by Witt, L. A.
I closed my eyes. “Oh . . . fuck . . .”
“Like that?” he murmured.
“Yeah. Oh, fuck, yeah.”
He squeezed gently. Stroked a little faster. His hand, his cock, his breath against my lips, holy fuck I had never been so turned on.
I pushed him up against the wall. He gasped and arched off it for a second but relaxed as we made out and ran our hands all over each other’s wet bodies. We kissed hungrily, desperately, and the more our cocks rubbed together in his hand, the farther I went out of my mind.
Alex let his head fall back against the wall. “Oh, God,” he moaned. “Oh, God, I’m gonna come.”
I could barely breathe. All I could do was watch him unravel while I inched closer to doing the same, and more than his body or his hand or his cock against my own, it was his face—eyes screwed shut, lips apart—that turned my knees to liquid. Soaking wet, trembling in ecstasy, right on the edge, back arching off the wall like it had once arched off a rain-drenched blanket on the sand, and when a shudder forced a helpless whimper from his lips, there was no stopping my orgasm.
My eyes rolled back, my spine straightened, and I had to brace myself against the wall with one arm to keep from crumpling to my knees. I was vaguely aware of my voice vibrating in my throat, of my lips and tongue forming some word or another, but I heard nothing except Alex’s desperate gasps for breath as his orgasm peaked and fell.
With one last shudder, it was over.
We couldn’t kiss. We couldn’t speak. We were lucky we could breathe, and for the longest time, that was all we did. Holding onto each other, both using the wall to keep us upright, we breathed.
“That was intense,” he finally slurred.
“Yeah, it was,” I said, still panting. “Just one thing I can’t figure out, though.”
“What’s that?”
I pulled him closer, drawing him away from the wall and under the hot water with me. “Can’t figure out why I waited this long.”
He grinned and kissed me gently. “Guess we’ll just have to make up for lost time.”
“Mmm, I like that idea.”
Damon and I stayed in each other’s arms in the shower until the water started to cool. Once we’d dried off, we moved into the bedroom and got under the covers.
I rested my head on his shoulder and he laid his hand over mine on his chest. His other arm was lazily draped around my shoulders, and as his fingers drifted absently up and down my upper arm, every gentle stroke made my mind reel with disbelief.
In two years, I had never allowed myself to fantasize about this. I was too certain it would never happen. Even if Damon accepted me as a shifter, he’d never be willing to cross this line, so I’d shut out every last fantasy about touching him in my male form. Why torment myself with something I wanted so badly but could never have?
And yet, here we were. Naked, in each other’s arms, letting the lingering afterglow fade away at its own speed after a couple of intense orgasms.
“Still awake?” he asked.
I pushed myself up and looked at him. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
He touched my face. “I’m tired, but I don’t think I’m going to sleep anytime soon.”
“Same here.” I draped an arm over his waist. “What changed, anyway? About, you know, us?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. Maybe I just needed some time to get used to the idea.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine and the pad of his thumb traced a gentle arc across my cheekbone. “But seeing you at the club tonight, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You just looked so . . .”
“What?”
Damon moistened his lips and met my eyes. “Happy.”
I trailed my fingertips down the side of his face. “I was.”
“Are you now?”
I smiled. “Yeah. I am.” I kissed him lightly.
“Thanks for, you know, not rushing this,” he whispered.
“Rushing it?”
“Yeah. Just kind of letting it happen on its own.”
I combed my fingers through his damp hair. “I would never have pushed you, Damon. To be honest, I didn’t think would happen at all.”
He grinned. “Surprise!”
We both laughed.
Damon’s expression turned serious, and he stroked my face with the backs of his fingers. “I think,” he whispered, pausing like he had to search for the right words, “this was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I’ll admit I had my doubts.”
“I did, too, but . . . I think I just had to get past the physical side. Had to get it through my head that it didn’t matter what skin you were in, I still felt the same about you.”
I swallowed the lump that tried to rise in my throat. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that.”
He shot me a playful grin. “Guess you don’t have to wait anymore, do you?”
I smiled. “Guess not.”
