by Selina Woods
I cupped her cheek with my free hand. “Neither have I.”
Giggling, she covered my hand with hers. “I really like you; you know. And it’s not just because you saved me.”
“You saved me first, remember?” I kissed her gently. “But it can wait until we know each other better.”
“No.” Perhaps growing bolder by my manner, Jae turned and tugged on my hand, drawing me to her bedroom. “Chad approves of you. If he didn’t, I never would have invited you here.”
Wondering if I had much choice in the matter, I followed Jae into the darkened bedroom. Inside, she turned to me and pulled me to her with her arms around my neck. Kissing her this time was not like the innocent kiss of last night. My passion rose, our tongues exploring one another’s mouths. I let my hands roam her back, slide down her ribs to her slender waist, then around to hold her tight ass.
Pulling her hard to me, I wanted her to feel my rising erection straining against my jeans, giving her a chance to pull away, change her mind. Jae didn’t. Instead, her pelvis ground against mine, her excitement rising with her quickening breath. I slid my hands up her back under her shirt, her silky skin under my fingers making my erection throb all the more.
Lifting her shirt, I pulled away long enough to bring it over her head and toss it aside. My mouth on hers, I unsnapped her bra and yanked that off, too. Not to be naked alone, Jae’s fingers unzipped my jeans and explored inside. I gasped at her touch, my member throbbing, aching with an almost real pain. Drawing away, I chuckled, struggling out of my jeans while trying to keep kissing her.
“This is awkward,” I muttered.
Taking the opportunity, Jae unbuttoned her pants and pulled them off, taking her panties with them. She helped me get my shirt off over my head, then we were both as naked as newborn babies. “I want to touch it,” she whispered, her hand gently enclosing my shaft.
I let her stroke up and down its hard length, her touch gentle, questing. “You’re so big.”
“Being small has its advantages,” I replied, making her giggle.
Taking her in my arms, my shaft hard against her belly, I guided her to the bed, and we both fell on it, the springs squeaking in protest. Eager to shove myself into her, I forced myself to go slow. Leaning over her, I kissed her, my tongue tangled with hers. I caressed down her taut belly and inserted my finger into her warm wet mound.
Jae gasped against my mouth, and I withdrew immediately. “Want me to stop?”
“No. It just—felt so good.”
I probed again, toying with her, driving her into arousal. Wet gushed over my fingers, and though I had never experienced sex before, I’d been told a woman needed moisture inside her so the male wouldn’t hurt her. Now I realized how easily I could by taking her too soon.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered, nuzzling her throat.
“Just be gentle,” she murmured, her lips against my cheek. “Go slow.”
I did. Rolling on top of her, I spread her legs, pushing my shaft at the entrance of her mound. Jae moaned, her knees lifting, spreading further to invite me. I pushed in only a little way, my sensitive rod craving more, hard, fast. Her wet opening was so tempting, it was difficult to not drive in all the way. Not giving in to temptation, I thrust in with tiny jerks of my hips, slowly spreading her open.
“More,” Jae muttered thickly. Her nails dug into my back and neck. “More.”
Driving in a little deeper, I gasped. The incredible pleasure of her tightness around my length, I pulled out to push in again, going in further. Her tunnel accepted my slow invasion, her wetness giving my member the lubrication necessary to glide in deeper.
Then I burst through, broke her tissue, and she was no longer a virgin.
Nor was I.
Pulling back out, I thrust in faster and deeper, my breath coming in hard gasps. “Am I—hurting you?”
“No. Don’t stop.”
Plunging into her, I felt my climax drift in close, the pressure building in my loins. Out of control, I knew I would explode, but I had no experience in how to drag it out, to bring her pleasure before I blasted my seed into her. Perhaps I didn’t have to worry, as Jae’s fingers dug hard into my shoulders, and she cried out, her hot breath in my ear. Her nest clamped down on my erection like a vise.
