“Ask me to stay,” he pleaded suddenly. “I want to sleep with your skin against mine. Just sleep, Lia,” he added, softly. “Just sleep.”
Oh god, she thought. She wanted nothing more than to sleep again with his body curled around hers, skin to skin. Unwise, Cecelia, she told herself. The more she caved to her cravings, the more likely she would cave entirely, and she had yet to find the answer to contraceptives.
“Alright,” she decided anyway, the desire simply too great to resist. “Yes.”
He rested his forehead against hers, his golden-brown eyes holding hers. “Thank you.”
They brought the helmets in with them, and as she closed the front door and turned the deadbolt into place, she wondered at the change that had taken place in just twenty-four hours. “I never do this,” she admitted. “I never bring men home.”
He was examining the china dolls in an old display case and looked up as she spoke. “I know,” he said quietly. “And I appreciate you trusting me, Lia.”
She drew in a deep breath and edged around the case to open her door. “This is my room.” She had a fleeting worry that despite her normal habits, the room would somehow be a mess, with something embarrassing left out in the open for him to see. She glanced around hastily to check but could see nothing out of place. She stepped in and pushed the top drawer of her bedside table to make sure it was closed. She did not want Raiden peeking in on her vibrator.
His smile was quick and bright as he followed her into the room. “Same position as mine,” he said, and closed the door behind him. The soft sound of the door closing in its frame seemed to emphasize the intimacy of having the big man in her bedroom. She knew he would hear her heart racing and be able to smell the tangle of desire and panic on her skin. “Better furnished, however,” he observed. From his tone, he was trying to put her at ease.
“Same décor,” she pointed out with an overbright smile. “Or same era, at least. This used to be my grandmother’s bedroom, so the furniture is still hers.” She took the helmets from him and put them onto the dresser, before opening the door to the en suite. “Bathroom.”
He glanced inside, and breathed in. “It smells like you,” he commented. “Roses and lilacs.”
“I probably have a spare toothbrush,” she opened a drawer and dug through the contents, embarrassed by the disarray of cosmetics. “Yes.” She put it onto the counter. “Just… give me a couple of minutes to take off my make-up and stuff.” She closed the door on him, and leaned against it, taking a deep breath. Her heart was racing, the strike of it hard against her ribs.
“Alright, Cecelia,” she whispered to herself. “Yes, you have a man in your bedroom. Don’t panic.” She removed her make up and met her own eyes, the pupils pinned, in the mirror. “Don’t panic.”
She opened the door. He had taken off his jacket, hanging it over the back of her chair and was looking at the photos pressed into the frame of her dresser mirror.
“Happy memories?” He asked her, smiling. His effort to be assuring was endearing and that her panic was so transparent to him was embarrassing. Dating a werewolf, she thought, was complicated as it stripped the ability to pretend away. Even if the werewolf did not know that she knew he was one.
“Performances and friends,” she took off her shoes and put them away in the walk-in-robe and heard the bathroom door close behind him.
She hung her coat and stripped off her garter belt and stockings. It felt brazen to undress completely, she thought, but he had said he wanted to sleep with her skin against his, and it had been nice to do so when they had napped earlier in the day…
She sighed and put her bra into the washing basket, before taking off her underwear and adding them too. She hurried to slip into the bed before he came out of the en-suite and was just under the covers when the bathroom door opened again.
He smiled at her and went into the walk-in-robe to take off his boots. She felt the heat rise in her as he pulled off his t-shirt, the muscles across his back shifting beneath the bronze of his skin. He took off his jeans and underwear without reservation, uninhibited in his own body, before joining her in the bed.
He drew her against him with a moan, burying his face into her hair and breathing in. His skin against hers was divine, she thought, her body immediately craving more from him. She turned to face him, and he met her lips with his as she slid her hands down his chest and stomach, through the crisp hair that curled over his pubis, and closed around him. He groaned into her mouth.
“I’ve never done this before,” she whispered and slid down his body.
He rolled complicitly onto his back, the muscles in his stomach standing out against his skin as he exhaled, trying to control himself, hard and straining with his desire. She touched her tongue to the tip of him experimentally, and he dragged in his breath on a moan. Emboldened she took him into her mouth, and felt his fingers close in her hair. She dragged her tongue up the length of him and felt his hips twitch, and then closed her mouth over him taking him to the point of gagging before withdrawing and repeating.
“Oh, f-k,” he whispered, his eyes closing. He swallowed hard. “Oh, god, Lia, that’s ah, very good.”
