Gorgeous Green Eyes

by Teagan Amici

  “If that’s where you wanted it, that’s fine, I didn’t mean to embarrass you my dear. I just thought if Blair had done it without explaining to you how permanent it was, you might regret it later. But I’m sure you know what you’re doing. Now, where is that beautiful baby I’ve been hearing about? We’ve wanted to meet you for so long, but we understand why we couldn’t”.

  I found myself hustled inside, and before I knew what was happening, Maria had discovered Melody in her portable cot in the kitchen, and lifted her out of it, jiggling around the kitchen as she spoke to Melody. Blair and his father came in and shook their heads at each other before we all moved to the living room, where Blair had set a fire. As he lit it, I left him alone to catch up with his parents while I bustled around the kitchen making drinks, carrying the tray in when it was done and placing it on the coffee table, out of reach of Melody’s little flailing arms and kicking legs. She was having a great time being passed from Maria to Marcos and back again, and I stared at them as I brought my coffee cup to my lips. Marcos looked over at me, his brow raised questioningly.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare, but everything is so new to me. Blair explained about you both, so I know you are human, Maria, and you are a panther, Marcos, but you both look so young, it’s so hard to believe that you are Blair’s parents. If I hadn’t seen Blair shift with my own eyes, I wouldn’t even believe there are people who can shift into panthers and wolves”.

  “Oh, there’s so much more than that”, Marcos replied, his eyes twinkling, “in other parts of the world you might meet people who take the forms of other animals, but in this part of the country, there are only what you have already seen. We try to keep hidden, but sometimes we aren’t successful. Too many of our young have been seen in Victoria, thankfully most people dismiss it as a myth or we would never know peace”.

  “Of course, the stories of big black cats around Lancefield! I hadn’t even thought of that! Was that you?” I asked of Blair, my eyes open wide with delight.

  Blair had the grace to look abashed.

  “It wasn’t me at first, but when the rumours started, I couldn’t help but tease a few people with brief sightings. Art and I would often play around, making sure we stayed out of range of cameras, and of course, guns. It was easy at first, when camera quality wasn’t good, but it’s too risky these days, so we’ve stopped. The rumours persist though, but it’s really not us any more!”

  “My son can be very impulsive sometimes. As much as I love him, I am not blind to his faults. Perhaps you should ask him one time what role he played in introducing Diane and Cole”, said Maria, with a teasing twitch to her lips.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t get any of them to speak any further on the subject, even though I tried through dinner, and after dinner, eventually giving up and deciding to question Blair when we were alone. Finally, with Melody settled, and our goodnights said to Maria and Marcos, we were alone in Blair’s room. Blair ignored all my questions, focussing instead on getting us naked, and into his bed. Even though I should have been sated and exhausted from last night, I found I wanted more, but as we kissed after meeting each other under the covers, I posed the question again.

  “The longer you put this off, the more worried I am that there is something bad you don’t want to tell me. Blair, there’s obviously a story, and your parents said you introduced Diane to Cole, so what’s the story?”

  Blair rolled to his back, sighing as he stared at the ceiling.

  “Lesley, I don’t come out of this story sounding great, and the most important thing you need to know is that I never had any intention to hurt Diane, and she has long since forgiven me for being stupid. I hope you don’t think the worst, but the truth of it is, I kidnapped Diane”.

  Chapter 13

  I sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover my breasts, and looked down at Blair who was looking up at me with a guarded expression to his face.

  “You did what? Are you serious or was it a joke? It must have been a joke, Diane’s never said anything, or has she got some weird Stockholm syndrome thing going on? Do I need to go and rescue her or something?”

  Blair sighed and sat up, moving so his back was against the headboard. He took one of my hands in his and held on to it when I tried to pull it back. He looked down at our hands for a moment before looking into my eyes. I cocked an eyebrow, waiting for his explanation, the long pause making me a little nervous.

  “It was foolish and stupid, and everyone, especially me was lucky that it worked out as well. You see - um. This is difficult, how about I start at the beginning?”

