by Selena Scott
Her eyes were cast down, staring at his mouth. His lips didn’t look any different than they had before. But they were different, she knew. She’d just given him his first kiss. She’d never done that for someone before. Her chest was vibrating with a whole pandora’s box of emotions that Ida only acknowledged by the rattle in her breath. Those feelings needed to just stay where they belonged, deep inside of her. They had no place coming out right now. No sir. She could deal with those when she crawled into bed tonight. Not now. Not when she was still gripped in his lap.
“You- said-“ he gasped, “that- I can’t- ask- again.”
His words were ragged and sounded painful. Her eyes jumped up from his mouth and landed on his eyes. And for the first time since she’d met him, she saw something vulnerable. Something pained.
“What?” She’d thought that she was still crystal clear in her thinking, but his words seemed to make their way to her through a soupy fog.
She was dimly aware of his pupils dilating and closing, his fists tightening and flattening against her in a corresponding rhythm. “You said,” he got out, gasping for a tight breath of air. “That I couldn’t ask again. But,” his arms tightened around her. “I need more.”
His eyes were on her lips again, but she could still read that mystifying note of vulnerability there. She’d never seen him look anything other than utterly confident, almost disdainful with it. But here, he looked needful and alarmed and straining against himself in order to respect her wishes.
It was that that had her leaning against him again. This time, of their own accord, her hands linked behind his neck as she pressed forward, let their mouths touch for a second time. He made a noise into the kiss, almost before she’d even touched him, the margins between the beginning of this kiss and the moments before seeming razor thin. The effect was that Ida felt as if maybe she’d never stopped kissing him. The air around them was suddenly too warm and cocooning as she kissed his bottom lip again.
He made another noise, moved his mouth, imitated her kiss, just the barest hint of suction. He was more boisterous than she was and when he tasted just the tiniest bit of her inner lip, his hands scrambled against her clothing, closing into fists as he sucked at the soft, wet parts of her bottom lip.
She’d never been kissed like this in her life. It wasn’t the smoothest kiss she’d ever had, but then, Phoenix wasn’t the smoothest guy she’d ever met. He was honest, and instinctual, and primal, just like this kiss was.
He was overwhelming her, all tight grip and his lips on hers, starting to lean her back. If he leaned her back any more, she knew she’d be gone to this kiss, to him, in a way that she couldn't afford to do. She nipped at him with her teeth and he grunted, pulling away immediately, blinking hard to make his eyes focus on her.
“You bit me,” he said in a low, sandpapery voice. His tongue came out to lick at his own lips.
“You were overwhelming me,” she told him. “And sometimes people bite when they kiss. As long as it’s not too hard, it’s nice.”
They bite when they have sex too, she thought. But she hadn’t lost her mind so far as to bring up sex at a moment like this.
This time he was the one leaning forward, if only to give her the sweetest kiss of her life. His eyes were open, on hers, dark and searing, and patient. He wasn’t sucking at her bottom lip like he’d been before. No. This time he was patiently pressing his lips to hers, reading her.
He was trying not to overwhelm her again, she realized. And damn if that didn’t just crack her in two.
With a light moan in her throat, she pushed forward and licked his lip with her tongue, pushing at the seam of his mouth and opening him up. She tasted his surprise, the melt of his pleasure, the glancing, metallic flash of his sharp teeth. And then he was pressing his tongue back against hers and leaning himself into the couch, holding her tightly against him.
Their tongues slid and pushed and pressed and it wasn’t artful or pretty, she was sure. But jeez it felt good.
He fit her against him much more firmly and it was then that she realized she was straddling him, his hands in fists at her back, her body jogged slightly higher than his so that he was tilting his head back to receive her kiss.
She made a noise and so did he, her hands finding their way into his hair, her tongue compulsively tasting him over and over again. She hadn’t meant to get lost in this kiss. Just as she’d been sure he hadn’t even meant to like this kiss. But here they were and she just knew that she could kiss this man forever—
“Wait!” Ida scrambled up and danced out of reach of his arms before he could snatch her sweater again. “We can’t do this.”
Her words came out choppy and breathy and entirely unconvincing. She stood five feet away across her living room and fought the air for more oxygen. She had the sneaking suspicion that he was taking all the good, breathable, available air with those big, mannish lungs of his. How much fuel must it take to run a body like that? He was a marvel, a miracle, an animal engineered to perfection.
“Why?” In contrast to her breathy voice, her jumbled thoughts, his single word was a blunt swipe with a dull sword. She was grateful he was staying on his side of the room.
“Because,” Ida cast about for reasons. One struck her. “Because I’d be taking advantage of my position over you! I’m your mentor for god sakes!” She groaned and covered her eyes. “Oh, god. Just think of the power differential. It’s so unethical.”
She dropped her hands from her eyes and caught a wry expression on his face, though he was blurry at this distance. “You think that we shouldn’t kiss because you have power over me?”
She leaned forward and read his expression. “Yes, I do think that. But apparently you find it funny?”
