Catnipped

by Olivia Myers

  “Maybe you just shouldn’t be around shifters if you’re going to treat them like your own personal way into the pack!” I snapped back.

  There was a pause, then Lindsay gestured to the door. “Out.”

  “What?”

  “Out. I need time to think. And I can’t do that around you right now.” She was serious. I backed away, gathering my clothes. We couldn’t be breaking up. Not when I’d just found the one woman who I seriously thought I might be in love with.

  “When do I get to see you again?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

  “I don’t know. I’ve got a bunch of thinking to do.”

  Yanking on my clothes, I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. I had no idea how to process what had just gone down, but I didn’t like it, and I didn’t want it to stick. But she needed her space, and I had to give that to her. So I looked at her again, wanting to plead with her to let me stay. Her eyes refused to move from a spot on the counter.

  I left. I didn’t know when I would come back. If ever.

  ***

  The next few days passed by in a haze. And not the good kind, not the kind I’d shared with Lindsay for the past few weeks. No, the kind of haze where I couldn’t really take anything on, or focus on what the guys in the pack were saying to me. My heart hurt. I knew I had some serious feelings for this girl, but I had to go and blow it by trying to be her dad, not her boyfriend.

  But then, I argued with myself, she had borderline tricked me into doing something she knew I wouldn’t normally do. And that felt unfair. But whatever our reasons for taking this break from each other, it hurt like hell. I found myself constantly wondering if she was thinking about me the same way. She was probably still fuming.

  The hardest part was not having anyone to talk to. Obviously I couldn’t talk to the guys in the pack about it, because they couldn’t know it was her I’d been fucking all these weeks. Besides, most of them would never even dream of dating a non-shifter. And I couldn’t talk to my normal friends about it, because then I’d be giving away the fact that, ya know, I was a fucking werewolf. I was trapped with my feelings, unable to voice them to anyone. It was tough. It was really tough. I’d been through break-ups before, but this was unlike anything else. Usually I was the one walking away, not the one being asked to leave. And I had never felt this strongly about anyone before. It wasn’t just the sex I missed, but our conversations, our hours spent whiling away the time watching shitty sitcom reruns on her couch, gorging on takeaway food with her legs resting on my lap. Those were the parts I missed the most.

  It was exactly three weeks to the day we last saw each other that it happened. On top of all my mopey heartbreak, I’d also been plagued with the worry that I’d turned her into a shifter. She was right, it was extremely rare to pass on the virus like that, and chances were that she was fine. But still, I kept on replaying the possibility in my mind. What would happen if she was a shifter now? Would she be angry at me? Would she hold it against me for the rest of my life? Would the pack discover it was my fault and throw me out? Would she wind up dating someone else in the pack? My mind was racing with the possibilities, and each one made me feel sicker than the last.

  I was sitting in my apartment, a couple of beers deep, when I heard the door buzz. Assuming it was just the cleaners wanting to be let into the building, I heaved myself from my spot on the couch and went to the door. Pressing the button, I grunted into the microphone.

  “Who is it?”

  “Lindsay.” Her voice came as an actual, physical shock to me, the kind that knocks you sideways and leaves you a little breathless. Her voice sounded harsh, different, and I had no idea what she might have been there for.

  Taking a second to rearrange my thoughts, I replied, “Okay, I’m buzzing you in.”

  I didn’t know what she wanted, but I’d be damned if I was going to pass up the opportunity to see her. I heard footsteps on the stairs. I rushed to open the door before she could knock.

  Her hair was matted to her head, and her eyes looked wild. Yes, there was definitely something different about her, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. Then the smell hit my nostrils—heady, earthy, like damp grass. Everything clicked into place.

  “You shifted.”

  She nodded curtly.

  I gestured for her to come inside, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead. Jesus, she’d actually turned. I’d actually turned her.

  “Are you okay?”

  She turned to me, her nostrils flared and her eyes blazing. “No, I’m not fucking okay! I just shifted for the first time, and it was scary and awful and amazing and now I don’t know what to think!”