Still pumping, I knew I was close. Unable to stop it, I groaned, my body shuddering as my rod spasmed, spurting my seed into her. Thrusting a few more times, I relaxed on top of her, panting. “I’m sorry. I lost it too soon.”
Jae kissed my neck. “You didn’t.”
Worried that my weight might hurt her, I rolled off of her, my now limp shaft pulling from her. Jae got up, and for a minute, I thought she was unhappy with me. “Jae?”
“Get up. We need to get the covers over us. It’s cold.”
With the blankets pulled over us, Jae snuggled against me, her head on my shoulder. Her fingers played with the few hairs I had on my chest. “I expected the first time to hurt,” she murmured.
“I tried not to.”
“Declan, stop worrying. You didn’t. I had the most incredible experience.” Lifting her head, Jae leaned over and kissed me. “Thank you.”
My arm around her neck, I refused to let her go until I could let her witness the sweet gift she had given me. Kissing her long and deeply, I wondered if two days was enough to fall in love. “You are very special, Jae,” I murmured against her cheek.
“You are, too.”
Enfolding her in my arms, I held her close, and her soft breathing that informed me she had fallen asleep. Gazing into the darkness, listening to the blizzard howl around the eaves, I knew that even if two days wasn’t enough to fall in love, I was well on my way.
Chapter Five
When I woke, I was alone in bed, and the wind howled outside the window. A quick glance showed me the blizzard still in full force, reassuring me that Jae and I were in little danger of Raphael’s goons. At least for now. Yawning, I stretched, luxuriating in waking in a real bed, with sheets and blankets, and the sound of soft singing coming from the kitchen.
“How did I get so lucky?” I muttered, climbing from the bed.
Shoving my legs into my jeans, I padded barefoot and shirtless into the kitchen, unable to halt another enormous yawn from cracking my jaws. Jae looked up from frying something that smelled awfully good. “I’d say good morning, but it’s afternoon now.”
She had showered, and her damp hair spilled down her back. Putting my arms around her waist from the back, I nuzzled her neck, breathing in her fresh, clean scent. “What’s for lunch?” I inquired, kissing her cheek, then resting my chin on her shoulder.
“Ham and potatoes,” she replied. “Go take a shower while I finish this.”
“A shower,” I breathed. “What a luxury.”
“Yeah, well, you still sorta stink,” Jae said with a grin. “Just a little.”
“You should have said something last night.”
“And spoil the moment? Never.”
“Sorry.” I dragged my hands through my shaggy red-gold hair. “I thought I was clean.”
Turning, she kissed me. “Stop fussing, Declan. Just go shower.”
Yawning again, I stretched my arms over my head as I ambled down the tiny hallway to the bathroom, the steam from Jae’s shower still lingering. Undressing, I ran the hot water. Given my life on the streets, I generally bathed in cold water, so washing in hot was something akin to heaven. I scrubbed my body and my hair twice, then finally turned the water off.
Drying myself in the steamy bathroom, I dressed again, brushed my hair with Jae’s brush, and discovered breakfast, or rather lunch, was on the table. Jae fixed us plates, which we took to the sitting room to eat while seated on the couch.
“This tastes so damn good,” I told her, my mouth full of the hot food.
“My mom taught me to cook,” Jae answered, devouring her own with forkfuls. “My sister, too.”
“Do you still miss them?”Jae hesitated. �
��Every day.”
“I wish I knew my family. Sometimes, I dream of a woman I think is my mother.”
She watched me; her head tilted to one side. “I believe we can see real people, in real time, in our dreams.
“As in, that really was my mother, and she saw me the moment I saw her?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t believe that,” I replied, cleaning every crumb from my plate. “Dreams are just one’s imagination running in high gear.”
“Does she talk to you?”
I stopped and swallowed. Without looking at her, I nodded.
“What does she say?”
“She tells me it’s time to come home.”
Jae sat up; her expression eager. “That has to be your mom. Declan, she’s calling to you.”
