by Mia Sheridan
He stepped toward her, his voice gravelly, thick. “I . . . know the basics. The rest, you’ll have to show me. I have . . . questions.”
“Like what?” she whispered. Why was she stalling now? Am I scared? she asked herself. Not of him, not of this, she realized. It was just that she’d never felt this kind of . . . gravity when it came to sex. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to. Maybe she’d made a point of avoiding it for the lack of control it brought. But now, she realized she’d denied herself the very thing that might have helped to heal her.
As he moved his finger under her breast, he watched in rapt fascination as her nipple stiffened and she shivered with delight. “I’ll let you know as they come up.”
He took her hand, and now he was leading her to the edge of the bed, where he pulled back the blankets and guided her to lie next to him. He pulled the covers over them and for a few minutes, they simply gloried in the feel of naked skin against naked skin, in the warmth they shared, the safety of her room, the hopefulness that stretched before them. The long, delicious night that lay ahead. Harper’s skin prickled, and a sigh fell from her lips as his mouth nuzzled the swell of her breast, moving around it. She watched him for a moment, realizing that he was avoiding her nipples. “You can kiss me there,” she whispered, turning her body slightly, offering herself to him. He looked briefly puzzled, but then his eyes darkened, lust flaring, and he lowered his mouth to her nipple, sucking gently. She moaned.
“You like that,” he noted, his voice gravelly, awe in his tone.
“Yes,” she breathed. He lowered his head again, spending long minutes nuzzling, rolling his tongue around her nipples, driving her crazy with desire, the vibration between her legs heightening to a feverish pitch.
“Jak,” she gasped, pulling at him, needing him to fill the emptiness inside her.
He rose up over her, a shadow in the darkness, his eyes glittering with intensity, and though she would have expected her heart to stall, her desire to fade, in fact the opposite happened. Her body thrilled. Answered to him in some primal way she couldn’t define. She felt a heady rush of arousal and her need for him made her writhe, the hot pulsing between her legs causing a sweet ache. She opened her thighs, giving him invitation, asking him to take the most tender part of her and make her his. I trust you, she thought. With every part of me.
She took her hand and lined his erection up at her entrance. “Slow,” she whispered.
He did as she instructed, but she could tell it was costing him, his breath coming out in fast pants, his limbs trembling as he entered her one slow inch at a time, stretching her so it was a delicious pleasure . . . pain. Her body adjusted, muscles clasping as he penetrated her to the hilt, grunting, an animalistic sound of profound pleasure, of joy, of relief and surprise and desperation all mixed together.
She didn’t have to instruct him what to do then. His body took over, as he pulled out slowly and then pushed back in, his movements corresponding to long masculine groans of ecstasy and short grunts of exclamation as he buried himself inside her and then pulled out again. He moved with such singular focus, and the sounds he made set her on fire. And oh God, he felt so good, his body big and hot and hard, filling her, his rough skin rubbing on her most sensitive parts, back forth, back forth, but too slowly. Too torturously slowly. “Faster,” she groaned, a pleading note to her voice. “Faster, faster, faster,” she panted.
“I’ll . . .”
“I know,” she said. “I want to feel it. I want to feel you.” She wanted to watch him as he fell apart inside her for the first time. She couldn’t wait.
She felt him hesitate, something almost fearful crossed his expression, but only for a second as he finally—finally—sped up, his hips bucking as he began to thrust in earnest. Yes, yes, yes. She tightened her thighs around him, watching his face, waiting for the moment it would tense with unbearable pleasure. But to her surprise, it was her own intense pleasure that swept over her, an orgasm rising so quickly, it took her unaware as she cried out, the pulsing bliss exploding and then receding.
His eyes grew heavy, his lids half closing as his mouth fell open and he plunged into her, once, twice, an animal roar of pleasure erupting from him, as he threw his head back and pressed himself into her one final time.
With one last groan, he collapsed on top of her, rolling his weight to the side as their hearts beat together, their quickened breaths mingling, slowing, sweat cooling on their skin.