  I took a step toward her, placing my hand on her shoulder. “Lindsay, you’ve got to calm down. We need to talk about this.”

  She brushed my hand away. “We don’t need to talk about anything! I only came here because…because…ugh!” She turned her back on me, throwing her hair over her shoulder. She was angry, yes, but there was something else between us too. That tension. That sense that something was about to happen.

  “Why did you come here, Linds?”

  She turned around again, this time casting her eyes down. Her voice was softer. “I came here because that shift sent my hormones into overdrive and now I need someone to fuck me.”

  My heart stopped. I was right. There was an ulterior motive.

  “Lindsay, you’ve just shifted, you don’t want to do anything you’ll regret just after—”

  “Oh, shut up, Kellan!” She took a step closer to me, and my nose was filled with her intoxicating scent again. “I need you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me. You’re all I’ve been able to think about for the last month, and now you’re here in front of me and all I want you to do is—”

  I cut her off, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her toward me. Our mouths were hungry, angry, horny, tasting and licking and biting each other. Scooting my elbow under her backside, I lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around me. Goddamn, it was hot. She pressed her crotch into my erection, trailing kisses down my neck and biting into my shoulder. I let out a groan. She felt so familiar and so new at the same time, and suddenly I didn’t care if this was a bad decision.

  Walking backward, I toppled us over the couch so I was on top of her. I pushed up her shirt to reveal her breasts. Sliding my hand under her bra, I pinched her nipple, hard, making her squeal into my mouth. I knew we weren’t going to be making sweet, passionate, intimate love. Instead, we were going to fuck, and fuck hard. Sliding my hand down to her panties, I hooked a finger around them and yanked them aside, then penetrated her with my fingers. Her pussy clenched immediately, as if she didn’t want me to stop, and I pumped my fingers in and out of her vigorously. Her back arched as she pushed her body into mine, pulling back so she could unbutton my shirt and kiss down my chest.

  Pushing my hand away, she flipped us over so she was on top. Fumbling with our clothes, we undressed hurriedly, pressing back into each other as soon as we were naked. It felt unbelievable, and even better when her kisses travelled further down. Climbing seductively between my legs, Lindsay pushed her hair from her face and engulfed my cock with her mouth.

  I let out a sharp cry as my cock hit the back of her throat. Her tongue was busy and wet and everywhere, taking me down as if her life depended on it. She glanced up at me and her eyes flashed salaciously. God, I wanted to be inside this girl. I wanted it so badly.

  After a couple of minutes of watching her perfect mouth on my cock, I pulled her back on top of me, wrapping my arms tightly around her back as I pulled her in to kiss her again. Her body felt so good, and so soft, and there was something else there, too, something that hadn’t been there before. I’d never been with a shifter woman before, but maybe that was the difference, the way our bodies felt in tune with each other, as if we were suddenly on the same cosmic wavelength.

  I flipped Lindsay over so she was lying on her front, maneuvering her body so her he
ad was over the edge of the couch, her ass and pussy pointed up at me. God, she was perfect. She had a smooth, round, pert butt, and her pussy was already soaking wet, begging to be fucked hard. I got lightheaded just at the sight of her. She arched her back again and moaned as I put on the condom.

  Positioning the head of my dick at the entrance to her sex, I took my time easing inside of her, making sure that she could feel every inch of me as I slid into her pussy. The sound she let out then was almost animal, a mixture of relief and desire for more. I held myself inside her for a couple of seconds, and then began to pick up my pace, my hands planted firmly on her ass. She pinched and rolled her nipples between her fingers as she ground her hips back into me. The sight was beyond sexy. I slammed all the way into her and felt her pussy clench around me.

  After three weeks of waiting, I knew neither of us had any intention of making this last. We wanted to fuck, to get back to each other’s bodies and share those exquisite moments of pleasure again. As I moved in and out of her, watching the pleading desire on her face, I knew all I wanted at that moment was to see her come, and see her come hard.

