I scoff and turn away.
“Don’t do that. Let’s go do something, anything you want, come on.”
“Wolf…” his name falls out in a heavy sigh. He’s proven time and again that all the things I want, I can’t have. Not from him.
“Come on, anything … a drink, a dance —”
“—will you sit for me?” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them, and a strange beautiful look crosses his face.
“Sit? For you?” His head cocks to the side
“Let me draw you.”
“Draw?”
“For my portfolio, I need just one more piece.” I bite my lower lip, thinking I’ve made a mistake.
“Sure,” he flashes me a set of perfectly white teeth, “where?”
“Home?”
He nods and pulls out his phone, two minutes later we slide into the back seat of an Uber heading back to the apartment. His hands find mind, our fingers laced together like for some reason he has a problem letting go. I try not to think about the rush of heat that works its way through my body, the flames licking at the ivy wrapped so tightly around my heart. Instead, I concentrate on the budding, giddy excitement about drawing Wolf.
I used to know his face so well. All the chords and lines and mechanisms that made his eyes shine and his face pull, and his sadness that hid behind his slick smiles.
Now he’s all sharp angles and harsh lines, a few faint scars litter his otherwise flawless skin. I want to see what lies behind his stark exterior; I want to find the strings that hold his heart and wring them till his emotions cascades out and spill onto his face so I can take them for myself and show him to the world.
The Uber pulls up and we step outside. Wolf leads me up the stairs, opens the door, ushers me inside, then seals it behind us. My stomach flutters, and somewhere, it all feels so final—like something is about to end, except I don’t know what it is.
43
Red
“So, do I just take my clothes off now … or?” he releases my hand and takes a long step towards the couch. A slow dark smile splits his beautiful face.
“What? No.” I feel the heat rush to my face as he smirks. I walk over to the kitchen and bring one of the chairs over, placing it in the middle of the room, the back faces the couch, “Sit.”
He straddles the chair looking too big for it, my body stirs watching him mount it and slide forward, his hands hanging off the side.
“Rest your hands over the back and rest your chin on top.” He complies easily. His dark eyes follow my movements as I grab my sketch pad and pencils and sit on the couch in front of him and allow my eyes to rake over his face.
“So, what now?”
“Now? You sit and I draw.”
I bring the pencil to the paper and study Wolf’s beautiful face. He has the kind of beauty that makes girls stop in their tracks. They pause as if they forget how to breathe, then turn a sharp, harsh crimson as he meets their gaze. He loves the reaction. It etches a smirk on his face and it’s his first clue that they'd go with him wherever he asks. But I want to see beyond his skin and flesh, beyond his perfection, where his pain hides.
My eyes settle on his and his dark, intense expression. I bring my hand to the paper where it moves almost as if my mind is a composer and my hand is playing its symphony. My hands move on instinct.
“Can I talk? When you do this?”
I grab my 2B and shade a little as I lift my eyes from the paper back to his face, “If you must, just don’t move!”
The lines around his eyes soften, “You always this bossy?”
“Only with my subjects.”
He chuckles and his eyes lighten, like someone had opened a door behind them, but only halfway. His hands fall away, and he pushes one through his hair moving the strands aside, morphing the shape of his angles and shadows.
My eyes narrow and I glare at him, “I said don’t move.”
He barks out a small laugh and annoyance slithers under my skin. I set my pad aside and walk over to him. He stills, his gaze on my face as I thread my hands through his hair and push it back into place. He stops breathing as I touch him and steals my breath as his hands fall on my hips.
I wrench them away and rest them on the chair then angle his head once more. I bend down and look into his eyes, “Now, don’t move.”
As I draw the lines, they take on a life of their own. They scratch into the pad like the scratches he’s left on my heart and my skin. I can see all my emotions as they blend into his face. He is my endless tormentor and my greatest desire, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to truly capture everything he’s always meant to me.