  “That would be a good idea Blair, I’m getting nervous here”.

  “No, don’t. Look, you know about the whole Lancefield myth, well, part of the reason we were seen is because there were too many of us and it became harder and harder to let our inner beast out and still stay hidden. We scouted out some good land for a new settlement, and found this place. Unfortunately, the wolves had settled nearby, so there were often frictions between the two packs. A fight here and there, I’m sure you can imagine. Our pack leaders, Cole and Bram, were trying to keep things settled, because we needed to keep things quiet or the authorities might try to regulate us”.

  “You mean, people in government know about you? How is it that you’re still a secret then? Surely people talk?”

  “Only very few know, and when a new government is sworn in, the people who need to know are briefed. We have an agreement that they will leave us alone unless we cause too much trouble, so the fights we were having were threatening that. Anyway, there had been a bit of trouble in this one period, and there was some property damage done when two sparring groups came across each other on a farmer’s land. Some fences damaged, that sort of thing, and there was an investigation to find out who had done it. Someone found a fur sample, and sent it off to a lab for analysis. There’s a sleeper program built into the government computers that if a certain type of fur - shifter fur is different from the fur from either a wolf or a panther - ever turned up, an alert was raised at those higher levels I mentioned. So Bram and Cole were called in for a ‘talk’ about how there would be a crackdown if they couldn’t get their packs under control. Cole rode in on his bike - you know how you can park on the footpaths in the city - so he was home quite early and told me all about the meeting. He was a bit annoyed with me and let me know it”.

  “Why was he annoyed? Were you involved in the fights?”

  “Yeah, I was. They weren’t real fights, we were just a bunch of hotheads posturing and showing off, but they got out of control. Anyway, I was annoyed after being told off by Cole, so went to take out my anger on Bram. Art and I - whenever one of us was in trouble, we were always together - set a trap for Bram. It was the supermoon that night, so we knew that the wolves would be unable to resist shifting. It was easier than we thought to trap Bram, I realised why when I could smell woman on him. He was obviously distracted, and I figured that he must have met someone that day. I figured he would have taken the train rather than drive his big old heap into the city, so it was either on the train or in the city. So Art and I took the train. I knew as soon as she walked past me to take her seat that I had found her, I could still smell traces of Bram clinging to her hair, she obviously hadn’t washed it that morning”.

  “Hold it, you mean you could smell Bram on Diane the next day? Just how good is your sense of smell?”

  In response, Blair launched himself at me, flipping me over and removing the sheet which I had been using as a cover. He moved over me and started nibbling at my collar bone before moving downwards, talking quietly as he went.

  “You have no idea how sensitive a shifter’s sense of smell is. I can smell more than one person’s scent on another, I can even tell when your scent changes, for example, when you’re aroused. Right now, your scent is getting stronger, and it’s making me forget what I was talking about”.

  I wanted Blair to keep talking, really I did, but when his mouth latched on to
my clitoris, I forgot everything but the sensation of Blair’s talented lips and tongue. While he circled the sensitive nub, his questing fingers teased me, circling around my questing core until I writhed in frustration.

  “Blair, stop teasing, I want to feel you inside me now”.

  Without words, Blair obliged, although as he moved to enter me, he gave my clitoris a final tweak that sent me over the edge, so as he slid inside, I clutched at him, scratching his back as I came. Blair groaned as he felt the orgasm wash over me, and reared up so that he was resting on his hands, thrusting into me strongly, trying to catch up. I lifted my legs up, folding them over his buttocks, and used my calves to pull him into me. I watched Blair’s face as he tried to stave off his own orgasm, and felt the sting of satisfaction as he gave up, shuddering against me before collapsing onto me. I lightly ran my hands over Blair’s back, until he shifted his weight to the side, curling me against him, and we drifted off to sleep.

