[The Shifters Committee 05.0] Sensual Hero

by Rebecca Foxx

  She started asking questions, to the people she had heard talking as discreetly as she was able to, and still noticed people being scared when asked. In no time, this brought her some unwanted attention.

  She was approached by drug dealers a few times though she hadn’t made a reputation as a consumer. (Tallah had a strong belief in keeping her mind sober.)

  After that, however, a couple of times some huge, fierce-looking guy bumped into her, the second time knocking her off her feet though her constitution was far from being frail.

  While she was fumbling for her glasses, he had shouted at her: “Watch it, bitch!” and she knew she was being given a message. So she cooled down for a while.

  The next time she thought of him was when she actually saw him during an exam session. She was in the yard, shaking off her hands, to relieve stress.

  It was sunny, but the morning air was crisp and chilly. First, she noticed the commotion, the whispering and the pointing that preceded his actual appearance.

  When she turned around and saw him, she knew two things instantly: that that young man was Luciano Karlen and that she was attracted to him.

  He was really tall—maybe 6’2’’ or 6’3’’—and he had very broad shoulders. She hadn’t expected that for some reason.

  Nor had she expected the long hair tied in a ponytail, its hazel color, a nuance so warm, yet bright at the same time in the sunlight shining from behind him. He was wearing a pair of stylish, expensive-looking sunglasses.

  She realized with a start that he was going to pass right by her, so she instinctively looked at her clothes –both because he was impeccably dressed, and also because she had instantly forgotten what she was wearing—and smoothed out some of the wrinkles in her plain skirt. She shook her curls and pushed up her glasses, in a gesture so specific to her whenever she was nervous. Otherwise, she concealed it very well.

  As he approached, she noticed his glasses were, in fact, photochromic, and she felt disappointed she couldn’t see the color of his eyes. He had a straight and long nose, the kind she called “an honest nose.”

  His skin had a slight tint of tan and his jaw was powerful and masculine. His stature was indeed that of a warrior. His thin lips, tightly shut, and the furrow between his thick eyebrows made him look mature and serious, definitely older than 20.

  When he walked by, totally unaware she even existed, he was so close to her she could smell his musky cologne, and for a second, she closed her eyes and allowed the scent to fill her nostrils.

  Then, something totally unexpected happened. Someone came running from behind him. With dread, Tallah recognized the scary guy who had knocked her off her feet. He stopped Karlen by placing a hand on his shoulder, and then whispered something in his ear, gesturing with his head towards her. She instantly felt icy cold chills creep down her spine.

  Karlen turned his head toward her; he was all but four feet away. He lowered his sunglasses and ranked her quickly from head to toe and from toe to head again, looking so intensely into her eyes, that it stung her heart, almost painfully.

  His eyes were almond-shaped and had an incandescent feel about them. They were a pair of the most perfect cerulean blue eyes she had ever seen.

  And as if that wasn’t enough to make her feel dizzy, the left corner of his mouth and his left eyebrow lifted at the same time, signaling his clear interest and approval.

  It gave him an irresistible cheeky and youthful air. He covered his eyes, turned around and left. And that’s how it all began.

  Chapter 2

  She wanted to dismiss it as a figment of her imagination, but did she really catch him turning to look at her the next few times she saw him crossing the yard to go for exams?

  She feared he had designs on her, rather than an attraction towards her. Why would he even like her? She didn’t feel like she was his type... as a matter of fact, he wasn’t her type, either. If she even had a type.

  She had never liked white boys, or bad boys, let alone one from a family with such a nasty reputation as the Tenacce. Yet, she heard later that this bad boy had aced all his exams, from students who had been there during his oral examinations, and from others who had heard him talk and had seen the professors being very pleased, or even outsmarted by him.

  So it had nothing to do with his grandfather’s influence; he was downright intellectually smart... the most dangerous type of bad boy.

  As the new semester began, Tallah was in for a surprise. She was taking a course called Abnormal Psychology in the great lecture hall. She had just sat down and was sorting through her course files on her tablet, waiting for the professor to arrive.

  She had paid no mind when someone had pulled a chair up next to her, but she had noticed a large, beautiful hand on the desk—kind of too close to her stuff—and of course, a subtle, expensive cologne. So she looked at who it belonged to… and what a heart throb it was for her!

  He was looking around the lecture hall, chewing gum. His body was slammed into the chair, casually, half of his back towards her. Tallah felt a bit amused. He was really tall, and his legs were too long to fit under the desk, yet his arm was long enough to rest upon it. She hummed and that’s when he turned towards her.

  The lenses on his glasses were translucent inside the hall, but they still concealed his eyes and the awesome feel of them upon her. So Tallah, without being able to control it, instantly thought of reaching out and removing them. Of course, she couldn’t do that and she mentally reprimanded herself for having such thoughts.

