“Finn!” Her grip tightened in the back of his hair, making sharp pains against his scalp that somehow managed to make his cock even harder. So fucking hard that he was dripping down his own thigh. He couldn’t go back downstairs with a wet spot.
She writhed against his mouth and he kept on tonguing her, fingering her until her breaths evened out and she stopped squeezing his fingers so hard.
He pulled them from her slowly and slipped them into his mouth. Never gonna get enough. It was like life-giving manna for him.
“Damn,” she whispered. “Don’t wanna go downstairs now.”
“Not so inclined, myself.” He put his back against the little wall beneath the windowsill and kissed the side of her leg.
“Maybe we could—we could just hide in here until everyone forgets about us.”
“That’d be nice.”
“Not gonna happen, though.” She groaned and sat up, putting her weight on her elbows and forearms. “I need to get my own place. Probably won’t be able to swing it without a roommate, though, and that kind of defeats the purpose.”
“Not gonna wait on your house to be built?” They were all promised lots near the other wolf houses. The Afótama royalty heavily subsidized the lots, but the wolves paid for everything on top of them.
She shrugged. “Who knows when that’s gonna be, huh?”
“Yeah. I looked into it. Wouldn’t be able to start buildin’ nothin’ until spring, and even then, there’s a big ’ol backlog, ’cause we gotta use certain approved contractors.”
“Ugh, I’ll be waiting forever. I guess sharing a room with Leticia isn’t so bad. It’s just like back at home, only more awkward with each passing year. It’d be different if she were just some stranger I was sharing a dorm room with, but for your sister”—she laughed—“you’ve gotta keep your filth to yourself.”
“Are you so filthy?”
Graciella’s wicked grin was like a teasing hand around his cock. “I could be.”
He hissed. “You gonna get me in trouble, girl.”
Her smile fell away, and she sat up straighter. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. I know this puts you in a tricky situation.”
“Maybe we should try to stay away from each other for a while.”
He already knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He’d been stuck in her orbit for months.
She wrung her hands and pressed her lips tightly together, saying nothing for some long minutes. “For how long?”
“How long do you think is right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we try a day, and then two. See what happens.”
Her nod came slowly. “Right. We’ll see what happens.”
FIVE
Graciella knew down to her cells that staying away from Finn was wrong. It felt like an artificial separation that they were forcing for no good reason. With each day that passed, up until New Year’s Eve, that became clearer.
During the full moon—even though she couldn’t shift—her inner wolf called out for him. She heard his howl out in the desert, and wanted to send one out in response to him, but couldn’t.
Instead, she kept her nose in her books, and hands moving as much as she could. Anything to keep her distracted.
She was in the big greenhouse with her earbuds in, checking on some hothouse tomatoes, when she was lifted off her feet and carried briskly to the door.
She writhed, and objected with a, “Hey!” and then put her head back to see Finn grinning.
Oh!
He set her down just outside, grabbed her hand, and got her running.
“Where are we going?” she said, panting.
“Wanna show you somethin’.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?” What she’d meant to ask was, ‘Shouldn’t we be staying away from each other?’ but decided that she didn’t want to hear him say yes. She didn’t want him to tell her that separation had turned out to be the right thing for them.
“I’m on break. Been wantin’ to show you since last night. Couldn’t get away.”
He didn’t slow down until they’d approached an alleyway on the backside of the downtown area, in the oldest part of Norseton near the executive mansion. The buildings in that part of town were over a hundred years old, and had Old West styling like Graciella had seen in the dusty streets of the Western movies she’d sometimes watched as a child with her grandparents.
He pulled her up the back stairway of a building in the center of the block and paused at the door. He rooted in the pocket of his camo jacket and brought out a key.
“Ta-da.”
“What is this?”
“Gonna show you.” He unlocked the door and shouldered the stuck thing open to reveal a studio apartment, simply furnished but modern enough. It had a small kitchen near the door, a living area just across from it, and a bed in the back beneath the windows. A door at the back right must have led to the bathroom.
“Come on in,” he said, pulling her by the hand.
She stepped inside the warm, cozy space and closed the door behind her.
“Ain’t had a chance to unpack yet, or buy groceries or nothin’. With the holiday coming, I was surprised to be able to get the key yesterday.”
“Lucky!” She scoffed and took herself on a tour—albeit a short one—of the little unit, stopping at the window over the bed and looking down on the street and the playground in the town square.
“Worked out good, I guess. Also looked at some newer apartments on the other side of the square.”
“Right, that’s where the non-wolf guards are staying until they’re out of their probationary period.”
“Yeah. This suited me better, though. Less to clean. I’m not so good at it. Didn’t have nothin’ to clean for a lot of years.”
Graciella backtracked past the bed and went into the kitchen to peer into the pot of his Christmas poinsettia. “Good for you for not killing it yet. I had to rescue them from a couple of the wolves.”
“Bring ’em over here. I’ll take ’em.”
“Just you and the poinsettias, huh? That’s sad. You should get a pet. Maybe a little dog.”
“Nah, someone gon’ have to walk it. I’d rather use my energy on other things. You can come over.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down onto the unmade bed.
