Summer Shifter Days

by V. Vaughn

“Can you like magic some up for me?”

  Cassie shook her head. “Not in here. Too many muggles around. But I do have an idea.” She undid the drawstring on her pajama pants and let them drop to the floor, then stepped out of them—and out of Mal’s embrace, sadly. “Put these on. They’re stretchy.”

  Mal tugged her pajama bottoms on. They were pink and voluminous on her, but on him they looked almost like leggings. He was technically no longer naked, and with her pajama shirt hanging down to cover her underwear, she could pass, in the dark, for dressed.

  “Won’t you get cold?” he asked.

  “Not if you keep me warm.”

  They danced like that, both of them ridiculously half naked and unconcerned. Cassie watched the crowd and tried to move like they did, swaying her hips and throwing her arms in the air. It was her first proper muggle dance and it was ten thousand times more fun than the stuffy highborn balls her parents dragged her to, where the dances were immaculately orchestrated and precise. Mal danced like a wild man, leaping in the air, spinning around, screaming out the words to all the songs he knew and cheering when he didn’t know them.

  Cassie dripped with sweat. Her legs burned with the delicious effort of dancing. Malcolm kept touching her, lightly, in different ways. At first he was just bumping her shoulder with his and grinning. But it progressed to hand holding, bumping his butt off hers, and—her favorite—grazing her bare thighs with his fingertips.

  The music was raucous, the kind you jumped and cheered and shouted to, but then the band switched it up and played a slow song, a cover of some old soul classic that everyone but Cassie knew the words to. But she didn’t feel left out—no, instead it was a gift to be able to hear a beautiful thing for the first time. The crowd swayed and sang with the band. Malcolm stood behind her and tentatively placed his hands on her hips. He was testing, seeing how real it was, this thing between them.

  Cassie wanted to tell him, yes, it’s real. This is real and forever, don’t ask me how I know, but I do. It was magic, but the most perfect, most ordinary kind of magic. But she couldn’t say those things, not in the crowded club. So instead she leaned back into him and pressed herself against his body. She raised her arms and looped her hands around his neck, sighing as the heat of his body worked its way into her. His hands moved from her hips, sliding across her soft belly and holding her tight against him. His sex hardened, pushing against her ass. She wanted him, right then and there. She wanted him to slide his fingers down her belly, under the edge of her panties. She wanted his fingers inside her, his tongue inside her, his everything inside her.

  Mal’s lips grazed her ear, sending delicious chills down her neck. She moaned involuntarily.

  “I really want to kiss you,” he said. “But I know you’re with someone else. But this—this thing we’re doing—it feels so real.”

  Cassie turned her head and murmured into his mouth. “I didn’t tell you? I broke off the engagement.” And then he was kissing her. Kissing her softly, kissing her deeply. He tasted like nothing else in the world, like a flavor she’d been searching for since before she was born. She’d kissed boys before, even kissed Nox a few times, but it was nothing like this. Nothing at all.

  The band ended their song and the crowd went crazy. Cassie turned her body in Mal’s arms and held him close, returning his kisses, pulling at him, trying to get him closer and closer. His hardness pressed against her belly like a delicious promise. Mal’s hands moved down her back and grabbed her ass, kneading it, lifting her almost off her toes.

  The lights came on. The band was taking a break.

  “Mal! Cassie!” yelled a booming voice.

  Cassie broke off their kiss and looked around, startled. From across the club, Ash and Nico were waving. They were with a group of other Penrose students who no doubt had all crammed into someone’s van to get there. Mal’s roommates pushed their way through the crowd until they were close.

  Ash beamed drunkenly at them both. “I knew it. I just knew it.”

  Nico gave her an appraising look. He was shorter than she’d expected. “So this is a thing? You two are officially a thing now?”

  “Yes?” Mal said.

  “Very much yes,” Cassie agreed, squeezing Mal tightly.

  “Well, congratulations,” Nico said with a smile. “But you, uh,” he gestured at Cassie.

  “You’re leaking fire,” Ash said, pointing at her fingertips.