  He smiled at her; and when he did, everything about him turned young and almost innocent.

  “Are you lost?” she inquired and wondered how she even had the guts to speak.

  He shrugged and looked around again, his eyebrows lifted, before asking her:

  “Isn’t this Abnormal Psychology?”

  God. His voice! She thought. It was a warm and rich baritone that vibrated to her core.

  “Yes, it is. But aren’t you in Political Studies?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  He squinted his eyes at her and smiled cheekily as if saying: Busted!

  “Now how would you know that?” he asked, folding his arms on his chest. “Do we know each other?”

  “I…” Tallah stuttered, her throat dry. “I guess everyone knows that. And who you are.”

  “Oh?” he threw his head backward. “And who am I?”

  Tallah could do nothing but smile at that point and wave a finger at him, I know what you’re doing.

  The man’s mouth dropped open and he approached her face, watching her inquisitively. Tallah instinctively pushed back on her chair. Though she wasn’t exactly sure the blush would show on her skin, she felt her cheeks burning up.

  “Wow! Do that again!” the young man told her.

  “What?” she said, trying to keep her head tilted backward. She was a freak about personal space; at the same time she didn’t want to be seen with him like this and they did attract a few looks.

  “Smile. I’ve never seen such cute dimples before!” he finally straightened up. “Your eyes seem pretty amazing, too.”

  “Thank you… I guess. But you should know, I find it hard to smile on command and… to aliens.” she retorted.

  “Excuse me?!” he frowned.

  “You know… space invaders?” Tallah raised an eyebrow at him.

  At first baffled, the man began to chuckle. He hit his knee with his palm.

  “You…!” it was his turn to wave his finger at her. “Smart ass! You’re funny! I’m Luciano, by the way. Luciano Karlen. But you may call me Lou.” and he offered her a handshake.

  She refrained from saying: “I know.” and instead just shook his large, warm hand and simply uttered: “Tallah Robertson,” and then found herself mesmerized by the contrast between their skin colors.

  The professor walked into the hall and began lecturing. Everyone went quiet. Her new colleague, however, after paying attention for a while, began fumbling with his tab
let.

  He was surely not taking notes, as he was having way too much fun with it, sticking out his tongue as he seemed to be doodling with his stylus. He pushed the tablet under Tallah’s nose and she grabbed and covered it quickly, for fear the person seated on her left side would see it.

  She looked at the tablet between the walls of her palms and almost burst out laughing.

  There was a cute anime-like drawing of her face, a perfect circle, surrounded by curls, with a little, full mouth, like the petals of a rose, and a small, snub nose and huge, round eyes behind glasses.

  It was completed by a little cross on each cheek, signifying her dimples. Underneath the drawing, it read: “Your face is as beautiful as a perfectly full moon, only in a much more delicious color.”

  She erased the screen and typed quickly on it: “Please, I’m not even your type. Why would you say this?”

  After doodling something again, he sent it back. This time, it featured a tulip bud. He had added color to it, a nice mocha brown, and another message.

  “You seem to think you know a lot about me. Maybe I am not your type. But I find you beautiful. You are also very smart. I am curious about you. And I’ve heard you were curious about me, too.”

  She typed quickly, to conceal how nervous she felt: “You’ve heard wrong. I was just conducting a case study.”

  He chuckled to himself, when reading her message and, perceptively answered her unwritten fear.

  “I’m sorry my men scared you. They are just looking out for me. You will never see them again. Have dinner with me, smart ass.

  You can conduct your study directly on me, not on rumors. And I promise to not invade your space anymore… unless you want me to.” It also featured an animated blue-eyed smiley, blinking innocently.

  She remembered trying to write “No,” and telling herself: No Tallah! Yet, her body had a mind of its own and so her hand wrote by itself: “When?”

  The next evening, he came for her in the fancy hover Cadillac that he rode to campus. While hover mobiles were starting to be a common sight, still only rich people could afford them. It was Tallah’s first time getting in one, and she tried hard not to look surprised; but by his dry chuckle, she realized she wasn’t doing a very good job.

  She dressed pretty much like a therapist, a remark he made, amused, the moment he set eyes on her suit: a knee-long skirt, a wide round-necked blouse with a black satin bow and jacket. He took her to a nice restaurant on the bay, which was an instant plus because she loved the ocean. She told him that.

  Although she thought they would have nothing to talk about, they did, actually. Well, it was mostly him who did the talking at first.

  He was very passionate about going out into space and about the moon, and he told her lots of things about the cities there and about his family’s mining facilities.