“It’s not funny to me that you think you have power over me. You do have power over me. I think you’re smart and kind and I trust your opinion. So, that’s a kind of power. Also, your legs in those shorts have power over me. Your mouth,” he trailed off and swiped a hand over his own lips. “You have power over me. But Ida, do I look like the kind of person who does what he doesn’t want to do? No matter the —what did you call it?— the power difference thingy?”
“Power differential. And, no, I guess you don’t strike me as someone who could be easily manipulated.”
“Then why are you standing over there?”
“Because. Because. Because if I come back over there, then I’m going to keep kissing you and if I keep kissing you then I’m gonna lose my job. And I love my job.” She said it all in a rush, her hands over her cheeks.
Slowly, he stood up, a light in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. “So, you want to keep kissing? But if we do, you lose your job?”
“Yes,” she whispered, unable to lie to him.
He stepped over to her, leaving his crutches behind, but both of them were too caught up to notice. “What if I’m not your mentee anymore. Then you can’t get fired?”
He laid his two hands over top of her two hands, both of them framing her face.
“Um. What? That doesn’t matter either way. This is the way it is. I’m your mentor. You’re my mentee. I’m crossing way too many lines.”
She tugged away from him and strode into the kitchen and then back out, aware that she was freak-out pacing and unable to stop.
“I made you upset.”
She turned back to him to see him frowning. His arms crossed over his chest. It wasn’t fair that he could look that good in just a T shirt and sweatpants. The man had a body like a sheet of geometry homework. All angles and shapes. He was like the hottest cubist painting of all time.
He frowned even harder. “That,” he pointed back to where they’d just been sitting on the couch. “Made me very happy. But it made you upset.”
“I—” Was there even a point in explaining that part of the reason she was upset was because of how happy kissing him had made her? Wouldn’t that just make everything worse? More confusing? More screwed up?
&nbs
p; He wasn’t dumb, by any means, but his brain had a way of taking things down to their simplest form. Complicating this with every layer of her feelings wasn’t going to do either of them any favors.
“I don’t know,” she eventually said, unable to lie, unable to tell the truth.
“Okay.” He limped over, picked up his crutches, and crutched over to her front door. “I’ll go home. I won’t upset you any more tonight.”
And just like that, her front door opened and closed and Ida was very, very alone.
CHAPTER TEN
When her office door flung open, almost off its hinges, Diana braced for the annoyingly potent wave of … feeling … that Orion always rode in on.
But when she looked up and let her eyes come into focus, she realized that it was the other Wolf brother who’d just smashed his way into her office.
At 8 am no less.
“Phoenix,” she said, resting her chin on her laced fingers. “Can I help you with something?”
“I just came in to tell you I’m quitting the center. Thanks for everything. Okay. Bye.”
He turned on his crutches and Diana barely had a chance to stand before he was striding back through the door. “Wait! Phoenix!”
He paused, his large body framed by the doorway.
“Please, come in. Sit down for a second. If you’re really quitting I want to know why. And we’ll have to sign your exit papers stating that you’re refusing your government funding for this program.”
He sighed, shook his head and turned around on his crutches, coming to sit in the chair across the desk from her.
When he’d settled himself, Diana leaned back in her chair and studied him. He didn’t seem upset in the least, just determined, which encouraged her. She was hoping that his sudden departure didn’t have to do with some issue he had with the center.
She cleared her throat. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s customary in human culture to knock before you enter a room with a closed door.”
“Oh.” He frowned, his eyes dark and almost spookily flat. “Right. I forgot. Ida mentioned that to me.”
Diana watched with something akin to friendly alarm, as at the mention of Ida, those dead eyes of his warmed right up. He went from a man who didn’t care if the world blinked out of existence to a man who had some warm little secret up his sleeve.
Interesting.
Diana looked through a file folder and pulled out some random papers. It was a cheap trick, because she knew that Phoenix couldn’t read them anyhow, but she figured that if she were asking him business-like questions he was much more likely to answer them than if it seemed like she was prying into his personal life.
“All right.” She clicked her pen and jotted down some nonsense onto one of the papers. “So, reason for leaving?” She peered at him in what she hoped was a clinical way.
He narrowed his eyes, his eyebrows pulling down. “No reason.”
“No reason?”
He shrugged.
“You’ve been perfectly happy with the center?”
He rubbed at the beard that Diana noticed was well maintained. Ida had been taking good care of him. “Actually, yeah. I have been.”
Diana clicked the pen again. “So, if you’ve been happy with the center, but you’re choosing to quit our program, I can only guess that your issue is with your mentor?”
He frowned more. “What do you mean ‘issue’?”
“I mean that you’re choosing to leave because you have some kind of problem with Ida?”
“Oh,” he scoffed, immediately shaking his head. “No. No problem. Ida is … wonderful. Perfect.”
That softness was back. Uh oh, Diana thought.
“You’ve been happy with the center, and you think your mentor is perfect, yet you’re still determined to quit the program?”