I moved a little closer to him. Damon slid his arm around me, and when our lips met, I melted against him. He kissed me the way he’d kissed me the very first time we’d been together: no uncertainty, no hesitation, no fear. The way he had when I was a woman, he was a man, and everything between us had been simple and easy. Our situation was neither simple nor easy now, but the tip of his tongue teased my lips apart like it was still simple, and his fingers held onto the back of my neck like it was still easy.
And maybe, if only for tonight, it was.
Every inch of warm skin against mine made my head spin, and every breath of his familiar—if subdued after our shower—scent made me want to just lie here and breathe him in all night.
Whenever my fingertips brushed his skin, the muscles beneath quivered just like they always did, and I couldn’t help grinning to myself. I loved having this effect on him, and I’d missed it.
His hand followed the curve of my spine down to my lower back, and with just a hint of pressure, he pulled my hips toward his. I broke the kiss with a gasp, shivering as his erect cock brushed my own. I pushed my hips against him again, just enough to create the slightest, most delicious friction between us, and Damon moaned into another kiss.
My God, I just couldn’t get enough of him. The heat of his body, the taste of his deep, slow kiss, the way he shook as badly as I did the more we touched and tasted each other. I never thought I’d be able to turn him on like this, but every movement of our hips left nothing to the imagination about who I was or how aroused we were. Nor did the hand in my hair that begged me not to pull away or the ragged breaths that alternately warmed and cooled my cheek.
“Oh, God, Alex, I want to . . .” He paused. “I want to fuck you.”
I pulled back enough to look into his eyes. “Are you . . . sure?”
“Yes. Please. I want to.”
I’m dreaming. No way in hell this is real.
He trailed his fingertips down the side of my face. “Please, Alex. I want you so damned bad right now.”
I gulped. Words failed me, so I just nodded. I pushed myself up, and Damon reached for the nightstand.
“Still have any of that lube from a while back?” I asked.
“Hmm, I think so.” He rifled through the drawer. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled out a small bottle and a condom.
“You sure you want to do this?” I asked as he sat up. “We don’t have to do everything tonight.”
“We don’t have to.” He tore the condom wrapper with his teeth. “But I want to.”
I didn’t even try to come up with a witty comment. All I could do was watch him roll on the condom while I silently pleaded with him not to change his mind. He wanted this. I wanted this. Please, please, Damon, I want you so bad.
Once the condom was on, he reached for the lube, and without another word, we changed position. I got on my hands and knees, and the warmth of his hand on my hip made my breath catch. Then came the cool lube. His fingers teased me, pressed in a little, teased me some more. He knew damn well I did
n’t need careful, painstaking prep to take him, but maybe this was more for him than for me. A way of psyching himself up to have sex with a man. As he slid a finger into me, and then a second one, his breathing became heavier just as mine did. I thought I heard him curse, but maybe it was me. At this point, all I knew was how bad I wanted him and how much I hoped he really wanted me.
His fingers slipped out. Then came the pressure.
And . . . oh God . . .
A little at a time, slowly, gently, Damon slid inside me. I willed myself to breathe, if only to prevent myself from passing out and missing a single second of this.
“This okay?” he asked, and he was out of breath already.
“Yeah.” Damn, so was I. “This is . . . this is fine.” Fine? That didn’t even come close. “I love it,” I slurred.
“Good,” he breathed. “Because I do, too.”
I shivered. He withdrew slowly, then pushed back in. He picked up speed, but not much; maybe he wanted it slow, or maybe he was as overwhelmed as I was and needed to take it slow while he wrapped his head around the fact that this was really happening. I didn’t mind either way because he felt so damned good.
“Like that?” he whispered.
I nodded, rocking back against him to encourage him to move a little faster. Every stroke sent more sparks of white light across my blurred vision. It had been ages since I’d done this as a man, and I’d almost forgotten how much I loved it. More than that, knowing this was Damon—that Damon was deep inside me, that it was Damon’s fingers twitching on my hips, that Damon was the one who’d moaned like that—drove me insane. It was just as well I’d never let myself fantasize about this; nothing my mind could have conjured would have done the real thing justice.