She felt his smile against her neck and it elicited a small laugh from her as she used her inner muscles to squeeze his softened flesh, still halfway inside her. He grunted against her throat, chuckling, the movement causing him to slip from her body.
He rolled to the side and propped himself up, gazing down at her, the look of stunned joy on his face so stark and clear that she laughed out loud. She lifted herself up and kissed him once, hard on the mouth.
“Let’s do it again,” he suggested, his voice slow with satisfaction.
She laughed, kissing him again, tracing his lips with her finger. “Hold me for a while first.”
He did, and she knew he relished the intimacy, his joy so close to the surface that she could read every nuance on his handsome face. His joy inspired hers, and she’d never felt so contented in all her life, lying there with him in the warmth of her bed, sharing, touching, making love again and again.
The night deepened, wrapping around them so it felt as if no one else existed. Only them. “This. Here,” he breathed, looking at her with deep intensity, their bodies connected, their hearts entwined.
“What?” she asked on a breath, the moment slowing, though everything physical about her was rushing, quickening.
“This fills my soul. You . . . you fill my soul.”
Oh, Jak.
He began moving then and her thoughts tumbled, drifted away as pleasure engulfed her, joy spiraling wildly. You fill my soul too, her heart whispered just as her body flew to the stars.
They whispered in the dark. He told her about his beloved Pup and kissed her tears away when she cried for his loss. She told him more about her childhood, how hard it had been every time she had to pack up and move somewhere else.
When the sun peeked through her curtains, they had hardly slept. Her muscles ached, and she was sore in places she hadn’t even known existed. And yet Harper had never opened her eyes to a morning that held more exuberant joy than that one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jak’s grandfather lived in a castle. Though Agent Gallagher had called it an “estate.” Estate was another word for castle, he figured. It had to be. There couldn’t be a house bigger than the one he was standing in.
He squeezed Harper’s hand and she looked at him, her eyes both sleepy and bright. His blood got hot and he wanted to mate with—no, make love to—her again, even though they’d done it four times, once just before Agent Gallagher had picked them up. Harper had asked if he wanted to go alone to meet the grandfather, but he wanted her there. Wherever he was, that’s where he wanted her to be.
Clicking sounds on the floor and a second later, a man came into the room. He was almost as tall as Jak with gray hair and clothes that looked like a uniform only . . . not. His gaze turned to Jak immediately, the look in his eyes sharp like an eagle. He walked to him and held out his hand. Jak shook, gripping firmly like Agent Gallagher did. The shaking thing, it was becoming familiar. It was what people did when they met, or saw each other again.
“My God,” the man murmured, his eyes traveling all over Jak’s face. His voice sounded surprised and sad and happy all together. “It’s uncanny. Come.” He turned and made a hand movement that Jak thought meant he should follow him. He glanced once at Harper, and she gave him a nod before he followed the older man. He walked to a desk and picked up a photograph, handing it to Jak. The picture was of a man about his age, he thought, standing in front of a car and smiling.
Jak looked at it, trying to figure out what the older man was showing him. “That’s
Halston Junior. Your father.” Jak’s eyes widened and he brought the picture closer, looking at the face of the man who had fathered him. “You look like him,” the older man said. “Just like him. There are more family albums in the drawer if you want to look through them later.” Jak stared at the photograph again, bringing his hand to his bearded jaw, his eyes moving back to the man in the picture, curious. Jak wasn’t sure if he looked like his father. He still pictured his own face looking back at him from the wavy water. He couldn’t remember what he’d looked like in the pictures he’d found at Driscoll’s house, and he didn’t like to think about that anyway. He’d only glanced at himself in the mirror in Harper’s bathroom. He hadn’t taken the time to study himself—he’d wanted to, but he wanted to get back to bed more. To her. He handed the photograph back.