Setting my plate aside, growing angry, I stood up and paced to the window. Watching the blizzard outside, I snapped, “Then why did she give me up? Why didn’t she keep my siblings and me?”
“You don’t know what happened,” she answered, retrieving my plate and taking both to the kitchen. “Maybe she was forced to.”
“I don’t believe that.”
I gazed down to the street where nothing moved except the snow. It had piled up in deep drifts in some places; in others, the asphalt showed through. White humps indicated where old rusted wrecks lay buried, and I suspected it would be days before anyone dug out of their homes. “I hope you’re well stocked with food,” I commented. “Or we’ll be eating each other.”
“Mmm,” she replied with a naughty grin. “That sounds like fun.”
I laughed, and my brief anger passed. “I’m serious, Jae. We’ll be stuck here for days.”
Returning to me, Jae wrapped her arm around my waist and leaned against me. “As long as the power stays on, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m surprised it hasn’t gone out.”
Punching me lightly in the belly, she groused, “Don’t jinx us, dummy.”
Together, we stared out at the blizzard, which showed no signs of blowing out. “If Chad and I hadn’t found you, where would you be right now?”
“In one of my hidden homes,” I replied absently. “I stockpile food and wood in them, so while I might have gone a little hungry, I’d survive. They’re mostly all underground, so the blizzard couldn’t harm me. I’ve gone through them before.”
“I can’t imagine you living like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like a damn badger in a hole,” she snapped. “That’s not how civilized people are supposed to live.”
“Civilized people aren’t supposed to be ruled by brutal shifters like Raphael,” I replied. “But we are.”
“Chad is right about one thing, though,” she admitted, nibbling her lower lip. “If we tried to escape in a storm like this, we’d die.”
I sighed. “I know. We still have to find a way out. We can’t wait for spring.”
Jae suddenly laughed. I glanced down at her, quizzical. “What?”
“Barry the Blade is now buried in that creek. Raphael may not find him till spring.”
“Yeah, that may help us out for a while,” I replied with a grin. “Maybe he’ll think ole Barry ran off with his taxes.”
“Wouldn’t that be great?”
Jae went to the kitchen to wash the dishes while I continued to stare out the window. Would I really have survived this in one of my lairs? While I had survived many storms since I left the orphanage, none were as savage as this one was. While I guessed some of the drifts were easily six feet deep, that wasn’t a true indication of how many feet of snow had fallen on the city.
“Quit staring out the window and come sit down,” Jae ordered me.
I obeyed her and joined her on the couch. “What will we do to pass the time?” I asked.
Jae grinned. I laughed. “Besides that.”
“I don’t know,” she answered, propping her elbow on the back of the couch and watching me with those huge hazel eyes. “I’m always working, and when I’m not, I’m sleeping.”
“I’m so busy just trying to survive,” I said, grinning, “I don’t know what to do with food in plenty, and no need to run for my life.”
Picking up a book Jae had left on a small table beside the couch, I glanced through it. “What does this say?” I asked, pointing at a word.
Jae lifted her head to look. “Metamorphosis.”
“What’s it mean?”
“To change from one thing into another. Like a caterpillar into a butterfly.” Jae eyed me with speculation. “You can’t read?”
Squirming a little, embarrassed, I said, “A little. I learned some in the orphanage before I ran away. A kid on the brink of starvation has no time for books.”
“Want me to teach you?”
I half expected her voice to be a little condescending, but her expression was open, curious, her smile anticipating, not amused. “If you want to.”
Jae scooted closer to me and placed the book between us. “We’ll talk about it as we go along,” she said, opening the book to the first page. “Start reading, and I’ll help.”
The storm blew out later that afternoon. The sun didn’t emerge until the following morning, but Jae and I hardly noticed. We spent three days in her apartment, making love, eating, talking, laughing, and me devouring her books as the love of the written word returned to me.
“I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading in the orphanage,” I told her as we sat together, sharing a book.
