The Wild Within (Book 2)

by Jeff Hale

  I could hear him growling now, a low deep noise in his throat that made me start to wriggle underneath him. He removed one hand from my hair, and roughly ran it down the side of my face, stopping briefly to play along my collarbone before it moved to my breasts.

  The hand in my hair soon followed while his lips began to make a path away from my neck and across my collarbone. He inched his body down mine, the weight of him an exquisite feeling, until his chest was resting against my stomach, his tongue making lazy circles against my sternum. His fingers were doing magical things to my breasts.

  I hadn’t known that anything could feel that good.

  The weight of him where his body rested between my legs took on a whole new significance, focusing the sensations that I felt in that part of my body, until I felt something build in me that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to contain.

  I writhed under his touch, my hips trying desperately to move of their own accord. I moaned as he shifted his body on mine again, my back arching, and I bucked underneath him as I lost control. My legs locked around his chest and my nails sank into his arms as I scrabbled for something to hold onto and tried to remember to breathe.

  It took a few minutes but that overwhelming fire in my lower body finally started to dwindle enough that I had control again. As he felt my body relax he rolled over onto his back, taking me with him so that I was straddling his hips, his awareness of me very evident through his jeans and mine. I leaned down to kiss him and his hands moved back to my hair, holding his face to mine, his lips and tongue trying to drink me in.

  I pulled back from the kiss and stared down at him. His ponytail had come loose at some point and errant strands of black hair fanned out under his head and one shoulder. His bottom lip was swollen from where I had bitten him and, to hide my own self-consciousness from the knowledge that he was watching me, I leaned forward and ran my tongue over that injured part before ducking my head to stare at the smooth, bronze expanse of his chest and upper arms. Not a hint of a tan line anywhere, just the little pale scars from healed wounds.

  The taste of his skin under my tongue was something I couldn’t quite describe; there were no words for it. I must have spent a good ten minutes or more just licking my way across his chest and stomach, lost in my own private little world of taste sensation, before I noticed that he seemed to be shuddering uncontrollably under my touch.

  “Do you want me to stop?” I asked softly, concerned.

  “Oh, gods, no!” he whispered raggedly, his breath catching in his throat. “Do whatever you feel like doing to…” he twitched because I chose that moment to stick my tongue in his belly button, “me…”

  “Anything?” My chin was resting on the waistband of his jeans and I ran my tongue along his abdomen, hearing his hissing intake of breath.

  “Anything.”

  My lips found the hollows of his hipbones while my hands worked at undoing the buttons on his jeans. Yes, buttons, plural. Damned buttonflies. I hadn’t even known they still made them.

  “Kat? Are you here?” My mother’s voice cut through the lower part of the house and I froze in place, my fingers on the third button. “Katelyn? Where are you, sweetie?”

  “Oh, fuck.” I whispered. I rolled off of Darien, noting the pained expression on his face as he pushed himself up to sitting position. “Hide.”

  The pained expression changed to one of bemusement. “Hide?”

  I looked desperately around for my missing shirt, finally finding it near the door to my bedroom’s personal bathroom. His shirt was close by and I grabbed it up and tossed it to him. I pulled my shirt on, remembering ruefully that my bra was somewhere in the kitchen and saw him make a pouting face as I covered up my breasts.

  “Quit that!” I whisper yelled at him, only to watch him smother laughter as he put his own shirt back on. “I have no plans on giving my mom a heart attack this soon after getting out of the hospital.” I grabbed his arm, and dragged him to the adjoining bathroom, knowing full well that if he had decided not to follow along I wouldn’t have been able to budge him.

  “Stay,” I told him, and watched him settle himself on the edge of the tub. He was still trying not to laugh.

  “Katelyn Amber Shaughnessy! Your purse is on the coffee table, I know you’re here, get your ass out here now!”

  “Uh oh, she used your full name, you’re in for it now! Amber, huh?”

  I threw him a baleful glare, then headed back out to the bedroom, just as my mother was walking into it.