She giggled and wriggled out of his strong grip, blowing her loose hair out of her eyes as sat up. “Right, I’ll sneak over under cover of night to spend an hour or two with you, and then hate myself for the rest of the week for leading myself on.”
“It’s better than nothin’.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a choice but to. I don’t want nobody else, so I can’t do nothin’ but wait.”
Her cheeks burned hot and heart nearly burst. “Um.” She gulped. “You…you might be waiting a long time, Finn.”
He shrugged and then grinned bashfully. “If I have to.”
“You might not even want me by then.”
“You want me?”
“Gods, yes.”
“You do?”
“Finn.” She nudged his leg with her knee and flopped back onto the bed beside him. “You know I do. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but I’m trying to respect Lisa. She knows more than I do, and I have to trust that she knows best. Trusting is hard, though.”
He skimmed his thumb along her bottom lip and let out a long, ragged exhalation. “I dream about you.”
“You do?”
“Mm-hmm. Can’t stop. I dream about your face. Your voice. You’re so pretty, and nobody else talks to me like you do.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It is. Wolves ain’t known for talkin’.”
“Maybe not you male wolves, but we ladies talk plenty.”
“Yeah? What do y’all talk about?”
“Oh, you know.” She rolled onto her side and met his soft gaze head-on. She always felt so warm when he loo
ked her like that, like he liked what he saw, and she knew she was no one’s prize at the moment. She didn’t tend to dress up on days she’d be mucking around in the greenhouses. “A little bit of this, a little bit of that.”
“Y’all talk about us men?”
She snorted. “All the time. It’s an unavoidable topic, I think. You’re always doing something that needs discussing.”
“You talk about me?”
“I try hard not to. I don’t want Lisa giving me that glare, you know?”
“Mm-hmm. She good at it.”
Graciella pressed her hand to his twitching cheek, the same one that always seemed to spasm. It made him look like he convulsing sometimes, when it was particularly active. “Has it always done that?”
“Long as I can remember. Asked a doctor about it and all the other stuff not too long before I got cast out of my pack. He said I probably had Tourette’s syndrome, but Christina told him that was bullshit.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a truly mirthful laugh. It was as if he didn’t believe it was funny, either, but hoped she would.
She swallowed and trailed her hand along his cheek to his shoulder, and down to his chest. She craved his warmth—had for so many nights—and being a wolf, she was tired of sleeping alone. Her sister was in the room, of course, but that wasn’t the kind of company Graciella needed.
Sighing, she lifted his shirt at the bottom and slipped her hand beneath it, against his belly.
He quivered beneath her touch, and when his body settled, she moved her hand lower, inside his waistband.
“I need to go back to work,” she said. But she didn’t want that, either. She wanted to touch and be touched. Wanted to talk and listen. Just wanted to…connect.
“I gotta head back, too. Kiss me, first.”
She scooted up and rolled herself onto him a bit, slinging one leg and arm over his body as she dragged her lips up from his unshaven chin to his mouth.
He kissed her like he needed her—unyielding and desperate, like he’d never done it before, and as if he’d never get the opportunity to do it again. She hoped like hell that wouldn’t be the case.
“You watchin’ the ball drop tonight?” he asked as she sat up. “At midnight?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t really give Lisa a straight answer when she asked if I wanted to go.”
“No chance of you watching with me, huh?” He canted his head toward the window that faced the park. “We could keep the lights off and stand back a bit. No one would see us.”
Graciella wrung her hands and shifted her weight as she stared at that oh-so-earnest expression. She’d never known a wolf to come out and ask for company, except of the sexual sort, and Finn didn’t seem to be pushing for that. She wondered at times if she wanted it more than he did.
“Oh!” He scrambled off the bed and jogged to the duffel bags piled in the center of the room. He unzipped one and rooted, dislodging tightly packed socks and underwear that he didn’t bother replacing, and finally produced a small, white box.
He thrust it at her, grinning. “Meant to give that to you on Christmas, but didn’t see you.”
“You got me something?”
He cheek started twitching again as did his eyebrow on that side. “No. I mean, yes, it’s for you. I didn’t buy it, though. I made it.”
“Especially for me?”
“Yeah. Made it for you in particular.” He laid the palm-sized white box into her hand, and she lifted the lid and pushed the tissue paper away.
Then she stared, half in incredulity and half in shame.
He made me this?
She lifted the smooth, shiny oval pendant out of the box and ran her thumb over it.
“It’s old wood and turquoise.”
“You really made that?”
“I find stuff and make new stuff out of it. That’s how I kept myself fed all those years I was on my own.”
“And the beads…” She lifted the necklace out of the box and ran the perfect, dark wood bands through her fingers. “You made those, too?”
“Yeah. Christina and the baby made it hard to sleep sometimes, so I kept busy in my room.”
“It’s beautiful, Finn.”
“You’ll wear it?”
“Of course I will.” She put it on right then and gripped the pendant in her fist. “It had to take you hours and hours.”
He shrugged. “I wanted you to have somethin’.”
“I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t—”
“That’s okay. I’m the one courtin’ you. You didn’t have to get me nothin’.”