Wolf
I watch the pencil roll between her lips and my body hardens, already straining under her sharp eyes, like she’s looking underneath my skin searching for all my vulnerabilities. I don’t want to be unravelled by her. I school my face, keeping a mask of nonchalance, but her looks are like deep tendrils that burrow inside me and search for more. I shift in my chair, my hard cock straining against my pants.
She shoots me an angry look, and I apologise for the hundredth time while my body heats under her intense gaze.
“Why did you never go to UDLA?”
She throws me a look that implies I should know and asking her was a stupid move, “You know why.”
“I really don’t. You could have applied for financial aid, there would have been other ways.”
“Maybe,” she chews on the end of her pencil, her teeth sink into the wooden rod.
“You were so talented. Are still.” I smile at her.
“Stop moving, Shaw!”
“Just tell me why then.”
“And then you’ll sit still?” she asks over a sigh.
I shrug. I refuse to make her any more promises.
She doesn't stop drawing as she speaks and looks up only to steal snatches of my face.
“I guess I lost motivation.”
“That’s bullshit, Red. You’re always stuck in your sketches.”
She sucks in a long breath and remains silent.
“Red?”
Her eyes dart up, and for the first time I notice them glisten. I want to get up and take her in my arms, but I think she’ll be more pissed at me if I move. Even if it’s for the right reasons.
“I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t what?”
“I couldn’t draw any more.”
“What do you mean? You could always draw.”
She scoffs a bitter, sad sound, and her eyes latch onto mine and all I can see is pain. “Do you remember the last piece I drew?”
I nod, she has no idea how much it meant to me. Half boy half-wolf. both lost, each needing each other—the boy needs the strength of the wolf and the Wolf seeks the companionship of the boy.
“Of course. It was amazing.”
Her chin tips a little and her eyes latch on to the paper where her hands skillfully move around.
“After that night,” the way she says it holds so much bitterness and pain, my heart clinches with guilt, “it was hard.” She swallows and her eyes stay fixed on the paper, “You crushed me,” her voice quivers and my insides feel like shattering, “I had to push through all that heartbreak, all that pain. I had to store it all away so I could keep breathing every day. I know it sounds dramatic now, but I was so young and so in love.”
I don’t miss her use of the word ‘was’. It stabs deep in my gut.
“I ripped that piece in half and it ripped something inside me. Then you guys left, and I was alone. I had to survive. So, I pushed everything down, so deep down I had to make myself a rock till I felt nothing. And when you feel nothing, you can’t create.”
“Red —”
“Don’t. Please don’t apologise again, I can’t fucking stand it.”
Her words silence me.
“It’s in the past. You guys left and Hunter’s money just wasn’t enough. I couldn't be a starving artist when I couldn’t do art, so I got a j
ob I hated, and a guy that wasn’t who I wanted. I guess I fell into a holding pattern, where it was easier to get Hunter to bail me out than have to deal with reality.”
She gives me a quick glance before concentrating on her work.
A swirl of emotion tornados through me, “But you’re drawing again now?”
She nods.
“What changed?”
She sucks in a long breath and finally meets my gaze, “You’re not the only one who broke my heart. I guess enough emotions managed to fill all the emptiness, and I found my creativity.”
She holds my gaze for another beat before the art beckons her back.
“This is torture,” I whine.
“You’re a baby, I’m almost done.”
“You said that half an hour ago.”
“Well maybe if you stop moving, I’d be done already.”
“About your birthday…” I start, even though she asked for no more apologies.
“I need to draw your mouth now, so how about you keep it closed?”
I let out a long breath as her hand goes back to the pad and her teeth sink into her bottom lip.
Fuck, she has no idea what she’s doing to me.
Red
I set my pencil down and study my sketch. Wolf stares back at me from the paper, his dark tousled hair falls across his brow almost touching his melancholy eyes that contrasts his playful smile. He is a beautiful contradiction. And despite the years, I can still see the same man I knew ten years ago—his softness disguised by carelessness, his pain as nonchalance.
