She jerked up to sitting and he took hold of her shoulders to push her down again. In turn, she gripped his shoulders. “No, Dev.”
There was mischief in his eyes as he said, “No, what?”
She forced her way up to sitting again, but before she could undress him, he was kissing her, his one hand at the back of her neck, his other covering her breast. As he delved deeply with his tongue, she found herself falling back down, her body unwilling to fight when he made love with his mouth. Her nipple was caught between his thumb and finger, sending ripples through her belly and lower. She wondered if she could come just from these sensations.
He tamped down the kiss, but before she could say she wanted him again, he flipped her over on her belly.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Exploring you.” He nuzzled her shoulder, kissed along her spine, tongue and lips caressing the line of her back. Then he positioned himself behind her, spreading her legs. He knelt, jeans still on, and gently pulled her up on all fours then back towards him, so her bare thighs rested on his knees. “Okay, Callie?”
“God, I don’t know.”
He traced a finger down the cleft of her butt, and she’d never realized the skin there was so sensitive. “You don’t know?” he asked as two fingers slipped inside her. “You’re so wet and engorged. Beautiful.”
“I don’t know anything when you love me like this.”
“I am loving you.”
“I want you too.” She was pleading now, but didn’t care as long as she heard the zipper coming undone.
“Good thing you do.” His voice husky, his hands warm, pulling her to him so his cock pressed against her entrance. She pushed back and he responded with a full-body groan as he impaled her, filled her. She wanted him there, never to leave. Then he pulled out and entered again, and that was even better.
She rested on her elbows and whimpered while he entered her, again and again. Her legs began to shake, but she managed to hold herself together as a wave of pleasure engulfed her, the sensation intense, mindless, timeless. Instead of coming down, she came again, barely a break between orgasms. Dev’s cock seemed to touch something deep inside of her, opening her up, loosening her in a way her body had never been loosened before. Just when she thought she couldn’t hold herself up anymore, Dev stiffened, a deep sound tore from his chest, and he climaxed. He pulsed inside her and completely unraveled by their lovemaking, she collapsed. He made a noise, almost a sob as he wrapped arms around her and pulled her unresisting body back against him. She had never felt so soft, so pliable.
They slowly fell on their sides on the bed, Dev still holding her.
When she caught her breath, she turned in his arms. She smiled up at him, but he regarded her seriously, touched her cheek. “That wasn’t quite how I meant it to go.”
“I liked it.”
“Oh, I liked it too. That’s not what I meant.” But his slight anxiety eased and he kissed her.
Despite her languor, she objected to his still being dressed. “You tell me what you meant while I take off your clothes.”
With great effort—her body felt entirely boneless—she rolled them over, pushing him onto his back with her on top. He clasped her to him, to hold her still.
“I like you here,” he said, and she dropped her head against him, overwhelmed by such simple words. No lover had uttered them to her and they made her chest ache, but in a good way. They breathed against each other, a kind of prayer of thanks, until she could rouse herself.
“You don’t want to be naked, Dev?” She wondered if this was something left over from Scott’s influence, from Scott insisting Dev was asexual. She felt the anger rise in her at that thought of Scott’s invasion.
But Dev said, easily, “I want to be naked.” So she pushed back to rest on her knees and skimmed his jeans and boxers off. Having had so little time to know him, she thoroughly examined his muscular calves, dusted with dark hair, his large kneecaps, his strong thighs. Everything about him fascinated her. She rested a cheek against his knee and gazed down. His brown eyes were dark and warm, which made her happy.
“It’s not usually like this for me,” she admitted.
He caught her hand, held it between his two. “I hope it’s not uncomfortable.”
She found herself gazing at the headboard, because she was embarrassed and yet she wanted to admit it to him. “I’ve never gotten wet like this.”
“That just means you like me.” He grinned when she looked at him again, but there was concern there too. “I got wet too. Pre-come,” he added when she appeared puzzled. “I’ll show you next time.”
She grinned back, pleased by that idea—a next time. “I don’t usually like male humans.”
His brow creased. “Who do you usually like?”
“Not many people at all. I’ve kept to myself. Pumas can be solitary, but”—her voice hitched—“when I’m alone for too long, I ache for company. My puma protests, but the fact is, I need friends.”
“Like your friend Trey.” Dev sounded suspicious, perhaps jealous, though it was hard for Callie to interpret because she hadn’t encountered anyone being jealous about her before.
“Trey is special. He’s a werewolf, did I mention that?”
“Uh, no.” Dev didn’t like that piece of information, a wariness invaded his features.
“Do you believe me?”
He didn’t answer.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll show you some time.”
“You’ll show me what?”
“My puma self.”
His gaze was serious, but there was no distaste. Not even a sense of unease. “You already did, Callie. This morning I saw the cougar, I saw you as cougar. Did you think I could forget something like that?”
“You seemed a little confused back there. I’d wondered if your memory had blacked it out.”
“No.” A short, emphatic denial. He smiled, a lopsided expression. “Not this time, anyway.”
“I was confused too, so it was hard for me to know what you knew in the kitchen, or even how long you were there. The shift is disorienting. Cat thoughts mixed with human thoughts don’t always make for a clear memory.”