  Sure enough, blue sparks were falling from her hands. With the house lights on, they were difficult to see, but when the band came back out she’d be as obvious as fireworks.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

  “Can’t you hear it?” Ash said. “You’re unblocked. Your magic is moving through you freely.”

  “I don’t know how to control it.” An undercurrent of panic welled up in Cassie.

  “We can work on it together,” said Mal, grinning. “I know several excellent control rituals.”

  “In the meantime, you might want to get scarce,” Nico said. “Can’t let the normals see you.”

  “Let’s go somewhere,” Mal whispered in her ear, and the feel of his breath made her toes curl and her eyes flutter shut.

  “You can go to the dorm room,” Ash said. “We can stay out late.”

  Cassie saw in her mind the piles of laundry, the dirty food boxes, the general unkempt boy-ness of the place. “No, somewhere else. And not my dorm room, either. Not again.”

  Nico’s eyes popped out of his head. “Holy what? You actually snuck into The Keep? You’re going to be a legend!” he shouted.

  “Not my place, not yours. Where can we go?” Mal asked.

  “I know a place,” Cassie said. She took Mal’s hand and waved goodbye to his friends. Would they be her friends, too? It seemed likely. She’d have to see if they got along with Maddie. That’d be fun.

  She pulled Mal across the club, weaving through the sweaty throngs of people, and pulled him into a unisex restroom. Mal looked around suspiciously. “Look, I feel it too. This real need. But your first time should be someplace nicer, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, eww. No, I’m not going to have sex in a restroom. At least not tonight. I just needed privacy to do this.”

  She closed her eyes and pictured the platinum disc of her project with all of its engravings, etching them in her mind. Then she thought back to one of her parents’ summer homes. A new portal swirled to life before them. Through it Cassie could see the tastefully rustic furniture of her parents’ Napa estate. It’d be vacant this time of year. The perfect place.

  “How are you doing this?” Mal asked. “I thought you needed elaborate preparations to do this sort of thing.”

  Cassie smiled. “All I need is you.” She took his hand and stepped into the portal. It was more pleasant this time—and faster. One moment they were in the frankly disgusting restroom and the next they’d fallen onto her parents’ bed.

  “Where are we?”

  “Just outside Napa, in California. It’s a little vacation town called Bearfield. This house belongs to my parents. It’s one of the ones they rarely use.”

  “So no one’s around?” Mal smiled at her as he knelt on the bed.

  “Nope,” she said, leaning back on the bed. The flames on her fingers had dwindled, but they were still there, dancing with cold blue light. They didn’t seem to burn anything, though, which was great. Her parents would never forgive her for having sex in their bed, but they really wouldn’t forgive her if she burned the house down at the same time.

  Mal ran his hands up her ankles and calves, past her knees and down her thighs, pushing her legs gently open. He settled down on his belly and kissed the inside of her thigh, and she gasped in shock at how amazing it felt. “Are you sure you want this?”

  She bit her lip and nodded at him.

  “Because I need you. You smell like moonlight and your skin tastes like honey. You’re the smartest, most infuriating person I’ve ever met. Every part of me b
elongs to you, Cassie. When you left earlier, my wolf howled in pain. I thought you were in trouble, but it was him—the wolf—who was in trouble. He couldn’t imagine not seeing you again, and neither could I.”

  “I’ve been saving myself all this time, denying myself so much in life, because I thought I had to. I thought that was the best I could expect. A proper marriage to a good name. A partnership that was clinical and cold. But I don’t want that, not anymore. I want messiness. I want success and failure. I can’t do what my parents want me to. And I probably won’t always do what you want me to,” she said. “I’m my own woman. I belong to me. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wanted you by my side.”

  “Say that last part again,” Malcolm’s eyes blazed with gold. He kissed her thigh again, higher now.

  “I want you,” she breathed.

  “Keep saying that,” Malcolm growled as he slid her panties over her ass, down her thighs and off her body completely. The room was cool, but his body was so warm that as long as he was touching her, she’d feel no cold.

