by Red, Lynn
Seven
“Oh,” I said, rolling over and feeling a muscular chest under my elbow that immediately got me smiling. “Good morning.”
A smile stretched across my face. I sorta expected him to be gone again, but waking up in Damon’s arms was everything I ever wanted. Him and me, just like this, is how every day should start.
And maybe someday, this is how everyday will start. But right then, there were other things to think about.
At least, other things were on my mind until I kissed Damon, intending to bid him a silent goodbye and leave him sleeping. But he opened those blazing eyes, and right that second, he had me.
“Long night?” I asked. He had bags under his eyes that made him look a lot more tired than he probably was.
“Oh God,” he said, groaning. “How did you know?”
With his normal, effortless way, he draped his fingers across the bare skin on my side. Little goosebumps followed the soft sweeps of his fingertips.
I smiled and craned my neck a little to kiss Damon’s slightly-scraggly neck. “I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone,” I said.
Sliding one arm underneath his massive body and another around his waist, I pulled myself close to Damon’s burning hot skin and threw a leg around him. A charge shot through me, electrifying my nerves, as his heat caressed my deepest places.
“And…”
“And?” he asked, tilting my face to his and kissing my cheek, then my neck, then sucking my bottom lip gently between his teeth. “And what?”
Damon pushed his hips against me. The pressure drove a whispered sigh out of me that ended with a shudder when he moved between my legs. “And,” I breathed. “There’s dirt on your neck.”
He smiled wide, flipped me over onto my back, and propped his elbows on either side of me in one smooth motion. I drew my legs around him, letting the size of him caress my sex when I pushed against his weight with my hips.
“I missed you,” he said. “It was only a few hours, but I missed you.”
There was a little tightness in his voice, and when I rested my hand on one of his shoulders, Damon winced.
“Another fight? I thought you said…”
He shook his head. “Not a fight. Well, not a real one. There was a fight, yes, but it was just them testing me. Making sure I was strong enough to be Alpha.”
The idea of Damon, rock hard with muscle, fighting off other werewolves got me burning up inside. I reached down between us and felt him in my hand with slow, patient strokes. “Are you okay? That bruise looks pretty awful.”
In the sparse morning light, I could just barely make out a purple ring around a much deeper bruise where I’d accidentally touched his shoulder. He lay down on me for a moment, then pushed up on his hands and stared straight into my eyes, straight into my soul.
“Do you know what I thought about?” he lowered his head and kissed my neck on either side, softly at first, then sucked a little harder. “In the middle of the scrub trees, the thorn bushes. With three wolves on me, and voices in my head telling me what to do, do you know what I thought about to keep myself from being scared?”
He’s about to say what I think he’s going to say and it’s gonna make me go one-hundred percent crazy.
I shook my head no and bit my lip, arching my back to invite Damon to paint more of those slow, hot circles on my neck with his tongue.
“I asked you a question,” he said softly, then dragged his tongue down the front of my neck to my collarbones where he kissed again. “You gotta guess; that’s how this works.”
I grabbed the back of Damon’s head, tangling my fingers in his beautiful black hair and held him against me. His growing thickness against my sweetest place had me absolutely aching for him, but it felt good to go slowly for once.
“I don’t know,” I said with a soft laugh. “Not getting killed?”
One hand went down my chest, along the line of my body, and slid underneath my panties. He cupped his hand between my legs. Kneading his fingers against my silk, Damon pressed his lips to mine. For the space of a breath, our whole beings slid together, joined as one, and then he swirled his tongue against mine. The scent of him, of his wild strength and the vague remnants of dust and sweat filled my nose.
“You,” he whispered, as he pulled away, sucking a kiss off my bottom lip. “When I was at my most scared, when I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, the one thing that kept me going and kept me strong…”
“Was me? I did that for you?”
Slipping the hand between us off of Damon’s heat, I pushed my panties aside and guided him in with a soft gasp. “I made you feel strong?”
He smiled, slowly filling me with his thickness. “Every thought I had,” he said, “every single thing going through my mind.”
I tilted my hips, inviting him deeper, until he was all the way in.
His heart pounded so hard that I felt it echoing through me. The gentle rise and fall of his chest against mine, and Damon’s hands caressing my skin, it was so good, so pure, and had me aching to say a million things at once.
But somehow, just moving my hips against him, locking my ankles around his waist, and feeling our bodies move together had more meaning than all those words running through my mind.
Damon thrust, forcing my grasp to fall from his hair, and I curled my fingers against his thickly muscled back.
“This was all I thought about,” he moaned. “This, being here, with you, Lily.”
I constricted around him. The tiny muscles deep inside me didn’t want to let him go. Every inch of my body wanted him, needed him. I yearned to have my Damon right there forever. No more running, no more fights in the middle of the night, this is where we were supposed to be.
The next time he pushed hard into my sex, a surge crept up my back. One after another my muscles squeezed, milking him up and down.