  We never got back to our discussion that night, although the next day I managed to pin Blair down to finish his explanations. Maria was taking Melody around the shifter community, showing off her new grandchild to anyone she could find. Marcos had gone to visit Cole, so Blair and I found ourselves relaxing on the big couch in his house. Blair was resting against one arm of the couch, his long legs stretched out, and I had nestled in his lap, my head leaning against his chest. As he idly twirled a lock of my hair around, I pinched his leg gently, reminding him that he had a confession to finish.

  “You really are a devil woman, Lesley. I can think of better things to do with this time by ourselves, but I can tell that if I don’t finish this story you won’t leave it, so here goes. I had just seen Diane, right?”

  At my nod, he continued, also continuing to play with my hair as he spoke.

  “Poor Diane, she had no idea about the shifter world. Art and I followed her to her work, took turns watching the door, and when she left for the day, we followed her back to her station. I staged an accidental meeting on the platform when she got off the train, making her spill the contents of her bag, and stole her driver’s licence while I helped her pick everything up. I felt a bit bad about it, because she was so different to the morning. In the morning she had been all smiles and obviously happy, but she seemed really sad in the afternoon. She was obviously expecting Bram to call, and of course he couldn’t, because we still had him safely locked up”.

  I spun around, almost de-manning Blair in the process. He put a hand over his crotch and looked at me quizzically, and I sat up straight while frowning at him.

  “Poor Diane”, I started, “she didn’t deserve to get caught up in your politics”.

  “No, she didn’t, and it gets worse before it gets better, do you want to hear the rest?”

  I nodded, but moved to the other end of the couch, facing Blair. I gently shoved my foot against his leg, indicating that he should continue.

  “Well, I now knew where this woman lived. I never had any intention to hurt her, but I thought we could use her as leverage. What can I say? Not enough to do and too much stupid is my only excuse. Anyway, Art and I waited until all her lights had been off for a while, and guessed that she was probably asleep. Then we broke in, and she was asleep. I told her we were taking her for a hostage, and we brought her here”.

  “Hang on, big boy. You’re a bit light on detail. So was Diane asleep? Did you go into her bedroom? Do you have any idea how scary that would be? A woman is asleep in her own bedroom, and two men appear in the night. Did you think it through before you did it?”

  “No, I didn’t, and I know Diane was frightened, but she was very brave. I made sure to be as gentle as I could, I swear we didn’t hurt her physically, and we tried to be as reassuring as we could. I know at one stage Diane realised she wasn’t going to be raped, and that let her relax a little, but she was still confused. See, she didn’t know at this stage about Bram, so couldn’t work out why we thought she was so valuable. Remember, we still had Bram in a trap, at least we thought we did. We wanted to use Diane to broker an agreement with Bram. I thought Cole would be more receptive to the idea than he was, but when we told him we had Bram’s woman upstairs, he was furious”.

  “Good for Cole, but how did he get from being furious to wanting Diane for himself?”

  “Ah, that was amazing. Diane must have gotten free, and I don’t know how none of us heard her creeping downstairs, I think it was because Cole was busy telling us what a pair of idiots we were. He didn’t hear her either, he was so angry with us, but I can tell you the moment he saw her. I saw it in his face, I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that, but I saw him looking into the hallway with a look of such longing and also determination, right before I heard the door open. I realised it was Diane, and I yelled for her not to run, but it was too late”.

  “Too late? Why?”

  “Because Cole saw his mate running away, and he couldn’t control the shift. He chased her down, and when he tackled her, she hit her head and blacked out. Art and I ran after them both, but Cole was guarding Diane’s body and wouldn’t let us near her. It took ages for us to calm him down enough for him to shift back so we could check if she was hurt. She was unconscious, so Cole carried her back into the house and nursed her when she came around. That’s the story of how I introduced Cole to Diane”.

  “Really? That’s how you’re dressing this up? Like an introduction? That’s terrible Blair”.

