Light Within Me

by Fall, Carly

  As the car easily made the turns up the highway, he asked, “Where do you want to eat?”

  “Gar Woods,” she answered without hesitation or opening her eyes.

  “Gar Woods it is,” he said, punching the buttons on his TomTom.

  They arrived in North Lake Tahoe, a beautiful cluster of shops, houses, and large forest trees. He pulled into Gar Woods, and they secured a table out on the deck overlooking the majestic beauty of Lake Tahoe.

  “Anything to drink?” he asked as they perused the menu.

  “Definitely a Wet Woody,” she said.

  He looked at her confused. Wet? Woody? What?

  She looked up from the menu and blushed. “You’ve never had the drink? A Wet Woody?”

  He shook his head, trying to get his mind out of the gutter. No, he had never experienced human sex, but the words “wet” and “woody” put together conjured up all sorts of images that didn’t belong at lunch in a public place.

  “They’re wonderful,” she said as the waitress came over.

  “I’m game, Abby,” he said, smiling. He looked up at the waitress. “Two Wet Woodies.”

  “Not now,” Noah said, going back to his menu. They enjoyed their drinks, as well as the view. Lake Tahoe expanded out in front of them in its magnificent, blue wonder. On the other side of the lake, mountains with white snowcaps stared back at them. Boats tooled around the lake, a few pulling up to the dock. People got out of the boats and made their way up to the restaurant.

  Noah and Abby both decided that they wanted the French Dip. Noah watched as she inhaled her sandwich and realized he loved the fact that she ate with gusto. Abby liked to eat. He had seen women in restaurants that simply moved food around on the plate, and he found it annoying.

  “It’s so important to save places like this,” she said, gesturing out to the big lake when they discussed the environment.

  He agreed whole-heartedly. But, he wasn’t against throwing down a drill or two in Alaska either. There had to be a balance.

  “So why did you go into journalism, Abby?”

  He watched her as she stared out at the lake as if she were pulling her thoughts together.

  “Truth,” she said quietly, not looking at him. “I feel like . . . like somehow my life is based on a lie.” She paused a beat, then looked over at him. “Don’t ask me to explain it. But I like that my job requires me to find out the truth about . . . everything that I write.”

  He nodded, but didn’t question her further. He knew all about existing under a lie—he did it on a daily basis. Whatever her missing truth was, he hoped she found it soon so that her life would be content.

  She told him funny stories of her college days, like the time she had lost a game of strip poker and had to make her way home in her bra and underwear, ducking behind bushes and hiding behind streetlamps as cars passed. It had been a horrifying experience at the time, but she was able to find the humor in it now. She had him laughing until tears rolled down his face, with a little voice in the back of his head begging to see her in a bra and panties.

  Then she told him about her coworker James and his annoying sniff-cough habit. Noah wanted to strangle the guy simply because he bothered Abby.

  She had tried to get information out of him, like where he was born and how many siblings he had, and if he was close with his parents. The questions were unanswerable and made him cringe inwardly. So he did what he did best—he turned the conversation back around so that it was all about her.

  And then she hit him with a doozy.

  “Have you ever been married, Noah?”

  He felt like someone just goosed him, and he began shifting in his chair. Uncomfortable didn’t begin to describe the way he felt with that question. He hadn’t been married in the technical sense of Earthly ways. But of SR44 ways, yes. Did he love Julia? Had he loved her? At one point he thought he did, but now he was pretty certain he never really had. In fact, he was dead fucking certain he had never been in love in his whole long, pathetic life. So what was the truthful answer? Yes? No?

  He went with the middle road.

  “Once. It was . . . a while back.” Two hundred years or so, but she didn’t need to know the math. “We were married for a very short time.” That part was dead-on truthful. Bull’s-eye on the truth target.

  They talked the afternoon away, and Noah was surprised when the sun began its descent toward the evening. He figured he had about three hours before sunset. He looked out at the pier and wanted to go out there with Abby.