  She didn’t know what was going to happen or how this sort of thing worked. Was she supposed to lie back and let him do everything, was she supposed to do something to him? A bundle of anxiety that she’d long ago hidden came forward in her mind. But then Malcolm’s hands were spreading her open and he was lowering his mouth to her shockingly wet sex and then all the anxiety vanished. Cassie seized the sheets in her hands and let loose a rolling uproarious laugh. Malcolm’s tongue opened her, licking her folds, diving deep into her and doing things that she couldn’t describe. She squeezed his head with her thighs, gasping and laughing and shrieking.

  “It’s too much! Too much!” she yelled, then, “Oh goddess, right there. That thing. Do that thing again.”

  Malcolm growled with pleasure and devoured her. He took her clit between his lips and sucked, strumming it with his tongue while one of his long hot fingers slid inside her. She tried to climb his head, wrapping herself around him and squealing with delight.

  “What is—oh fuck, yes—more of that. Oh, goddess, I’m going to—” The world exploded around her. An antique vase shattered. The bedroom window cracked and blew outward. The wooden floors groaned and shook as if wracked by an earthquake. But it was just Cassie’s orgasm. She was screaming things, silly things and dirty things. Things she’d read but never said before. It all came forth unbidden, drawn out of her by Mal’s lips and tongue and fingers.

  He sucked and stroked her until she came again, this time blowing the bedroom door off its hinges in a splintering explosion. Her world was golden fire. Her body felt amazing. But she crawled off Malcolm’s face and flopped over onto her belly before he could make her come a third time.

  “Oh my,” she said. “What were you doing down there?”

  “No one’s ever gone down on you before?” Mal crawled up the bed next to her, lying on his side and tracing the lines of her back with his fingers. Wherever he touched her, warm shivers reverberated in her flesh. His pants had vanished, Cassie noticed. And his hardness pressed against her hip, somehow even hotter than the rest of him.

  “No one has done anything to me before,” she said with a giggle.

  “You have an amazing laugh.”

  “I think I just laughed more, right now, than I ever have before,” Cassie said. “Thank you.”

  “Was that your first orgasm?” Mal asked.

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “When we were in middle school, Desdemona Cho taught me a spell that she learned from someone else’s older sister. One of those spells that everyone knows, but no one will officially acknowledge.”

  “Tell me more,” Mal said. He kissed her shoulder. His hand traced a path from her neck down her spine to the cleft of her ass and back up again.

  “It’s an orgasm spell. Pleasure magic. Not exactly forbidden, but definitely not ever spoken about in polite society.”

  Mal’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m just now hearing about this? You’ve been holding out on me. If I’d known there was an orgasm spell I would’ve gotten my hands on a wand even sooner.”

  “I’m sure you’ve been putting your hands on your wand for years,” Cassie laughed and then sighed as Mal’s fingers traced the curves of her butt.

  “Will you show me?” he asked.

  “Yes, but not right now. It seriously pales in comparison to whatever it was you did with your mouth. Or maybe I’ve been doing it wrong. Right now, I want more.” Cassie reached down and took hold of Mal’s cock. It felt nothing like she’d expected. It was softer and harder at the same time. Almost velveted, but with a pulse to it.

  “Say it again,” Mal said.

  “I want you,” Cassie breathed. “But I don’t know where I should be. On my back? On top of you? Is there an optimal arrangement?”

  “Stay just where you are,” Mal said, crawling behind her. He straddled her back lightly, his cock pressing down against her ass. He reached down and slid her pajama top off and undid her bra with one deft flick of his fingers. With her shirt went the charm she wore around her neck, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered but their bodies.

  Mal repositioned himself behind her, moving down. The tip of his cock pressed against her. It was burning with heat and felt far too large. It would never fit. They’d have to stop and take notes and find a spell to reduce him or enlarge her or something. It wasn’t a big deal. These things happened.

  “I don’t think you’ll fit—ohh my what the fuck,” she gasped as he entered her. He was big, but her body didn’t seem to care. It opened for him, stretching and accommodating and being generally extremely hospitable. Mal responded by coming in and making himself at home, thrusting deeper into her, moving slowly.

  Cassie started laughing again. There was a soreness, a sense of muscles moving in new ways, but under it was a deep well of pleasure that washed up through her with every thrust.

