Clearer in the Night (39 page)

“No,” he said. “It’s not that, I promise. I just…I’m going to go in my jeans like a kid if we don’t slow down. It has been a very long time, and that is not how this ends.” He placed another kiss in the center of my cleavage. “I don’t want to…we can stop at any point, okay? Stop entirely, or declare that we go no further. At any point. Okay? I want you to be comfortable.”

Tears in my eyes. Foolish, stupid tears. “Yeah,” I said. “Very okay.”

“Do you want to move this to the bedroom?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. I backed off him, and let him take me by the hand through a door in the other side of the room.

The bedroom was small, and tidy. The bed was a mattress in a box frame that was just far enough off the floor to have a few drawers underneath. The blankets were plain, but they looked warm. There weren’t any piles of dirty laundry, and the sheets were neatly tucked in under the foot of the bed.

He sat down and brought me gently between his legs. I felt shy, suddenly, standing there in my bra and jeans; I crossed my arms over my bare stomach. He smiled and kissed my hands, then gently moved my arms out of the way. I let him, and he leaned in close. He studied my belly then took his fingers and lay them over the faint claw marks, following the path of the attack. My cheeks were wet, but I didn’t remember tears. “Is this where…?”

I nodded.

He leaned forward and traced his tongue over one mark, and then the next, and then the next. One hand softly stroked my ass, the other splayed over my hip. I shook and quivered in his arms and he took the pain and fear and hurt that had been balled up inside of me for the better part of a month and quietly, gently, stole it away. He took it, and put it on a shelf, where I could pick it up later, if I wanted to. But, I realized suddenly, I didn’t have to. I could leave it there and walk away. I could just be this girl, this girl full of lust and want and desire.

I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved; he went backwards, but he brought me with him, rolling me so that we were both on our sides, and he bent to my neck again, his hand finding my hard, pebbled nipple, first outside my bra, and then dipping his hand inside, lifting my small breast free. The searing pressure built inside of me, and my hips bucked at the air until he gave me his thigh, and I rode him, rode him hard, rode him without shame, and I cried out, shaking and quaking, and he captured my mouth, stealing away my sounds and swallowing them down. His fingers never stilled, never stopped, and before I was entirely done shaking the first time, he brought my nipple to his mouth, and his hand slipped down to my jeans, pressing under the waistband, and then, when I started to buck again, he slid inside, his hand a tight fit, but his finger slid into place in my soaking wet curls, and I rubbed against him maybe three times before I was screaming into his neck, wild and lost, trusting him to guide me back down to earth.

God, it had never been like this. Never in my life. Because he was waiting, waiting, enjoying me, I could feel his delight in my pleasure, feel his pride in making me explode so hard and so fast, and his desire was secondary in his mind.

I was boneless, shaking in his arms. Each little shiver brushed my swollen body against his fingers again, leaving me with aftershocks that verged on pain. When I started breathing again, he withdrew his hand and just rested his very damp fingers on my side. I caught my breath, and then reached out for him, but he dodged me gently. “You don’t have to do that,” he said again. “I am comfortable with this just being about you.” I managed to collect myself enough to give him a raised-eyebrow look. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t then go have a very long shower,” he said, smirking a bit, “but—only if you want.”

I cupped him with my hand, and was rewarded with him thrusting against my hand before he regained control of himself. “I want,” I said. “I want you inside of me.”

His eyes fixed on mine, he slid out of his jeans and his boxer briefs. I unhooked my bra, but when I went to slide my jeans off, he brushed my hands away. Slowly, impossibly slowly, he undid the button, slid the zipper down, and then gently eased them down my hips. I watched his eyes as he revealed my body to himself. He stroked his hand over my belly like he was going to bow down and worship me. He kissed my navel, then looked up at me. “No one has ever told you how beautiful you are.” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t need to answer it.

He kissed my navel again, then trailed kisses down my legs into that nest of curls that smelled of sex and satisfaction. I almost told him to stop, that it never worked for me, but when he laved over my still-swollen body, my hips came off the bed and up into his mouth as I gasped. He was electric current, and I was still shaking from the last orgasm, but as he latched onto the center of me, and then one finger, then two, slid into me, filling me, I was thrashing again, urgently, begging the air to make me wait, not so fast, slow, make it last, and he did, God, he did, slowing his pace to something that made me moan, made me clutch at his hair, made me shift and shiver against him, until he came up to me, kissing me, tasting like my sex, and his hardness was pressing at me, and I shifted my hips to bring him to where I wanted him, where I needed him, but he tore himself away at the last moment, making a face that was almost like pain. “Condom,” he gasped. “I hate myself, but we need a condom.”

I gripped him in my hand, and he looked like he might come undone from just that. “Does it really matter?”

He moved fast, slamming my hands down above my head. His face was inches from mine, and his eyes were cold again, so cold, in such hard contrast with the burning heat that lay against my core, teasing me viciously. “I have not given up on you, and I will not give up on you until such a time as you are actually cold and dead at my feet. So yes, it does matter. It matters.”

He held me there one-handed while he pulled out a drawer below us, and fumbled for a condom. I could have pushed him off me easily, I could feel the discrepancy in our strengths, but I didn’t want to. Even when he let me go to slide the condom into place, I didn’t move my hands. He noticed that and he smiled. His hands came back down over my wrists as he moved between my legs again, his heat, banked somewhat by the latex barrier, resting against my thigh. “Is this what you want?”

I had no words. I nodded.

“Do you want me to hold you down, but know that all you have to do is say, and I’ll let you go?”

My hips bucked up into him, seeking the fullness that he offered, and he teased me with just the tip. I angled my hips, trying to draw him in, but he kept away from me, his eyes laughing. “Tell me that you want me, Cait. Tell me with actual words.”