I watched his face, the tiny contortions of pleasure as he moved deeper and pulled away then pulled back; the fluttering of his eyelids as he started to flirt with giving himself up to the pleasure. I loved watching his face in those moments where he didn’t know I was looking. In those private moments when it was just me and him, his Alpha gruffness and hardness fell away.
When he finally opened those eyes, Damon’s warm, safe, blissed gaze melted me to the core.
All of a sudden, just watching him and feeling the ways he made me feel wasn’t enough.
“Get off me,” I said laughing.
He cocked his head, and I pushed. “Let me on top,” I said. “You’re the one who’s hurt. You shouldn’t do all the work.”
Slowly, he stopped moving, and I managed to ease him onto his back. Without letting him leave me, I climbed up and took a breath as I relaxed, letting Damon’s girth stretch every inch of me.
His hands on my lower back held me steady as I rocked back and forth, taking him as deep as I could.
“I can’t… I can’t take much more,” I said. I wished it wasn’t true, but I wanted him so badly that my desire wasn’t going to allow me the luxury of going slow. “I wish I could but… but…”
Damon held me close and drove against me, sending a wave of ecstasy up my back that made my scalp tingle and contract.
“Then don’t hold back,” he said. “Breathe with me, feel me move in you.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but I heard the desperate pleasure on his lips. “Kiss me, come here and kiss me.”
As I went forward, he thrust again, slamming in harder than he ever had before. The husky, unrelenting hunger in his voice almost scared me, but at the same time, his almost uncontrollable, savage lust made me want him to ravish me, to do whatever he wanted.
I fell forward on his chest. His hands on my back, his lips on my neck, it was all too much.
“Oh my God you feel so good,” I gasped. “I needed this so bad, Damon, you have no idea.”
He began to shake. I knew what that meant.
“Let me watch you,” I whispered, reachi
ng behind my back and taking one of his hands and then the other. “I want to watch your face when you…”
Without even thinking about it, I intertwined my fingers with his and pushed his hands, palm-up, into the mattress as I ground down against him. Tendrils of pleasure spread out from my center, wrapped around my sides and prickled my skin as a flush crept from my belly to my neck.
“Close your eyes,” I whispered, right next to Damon’s ear. “Close your eyes and let me take you away.”
He did what I said, leaning his head back against the pillows as I felt him tighten underneath me. A drop of sweat ran from my forehead to my neck, down between my breasts before it soaked into the top of my pushed-aside panties. He grabbed me, squeezing, kneading my lower back, and before I knew it, a wave crashed into my stomach.
“I can’t… I can’t hold on,” I said. “I’m trembling, I’m… oh God Damon, I needed this more than you could ever know.”
He shook his head as his body trembled inside me. “I needed you exactly as bad.”
I fell on his chest and he wrapped his huge arms around me, holding me tight as I quaked. As tremors, little tiny previews of the release I knew was coming soon, coursed through me, his swell held us together and took the breath right out of my lungs. I clenched my teeth and held my breath until it burned as my whole body pulsed in time with his release.
Our bodies for a moment became one, our souls breathed together, in and out, the pleasure he gave me a revelation. Just like I wanted, I saw Damon’s eyes roll back and forth under his lids, watched him clench his jaws, then open his mouth as his climax washed over him at exactly the same time mine did me.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Stay right there, with me inside you, warm and safe and… everything’s right. Everything is perfect right now, in this moment. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” I said. “For as long as I can help it, this is exactly where I want to be.”
*
Getting dressed took a lot longer than it normally did since Damon kept pulling me back to bed. Time after time, he held me, kissed me, tickled my skin with the tips of his fingers, and one last time, took me all the way.
Even though I had plenty to do, I really didn’t mind the delay.
When I finally managed to get Damon out of the bed and into some reasonable looking clothes, he didn’t seem like his normal self.
“Is something wrong? I mean, aside from you moping over being forced out of bed?” I kissed the tip of his nose. “You look worried.”
He shook his head. “It’s… everything is starting to get to me. I don’t know which direction is up.”
“Using me as a distraction, huh?” I grinned.
He answered with a nod.
Damon held me for a second longer and gave me another sweet, deep, lingering kiss.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said.
“I can’t remember,” he said. “Something was… yeah.”
“You get hit in the head a couple times in that rumble last night? Are you sure you’re okay?”
I’d watched him heal from broken bones. I’d seen cuts on his body so deep they had flaps hanging down meld right back together. But I wasn’t sure how that would work for a concussion. Although, given how many fights he’d been in just in the past couple of months, he must’ve had one at some point.
Damon sat back down on the bed with a grunt. Okay, that wasn’t like him at all.
“You stay right there,” I said, frowning.
Like I needed to say that. Suddenly, this look came over Damon’s face like he was in a trance. He started kinda wobbling back and forth, never really focusing his eyes on anything. I stuck a finger in front of his face.
“Focus on this.”
“It’s kinda wobbling. Waves going through my vision. What are you doing?” he asked, clearly grouchy.
“I saw it on TV. Look, just focus. I’m seeing if you have a concussion.”
Damon scoffed. “Concussion? What do you think I am? Get serious.”