  “Mom! I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow!” I crossed the room quickly, throwing my arms around her in a big hug. “How are you feeling?”

  She returned the hug, then took a step back, her eyes darting about the room. “I’m fine, kiddo, might have some bad dreams for a while, but I’m okay.” She gave me a shrewd look. “The nurse said she called you yesterday and left a voicemail letting you know I’d be home today. Did you get forget?”

  “Yesterday?” I shook my head. “No, they called today, Mom, just a couple hours ago. I was taking a nap and didn’t hear the phone…”

  She shook her head. “They called yesterday, sweetie. Today is Saturday.”

  “Saturday? No, it’s still Friday… isn’t it?” I was confused, and moved past her, skipping down the stairs and over to the living room. My phone was on the coffee table and I flipped it open. In my hunger earlier I hadn’t noticed the date, just the time. She was right. It was Saturday… and I had lain down for my nap just around noon on Friday. I had slept the clock round and hadn’t even known it. “Well, shit.”

  “You didn’t know?” Mom had followed me to the living room.

  “No, Mom. I fell asleep yesterday afternoon, and well, I guess I was still exhausted. I just woke up a little bit ago and thought it was still, well, yesterday I guess.”

  “Well, no wonder you’re confused then.”

  She turned to head into the kitchen then and alarm bells went off in my head. I followed right on her heels and watched as she got a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with cold water from the refrigerator door.

  I saw my bra draped across one of the leg supports of the bar stools by the breakfast bar where Darien had been sitting earlier. She seemed to not notice it, and headed back out to the living room, where she sank onto the couch and took a long drink from her water before setting the glass on the table. I sat in the matching chair next to the couch and beamed at her.

  “Oh, good lord, I’m not stupid, Kat. There is a motorcycle parked in our driveway and it’s much too nice to belong to that young boy who likes to pester you. You also don’t have a tendency to just leave your bras lying about the kitchen. So you might as well tell your young man to come on out of wherever you have stashed him, probably your bathroom. It can’t be too comfortable in there.” She looked me straight in the eye and smiled sweetly while I stared at her like a rabbit caught in headlights.

  She leaned forward and cupped my chin with her hands. “Honey. You graduate next month, you’re almost nineteen. You are an adult. I’ve honestly wished for your sake that you had a boyfriend to share something like this with earlier, but that just wasn’t how things worked out. I’m certainly not going to read you the riot act over it. It’s your life, you’re not a little girl anymore.” She laughed lightly. “I would, however, prefer to not have young men hiding in the house.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs with her last words and I ducked my head and sank into the chair in embarrassment. She was right. I had been an adult and mistress of my own destiny for a while now, but that still didn’t make me stop feeling like her baby girl in her presence.

  Darien took the last step to the floor and crossed the foyer to the living room. He had tidied himself up a bit, helping himself to one of my ponytail holders and my hairbrush from the looks of it. He made his way to the front of the couch and extended a hand toward my mother, whose eyes had been flitting back and forth between him and me the whole time.

&nbs
p; “Good afternoon, Mrs. Shaughnessy.”

  She took his proffered hand.

  “I do apologize for the decep…”

  She waved her other hand at him, cutting him off. “Not to worry, I’m sure it was Kat’s idea.” Her eyes swung to mine again and I could see the amusement in them. “And it’s Mrs. Newall, at least for the time being.” She sighed, her face falling briefly before nailing him with a sunny smile again. “And you are?”

  “Darien.” He glanced in my direction, unable to move since my mother still had hold of his hand, and I could see that he was holding back a smile. “Darien Torre.”

  “Torre? That’s…”

  “Sicilian, ma’am. On my father’s side. My mother is Apache.”

  Sicilian. That would explain the hint of Mediterranean then.

  “Sicilian and Apache. That’s interesting. No wonder you have such beautiful skin.” She continued to beam at him, but she released his hand and gestured vaguely at the furniture. “Have a seat.”