  He paid the bill and took her hand. They strolled out to the end of the wooden pier in silence, the sun almost blinding them, the waves lapping at the sides of the old wood. They sat down at the end and slipped off their shoes, dipping their feet into the frigid water.

  “After a while your feet pretty much go numb,” she laughed.

  “Pretty much.”

  He loved the way the sun played on her hair, bringing out the reds highlights. He noticed her nose and cheeks held a little red tint of sunburn. She turned to him, catching him staring at her.

  “What?” she asked, smiling, their eyes locking.

  “Abby,” he heard himself say quietly, “I think I’d like to kiss you.”

  He watched her eyes flare slightly, and then they locked on his lips.

  “Well, I don’t see anything stopping you,” she whispered.

  No, there wasn’t anything physical stopping him. Just his inner war. The warrior in him screaming that this went far past the whole interview thing he had been quieted with and into the unacceptable zone.

  The other part of him, the one who just wanted the warrior to shut up for a moment, won once again. He grinned and bent his head down to hers. It was a soft, yet brief meeting of lips. That damn warrior voice in his head screamed at him to pull away, and he did. He opened his eyes to see her large, warm, brown eyes looking up at him. As the sensations of the kiss registered, he knew that he definitely wanted more. He bent his head to her again, and this time he laced his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and held her mouth in place. He had no idea what he was doing, so he allowed her to take the lead.

  As he felt her lips move over his, he marveled at the sensations coursing through his veins. His body felt like it was lighting up from the inside, desire licking through him, traveling up to his skin.

  Her tongue snaked out from her mouth, gently prodding his to open. So he did. As her tongue met his, his eyes flew open in shock, but then after a few seconds, he closed them again, following her lead. He felt her hand move into his hair behind his ear.

  It was like a dance, he decided. Their tongues circled, twisted, and pushed, all in a glorious dance. He felt his cock go rock hard, and he had the urge to rip open her shirt button by button and take her down on the dock.

  Instead, he pulled away, put his big arm around her, gathering her to his side. They sat in silence for a moment.

  “So, what other questions did you want to ask me for the interview today?” he asked quietly into her ear, also managing to land a kiss on her neck, knowing full well she had asked exactly none.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said, then burst out laughing.

  Chapter 16

  When they pulled up in front of Abby’s house, she asked him to come in, and she was really pleased when he said yes.

  As she struggled to open the bottle of wine, she thought about the situation. She was fiercely attracted to Noah and she wanted him. That kiss at the lake . . . wow. At first, Abby had felt her heart skip and anxiety swam through her. Despite her short stint of partying in college, she was not what one would call “experienced in the romance field.” She was glad she hadn’t been standing when he kissed her, or she would have gone all swoony and her knees would have buckled under her.

  She wasn’t very experienced sexually. She usually ended a relationship before it could get to that place. On the very few occasions she had gone there, she had never felt like she did with Noah. She was terribly attracte
d to him, more attracted to him than any of the very few men she had been with in her life.

  The man made her blood boil. Hot. There was no two ways about it. She awed at his huge, hard body that moved with such grace. He looked like he should be a bull causing mayhem in a china shop, but instead she would bet he could charge through said china shop with the precision and agility of a ballet dancer. The way he moved his hands through his wavy, brown hair made her want to do the same. His black-and-gray eyes stared at her with such intensity, her stomach fluttered. She loved the way he looked at her. It excited her and almost frightened her. She had never had such a physical reaction to a man before.

  There was also the fact that she felt more comfortable with him than any other man she had ever dated. She loved talking to him. She remembered sitting on the dock with his huge arm around her, tucked close to him. The words that had flung themselves through her brain were “home,” “safety,” and “companion.”