“I want you,” I said, “I want you inside of me, I want you to fill me up,” and he obliged. Thank God, he slid home into me, rocking into me. We were both on the edge, it was mere moments before he came, but the urgency and the sheer longing thankful release in his cries had me rocking against him, and as his orgasm started to fade, his fingers found my body again, and before he’d lost his hardness, I was shrieking for the third time, clenching around him, making him groan at the sensation. He slid out of me and next to me, gathering me up in his arms. When he whispered that he loved me, I tightened my arms around him, and kissed his skin.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19

We cuddled. I think we both slept for a bit. And then I woke up to his fingers sliding through the wetness he’d left behind the first time, and we started all over again. And each time, over and over, he whispered that he loved me. He didn’t care if I said it back, he wasn’t expecting any response. He just wanted me to know.

No one had ever just wanted me to know.

Eventually, sometime past midnight, there was no more sex to be had. Minds were willing, but bodies were too exhausted. We’d gotten up and eaten more chili, and at one point, we’d had a shower, but it had mostly been sex. Over and over. The room reeked of it, and we were lying in the loose circles of each other’s arms, as he gently stroked my hair. “You’re lovely,” he said. “Did I say that?”

“Once or twice,” I replied. His eyes drifted closed, then pushed open again. “It’s okay,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

“Supposed to be protecting you.” His voice was slurred, his words blurring together.

“Remember? I can protect myself.”

“No,” he said, forcing his eyes open one more time. “Nope.” He sat upright, rubbing at his eyes. “That’s not how it works. You get to sleep, I get to stand guard. That’s the deal.” He looked like the world’s largest toddler protesting that it wasn’t bedtime, and I choked back a laugh.

“How about this, then,” I said. “I’m never sleepy after sex. But if you read to me, and rub my hair, you stand a fighting chance. Sound good?”

He nodded. I slipped off the bed and grabbed my eBook out of my duffle bag. I handed it to him, and even as exhausted as he was, he managed a look of disdain as he took it in his hand. “This is not a book,” he said.

“You’re right. It’s an entire library that weighs less than any one of your journals. You want to be all alpha male, this is how you’re doing it.” He grumbled, but he knew how to open the eBook and search through the books I had on there. If I’d known that this was going to be happening, I’d have gotten rid of some of the fanfic smut and downloaded more classic literature—but at the same time, we were well past the point of hiding by now.

After a moment, a smile broke across his face. “This was one of Gran’s favorite books,” he said. He settled back against the wall, propped up on pillows, and pulled my head into his lap, his hand stroking my hair. It did feel peaceful. Kind. “There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the other side of another mountain, about halfway between its base and its peak.”

There was a long pause, and then a soft thump as the eBook hit the covers. I looked up, and he was dozing, his chin on his chest. I waited about ten minutes, letting him fall into a deeper sleep, then slipped silently out of his lap.

I’d never felt so safe, so loved, so at peace. I pulled on my jeans, my bra, my shirt. This needed to end, now. Because if he had to…take care of me himself, now, it would destroy him. I didn’t know what love even meant, but the curling warmth in the vicinity of my heart wanted to protect him, and I couldn’t do that here. I didn’t know how I’d manage it, but I’d end things myself. Somehow.

The only things I took were my phone and my wallet. There wasn’t anything else that I needed. I thought about leaving him a note, but there wasn’t anything to say. He’d understand, or he wouldn’t. He’d know I did it to protect innocents. Because even if he could end it for me, after last night, it would change him. He’d be different. And the world needed him, and people like him. I couldn’t save myself, but I could save the people he would protect after me. I could make the end of my life mean more than the beginning or the middle ever had.

I left the eBook where it had fallen on the bed. It would be a good memory of this night we’d shared. Or he’d get $50 for it. I watched him sleep for a long, silent moment. In another life, I’d lie down beside him. In another life, we’d have evenings like this one stretching out for the rest of our lives.

And then I walked out the door.

The moonlight hit me full on the face, and my skin started to crawl. I hadn’t been outside after moonrise in days, and I was stopped in my tracks by the sense that something was pacing in my ribcage, suddenly finding the space she’d been happy to occupy for weeks was too small for her liking. The girl shape that she was forced into was a world of wrong, and she knew that. She wanted the shape that could run and snap and shred.

The tiniest corner of me that was still me tried to fight back, to remember cool, still water, and gentle, urgent kisses that promised but never demanded. It kept her out of that small corner, but I couldn’t make the calm spread this time. I’d thought we’d been coexisting, and that I’d been gaining control. But she’d just been saving up her strength.

Something buzzed at her girl-hip, and she jumped, snarling when tinny music began to play. It seemed ridiculous that such a simple thing would frighten her, but still, she retreated, and I dug into my pocket to pull out my cell phone. The screen was lit up by Mom’s face. I hesitated before I swiped to pick up the call. A call this late in the evening could be nothing good. “Hi,” I said, trying to sound sleepier than I was.

“Caitie,” I heard, in a whisper that wasn’t my mother’s. “Oh, God, Caitie, he came back. I thought I got away from him, Caitie, I never thought he’d—he’s going to kill us. I was wrong, when I said I was with him that night, and he’s going to kill us. You have to hide. You have to run—”

She cut off abruptly. I heard a sharp cry, and then a scuffle. The wolf rose again in response to my rage and my fear, but I shoved her aside, hard. I’d need her later, but not now. Not yet. I needed to be a girl for just a minute longer. “Sophie?” I said. “Talk to me, are you okay? What’s happening, where are you?” These were the wrong questions, and they would kill her. I needed to ask the right questions.