  Reaching between her legs to slide a finger over her clit, I slowed my pace, teasing her, earning a bunch of loud groans from her. Now that was a good sound to hear. Increasing my pace again, I could feel her orgasm approaching, could see it on her face as she turned to look at me—

  And then she came, crying out, her knuckles white as her fingers clamped into the couch, her head thrown back. The sensation of her pussy clenching around my cock, matched with the look on her face, was more than I could take. I climaxed, pushing myself inside her one last time as I sank my fingers into her ass. Damn, that was good. That was really, really good.

  We slumped together in a heap, neither of us sure what to do or say next.

  “So…how you’ve been?” I cringed even as I said it. It was maybe the most cliché, least appropriate thing in the situation.

  “Well, apart from the fact that I’m a werewolf…” Lindsay replied, sounding more resigned than anything. She propped herself up on the couch.

  “Yeah, about that…” I began.

  “Look, Kellan, I knew the risks when you bit me. It’s kind of shitty, yes, but it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time. The way I got it out of you was wrong, and I’m so sorry for that. But this is just the start for us. Now I feel like I understand you better. And I like that.”

  “So…is this about us getting back together?” I asked. Inwardly I cringed. I wanted so badly for her to say yes, but it could go either way.

  “It can be, if you want.”

  The biggest smile spread across my face, and my heart lightened. “I do.”

  The words were simple, but they meant a lot to both of us. We glanced at each other from across the couch, neither of us particularly used to big declarations of love.

  She smiled back at me. “Well, that’s that then.”

  ***

  And that was that, for a while. It took Lindsay a long while to get used to her “time of the month,” as she insisted on referring to it. She didn’t want to tell her father, but she needed someone to guide her through the etiquette of how to be a shifter without blowing the whole community wide open. That was one reason packs existed—to help induct newbies into the art of shifting. She couldn’t join a pack because her father knew all the local pack leaders, and she didn’t want to get found out. All in good time, as she kept telling me.

  So we would go out together, spend time figuring out her form, and how she could shift in a way that was comfortable for her, and where she should stash her clothes when she shifted. It was far from the first time that I’d shifted with somebody else, but with Lindsay it felt different. There was an easy, open intimacy that I didn’t have with anyone else, that with her felt as natural as day and night. I was able to relax, to run and howl and actually enjoy shifting for the first time in a long time. We often fucked after we finished shifting back to our human forms. There were always major hormone glitches involved in a shift, and it felt good to be able to work them out with a girl as hot as Lindsay at home. Or sometimes on the hood of my car in the woods. Or pulled over on the roadside. Wherever we did it, it was seriously good stuff, and it worked for us.

  Our relationship flourished, even though we still had to keep it a secret. She had sworn she would tell her father about it when the time was right, but she didn’t want to drop the bomb of her new boyfriend and her new skill at the same time. I couldn’t say I blamed her. Mark was a good alpha, insofar as he was authoritarian and took rule-breaking seriously. I wasn’t looking forward to the day when I had to be the guy who admitted to fucking his daughter, but that was a mixture of the fatherly instinct and the alpha instinct mixed into one confusing mess.

  Sneaking around like errant teenagers also worked out pretty well for our libidos, so who was complaining?

  It had been six weeks or so since Lindsay had turned up at my apartment and fucked my brains out, when the bomb finally dropped. I was just cleaning some dishes and listening to the radio when the phone call came.

  My cell starting buzzing on the countertop, and I picked it up.

  “Hey Linds.”

  “Kellan, he knows.” Her voice was quiet.

  My heart lurched. I didn’t need it explained any more than that. “How much does he know?”

  “Everything.”

  Oh, shit. This wasn’t good.

  “How did he find out?”

  “He had just come back from a shift and the smell triggered me. And he demanded to know who had done it. I’m sorry, I tried to wait until the time was right.” Her voice was genuinely apologetic, and also a little relieved. I couldn’t blame her for either.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. Look, is he around? Maybe I can talk to him.”