  And with these feelings, she found herself opening up to him like she never had to another person. She couldn’t believe she had actually told him that she felt her life was based on a lie. She could never explain it, but it was just a feeling she had. Insecurity washed through her. She took a deep breath and found comfort that she hadn’t done or said anything too embarrassing because Noah was still around, and he seemed to like being with her.

  She thought about a date she had been on a few months ago with a man she had met at the gym. He had taken her to dinner and asked her that same question—why she had gone into journalism. The true answer was on the tip of her tongue, but it refused to come out. Instead, she had given him some lame answer about how she went into journalism because she was good at spelling. She closed her eyes and cringed at that one. There hadn’t been any more dates with that guy, which had been okay with her.

  She felt Noah come up behind her and watched his hands clutch the counter, trapping her within a cage of man. His scent overtook her. It was fresh air, pine trees, and raw male. She shivered as he kissed her neck once, then again. She stopped messing with the wine, her very inner being vibrating with a desire she had never felt before, and turned to Noah. She laced her hands around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

  His hands rubbed up and down her back, then moved down to the curve of her hips. The next thing she knew, she was being lifted off the floor, and her legs wrapped around his waist on their own accord. He carried her to the couch.

  He sat down with her straddling him.

  Abby felt her blood race; the ache of desire was almost overwhelming. She felt like she was going to go crazy if she didn’t get a piece of Noah.

  Now.

  She moved her hands under his shirt, feeling the rock-hard muscles of his chest and shoulders. There was just so much of him!

  “I want this off,” she whispered, and was really happy when he didn’t argue. She pulled it over his head as he lifted his arms, and then he greedily kissed her again. She felt him messing with the buttons of her shirt, and cursed herself for not wearing something a little easier to remove. She broke the kiss and helped him get them undone, and moaned as he ran his thumbs over the lacy cups of her bra. He began fiddling with the clasp, and she didn’t have the patience to wait for him to get it undone. She undid it herself, tossed it to the floor, and pressed her breasts into his chest, relishing the feeling of her skin against his.

  She moved so that she could pull him down on top of her. As he settled on her, she marveled at the way their bodies seemed to fit together, how his weight wasn’t uncomfortable, but soothing. It made her feel safe and protected.

  As fire licked through her, the need for Noah’s touch and his body rising within her, she realized, as silly as it seemed, that she might very well be falling in love.

  Noah was pretty certain he had found heaven on Earth when Abby pulled him down on top of her. He loved the feeling of the skin-on-skin contact, the way her soft curves met his hard body as they kissed. She tried to undo his belt, but he pulled away. He slid her jeans off, gaping at her naked body, silently thanking whoever was responsible for the design of the human female form for the absolute perfection.

  He heard himself breathing heavily, and he wondered what he looked like. He had to be glowing so hard he probably looked like he was spitting fire. But Abby stared up at him as if nothing was wrong, and he reminded himself that humans could not see his skin glow.

  He moved his hands over her breasts, down her ribcage, and circled her belly button. He was surprised to see a small amount of brown curls at the top of her sex. In every movie involving sex he had ever watched, the woman had been bare.

  He let his finger travel into her secret flesh and felt like his balls had been jacked with a bolt of lightning, but in a really good way. She was hot and slick. He gently traced up the folds, and she began moving against his fingers. He lay down next to her, letting her rub against his hand. He knew his eyes should probably be closed, but he loved watching as he kissed her. Her cheeks were turning pink, and she had a look pure enjoyment on her face. She repositioned herself a little, and suddenly his fingers were sliding deeper into her sex, and she continued moving.

  He didn’t really know what to do, so he just kept kissing her, watching her move, trying to give her what she wanted as she gyrated against his hand.

  He looked down at her breast, the hard pink tip beckoning him. And who would he be to deny such an invitation? He moved slightly so that he could suckle it again. Seconds later, she grabbed his hair and pulled his face to her chest as her hips bowed off the couch. He felt her sex go tight around his fingers, contracting and loosening and doing it all over again. And again and again. At first, he was terrified that he had hurt her, but then he looked at her face. She didn’t look hurt in the least bit. She looked like she was thoroughly enjoying herself.