  Darien gave me a questioning look, and since his choices were to sit next to my mother on the couch, something I doubted he would do, or sit across the room from me, something I wasn’t sure I wanted, I stood and pointed at the chair I was sitting in, then promptly dropped into his lap once he was seated. The move took both him and my mother by surprise, but I saw her wink. I settled in with an arm around his shoulders so he didn’t have to lean out to look around me.

  “So, Darien. Where did you and Kat meet?”

  He tensed next to me and I worried at my lip for a moment, before deciding that I might as well bite the bullet and test her ‘you’re an adult now’ philosophy.

  “Uhm, Mom? You know those, uh, ‘old friends’ of mine Kris and I ran into while we were in Tillamook?”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  Damn if the look she gave me didn’t make me think she already knew. “Well, I sorta fibbed. We met Darien and couple of his friends on the beach that first night and went to hang out and well, I just wasn’t sure how you would feel about us spending all night out with guys we had just met.” I dropped my eyes and stared at my feet. I felt Darien’s hands move to rest lightly on my arms for support.

  “That whole story was fishy from the get go, kiddo. I wasn’t sure what exactly was up, but knew it wasn’t what you were telling me.” She leaned forward for her glass again, took another long drink. “As I said before, you’re eighteen, and I trust you not to do anything stupid. I know Kris isn’t eighteen yet…”

  “Her birthday’s this coming Friday, Mom,” I interjected.

  “But…” and she gave me an exasperated look, “if I honestly believed her mother would have given a shit I might have worried. But since I trust Kris, that’s all that mattered to me.” She turned her attention back to Darien, smiling again. “And you, young man, you followed my daughter all the way back home like a little lost puppy?”

  I almost choked. Puppy? Oh, mother how could you?

  “Mom!”

  But Darien was laughing. “Yes, ma’am, I did. I must admit, I am completely smitten with your daughter, and since I have the freedom to travel as I like, I took the opportunity to continue to get to know Kat better.”

  She nodded. “I’ll assume then that you were the young man who kept my daughter from getting hurt any worse than she did when she fell?”

  I had told Mom that the cuts and bruises on my face had happened when I had slipped on the rocks getting down to the beach. She had freaked, briefly, but calmed down once I had assured her I was fine.

  “And picked her up from the hospital yesterday?” she continued. “I believe the nurse’s comment was ‘your daughter’s boyfriend is a handsome devil’. She was right, you are.” She threw another smile his way. “Now, how old are you again, Darien?”

  He grew still again, and I turned so I could see his face and the question in his eyes. He would lie to her about his age if I wanted him to. But I hated lying to my mother, to a point where I knew in the next few days we were going to have a long heart to heart about the upcoming changes in my life, so I just gave the barest shake of my head.

  He cleared his throat. “Twenty four, ma’am.” Well maybe a teensy lie.

  Her look turned sharp. “You know Kat’s never had a real boyfriend before, did she tell you that, Darien? Not even that boy that ditched her at Prom.”

  “Mom!” That did it; I was going to kill her in her sleep.

  Darien scooched me to the side a bit so he could look my mother directly in the eye. “She did, yes, ma’am, but not until after I had already shown my interest and made the trip up here. Personally, Mrs. Newall, I think there are a lot of stupid men in this area. By rights you should have to keep a loaded shotgun near the front door.” He frowned at me. “Some guy actually ditched you at Prom?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was possible for my face to get any redder, but it did if it could and I tried to sink into the chair as best as possible.

  My mother actually leaned forward and patted Darien on the knee, her smile softening to one of actual sincerity. “Oh, I think I like you already, Mr. Torre, yes I do. And I get the idea that you will go to any lengths to protect her as well. I’m not sure why I feel that way, but I do. Oh, I think you’ll do just fine.”

  My phone chose that moment to ring and I grabbed it, glad for something to take my attention away from Darien and my mother. It was Kris. Her parents were done with her and she was on her way over. She wanted to hear everything.

  I scooted off of Darien’s lap, phone still in hand. “That was Kris, she’s on her way over. I promised her we’d hang out tonight.”