  “Um, yes, he is actually. We’re…parked outside your house right now. Can we come up?”

  I took a deep breath. “Sure, come on up.”

  It was hardly the way I saw this going down, but then, not having to hide my relationship with Lindsay any more would be a good thing. I buzzed the door open, and within seconds, Mark and Lindsay were standing in my doorway. I often forgot how threatening Mark could be when he was angry, and now he looked furious.

  I opened the door. “Mark, hi.”

  He pushed past me.

  “So you’re the guy who turned my daughter?”

  “Look, Mark, I know it sounds bad, but—”

  “Sounds bad?” he snapped. “My daughter, who I have tried to protect from this life for as long as I’ve been living it, has been turned. And by none other than her boyfriend, who turned out to be the beta of my own damn pack! So not only do I look like a fool for not knowing what was going on in my family, but I had no clue what my second in command was up to!”

  I tried to reason with him. “Look, Mark, I—”

  Lindsay cut in. “Dad, I know it’s difficult, but it’s the same thing I’ve been telling you on the way over. I chose to do this. I made him do this. I wanted to be closer to this world; I’ve always understood it better that the real one.”

  Mark closed his mouth and turned to his daughter. She continued.

  “I’m good at this, Dad. I like this. This feels normal to me, and it’s what I wanted. I knew you’d never turn me, so I found someone who would. And now I feel like there are people who understand me, and that’s amazing.”

  Mark finally spoke. “So, was this whole thing with you and Kellan just about shifting?”

  My stomach dropped. I hadn’t even considered that possibility.

  “No, it’s not.” Lindsay said firmly. “I never came into this relationship just wanting to change. I would be with Kellan now no matter what he was.” Her voice was steady and serious, and I felt my heart swell knowing that she felt the same way I did.

  “I really like him, Dad. He’s a good beta to you, and I know that I’ll make a good part of the pack, too.”

  There was a silence as Mark
and Lindsay stared each other down.

  “So, you actually want this?” Mark asked, incredulous.

  “Yes. I want him, and I want this lifestyle.”

  It was a wonderful thing to hear.

  “And you’re certain?”

  “Yes.”

  Mark nodded to himself, thinking hard.

  “Well, then it makes sense for you to step into my shoes, then, doesn’t it?”

  I stepped forward, as his beta, and spoke. “Mark, I don’t want you to think that I did this to try to usurp you or get in your way. I just really love your daughter, and—”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Kellan,” Mark interrupted with a smile on his face.

  Lindsay’s jaw dropped. “Me? But I haven’t even spent time with them as wolves yet. I don’t know the first thing about leading a pack!”

  Mark turned to his daughter. “Look, Lindsay, you’re older than I was when I first took on the pack. I’ve been looking to step down for a long time now, and I like to keep these things in the family. I’ve worked hard to keep this pack together, and I want it to go to someone I trust. Someone like you.”

  Like Lindsay, Mark didn’t mess around. I knew he was serious. And so did she.

  “Oh, Dad, of course I will!” Lindsay said, a smile practically splitting her face in two. She stepped into his arms. “I’ll do you so proud, I promise.”

  “I know you will,” he replied. “And you’ll have to promise to keep this beta of mine in check. He’s known for his tendency to hook up with the wrong people.” Mark shot a warm glance at me over Lindsay’s shoulder, and I smiled back. Of all the things I expected to happen, this was the last one. It had gone better than I could have possibly dreamed.

  Stepping out of her father’s embrace, Lindsay turned to me.

  “So, what are you waiting for? You’ve got to get me introduced to the rest of the pack!”

  ***

  It was months after Lindsay had been given leadership of the pack, and things were going well. It took a while for the guys to get used to being led by a headstrong young woman like Lindsay, but she was enthusiastic and busy and always organizing runs that kept everyone happy. She had grown popular, and was already attracting new pack members, as well as training up her own beta, another girl called Millie. She had decided that keeping me in the position might have looked too much like favoritism. I didn’t mind; I was the one who got to go home with her after all.