“I’m done,” I say, and he lets out a long-suffering sigh, stands and rolls his neck.
“About time.”
“Stop complaining. That didn't take that long.” I look at the clock, just over an hour. I don't need him to add all the fine details and final lines. “Anyway, you said I could do anything, and this is what I wanted. Thank you.”
He steps in to look at my piece and I hold it to my chest, “Not yet.”
He stops and grunts then clutches the back of his neck and his fingers dig into the flesh, “I got you something.”
“You did?”
He looks a little sheepish. “Yeah, it’s in my room. Stay here.”
He turns to leave and I follow him, I’ve never been very good at following the rules.
He crosses his bedroom as I cross the threshold. At his bedside table, he pulls out the drawer and takes out a thick rectangular object wrapped up in black paper and sealed with a red silky ribbon.
He turns and freezes to find me in his room.
“I told you to wait.”
“I have been.”
“Red,” he warns but I step further into the room, “what are you doing?”
I step closer and reach for the gift in his hand, “I want my present.”
“Here.” He pushes it into my hand.
I let it drop on the bed and his eyes follow the gift then come back to my face, “The one you owe me.”
“Fuck,” he mumbles to himself, “Red —”
But I don’t let him finish this time, I push myself up on my tiptoes and find his lips. Wolf’s hands wrap around my waist and draw me flush against him. I tilt my head back and our lips mash together in a hungry, demanding kiss like we’ve both been starved for too long. My mouth opens and his tongue finds mine, and I moan into his mouth.
My nails bite into his muscular back and I reach for his shirt, tugging, tearing, desperate for his flesh against my own.
He lets me pull away the shirt and my breath stalls. On his left peck, a tattoo of a half boy, half wolf stares back at me, the haunted face ripped in two.
“Shaw… you took it?”
“You said it was for me.”
“But how? I ripped it.”
“I ripped us apart, and I’ve regretted it every day since.” His confession ripples the air between us.
“Shaw…”
I trace my fingers along the delicate lines. He hisses at the touch, the haunted eyes tell a story of a broken boy, one that’s now the man standing before me. I search his face, but his body is the one answering.
Wolf grabs my wrist and yanks it away from the tattoo. His lips find mine once again in a bruising demanding kiss. He lifts me up and I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist, and he clings to me with a possessive desperate hold. His kisses get deeper and needer with each swipe of his tongue. My hands wind around his neck and weave through his hair as he walks me over to the bed where I let myself untangle from him.
His big body blankets mine, his hot breath tickles my skin when his soft lips find refuge in my neck and along my jaw then fuse with my own. Every time he kisses me somewhere, the rest of my body is jealous and needy and wants to feel him just as eagerly and desperately. I inhale him, memorising every nuance of every tick of his muscles as he kisses me and exhales sharply with a groan.
My heart thrashes in my chest, as with each touch he hacks through the ivy wound tight around it. His hands rip at my shirt, tearing it away. Wolf’s hands are everywhere, a long powerful waterfall that cascades in long streams down my body, he follows every curve and dip, sending shivers down my spine and a hungry need down to my core.
His fingers draw long lines into my skin, like he’s marking me, branding me, making me his. All the while his lips fuse to mine, singeing me with his savage desire. He slides a finger down my throat, the nail biting into my skin, leaving a hot angry trail of memory. He grips my bra and pulls it in a harsh, demanding sweep, pulling it off my body, uncaring and desperate, leaving behind harsh marks that will stay with me long after he’s gone.
“Fuck,” he hisses as his dark eyes take me in, “so fucking beautiful.”
His hands drag along my body, fingers feathering over my hard, aching nipples then withdraw again and again and again, till I whimper with desperation.
“Wolf, please touch me.”
“I am,” he teases just as he rolls his thumb over a nipple.