  She asked him about the dangers of living there and told him she could never live on a satellite. He reminded her of how the moon influences the waters of the Earth, the tides, even the ocean she loves so much, drawing it nearer, or pushing it away.

  She remembered it as a very nice evening. As promised, he never went beyond being polite, but he did have a way of looking at her, intensely and insistently, drinking in her words, to the point she actually forgot what she was saying a couple of times, which amused him. At the end of that night, he simply said:

  “You are different than other girls I’ve met. I’m glad you accepted my invitation. Let’s do it again.”

  After that, Tallah feared she would become the talk of the campus, but besides getting some curious looks, no one dared to say anything, not even so much as a rumor.

  The next two weeks they had three more dates like this, each time finding out a little more about each other. They laughed a lot and laughing made his eyes look very warm and kind and Tallah struggled hard to remember she was actually dating a bad boy that she should be more careful about.

  Each time, he brought her back to campus and waited until she entered her dorm. The last time, however, he walked her right up to the front steps. He was holding her hand and she loved it, because although she was tall and consistent, she felt small around him.

  He had the stature of a Viking and he had mentioned getting it from his Swedish father. When they approached the steps he stopped her, took her other hand and looked at her in that intense way of his. There was a kiss vibe in the air, but Tallah just lowered her head, overwhelmed and unsure.

  Luciano chuckled softly, leaned and kissed her cheek gently. He said:

  “I would love it if you came to my place next time. I’m cooking.”

  “Well, that, I’ve gotta see!” she said, bravely.

  But when the moment actually came, she felt as jittery as a bug. She had put on her nicest dress, meaning the one that revealed her bodacious curves a little too much than she would feel comfortable with. At the last moment, she also put on a light jacket, just to cover her generous cleavage.

  His place was amazing, of course. The large windows overlooked the bay and the screen system in the skylight showed him the moon, wherever it was. He was not a bad cook either though Tallah hardly remembered what they had.

  What she did remember was how nervous and how taut she had been, and how a sweet anticipation had floated between them, as they threw each other glances and casual, teasing lines. A nice wine had also contributed to the elation she had felt that night.

  Luciano showed her his huge library and her eyes widened in amazement. He guided her to the psychology section. She was looking at the spines when she heard him putting on some nice music in the next room.

  To calm herself, Tallah took a book out and browsed through it. She put it back and then saw one that really struck her interest, only it was up higher on the bookshelf, so she rose up on her toes to get it.

  “Wait! I’ll get that for you,” Luciano said and in two large steps, he was at her back, his hand covering hers.

  She felt him like a wall of muscle and heat behind her while he lowered her hand with his. He turned her around to face him. Once again, she was looking down, shyly.

  He took her into his arms, as slowly and carefully as one takes a trapped bird between palms in order to release it. And she felt warm there and protected. She had always been an awkward hugger, but with him, she just felt a natural.

  But then her heart skipped a beat when he spread his fingers on her back and she felt his lips on her cheek, in a firm press that said: You are so dear to me. And then she heard him muttering, his mouth in her curls:

  “I never expected this: you are so soft and your whole being emits such a sweet scent… Tallah. It’s making me dizzy. You have an unusual warmth about you. I can feel a fire taking me over. I don’t wanna fight it.”

  She had gotten used to him being very verbose and outspoken, but actually hearing him speak like that to her made her feel disturbingly aroused. She broke away from his hug, only to be confronted with his serious look.

  And she couldn’t help herself but reach out to his face and remove his glasses. His eyes were amazingly blue, hypnotizing, like a wolf’s, keeping her still, making her thoughts jumble. In turn, he removed her glasses and her vision became a little blurry, so she squinted slightly to see his lips smile and utter:

  “Your eyes are like bright emeralds I just want to make mine.”

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her passionately.

  Tallah lost it altogether when he determined her to respond, touching tongues with her, biting into her mouth like a ripe piece of fruit. She could feel her blood climbing on her head and a painfully sweet sensation exploded in her chest and went down into her tummy.

  She moaned faintly, surprised by it and he responded with a hum that only made her feel like losing the ground from under her feet. But then Luciano pulled her closer to him, steadying her, pressing her breasts against his chest, chaining her waist with one arm.

  Tallah could feel his heartbeat, pounding into his chest, resonating
through his entire strong body. She could feel how aroused he was and for a second she had doubts about all of that. She pushed him faintly, but she had lost her strength. Her hand climbed to his hair and undid his ponytail, by accident, as she pulled on it.

  Luciano stopped, tilted his head back, and shook his locks, to unwind them. He obviously enjoyed being pulled by the hair. He had a blush in his cheeks and a fire in his eyes. He was smiling and looking at her in a way that made him very sexy. Without releasing her, he said:

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I spoke to you.” Tallah felt so lost in the moment that she could barely understand his words.