  Darien stood, gave me a quick hug and kiss. “That’s okay, Kat, I should probably be going anyway. Just give me a call when you feel like.” He smiled at me and began to move towards the door. I put a hand out to stop him.

  “Uhm, we’re kinda having this thing this coming Friday, we planned it months ago, no reason not to do it still, for Kris’s birthday. There’s a local under 21 club, The Basement, downtown, we’re all gonna meet there for her birthday, around seven? You’re more than welcome to join us if you want.”

  “You sure it’s okay? Kris won’t mind?”

  “She should be fine with it, I’ll give you a call later if it’s not.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll be there.” He kissed me again. “But I really would like to see you sometime earlier than that this week. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Newall.” He dipped his head in what I could only describe as a token bow, then turned and headed out the door.

  “It was nice to meet you too, Darien!” my mother called after him.

  I leaned against the door after it shut behind me, my eyes closed, trying to figure out how I had survived the last half hour with my dignity intact.

  “I like him, Katelyn.”

  I opened my eyes and gave my mom a half smile. “I do too, Mom. I guess I’m just, I don’t know… I’m expecting you to yell and scream at me, ground me, something.” I shrugged.

  She was silent for almost a minute, staring at her hands while she still sat on the couch. “That’s because if Gary was here, that’s what he’d be doing, and you’re used to that. Even once you turned eighteen, he still wouldn’t stop treating you like some errant child constantly.” Her eyes lifted to mine and I could see years of regret in them. “For that I am truly sorry, Katelyn. Even if mine and Gary’s relationship between ourselves had been good, his treatment of you alone would be enough for me to not mourn his passing.”

  “Even if it had?” I walked over and sank down next to her on the couch and put my arms around her, hugging her. “I know there are things you aren’t telling me, Mom, but I have to know. You said so yourself, I’m a grownup now.” I could feel her nod. “Did he ever… hurt you, Mom?”

  She froze for a moment, then nodded again. “Yes, honey, yes he did,” she whispered. She shuddered and her whole body relaxed against me. “And I feel so bad because, because… I don’t feel bad that he’s dead!”

  An
d with that she broke down into loud, body wrenching crying, clinging to me tightly. I let her cry on me, my mother, while I stroked her hair and told her that everything would be fine, and that nothing was her fault, doing for her and talking to her the way she hadn’t been able to for me these last few years. I let her cry on me until she couldn’t cry anymore and she finally lay back against the couch cushions and just took deep shuddering breaths. But she seemed as though a huge burden had been lifted off of her, as though some weight that had been holding her down was finally gone.

  Kris had arrived somewhere in the middle of Mom’s crying jag. She had shut the front door softly, given me a sympathetic look, then had tiptoed into the kitchen. Not long after Mom stopped crying, Kris poked her nose through the kitchen door, then came out with a package of cookies in her hands. She set them down on the coffee table in front of the couch, and then retreated to the chair I had been sitting in with a cookie in hand.

  “Here, Mrs. Newall, cookies always make everything better,” Kris said.

  Mom actually laughed at that, but she leaned forward and eyed the cookie package, then pulled a couple from the plastic and very undaintily ate half a cookie in one bite. She sighed around the cookie, then said, “Well, I suppose chocolate chips are better for me than beer.” She gave me a semi-fake smile.

  “Have another cookie, Mom.” I placed the whole package in her lap and she laughed.

  “Oh, Kat, I stopped by the police department on the way home. They’ve released the house so we can get our stuff anytime we want to. We could just go back and spend the night there, but I don’t think I could now.” She shivered.

  There was no point in keeping the new place when Gary, despite being a complete and utter ass, had left everything in his will to Mom, as well as a sizeable life insurance policy. It had probably never occurred to him, or been in his plan, that he would die first.

  “I figured we could go before dinner and pick up the essentials, and I can call the movers again Monday. You’ll have to sleep on the floor tonight and tomorrow though. I claim the couch.”