He nodded, his arms crossing over his chest.
“Phoenix,” Diana said, leaning back in her chair and studying him. “If you’re having some sort of problem, really, anything at all, my job is to help you through it. Ideally, Ida would help you through it, but you can always come to me. My door is always open.”
“It wasn’t a second ago. Remember, I screwed up the whole knocking thing?”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “My door is metaphorically always open.”
“Oh.”
“If you need something fixed,” she said bluntly, “I’ll help you fix it.”
He said nothing.
“Would it help if I matched you with a different mentor?” she prompted, while inwardly she reflected that maybe these Wolf brothers were more trouble than she’d bargained for when she’d taken them on.
“No!” he said immediately. “No. No other mentors.” His eyes bore into Diana’s. “I don’t want anyone but Ida.”
Woof. Was it hot in here or was it just the heat that was suddenly kicking off of Phoenix? Diana got the distinct impression that him not wanting anyone but Ida was something that applied to all arenas of his life, not just in the mentor/mentee sense.
“Okay…” she tried to keep up with him. “But as far as I know, you still have no job. You’re not exactly ready for one.” She braced herself. “Physically, with your injury, or in your human training. If you quit the center completely, who will help you acclimate to human culture? You’ll need to do that if you’re interested in holding down a job.”
“Ida will,” he answered bluntly, as if the answer was obvious and Diana was an idiot for not understanding earlier.
Oh boy. “You’re going to quit the center, but you’ll continue to work with Ida?”
He nodded, his face closing off all expression.
“And she’s agreed to this?”
He pursed his lips. “Not yet.”
“You think she’s going to agree to working with you for no pay?”
“Oh.” He looked momentarily stymied. “I hadn’t thought of that. Well. I guess I’ll just have to make sure that it’s not a lot of work, then. I’ll learn fast and work hard. And maybe I can help her with her other clients since I’m so good at reading other shifters.”
She nodded and gathered up more questions for him, but then his words sifted through the mix and she really heard what he’d just said. “Wait. What do you mean you’re good at reading other shifters?”
He shrugged. “I can’t explain it exactly. But my physical therapist said it was rare. Rare that I can tell who is a shifter and who isn’t. And I can tell what kind of shifter they are as well.”
Diana blinked at him, shoving aside the farcical papers and leaning across the desk. Her eyes bounced between his, searching for any hint of a lie. “You’re telling the truth.”
“Of course.” He looked at her like it wouldn’t have even occurred to him to lie. And maybe it wouldn’t have. As frustrating as Orion and Phoenix were, they were defined by their blunt honesty. Lying was apparently a part of being human that they hadn’t become familiar with. She hoped they never would.
“Okay,” she said dimly, her mind racing. “Wow. Can your brother do that too?”
Phoenix gave her a blunt nod. “Yeah. But I’m better at it.”
She thought of how many shifters there were out there who were still hiding in plain sight. No matter that it had been years since Shifter Liberation Day. No matter that all the internment camps had been shut down and it was no longer illegal to be a shifter, they still weren’t taking their chances at coming out as who they were.
Which meant that huge numbers of shifters were missing out on basic social services. They were squandering their lives, uneducated, never going to the doctor’s. Many of them lived off the cash in their pockets, leading nomadic lifestyles, drifting from crappy job to crappy job. She longed to be able to offer these people a better option. A life defined by constancy and stability. But she could only do that for those shifters who walked through the door of her center. She had no other way of knowing who was a shifter and who wasn’t. Unless …
“I’m sensing I can’t change your mind about leaving the center as a participant, huh?”
He shook his head. “No. Like I said, I’m quitting.”
She didn’t want to overwhelm him with the whirring thoughts and ideas in her head, and she knew she could afford to be patient. She would always be able to contact him through Orion or Dawn, and apparently through Ida as well. “Well, if you’re sure that there’s nothing else I can offer you …”
Phoenix rose from the chair, looking relieved that he was free to go, but then a thoughtful expression crossed his face, he plunked back down. “Actually, now that you mention it, I have a few questions.”
“Oh. Sure. Ask away.”
He rubbed a hand over his beard and eyed her, trying to piece together his question. “Explain to me about boyfriends. I wanna know what makes a good one.”
The coffee in Diana’s mouth nearly ended her young life.
***
For the second time that day, Phoenix dropped in on a woman who didn’t expect to see him. He made a note to ask Ida about how he could go about not looking so scary, because it was also the second woman he’d scared the bejeezus out of. It probably wasn’t a coincidence.
“Jeezus H. Christmas! Are you part cat or something?” Wren asked, flattening a hand over her chest and breathing hard. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin when she’d turned the corner in her shop and seen him sitting in one of the chairs.
“I knocked!” he insisted. “And the door was open. I thought I’d wait in the chair until you came back.”
Wren strode over to him. Her hair was even shorter and spikier than the last time he’d seen her. Still purple though. “Have Ida buy you a little bell to wear around your neck. That way you won’t go around scaring the white into women’s hair.”