“I don’t have many,” she confessed. “But I’d have thousands if I could. And the time to read them all.”
“I know, right?”
By the morning of the fourth day, the snow had melted enough to permit folks to go about their business again, the enforcers to continue their shakedowns, and Jae was running low of food. “There’s a small grocer down the street,” she said, donning her jacket. “Get your coat; we need to get food. Tonight, I have to go back to work at the bar.”
The atmosphere outside wasn’t nearly as cold as I expected it to be, and people walked or drove as much as they had before the blizzard. Of course, the chief topic of any conversation we heard was about the storm, and some shopkeepers still shoveled some of the stuff away from their storefronts. I saw a few enforcers, and they seemed occupied with searching for someone.
“I think they’re looking for Barry,” I muttered from the side of my mouth, my head down, my collar pulled up to my cheeks.
“Why do you think that?”
“My gut says so. My gut isn’t often wrong.”
She eyed me and spoke under her breath. “He can’t be that important to Raphael,” she murmured. “He’s just an enforcer.”
“Are we sure about that?”
“You’re saying he was more than that?” Her eyes showed skepticism.
“I’m not. They are.”
A few customers shopped at the market when we entered, giving us a once over and deciding we were harmless. Though I often bought food whenever possible, this open shopping with cash in my pocket to pay for it was almost a novel experience. We bought bread, meat, cheese, noodles, sauces, and a rare treat of chips. Taking our haul to the register, we paid the clerk, who then bagged our supplies, and out the door we went.
“It’s kinda cool to not have to steal everything,” I said with a grin, carrying our bags.
Jae smiled. “And here I was taught stealing is wrong.”
“It is wrong,” I reminded her. “But when that’s the only way I had to survive, I did it. I didn’t like it, though.”
“That makes you a good person, Declan.”
I eyed her. “How do you figure?”
Before she could answer, a commotion on the street ahead of us caught our attention. Three goons surrounded a timid deer shifter, who covered his head with his hands, clearly terrified. He wore only his indoor clothes and an apron, no outer coat or boots, and shivered from more than the cold.
“You were the last one to se
e Barry,” snarled the big tiger shifter. “Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know, sir,” the shop owner cried. “I paid him my dues, and he left. That’s all I know.”
The enforcers looked ready to eat him alive when a long black sedan pulled up to the curb. Its chrome wheels glittered in the sunlight, the paint as shiny as the day it rolled off the assembly line. I knew that car as well as I knew the occupant. I half turned, hunching my shoulders, wondering if he’d recognize me.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered to Jae. “That’s Raphael.”
A crowd had gathered around the drama, so we weren’t the only ones standing in a loose circle around the area, watching with avid eyes. The rear door opened, and a sleek black boot emerged from the car. A leg also clad in black followed, and then Raphael himself stood up from the car.
Like the archangel he named himself after, Raphael was as handsome as the angel himself with godlike good looks, his dark hair slicked back from his face. Dark glasses shaded his eyes from the sun; his high cheekbones held a tint of red from the cold. Thinned lips turned down in a light scowl. Clad in a fur coat, he buttoned it against the chilly air and surveyed the crowd with a majestic disdain.
Jae leaned into me. “He’s a fox.”
“Shh.”
Raphael turned from his admirers and entered the small circle of his goons. I swear they almost bowed as he walked through them, their chins dipping in respect as he faced the smaller shifter. Raphael was a wolf and commanded the loyalty of not just wolves, but lions and a few tigers as well. He was a ruthless killer, and I knew that bald-headed deer in front of him had just become his next prey.
“I’m told Barry the Blade came to see you, Melvin,” he said, his voice deceptively friendly.
“He did, Raphael,” the deer replied, bowing his head. “But I paid my taxes, and he left.”
“How much did you pay?’
Melvin told him, and Raphael nodded. “Did Barry say where he was planning to go next?”
“No, sir. He did not. He took my money and went out of my shop. I continued with business as usual.”