by Lynn Red
The moon peeked through the tiny breaks in the canopy over the road that ran the entire way to the Jamesburg town square, fat and yellow. He’d never really been one to think of it as magical, or an omen, or anything other than a big hunk of rock floating around in space.
But tonight? Everything was different. All it took was a few minutes, a few taps on his phone, and then waiting... and now everything was different.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the vague, lingering scent from Lilah’s bandana, and smiled up at the sky.
Somehow, some way, he knew exactly where he was going.
-11-
Lilah
I couldn’t stand it.
Like, I really, really couldn’t stand waiting anymore.
I checked the clock again and was a little embarrassed when I realized it had only been eighteen minutes and I told him to meet me here in thirty. I... couldn’t believe the way I was acting, the way I was feeling.
It had been a long time since I was a blushing little kid waiting for a boy to ask me to prom.
Oh, no wait, no, that just seemed like a long time ago. Really? It never happened. There ain’t too many proms at reform school. The Jamesburg Reformatory cancelled the proms in the eighties sometime when someone dressed up like Huey Lewis whipped out some kind of weapon – or maybe it was a sex toy, the stories varied – and made a huge mess of everything.
And here I was, almost halfway through my twenty-fifth year, getting sweaty-palmed at the prospect of a man showing up at my front door.
I looked down at myself and realized that when I got home earlier, and nervously started painting, like I do, I’d gotten it all over myself.
My jeans were a smear of green, black, brown and blue oil paint that I’d managed to mix into something vaguely resembling a cross between a Jackson Pollack and urban camouflage.
But then of course, I remembered what I’d been painting. A wave of embarrassment flooded over me, but then it turned into more of a feeling like the dull burn of a match after the tip flares hot. I couldn’t move it, since it was only like half-finished and nowhere near dry enough. Also, even to my self-critical eyes, it was pretty good.
Problem was that I didn’t want Rex to realize I’d been apparently putting my fantasies about him onto canvas.
I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs that had settled in between my ears. My wavy, multi-colored hair was pulled back in a rough looped-over ponytail to keep it from getting in my face, or worse, in the paint.
My phone buzzed again. The distraction was welcome, even though it was my email tone, which meant that I’d probably just gotten another bill or a note from my mom that barely made any sense. There was an outside chance I got an obnoxious forwarded joke, but that was remote, thanks to spam filters.
What actually appeared was the last thing in the world I expected.
“RE: PAINTING 339-A SOLD,” read the subject line.
I had to read it again, and then a third time, to make sure I wasn’t either drunk or hallucinating. The glass and a half of wine I’d gulped were enough to make my thinking get a little slower, but not enough to imagine an email.
I clicked the link, honestly unable to remember which one painting 339-A actually was. It was a nice, if somewhat unremarkable portrait I’d done about six months before of my favorite half-hidden lake with the paintbrush flowers in full bloom.
And then, I noticed the price. “Twelve hundred dollars?”
I read it again. “Twelve?” I asked my phone. “One thousand, two hundred dollars? How did... why?”
Suddenly, my head started to throb. Not in a bad, headachy way, though. In a disbelieving, astonished, stupefied way. Someone bought one of my paintings? For more than a thousand dollars? I blinked, hard, and then pinched the bridge of my nose.
I’d sold a couple before, but little cheapies people bought to show they supported local artists. But twelve hundred bucks?
When life happens, it happens in a pour, huh? Never one nice thing, and then when you figure out how to get over that good thing, something else.
Of course, the fact that I had to try and figure out how to ‘get over’ selling a painting to keep myself from freaking out is probably more telling than I wish it was.
“Doesn’t matter,” I told myself. “Not right now. Nothing does except getting myself cleaned up and figuring out what to do with this painting.” I wanted to cover it, but then again, oil paint doesn’t do so well when you throw a rag over it while it’s drying. “I can’t let the guy I’m apparently crushing on like a High School mascot know that I’m painting pictures of him. That’s a level of crazy I don’t think I can handle getting out into the world.”
As carefully as I possibly could, I wrapped one hand around the base of my easel and used the other to balance the painting.
“Slow,” I chanted to myself. “Easy, easy... take it easy... take it...”
I really wish I had my tail right about now, I thought. It’s a hell of a thing for a raccoon to have trouble walking, talking and chewing gum at the same time, but especially when I think about the wild things I can do when I’m shifted.
When I’m...
Balancing the teetering-tottering painting in my hands, I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on my tail. I’d done it plenty of times.
Just the tail, I thought with a giggle. Just gonna use the tail, baby.
I felt a tickle on my backbone, and a little bit of soft, fluffy fur pushed out of me. Almost instantly, my precarious grip on the earth righted itself. I really should just keep this thing out all the time. I wonder why I have such weird balance problems without it? Probably had inner ear infections as a kid.
A second later, my concentration broke, and I almost dropped the easel and the painting in a heap on the floor. Thankfully I managed to catch it, but not before one of my paintbrushes fell off the stand.
Without even thinking about it, I shot out a foot and grabbed the falling brush between two bare toes.