“Wolf,” I beg, and his face splits open in a dangerous smirk that makes my body ache.
“I’ve waited so fucking long for this Red, I will make it last as long as I want. I’ll give you your birthday present in the way I should have all those years ago. I should have taken you first.” His moth twists for a second and he dips down to suck on my neck, “But, I will promise you this, this will be the last time I am this gentle and this kind.” He smirks then dips his head his tongue flickers over a nipple, ripping away at my sanity.
Gentle? I shudder beneath him.
His fierce mouth closes around my nipple and I moan as his teeth drag and tease and bite. I arch my back, wanting him to take more of me, all of me and I feel his smile curl along my skin.
His fingers slither down to my belly and tug at the fabric of my skirt and underwear, he rips it away and I am naked on Wolf’s bed, caged in his arms, in the place I’ve always wanted to be. Light drips into my exposed heart as the ivy falls limply away, and the empty chambers begin to echo with an old forgotten beat.
His fingers creep along my thighs and he groans as he touches my wetness, the sound fills me like his fingers, and I’m already losing myself to him.
Then ever so slowly he pulls out, only to rake his finger up and down my throbbing, aching pussy. His tongue rolls over my nipples and sweat breaks across my body as I’m flooded with heat and need and a desperate ache to end this torture, which I want to endure forever.
I scratch at his back, wanting him to smother my body, to be inside me, to break me in every possible way; and still he holds himself just an inch above and lays long lingering kisses on my skin and nipples. He nips and grazes and licks and sucks till I think my body might liquefy under the pressure and soon I will be nothing but a pool of sweat and desperate unanswered need.
“Please…”
My breath comes in short, desperate pants as Wolf’s fingers taunt me and his gaze burns me. He watches as I come apart with his hands all over me. I grind myself against him—wanting
more, needing more—the edge is so close and then he pulls away, leaving me empty and hungry. My need unanswered. His mouth crashes against mine, stealing my desperate, disappointed moans for himself, claiming them as his.
“You are so fucking beautiful, Red,” he says on a reverent breath, a sound that ripples through my body.
“Shaw…”
He pulls away from my touch and leaves a trail of kisses along my needy body, till his mouth dips between my legs and his hair tickles the inside of my thighs.
At the first flick of his tongue, I think I might explode. He groans as he tastes me and I buck as he teases my over sensitive flesh, unprepared as pleasure ratchets up my spine. He grips my thighs, his fingers dig into me, holding me in place. My fingers plunge into his hair and I rip at the strands, pulling, tugging too hard, but he doesn’t care. He devours me till every sense is nothing but white light, and I am nothing but sensation and pleasure, and I scream his name till there is nothing left but my thrashing heart as I cry out and grind into his face.
I am nothing but a collection of bone and beautiful sensation when he pulls away and rips his jeans and boxers tossing them away. My gaze rakes over his beautiful features, from his face to his muscular torso partitioned by a fence of dark hair that arrows to his massive cock. It’s so long and hard, the vein pulsates with gnawing need.
He blankets me with his body and his forehead falls to mine as he plunges inside me, and all reason is gone, and all doubt is gone, and we are one.
“Shaw,” I whisper his name as he hisses, the muscles of his neck stretch taught. He stills in the deepest parts of me and pleasure crackles everywhere. His mouth finds mine and he pulls out then smashes inside, forcing me to break the kiss so I can gasp for air.
My fingers dig into the firm muscles of his back, which grow rigid as his hips buck and plunge into me. Deeper, harder, and still I want more, all he has to give me.
We are the current and his tide drags me along towards endless savage pleasure. His hips piston and the muscles of his back strain. He is flesh and need and he pounds into me past a point of no return till a tortured sound slips from his lips, and I am unhinged around him, pleasure spills inside me like a hot all-consuming flood, and with a final, suffocating groan, he surrenders to pleasure.
Wolf (A Little Red Riding Hood Retelling) (Brother's best friend romance) Page 18