He brought her palm to his mouth. Kissed it. “I don’t understand this shifting business at all. How can it even happen?”
“Well I don’t understand this mind-control business either.” She crawled up him, sliding fingers under his T-shirt and pushing it up so she could place a palm on his bare chest. “I just love being with you this way, Dev. That’s one thing I know without a doubt.”
He tugged at her so she lay sprawled across him, then speared a hand in her hair the way she was coming to adore, and kissed her while he grew hard beneath her belly.
“I love being with you too, babe.”
She smiled and ducked her face into his throat. “I like it when you call me babe.”
“Good.”
She toyed with his short, soft hair and slowly lifted her face so she could see him. “I can’t understand why Scott would tell you you’re asexual. I don’t like that he did that. Was it some kind of weird game?”
Dev didn’t answer right away, but his face became shuttered. “No,” he said finally. “Scott told me that to protect me. From other Minders. From being used for sex. They do that to some people. They’ve done it with Scott, you see, and that’s why he fears it.”
She kissed him all over his serious, now-drawn face and he traced a pattern on her shoulder. She wanted to ask, if they’d done it to him, to Dev, but found the words caught in her throat.
“I don’t think so,” answered Dev, as if he’d read her thoughts. “If it happened, I don’t remember.” He let out a long breath. “I know you dislike Scott, but you’re mistaken if you think he doesn’t care what happens to me. In his odd and perhaps misshapen way, he wants to protect me. When I say he’s not all bad, there’s truth there, not just Scott talking through me.”
“If you’re right, I’ll f
orgive Scott a little. I know about wanting to protect. After all, I’m made to protect.”
He frowned at that and her smile became apologetic.
“Is that bad, what I said?”
“Not bad,” he said slowly. “What do you mean, you’re ‘made to protect’?”
“The puma in me. She—” As his frown deepened, she stopped. “What?”
“Why do you call the puma ‘she’? Isn’t she part of you? Aren’t you one and the same? Or are you separate beings, somehow?” He touched her face because her gaze had slid away. “Callie?”
“Yes, of course we’re one and the same.” She could recognize that she was spoiling things, with all her talking. When they touched and kissed and made love, everything felt perfect. When they talked, nothing was perfect. Yet it was impossible not to talk when they were this intimate. His caresses brought the words out of her.
It was like the time she’d been gone in the desert for days and she returned, shifted to human, and couldn’t stop drinking water, even though it made her a bit sick. She was thirsty for this talk. She had longed to talk to someone for ages and Dev, unlike Trey, unlike Ruth even, didn’t shut her down. She would try to explain herself to her lover.
She sat back and placed both hands on her naked chest. “I am a bit split at times. We, the puma and I, don’t always want the same thing. We”—she still wasn’t looking at him, in fact she slid off him and lay on her back, as if to get away from his careful regard—“fight for the body.” She patted her heart again. Then wondered if she sounded and looked silly to him and wanted to hide.
Dev observed that Callie made an odd, shy gesture by putting an arm over her eyes.
“Hey.” He propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed her belly before bringing her against him, and she curled into him. One thing for sure, she was tactile, responsive. He tried not to let it stoke his male ego too high, even if his male ego was in desperate need of bolstering after his fucked-up year. “That was hard for you to tell me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But I’m glad I did.” She spoke into his neck, and he had to concentrate to make out the soft words muffled against his skin. “You’re the second person in the world I’ve talked to about who I really am. And the first normal.”
“First normal, eh?” Dev found that weirdly reassuring though he suspected her idea of normal and his were different.
“I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to say these hard things, to make them less hard to say.”
“You weren’t close to Trey.” Part of Dev was relieved, even if it was stupid to be jealous. Still, Dev couldn’t help but think he wouldn’t have much chance against a werewolf. Did shapeshifters usually stick together?
Callie sighed. “I wanted to be.”
Well, Dev could always count on Callie to be honest. “Trey’s a fool.”
She laughed. “I don’t think so. Trey just doesn’t have friends. He ignored me mostly, except when it came to work.”
Dev pulled Callie closer, frowning at how lonely she sounded. Trey should have been a better friend. Someone should have been looking out for Callie, instead of just Callie looking out for others.
“And yet,” he mused out loud, “Trey’s coming here right away, simply because you called him.”
“He’s like that. Strong sense of duty. That’s why I worked for him. I admired that in him.”
“What was your work, exactly?”
She went stiff in his arms so he palmed her back, skimmed a hand over her ass, nuzzled her hair, until she relaxed again. Then he locked a fist into her hair and pulled her away from his neck to gaze at her amber eyes, pupils large in the darkness. He brushed lips over her forehead, grazed her eyelids as she lowered them.
“Your work is also difficult for you to talk about.”
“Everything is difficult to talk about tonight, isn’t it?” Her question was an odd mixture of grim and wry.
“I think you’re right.” He kissed her. “Do you trust me enough to tell me this?”
“You won’t like me anymore, if I tell you what I did for Trey.”