I took a long, slow breath, at one pleased with my dexterity while at the same time a little horrified at the situation I’d gotten into. I took account of exactly what I had – one easel and one painting in my hands, one paintbrush between my second and third toes, and...
A motorcycle thrummed, throbbed and shut off in the parking lot. I heard a smooth metallic sound, and then the metal beast relaxed on the kickstand. The shocks squeaked a little when the weight left the seat. I didn’t know, but I knew.
“What am I gonna do?” I asked myself. I clenched my toes and twisted my foot just a little trying to balance the paintbrush on the arm of my couch.
“Just about... so... close...”
As my toes inched closer, I felt the incredibly slight relief in weight as the brush’s aged wooden handle started to slide onto the couch, but then, just as I was about to release it, two huge thumps on my door startled me.
“Oh God!” I cried out, maybe a little dramatically, but it’s damn hard to be reasonable when you’re barely holding onto earth. “I can’t... Ah!”
Like Superman pounding through the side of a building, Rex swung the door open – thankfully he thought better than bashing through my drywall – rushed into the room and plucked me out of mid-air.
Breathing hard, I blushed deeply. I looked down, wiggled my toes, and took the brush from between them. Somehow I’d managed to avoid getting the floor all painted up. It’s the small victories sometimes.
Without looking at the painting, he took it from me, set the easel on the ground with surprising gentleness, and replaced the portrait before turning his attention back in my direction.
“You almost... Hell, actually I don’t know what you almost did, but I’m glad I got here when I did. Although,” he kind of screwed up his face in an insanely cute way, “I don’t even know what happened to get you into this mess.”
That was when I realized his forearm was still around the small of my back, and heat from his legs – and what was between them –
caressed my stomach. I looked up into his eyes and just got lost for a long, comfortable second.
“I was painting,” I offered lamely, “and, uh, I guess I fell over.”
“I can see that,” Rex said. His voice was deep and rumbling, and made me feel really good in all the right places. Maybe it was the wrong places, or maybe it was just places I didn’t expect to start feeling good in right then, because before I knew it, my knees were getting a little weak. “You okay?” he asked, cradling me in his arms and just staring down at me.
The warmth from his eyes melted the coldest parts of my soul – and there are some really cold parts of my soul. This close to him, I could see that deep in his eyes there were flecks of gold along with the amber brown, and the tattoos around his eyes were more intricate than I ever thought.
Then there were the scars on his neck – two big, thick scars that had gone white with age, but were still easily visible. He didn’t try to hide them though, the t-shirt he wore had a v-shaped collar, and the light dusting of hair underneath was basically the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
Unconsciously, I lifted my hand and touched his collarbone, letting one of my fingers trail along the bone.
“What’s this?” I asked, pretending that I was just brushing my fingertips along his chest to ask what his dog tags were.
“Dog tags,” he said softly. Even soft though, his voice had a tight, almost wild passion to it, like he was trying to keep himself calm. The strain in his voice and the way his arms flexed and he held me tight... it all made me think really naughty things. “Want to see them?”
I nodded. There’s something else I’d rather see, I was thinking, but oh my God I’d never say that. Not in a million years. “There’s something else I’d rather see,” I said out loud before I could shut myself up.
He cocked an eyebrow.
Think, think, think, quick!
“You have, uh, really strong, er, arms,” I said, not even convincing myself. “Uh... thanks for catching me?”
I wanted him to kiss me.
Like, this is huge for me. I don’t get close to people. I don’t let them in, I don’t deal with them. I just shut them out and put up a wall and make some snarky jokes and push them away when they get too close. I can’t deal with feeling close to people because what if... what if they leave me? What if they end up finding somewhere better to be, or—
That, on top of my lingering fears about my own ability to be of much use to anyone, made a big, uncomfortable wad in my stomach. But, before I could think too much about all that, I got the surprise of a lifetime.
Rex pushing his lips against mine, then forcing them apart so he could kiss me deeper and deeper made my head go backward. My entire body went limp in his arms for a second before I wrapped my arms around his neck and then touched the side of his face.
I urged him to do it again, biting at his lip and tugging at his head until he did. The second time I tasted him, his tongue swirled gently against mine before he hooked his tongue against my lip, exploring every nook and line and crack. His whole body shook with a rumbled sigh, and before I knew it, he was pulling away.
“No,” I whimpered. “Why did you stop?”
I couldn’t believe the things coming out of my mouth. Of course, I also couldn’t believe that I’d painted a picture of him in my spare time.
There was stubble on either of his cheeks, small and raspy. When I ran my fingertips over it, thrills shot through me. “Are you okay?” I asked.
I craned my neck and managed to peck him on the neck, between the scars, and then on the underside of his jaw. He let out another soft, rumbling groan as I did, and then he grabbed my head in both of his hands and forced me to look straight into his burning, smoldering eyes.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you for two weeks and two days, Lilah,” Rex said.