“Uh… sorry? You’re wobbling back and forth and unless you’re just being a prick, you can’t focus on my finger. Does your head hurt?”
“No!” he shouted, then immediately recoiled. “No! It doesn’t hurt! Jesus, why are you acting like my mom?”
That’s when I noticed that the color in his eyes was a little different. What were usually gray shocks in a sea of green seemed a little darker than usual. It might’ve been a trick in my mind or it might’ve just been that I wanted to find something different so I could convince myself he wasn’t in his right mind.
I don’t think I could deal with him actually being this moody… well, ever.
“Okay,” I said, putting my hands up and stepping back. “Sorry I was hovering. You’re right.”
I was willing to say just about anything to get him to calm down a little, and that seemed to do it. But even so, I noticed behind his ear there was something that looked a little bit like a bruise.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“You’re probably just exhausted,” I said. “Hunter said those night runs can really sap your energy. Plus, with a fight and all that? Get some rest, okay? I’ve got to get to town, got some stuff to look up at the courthouse.”
I bent over and kissed the top of his head. He jerked away a little, but then, like he knew he was supposed to let me kiss him, he relaxed.
Something was very, very obviously not right.
“I’m going to go to the courthouse, all right? Hunter said I could borrow his car if he was gone, and… judging from the lack of crashing around and heavy stepping, I’m guessing he’s gone.”
Damon nodded. “He was…”
I waited for him to finish, but he never did. He was right on the verge of saying something, but it looked like there was a war going on inside Damon’s skull.
“You’re sure everything is okay?” I couldn’t help asking again.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten snappy. I’m just confused. It’s like I’m missing time, like I can remember sort of where I was, and then I have this fleeting feeling like there was something I was going to tell you, but…”
No alien abduction jokes. Just don’t, not this time.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Whatever it is, you’ll remember, right? At least you will if it’s important.”
I kissed him again. That time he just smiled. He tilted his face up and looked at me with almost a scared tenderness that damn near melted my heart. I wanted to help him, I wanted to make everything better – but I didn’t even know if anything was wrong.
Chewing softly on my lip, I crouched down and hugged him tight.
As soon as his arms were around me, and I was wrapped up, safe with him, I realized I was doing it as much to calm myself as I was to make him feel better.
“I’ll be back this afternoon, okay?” I said as I stood and turned toward the door. As much as I didn’t want to go, I had to. I knew I was close to something, and if I could figure something out about the murders, it might help Damon relax some too.
Damon nodded and stared at the ground, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere underneath the house. I could see him trying to concentrate, trying to remember.
“Be safe,” he said. “There’s something, I just can’t…” He shook his head.
Last I saw, he had started rocking almost imperceptibly again, back and forth, on the foot of the bed.
Just tired. He’s just tired. Everything’s fine.
As I turned on Hunter’s car and started toward town, the only thing going through my mind was his blank stare, and whatever warning it was he tried to give me, dangling on the tip of his tongue.
What on earth could it be?
After all, I was just going to read some newspapers.
Eight
I checked in with Carrell, who was especially twitchy that morning, and put in my first document requests, but Damon was the first thing in my mind. N
o amount of rifling through old newspapers, or taking notes about gruesome – but long since released for public consumption – crime scene photographs did anything to distract me from the way he’d been shaking.
He wanted to tell me something. Wanted to warn me of some danger, but he just couldn’t. Something stopped him…
“Miss Kyle?” Carrell glided up beside me, surprising me with a box of junk that he dropped on the table. “Will there be anything else?”
I looked over at the notebook where I wrote all the box numbers I needed, and for a second, the words to describe the numbers wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
Carrell wrung his hands. Of course he wrung his hands. When I looked up at him to answer, he started licking his lips, and I just stared.
“Miss Kyle? Are you okay?” he asked, startling me.
“Oh,” I sucked a breath. “Sorry, what?”
“Were there any other materials you needed? For your… research?”
I turned the box he brought me to look at the cataloguing number on the side. I traced my finger along the tabulated list of tag numbers in my notebook to see what I had. The numbers didn’t match.
Although, the one he brought was one digit off from one I did request. The one I wanted was listed as “Murder Stories, 1956-1956” but that wasn’t what sat in front of me. Instead of a box full of newspaper articles and court proceedings from murder trials, I was presented with a plastic filing box full of old Sears Roebuck & Co. catalogs.
They’re old at least, they say Roebuck.
“I don’t think…” My voice hitched in my throat. I don’t know what it was, but a little tingle in the back of my head told me not to say anything more.
“Actually yes, sorry to be such a bother.” I giggled in my most harmless, clueless sounding way. “I’m such a ditz sometimes. Could you bring me this one? And… this one too?”
The idea ran through my mind that maybe – just maybe – there was a reason he brought the wrong box. Carrell’s demeanor, his stiff posture and his overly polite manner wasn’t how a careless person acted. It was how a person who is constantly aware of themselves behaves.
One digit off. If it was from the other side of the shelf, I’d understand, but no, this is just too much of a coincidence.