He stroked her neck, where some fine white scars lay. Someday he’d ask her about them, if he got the chance, but not yet. “Try me. Tell me what you did for Trey. I can promise I’ll still like you. After all, you like a zombie.”
“You’ve resisted them. You’re not really a zombie,” she protested.
“I am,” he said quietly. “But you’re changing the subject, Callie.” He brushed lips against her neck, liking the way she shivered against him. “I like you. Trust me on this.”
Like seemed such a mild, moderate word. Dev felt strong emotions for this girl-woman-puma in his bed, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to float the word love tonight. Especially when he didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring, apart from pain.
“You aren’t a zombie,” she repeated, avoiding her topic, but also desperate to believe what she said.
He wouldn’t deceive her, but he had to clench his jaw for a moment before forcing himself to speak the truth. “I am. It’s a rather weak position, being under Scott’s control.”
“You’re strong.”
He appreciated the faith she had in him, but his laughter was rueful. “Callie, you’ve seen me at my very worst—”
“Your very best,” she corrected. “You are so strong, to fight the way you have, to protect those you can. Like my sister, like Madison.”
He snorted, his self-disgust rising in his throat, though he had sworn he would not get mired in his own deficiencies when he was in bed with Callie. She deserved better than that. He refused to make their last night together all about him and his inadequacies.
Her fingers brushed against his face. “I truly believe that.”
His eyelids drifted to half-mast and he let out a long breath. “I was told once, long ago, that the reason Scott can control me so well is because of my protective instincts. They’re so strong they play into what Scott wants of me.” He laughed. “Of course, Scott was a boy and he was obviously at risk. Many people would have felt and done the same.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She pressed kisses against his chest, which was oddly endearing and slightly unusual. Not that they’d been together enough to understand a lot about each other’s usual. Still, the act seemed to be a kind of supplication. He wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted of him. Forgiveness?
“I killed my own kind,” she admitted to his shoulder, then let her face fall against him.
He held her as she went still. “Go on.”
“Mostly men,” came her muffled voice, “though they were in cougar form. Feral. Violent. Lost.” She paused. “Murderers.”
“It is sometimes necessary to kill murderers.” He knew that now, felt no regret for what he’d done today, even if he flinched when he thought of that moment he’d pulled the trigger. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but I killed someone this morning. Max. Shot him in the face.”
She lifted her head from his chest. Gazed at him, a kind of understanding on her face. “I’ve killed killers, Dev, and so have you. We have that much in common.”
They clung to each other then. Dev still hard and Callie so soft. He maneuvered so that he entered her. With her on top, he could finally go slow. It was a languorous lovemaking where Dev tried to show her just how much he cared.
Because tomorrow, though Callie didn’t know it, they would part. If he made it out alive, he would find her again, and if he didn’t, she would remember them together like this.
Chapter Sixteen
In the dark, while Callie lay sated and sleeping, Dev slipped away to Scott’s room. He approached the bed grimly, stood there looking at the sleeping form with a sense of the inevitable, then reached down and shook the boy’s shoulder.
Before Scott could make a sound, Dev clapped a hand over his mouth and watched Scott struggle with fear.
Dev’s low murmur of “it’s me” calmed the boy down and he went still. Dev removed his hand, because
Scott didn’t much like being touched.
“We have to keep Callie out of this. Already, she’s too involved. It’s dangerous for her.” Dev barely spoke the words, knowing that Callie’s hearing was extremely sensitive.
“Okay,” Scott whispered. He gazed at Dev who tried not to flinch, but the next words did not contain a push, just a kind of dead hopelessness. “It’s time to go, Dev. Go back.”
“I know.”
Scott closed his eyes, but whether it was relief or dread, or just a fucked-up mess of emotions Dev couldn’t begin to unravel, he didn’t know. Didn’t want to know, at least right now. Instead, he gave the boy instructions. “We’ll go in the morning. When you get up, pack your things. If you talk to her, tell her you’re leaving, that you no longer want to be with us. She’ll be relieved for my sake, though probably worried about you.”
Scott pulled a face. “Yeah, right. She hates me.”
Dev shook his head but didn’t argue. “Pack my things too. I left everything downstairs, including Max’s gun. You must pack that gun. Okay?” Scott nodded. “Then you wait for me by the car. I’ll join you, alone.”
Callie was no doubt a fast runner, but not as fast as a car. Dev just needed to take off at the right moment, when she was momentarily distracted. She wouldn’t be expecting this development, not after tonight.
The worst thing about his plan was that he would abandon her. She was too alone and somehow the knowledge that Trey was arriving here tomorrow didn’t make Dev feel any better.
After Scott agreed, Dev quietly left Scott’s room, used the washroom and slid back into bed with Callie. She didn’t waken, but she cuddled against him, a bittersweet act from Dev’s point of view. They had so little time left together, but he would take this. Despite his regrets, he tried to fall back asleep as he held her, but mostly he lay awake, soaking up her presence, and fought against thinking about what was to come.
In the morning, once dawn began to lighten the sky, Dev heard Scott moving around, preparing for their departure. Cautiously, Dev edged away from Callie, hoping to silently join Scott, perhaps take off before she was even awake. But she opened her eyes as Dev rose.
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