  “Well, it is, but I’ve apologised to Diane and she’s forgiven me. I know it was a pretty awful thing to do, but I did it, I can’t undo it, and something good came out of it, so it could have been worse. And if I hadn’t interfered and got Cole and Diane together, you wouldn’t have met Diane, and I wouldn’t have met you, so even though I know it was the wrong thing to do, if I had the choice of doing it again, knowing what I know now, I would”.

  I blustered a bit longer, and then in the end, just like he knew I would, I forgave Blair. I would normally have been more scared by these new revelations except that I had seen Blair and Diane interacting and knew that Diane didn’t seem to have any hard feelings towards Blair.

  That night after dinner, despite the protests of Blair’s parents, I packed Melody in the car and went home, Blair following us in his car. I needed to get back to work, I had phoned earlier that day with excuses about a sudden illness, but I knew that would only work for a day or two. No sooner had I parked the car outside the house, than Blair was at my door, knocking for me to release the locks, and then he was gathering Melody up in one arm, and her bag in another. As I unlocked the front door, I stole glances at him as he interacted with our baby - our baby, I realised - breathing a sigh of relief as I realised that somehow, everything would work out.

  Chapter 14

  Of course, just like everything had lately, just as soon as I thought everything was working properly, something went wrong.

  I was tapping away on my computer, feverishly trying to catch up on the work I had neglected, when there was a very loud knock at the door. Muttering to myself about salespeople and how inconvenient they were, I was about to fling open the door and say that I didn’t want to change my energy or internet plan when I remembered what had happened the last time I hadn’t looked through the peephole first. As Blair had gone shopping for some fresh supplies - my milk had gone off while we had been at his house - I peeped through the peephole, hoping it wasn’t Darren again. My breath caught in my throat as I saw two police officers, a man and a woman, and my hands were shaking as I opened the door.

  “Can I help you, Officers?” I asked shakily, hoping that they had the wrong address, but knowing that they didn’t. I knew that Darren was behind this.

  By the time Blair returned, a bag of shopping in each hand, my fears had been confirmed. Darren had sworn out a statement, claiming that Blair had assaulted him, and had lied about how everything had happened. I had tried to tell the Constables what had really happened that day, but had stumbled a little when I descri
bed how Blair had knocked out Darren - of course I couldn’t tell them the real story - and I think they thought I was lying. I had remembered that Jess was seeing a solicitor, and had left an urgent message on her voicemail to call me. Obviously my poor attempts at lying had made the Constables think that Darren had been telling the truth, as no sooner had Blair put the bags down in the kitchen but he was being handcuffed and marched out to the car. Blair didn’t put up any resistance, only telling me to call Cole before he was driven away.

  As I ran back into my house, tears streaming down my face, I heard my phone ringing, and answered with relief when I realised it was Jess. I didn’t know Jess very well, but closed my eyes in silent relief when she took charge, asking where Blair had been taken and promising to have Gerald either go there himself, or get someone he recommended to take Blair on as a client. I packed some things for Melody in a bag and took off for Prahran police station, all thoughts of work forgotten. What if Blair changed while he was there? What if they shot him, or his secret became public? Would he ever trust me again after all the trouble I had caused him? How could everything have gone wrong so quickly? These thoughts and others were swirling through my mind, and I really don’t know how I made it to my destination without having an accident. I parked the car, and put Melody in her stroller, racing inside as fast as I could and standing in line impatiently, trying to catch the eye of the desk officer who was dealing with the person in front of me. Unsuccessful, I was just about to try to nudge the person out of the way, when I heard a warm voice behind me.

  “You must be Lesley, you’re just as Jess described, am I correct?”

  I turned to see a handsome looking man, a bit taller than myself, but not as tall as Blair, and almost sighed in relief.

  “Are you Gerald Du Pont? Please say you are”.

  He smiled at me and held out a card. I briefly registered his name before he was whisking me into a private room, instructing me to tell him what had happened. As I hesitated, trying to work out what I could tell him, he smiled and when he spoke I realised that he had misunderstood my hesitation.