His urgency, his hunger to kiss me again was palpable. Every word that dripped off his lips was really saying ‘I wish I was inside you right now, I wish we were one’ but just like I couldn’t ever say things like that, something in him obviously stopped him short. I felt him swell against my belly, a stir in those hard, tight jeans of his made me slightly dizzy.
“You’ve done something to me,” he said. “Something wonderful, something... I never thought I’d feel again. Something I wasn’t sure I could handle.”
“But my heart couldn’t take it if you left,” I whispered. “I’ve never trusted anyone before, not really, not except my parents and my sister... and even then sometimes I have questions.”
He shook his huge head, and then pushed my white lock behind my ear.
Oh God, I forgot my bandana. It was like a fist had slammed into my stomach. I can’t believe he saw it, but... he saw it before, too, so...
“Don’t be so nervous,” Rex said, smoothly stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. “We all have our scars.”
As if to distract himself, he reached into his pocket and pulled out two things – the bandana I wrapped my phone number in, and a twenty. “For the burgers,” he said, grinning. “And I figure I should give this back to you.”
I smiled, blushing slightly. “Keep it,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of bandanas.”
“What about the money?” he asked, reaching past me and setting the twenty on the arm of the couch. “I told you I’d pay for those burgers.”
I bit my lip, digging one of my teeth in hard enough to keep from fixating on the growing bulge against my stomach.
The hand on my back slid down just a bit, just relaxing a little. “Is that a tail?” he asked, grinning slightly. For once in my life I was glad I was a little awkward. This got real hot and real heavy real fast.
I totally forgot about the whole tail thing.
“Balance,” I whispered into his ear as I kissed him again, inhaling the fading scent of his spicy, leathery cologne that was mixed with road dust and the smell of the forest. “I dropped some stuff, and, well, you saw the result.”
“Seems pretty useful,” he whispered, curling his fingertips around the base of my tail and then trailing them up my back, underneath my shirt. “The rest of you isn’t as furry as that tail.”
“Not right now, anyway,” I said, blushing even as I did. My different colored eyes were twinkling – it’s this feeling I get when it happens, like there is a herd of monarchs in my stomach, but also I get this flush of, call it confidence, for lack of a better word.
“Your eyes,” Rex said as he stroked my face. “They’re like diamonds, with sparkling fires in the center. I can’t stop staring at them.”
My eyes, along with my white streak, had always been sore spots for me. But somehow, he seemed to like the things about myself I always hated. Being with him was like inhaling a drug that made my heart soar.
Aimlessly, his fingers stroked my back, from my bra strap to the top of my paint-soaked jeans. Suddenly, the paint wasn’t the only thing wet about me. I bit my lip, trying to keep from screaming out in a mixture of agony and ecstasy how good he was making me feel. Apparently, biting my lip is exactly what he liked.
“Everything about you,” he whispered in a way that made my heart skip a beat. “I just can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to hold you, to kiss you, to...”
“Oh yeah?” I whispered, cutting him off before he could say anything that would get me even more worked up. I did not need that.
Okay, okay, maybe I did. Maybe that’s the one thing in the world I really needed more than anything else, but still, I had my dignity to consider. Then again, when you’re talking about a gorgeous bear’s hands curling on your back, when you’re talking about a growing thickness in his jeans pressing against your fluffier-than-it-should-be stomach?
Before I knew what I was doing, I let my legs fall slightly apart, and I shuddered as I relaxed my knees and felt the hard denim grinding against my most sensitive place. I looked up into Rex’s face, half expecting to see him angry or at least put-out at my over-eagerness, but he w
as just watching me, his mouth with those beautifully full lips, slightly open.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, like he was admitting something to himself as much as he was saying it to me. “This is where I want to be. With you. Right here with you, nowhere else.”
He pushed his leg hard between mine, and drew a gasp from my parted lips. “Me too,” I whispered. “I don’t know what you did to me, but when you were in jail the other night and you put your hand on top of mine, I felt a spark shoot between us. At first I thought I was going crazy, but then I realized that maybe, this is just how it feels for normal people when they—”
“Normal,” he said with a little chuckle as he ran his hand back down to my tail and tickled all the way down. “Who needs normal?”
In one smooth motion, the hand that had been playing with my tail slid around to the front of me, and hesitated on my button fly.
There was something behind his gaze that made me stop. Okay, to be honest, it made me slow down a little. I doubt a volcano could have made me stop completely. I slowly kept sliding up and down that huge, muscled thigh and waiting for something – anything – to happen.
“Nobody needs normal,” I said, managing a smile even though all I wanted to do was bend my knees and get one of those huge fingers...
“Is this okay?” Rex asked. “I don’t want to rush you if this—”
To answer him, I grabbed his giant hand and undid the button on my fly with his fingers. Then I slid it down, inside my jeans so that the heat from his palm cupped against my aching sex. “I don’t do things like this,” I admitted. “But I’ve wanted you to do them to me ever since I saw you for the first time, and I have no idea why.”
My voice went from speaking to a soft groan when he turned his hand and slowly stroked either side of my softest skin. Down one side, up the other, my wet heat filled his palm, and he smiled, then bent his knees and sucked a kiss right behind my ear.