She experimented, using his reactions as a guide, learning what gave him pleasure, watching his face slacken as he became lost in the sensation of her mouth over him, one hand fisting in the sheet, and his head thrown back exposing the column of his throat.
“Lia,” he said breathlessly. “I’m…”
She felt the change in him, and he arched up, crying out as he came, his breath sobbed in. She released him when she was sure that he was done and looked up the line of his body. His eyes were closed and his face relaxed. There were beads of sweat on his brow, and along the central line of his stomach. She pressed a kiss to his hip bone, tasting the salt on his skin.
He opened his eyes. “My turn,” he said, and reached down dragging her up to the pillows, and then leaning over to kiss her.
He kissed across her cheek to the point below her ear where her pulse raced and trailed his tongue over the skin of her throat. He tasted the point of each breast, before working his way down her sternum, down the center line of her stomach and she cried out as his mouth closed over her. She had not imagined that it would feel so good.
Like her, he experimented, testing her reaction, until he found what made her clench her hands in his hair, and sob out broken words of ecstasy. She fought against her orgasm, enjoying the experience of his mouth on her, until it overpowered her.
He was laughing as he lifted over her and kissed her again.
“Wow,” she sighed, her body heavy with release, stroking his hair back from his face where the dark curls hung in his eyes.
“Yes,” he chuckled, and made himself comfortable against her, easing his arm under her head so that he cheek rested on his bicep and her back against his chest. He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “Wow.”
She threaded her fingers in his, feeing the callouses on his palms and fingertips and wondering what had caused them. “I didn’t want you to go, tonight.”
His arm tightened over her. “Good.”
She woke late in the morning and enjoyed the feel of him against her. She could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest against her back, and the drift of his breath against her skin. She lay on the edge of sleep, lulled by the rhythm of his body.
His phone rang, and he groaned kissing her shoulder before rolling out of the bed to find his phone in his jacket pocket. She rolled over in order to watch him. In the soft light through the claw-holes in the curtains, he was beautiful in his dishevelment, his body the perfection of man, his movements hinting at his Other nature in their grace and sleek surety.
“Yeah?” He sat back on the edge of the bed. She heard a woman’s voice rising and falling, the tone cheerful and teasing. “Well, I was asleep,” he replied with an edge of laughter, the emphasis on the word was. “Late night, yes… Alright, I can do that. Send the list to me. It will give Lia a chance to get ready without me hanging around, anyway… Mhm… I will let her know. Love you too.”
He put the phone back into his pocket and rolled back onto the bed, wrapping himself around her and burrowing into her hair to press his lips against her cheek. “I have to go, pick up some things for the barbecue. My mother says to tell you it is casual, so wear jeans and sneakers.”
“I should bring something,” she realized, flustered by the thought of meeting his family.
“No, you shouldn’t,” he kissed her cheek again. “Just yourself. I’ll be back in two hours.” He rolled off the bed and went into the walk-in-robe to retrieve his clothing. She sat up in the bed, holding the covers to her chest, in order to see him, enjoying the way his muscles moved as he pulled on his t-shirt.
“You told your mum that you stayed here,” she was immediately embarrassed, realizing.
He paused in the process of stepping into his boots and looked at her over his shoulder, detecting the increase in her heartbeat. “We’re both adults, Lia,” he said mildly. “There’s nothing to hide.”
“I know, it’s just… Well, she would know that we only met Friday, and…”
He laughed, his teeth flashing white against his skin, and he grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on. “People do that, too, Lia,” he pointed out unbothered. “It’s not the nineteen fifties.”
She flushed. “I guess, I was raised by my grandmother, so I’m a bit…”
He leaned over the bed and kissed her. “I know, and I enjoy that about you,” he said warmly before straightening. “Jeans and sneakers, alright? It’s just a casual get together. Nothing to worry about.”
“Alright,” she lay back down in a bed that felt odd for his absence.
He picked up the helmets as he opened the bedroom door and grinned at her. “I liked waking up next to you, Lia. I’d like to do it again tomorrow.” He closed the door behind him before she could speak.
“Wow,” she whispered into the room. She had liked waking next to him, too.
She showered and rifled through her wardrobe looking for something appropriate. She ended up putting on the suggested pair of jeans, and a white v necked t-shirt. She left her hair down – she suspected she would be wearing a bike helmet, so anything else was a waste of time – and put on minimal make up, before grabbing up a jumper in case the weather turned.