cleared his throat. His thumb flicked the lock and he leveraged the handle down just as Kira tossed herself down onto the couch and grabbed a book off the nearest shelf. She flipped it open to a random page and lost herself behind it just as the door opened. She didn't look up to see who it was.

  "Was this door locked?" Dr. Kilman's voice resonated from the other side. Kira pushed her hair back and glanced up incuriously. She was certain the frantic beating of her heart could be heard miles away, with or without heightened werewolf hearing. Donovan's glance in her direction seemed to confirm this.

  "No." His voice was neutral. "What's up, Kilman?"

  Donovan's fellow faculty member leaned around the corner to look at Kira. She raised her hand in a bored little wave. "Just waiting for Professor Donovan to finish grading my last essay," she explained, her tone implying it was the most inconvenient thing on earth and she was so over it. Dr. Kilman's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly behind his glasses, but he nodded in acceptance of this. He withdrew and started back down the hall to his own office. Donovan pulled the door closed once more. They both expelled a simultaneous sigh of relief.

  "Holy shit!" Kira tossed her book aside and covered her mouth to keep from laughing uncontrollably. Donovan collapsed behind his desk and dropped his head into his hands. He looked like he had just lost years of his life.

  "Jesus. That has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever done," he muttered.

  Kira raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean we're done?"

  His pencil holder sailed across the room toward her in response, and she laughed as she shielded herself against it. They hadn't consummated their feelings, but she still felt good. Really
good. Apparently all the wolf in her had required to be satisfied for the moment was a quick tryst at the hands of the man who sired her.

  "You're going to get me fired, Kira. I'll be blacklisted from ever teaching for the rest of my life." Donovan raised himself up from behind his desk and straightened the front of his sweater. Kira licked her lips playfully, and he noticed this immediately. Donovan raised a finger and pointed it at her. "No. No more. I don't care how fucking sexy you look or how good you smell. We're not doing this again here. There's a lot more at stake than either of us can easily remember when we get like this."

  "Fine." Kira pouted. "But there goes your perverted fantasy of having me over your desk."

  Donovan groaned and dropped his head into a stack of papers; unnoticed by Dr. Kilman, most of them still resided on the floor. Content that she had won, Kira picked up her book and resumed pretending to read. She didn't even notice that her tag was sticking out in front.

  CHAPTER 13

  "Professor Donovan?"

  It was Tuesday, a day later, and Donovan was sitting behind the desk in his classroom. It was unbearable being inside his office after his near-transgression with Kira Bentley; the scent of her still lingered, and it made grading papers or engaging in anything else remotely related to his career as a professor impossible. More and more often these days he was contemplating finding a new line of work. Remaining an upright instructor who taught in the hallowed halls of Rider University and being a horny werewolf were proving increasingly impossible to juggle. To think all of this might have been easily avoided, if he had only made better decisions on a full moon…

  Then again, given the chance, would he have done anything differently? Who's to say he wouldn't have found himself entangled with Kira Bentley in some other way? There was more than animal magnetism at work between them, of that he was now sure. He found her irresistibly attractive, and infinitely fascinating, and his feelings for her were…