She looked down at the pendant again and turned it over in her palm. She hadn’t noticed before, but there was a tiny wolf carved crudely beneath a full moon.
“That’s me,” he said, and that cheek started twitching again.
She took his face in her hands and kissed it until the twitching stopped. “What’s wrong, Finn?” she whispered. “Am I upsetting you?”
“No!” He shook his head hard and let out a ragged breath. “No, no. Never you. I-I think I need to—to go shift before I go back work. Not feelin’ right. I should be okay right after I shift, though. Usually do.”
“This happens to you frequently? The need to shift outside of the full moon, I mean.”
“Yeah.” He laughed and rubbed his eyes. “Used to drive my old alpha nuts ’cause I get a little wild sometimes if I wait too long. Part of the reason he made me leave, I think.”
She set the empty box on the counter on the way past and pulled him to the door. “Well, go.”
“You’re not—not gonna—” His body shook so hard that he had to grab the doorframe. “Not gonna be mad at me?”
“For having to shift? No.”
“No, for—f-f-for leaving you like this.” He screamed through clenched teeth and gripped the doorframe harder until his body stopped shaking. “F-f-or not walking you back.”
“Finn, go.” She grabbed the collar of his jacket and helped him out of it, quickly unbuttoned his flannel shirt and jeans, and helped him out of his boots. He’d barely gotten his boxers off before his skin began to ripple and he sprinted down the stairs nude, shifting as he went.
Graciella ran after him, chasing him for as long as she could to make sure he got out to the desert okay, but he’d left her in the dust long before she reached the greenhouse.
“Damn it.” She bent over, panting and hating herself for not remembering that she could have fixed him for the moment—at least in theory. Lisa could do it. She could move energy around in an agitated alpha-type like Colt and make his inner beast calm. Their mother could do it, too, though in quieter ways than Lisa did. She used her power mostly on crying babies so that they didn’t upset the alpha when all the wolves were forced to gather. Graciella’s grandmother had the gift for it as well, and often used it to deescalate discord in the family.
The gift ran down their family tree from one woman to the next—a skill Graciella had always assumed she’d use to keep the wolf mate she didn’t want from hitting her.
She’d never thought that perhaps there might be a wolf who was desperately in need of calming for other reasons entirely.
SIX
There were only a few folks who knew Finn had moved into his apartment, so when a light knock sounded on the door, he ignored it, figuring it was someone looking for the previous occupant.
He had a good view of Town Square, and the crowd within it who held candlelit lanterns and waited for the drop of the New Year’s ball—which in a nod to the wolves in the community, was fashioned to look like a full moon.
He sipped his beer, but wished it was something else. Maybe one of those hot chocolates the folks down on the ground were sipping. He could share one with Graciella, and pretend he liked chocolate. There was something so pathetic about drinking alone.
The knock came again, this time louder.
Groaning, he moved away from the window and padded to the door. “I’m comin’. You probably got the wrong guy, t
hough.”
“I got the right guy,” Graciella said when he pulled the door open. “Let me in, Finn,” she said softly when he continued standing there like an idiot, staring at her as if she were some kind of ghost. “Finn?”
“Of course. Sorry. Yeah, come on in.” He hustled her over the threshold and locked the door behind her. “Shoulda told me you were gonna be out. I woulda…” He let the words trail off as her eyebrows crept higher and gaze dipped lower.
Left up to his own devices, he didn’t wear much. He had on enough for decency’s sake while standing in front of the window, but up close, his sweatpants probably didn’t disguise a hell of a lot.
He put his hand over his cock and shifted it not so discreetly. “Sorry. I can’t help it. Happens half the time just from me hearin’ your name. I swear, it ain’t a problem I ever had before.”
“You’re silly to think that would upset me. It’s—flattering.” She tucked her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt and made that sexy strut to the sofa.
Naturally, he followed.
The sofa had been a splurge for him. On the way home from work, he’d spotted the clerks in the furniture store taking down out of the window display. He’d stepped in to see how much they wanted for it. It’d been in the window for six months, and the canvas had faded a bit from blood red to a dustier tone, but it was otherwise like new. He’d gotten it for twenty percent off, but for a guy like him, the cost was still a pretty big chunk of change.
“Did you get back to work okay?” She sat in the middle of the chair and tucked her feet beneath her bottom.
“Yeah. Ten minutes late. Easy to lose track of time when you’re on four legs.”
“Was Alpha upset?”
“Nah. He understood. Nothin’ he can do about it, and he knows I can’t do nothin’ about it, so he can’t get mad.”
“Does it happen a lot?”
He shrugged. “Every few days, I guess. Sometimes I can feel it coming on a couple of hours ahead. Other times, I don’t know it’s coming until it’s there.”
She narrowed her eyes and drummed her fingers against the sofa cushions on either side of her. The glow of red behind her brought out the olive hues in her skin and made the highlights in her dark hair look extra rich. She was such a beautiful woman. There were no women like her where he came from. Back home, they were all frail and pale.
Sugar, Spice, and Shifters: A Touch of Holiday Magic Page 12