“I’m your grandfather, son. Call me Hal. Welcome. Welcome to the family.” His voice made a weird crack and then he stepped forward, surprising Jak by wrapping his arms around him. Jak remained stiff for a second, but then let the man hug him quickly before he stepped back again. “Well, I’m sure you have hundreds of questions and we can sit down and talk after I’ve shown you around your new home. How’s that?” He thought of his real home—his old home, he kept having to remind himself. Right now, the forest would be filled with the noise of the hunters and gatherers going about their work. The sun would be at its warmest. If he closed his eyes, he could feel it, smell it, remember the times of peace when his mind was quiet and his heart was calm. There, he felt connected to all living things, when the whispers weaved through him, wrapped around him, and he became part of it all. No end. No beginning. He’d drawn the feeling on Harper’s mother’s notes. He wondered if he’d ever have that feeling again. This new place felt like the opposite of that.
The grandfather—Hal—smiled at Agent Gallagher and Harper, who was standing next to him with her hands together in front of her. “Thank you for everything,” he said. “Nigel will show you to the door.” The man named Nigel in the black and white uniform stepped forward from the doorway like he was a shadow who had just come to life.
“Thank you. Jak, give me a call if you need anything,” Agent Gallagher said, giving him a nod and starting to turn away.
Jak’s heart leaped and he stepped toward Harper. “Do you want me to stay?” she asked softly, leaning in to him.
Yes. He did. But he remembered she had gifts for the kids at the group home. Gifts in shiny green paper with red and white bows. She’d put them behind the seat in her truck and said she’d been away from them too long. He wanted those kids with no parents—like him and Harper—to have those gifts. To know she hadn’t forgotten about them.
But he didn’t want to be alone with these strangers in this big castle that felt cold and lifeless. He felt . . . stuck. He stared at Harper. It’d only be for a little while . . . “Will you come back?”
Harper smiled, but it looked like she was making herself do it. “Yes, of course I will. I’ll call you.”
Call him? He felt panicked. He didn’t even know how phones worked, didn’t know what phone, or where . . .
“Agent Gallagher gave me the number here,” she said, as if she could read his mind. “I’ll call you.”
“Okay, then, it’s all settled,” the grandfather said. “Nigel.”
He held out his hand to Harper, feeling unsure, wanting to kiss her. She looked unsure too but she moved forward, hugging him quickly, squeezing, and then she was turning. Walking away. Gone. Harper. I should have asked her to stay.
“Follow me,” the grandfather said. “I’ll give you a short tour and then we can sit down and talk before my one o’clock appointment.” Tour. Appointment. So many words he didn’t know. His head hurt. Jak followed the grandfather out of the room with all the couches and chairs and blue and gold colors, into a huge, open area that was so tall, Jak had to bend his neck to see the ceiling. Everywhere there was shiny stone, white and gray with streaks and rivers inside it. Jak wanted to reach out and touch it, to feel it under his fingertips—how did rock get that smooth?—but he didn’t, instead holding his hands behind his back the way the grandfather was doing.
There were carpets with whole forests under his feet—birds and trees and flowers in reds, blues, yellows, and starless black.
The grandfather showed him another room with sitting furniture, this time in green and white colors, and then he walked him into a room with shelves so high they reached the ceiling. They were filled with . . . books. Jak’s eyes widened and his heart jumped. So many, many books. More books than he knew were written in the world. “Agent Gallagher said you’re able to read.”
“Yes,” Jak murmured, his eyes unable to move from the shelves to the man speaking to him.
“Well, help yourself to any of these. Lord knows no one around here reads them.”
Jak felt his eyebrows shoot up. “No one reads these?” He couldn’t understand. His heart was jumping and speeding at the news that so many books even existed. He was still in the middle of The Count of Monte Cristo, but he wanted to start looking through these. He wanted to pick his next book, and the one after that. He wanted to stack them into a big pile and start reading right away.
“All too busy, I guess. The young people are always on their phones. Lord only knows what they’re doing. Social media, I guess.”
Jak didn’t know what that was, so he made his face look understanding and nodded. The grandfather led him out of there, but Jak looked around the big hall so he’d make sure he could find his way back.