  This must be a human female orgasm, he thought.

  He looked at her in wonder as she called out his name and her hips undulated. After almost a minute, she came to rest. Her breathing was labored, and he laid his head down gently on her chest to listen to her heart thumping rapidly and loudly.

  He slid his fingers from her and looked at them. They were shiny and slick and he had a desire to taste them.

  So he did.

  He closed his eyes and let out a groan. She was lovely. In fact, he wanted to taste more. He moved down between her legs to the floor, threw them over his shoulders, and began tasting her core. He let his tongue swirl—he gently sucked, and he felt like he could go on for hours.

  He found a rhythm, using his fingers and tongue, one that seemed to drive her wild. He learned when she was close to orgasm by the feel of her body and the look on her face. He would drive her to just before the point of no return, and back off, making her crazy. He watched as the sweat rolled down between her breasts and her head thrashed in frustration.

  After her third orgasm, Noah disengaged his mouth and looked at his skin. He was glowing. He closed his eyes for a moment, making certain his SR44 form wasn’t leaving his body. When he was certain it wasn’t, he looked up at Abby, reminding himself that human women couldn’t see his SR44 form, the shimmer that radiated from his skin.

  Abby looked at him, squinting just a little, and he noted the bright light of the afternoon sun was just about blinding. He relished in the happy, satisfied smile on her face. She reached for him, and he put his hand in hers, letting her pull him up so they were face to face. She moved so that he wasn’t lying on top of her, but body to body on the couch. She kissed him and tucked her head into his shoulder.

  “You’re pretty good at that,” she said softly, then giggled. He smiled, his ego inflated to epic proportions as he ran his hand over her hair.

  Her palm lazy circled on his chest. Slowly, it made its way down the flat plane of his stomach, landing on his belt. As she began to undo it, he looked outside. The sun was getting ready to nestle itself down behind a mountain. If he let her get in his pants, he was certain he would have a lot o
f explaining to do once his eyes starting going all pumpkin on him.

  He gently pulled her hand away and held it.

  He kissed her forehead. “I want nothing more than to stay here with you and have you get into my pants,” he said softly. “But I need to go, honey. I have an appointment with one of my . . . coworkers tonight. I’m afraid I would never leave if this went any further.”

  He heard her sigh. It signaled resignation and frustration in which he agreed with wholeheartedly. But he imagined in another half hour or so his eyes would be glowing orange. He didn’t know how she would react that she had just let a member of another species into her most private flesh. Probably not very well, he imagined.

  She nodded and sat up. She went to the bathroom and came back out in an orange terrycloth robe. He had put his shirt back on, and thought about how absurdly amusing it was that her robe was almost the exact shade of orange as his eyes would be soon.

  “Wow, that sun is bright,” she said as she came over to him.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and he held her close. Man, he didn’t want to leave.

  He leaned down and kissed her slowly, then pulled away. “Maybe I can see you tomorrow?” he said as he looked down at her, hoping like hell she would give him an affirmative.

  “I would like that,” she said. He kissed her again and heard himself let out a moan, a desire to take her to the floor and strip off that robe almost overwhelming him.

  He needed to get the fuck out of Dodge. Evacuate immediately. Terminate all physical contact and start putting one foot in front of the other out the door and to the car.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up at him.

  “Call me later, okay?” he said, disengaging himself. Man, this was hard.

  She nodded, and he finally got his feet moving.

  Chapter 17

  He hauled it back out to Fernley.

  As he drove on Interstate 80, he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. Damn. Abby rocked his world. It was a cliché, but the God’s honest truth. He had never felt anything like what she did to him. He replayed the past hour or so minute by minute. He loved making her orgasm. Loved it. He would love nothing more than to spend night after night pleasuring her. He could still taste her on his lips, still smell her shampoo and skin.