  Mal growled above her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked between laughs. “Doesn’t it feel amazing?”

  “It’s hard to go slow,” he said. She glanced back and saw his eyes full of fire. All the muscles in his body were taut with self-control and sheathed in sweat.

  Cassie pushed back against Mal’s cock, taking more of him inside her. She whimpered and laughed and cried out, sliding herself on him as he kept absolutely still, his arms trembling. He was touching all sorts of sweet spots within her, spots she hadn’t even known existed. She moved back and forth on him, writhing under him, until his whole length was inside her.

  “I’m not going to break, Malcolm,” she said with a dark, needy tone. “Give me what you have. Don’t hold back. Let yourself go.”

  She didn’t have to ask twice.

  Mal slid almost all the way out and then plunged back into her, driving the breath from her in a great whooping noise. And then he did it again and again. He fucked her hard, his pelvis slapping against her ass like he was trying to spank her with his body. He opened her, again and again, dragging his hot sex against her tight slick walls while she laughed and cried out and told him, again and again, how much she wanted him.

  His talented hands found her clit, stroking it deftly, and as another climax rushed through her, her cries reached a high, pure note. The light overhead exploded. The curtains tied themselves into knots. All of the flowers for a mile around blossomed and stayed that way, forever.

  And then Mal roared out and buried himself deep within her. His cock jerked and a deliciously dirty warmth filled her as he whimpered and shook and said, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  When he was done, Mal collapsed next to her. His breath was ragged, like he’d just run up a mountain.

  Cassie tried to move but found her legs had been replaced by leg-shaped pudding and gave up on the whole idea. Everything from her navel on downwards was a noodley mess of radiating joy. Tiny aftershocks bounced through her body.

  They remained quiet in the afterglow. The contented silence became almost an awkward pause, until
Cassie felt compelled to speak. “What was that part you said at the end, there?” She rolled onto her side, shivering as her skin cooled.

  Mal snuggled up close to her, sharing his heat. “I love you,” he said. “I think I always have. I just hadn’t met you yet.” Then, when she didn’t respond, he raised his head to look at her. The fire was gone from his eyes, but he was no less beautiful and no less hers.

  “Yes,” she said. “I say yes. Yes to everything. Yes to you. Yes to love. Yes, just yes.”

  Epilogue

  When her father heard about the engagement being called off, he was furious. And when Cassie explained to him that she was with Malcolm, an Afflicted boy from the wrong side of the tracks, he went silent and left the room.

  “We also sort of destroyed the Bearfield house!” she called after him.

  Cassie’s mother regarded her with an unreadable glare. They were in the breakfast nook. Mal was back with pack for a few days, figuring some things out about his future. It was as good a time as any for her parents to disown her.

  “This boy, he’s good to you?” Her mother asked.

  Cassie paused, with a slice of honey toast halfway to her mouth. “This is not how I expected this conversation to go.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes in exasperation. “He treats you well? You’re not doing this out of some sort of asinine youthful rebellion, are you?”

  “If I was going to rebel, mother. The world would shake with it.”

  Her mother sipped her tea and gazed out of the picture windows at the spring blooms outside. “I saw you. And him. Together.”

  Cassie blushed but said nothing.

  “It was in the morning. I habitually check in on you. I have since you were a baby. The scrying spells haven’t worked in years of course, not since you started wearing that trinket. So imagine my surprise when I cast the spell and saw you, my daughter who looks at me with such loathing in her eyes. And she was in bed with some handsome man.”

  “Mother, I cannot believe you were spying on me.”

  “Of course you can, dear. But Cassiopeia, I’d never seen you so happy. Even as a girl you always carried a burden. Our expectations, I imagine, were not easy to shoulder. I’d always wished you had an easier time, a lighter load. It’s why I tried to steer you towards more enjoyable classes.” She sipped her tea again and kept her gaze focused out the window. “She’ll be miserable enough when she’s married, I thought. At least let her have some fun at Penrose. But no, you sought out the toughest classes, the most arcane knowledge, no matter how little time it left you for life.”