The grandfather took him to a kitchen so big that Jak stood in the doorway staring. It was bigger than two of his cabins, bigger than five of his baka’s kitchens. It had more of the shiny stone, a bright silver stove and a refrigerator that looked like a small house. Jak swallowed. There was so much food. Right there, for the taking. He turned away, something about it making sadness pinch his chest. He pretended he didn’t feel the way he did. He didn’t even know what he felt anyway.
“Jak, this is Marie. She’s our chef and anything you’d like to eat, you just let her know.” A chef?
The round woman with red cheeks smiled and held her hand out. Jak shook it. “I make the food here,” she said, winking her eye. “Any favorites I should know about, Jak?”
“Uh.” He searched his mind. He knew he’d done the wrong thing when he’d eaten the raw meat at the Gallagher’s. He’d be expected to eat cooked meat from now on, he understood that. Understood that it was uncivilized not to. Except sushi, Harper had told him. He didn’t know what that was, but if it was raw, he figured he would like it. “Sushi.”
Marie’s eyebrows did a funny thing, but she smiled again. “I’ll be sure to add it to the menu then.”
“Very good,” the grandfather said, and then he led Jak out of the kitchen, down another hall. Jak didn’t know how he’d find his way out if he decided he wanted to leave. The grandfather opened a big set of doors with glass at the top and Jak smelled the birds before he heard them. He stopped, confused. The grandfather laughed. “Hear the singing? Lovely, isn’t it? It’s coming from the aviary,” he said. “It’s where my wife, Loni, will be. Come with me.”
Aviary? The bird cries got louder and Jak’s heart stumbled. They weren’t like any bird language he’d ever heard before, and the birds he was listening to weren’t singing . . . they were . . . crying. What’s happening?
He followed the grandfather into another large room with big trees that didn’t grow in the ground, but instead in . . . pots all around the sides. He wondered how they whispered to each other that way when they had no deep-down place to meet. In the middle of the room were three giant cages that almost reached the ceiling. Bird castles made of bars. Inside were hundreds of birds in colors Jak had never seen birds in before. “Flower birds,” Jak murmured, his eyes wide, their cries twisting his heart.
A woman wearing all white glided from behind one of the cages and held her hand out to Jak. Her eyes moved all over him, and he
got that same feeling he used to get when he thought someone was watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Hello,” she purred like a fox when it was eating its kill. “Look at you. You’re just everything I thought you’d be.”
“Spitting image of Hal Junior, isn’t he?”
The woman glanced at the grandfather. “Mmm,” she purred again. “I’m Loni.”
“She’s your step-grandmother,” Hal said, and she gave him a look like she was mad because what he said wasn’t true. She did look a lot younger than the grandfather. She reached her hand out and Jak took it in his, noticing her nails were long and sharp and bright pink. She used one of them to tickle his palm as he was pulling his hand away. Maybe she was trying to make him laugh, to tell him it was all a joke. He hoped so but . . . “Her son, Brett, and daughter, Gabi, live here with us as well. You’ll meet them later tonight.”
“You must be an animal lover, Jak,” Loni said. “We have that in common.” She waved her hand around at the crying birds. “I can’t wait to find out what else we have in common.”
Jak had no idea what to say to the bird woman with the claws, so he simply stared.
“You let me know if you need anything settling in, you hear?” Loni winked at him, but it was different than the wink Marie had given him, and he wasn’t sure how, but it was.
He nodded, wanting to get far away from the woman who enjoyed making beautiful things cry.
He hurried after the grandfather, finally taking a full breath once the bird cries faded. They went into a smaller room with two couches and two chairs. This room was yellow, all different shades. Jak sat in the chair the grandfather pointed to. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Not eggnog, please.”
The grandfather laughed. “Not a fan, eh? Me neither.” He handed him a glass of water and Jak took a grateful sip.
“I’m sure you have questions, Jak. What can I answer for you?”
“I’d like to hear about my father,” he said. “Agent Gallagher told me what happened with him and my . . . mother, but . . . what was he like? Who was he?”