I only wished I could have seen the look on his face.
“Wait,” I said. “Stop.”
He stopped. I bit my lip, my body screaming for him to keep going while my mind insisted on this. God, Damon, you feel so good.
Running his hand up and down my side, he said, “Is something wrong? Am I hurting you or—”
“No, nothing’s wrong.” I closed my eyes and took a breath, struggling to stay in control. “I want . . . let me get on top.”
Damon didn’t speak. He kept a hand on my hip and withdrew slowly, both of us gasping as he pulled all the way out. Changing positions took a little longer than before. We were both trembling too much to move quickly, let alone gracefully, but I didn’t give a damn how clumsy we were.
As soon as he was on his back, I was over him, and my mouth was against his before he’d even wrapped his arms around me. His lips crushed mine, and when his tongue demanded access to my mouth, I happily granted it. Fingers dug into skin, mouths moved together with feverish desperation, stubble scraped across stubble. There was nothing gentle or subdued about us now. We breathed each other in and kissed and held onto each other like one or both of us were a flight risk.
All at once, we separated, touching our foreheads together and panting against each other’s mouths.
“I want . . .” He swept his tongue across his lips. “God, Alex, I want to be inside you again.”
“We’re getting there,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m—”
“Please,” he whispered.
The desperation in his voice pulled all the air out of my lungs. “Stay just like that.” I sat up and reached for the lube. As I put some more on him, I said, “With everything you’ve done for me lately, I just want you to lie back and enjoy the ride.”
“Oh, I’m enjoying it so far.”
“Good.” I sat over him. He put a hand on my hip and the other on the base of his cock, and I bit my lip as I lowered myself onto him.
“Oh, fuck . . .” he breathed. When I rose off him, he moaned and closed his eyes. “Goddamn it, you feel . . .” He gave another soft moan.
Then he opened his eyes and reached for the bottle of lube.
I slowed down. “Do we need more?”
“No, you’re fine.” He poured some on his hand, capped the bottle, and tossed it onto the bed beside us. Then he reached between us and closed his hand around my cock.
“Oh . . . God . . .” I screwed my eyes shut and let my head fall forward. His slick palm and fingers slid up and down my cock, and I almost forgot what I was doing before I found my rhythm again. Damon stroked me at the same speed I fucked him, slowing when I did, gaining speed when I did. Maybe I adjusted my speed to meet his. Didn’t know. Couldn’t have cared less.
“You’re fucking amazing at this,” I whispered.
“That doesn’t surprise you, does it?”
I laughed softly. “Not in the least, no.” I’m just surprised you’re enjoying this, Damon. This is so far beyond my wildest dreams, you don’t even know . . .
I leaned down to kiss him. Our lips brushed. Met. Brushed again. I couldn’t concentrate on kissing him while maintaining any semblance of rhythm, so I pushed myself back up on my arms.
We locked eyes as I rode him and he stroked me. The muscles in my hips and thighs burned with exertion, and the bed frame groaned with the force of our rapid movement, but as near as I could tell, everything had slowed down. Every breath lasted an age, every stroke and every shudder happened in extreme slow motion. I couldn’t look anywhere but right at him, and he looked right back at me, and everything we did, every way we touched inside and out, was so intense my eyes watered.
Damon groaned. His hand tightened around my cock and his back arched beneath us. “Fuck, Alex, you feel amazing.”
His grip tightened a little more, and my rhythm fell apart. So did his. I lost track of who was doing what. If it was his hips or mine that set the pace, if his hand was even moving anymore or if I was thrusting into his tight, slippery grasp. The air around us was alive with the squeak of the bed frame and our delirious moans and desperate gasps for breath. I couldn’t say for sure who let go first, but the other wasn’t far behind, and every move one of us made drew out both of our orgasms until the room around us had dissolved into spinning sparks of tear-blurred white light.
One last shudder turned what was left of my spine to liquid, and I collapsed over him. Struggling to catch my breath, I held myself up on trembling arms until he pulled me all the way down.
“Guess we’ll need to take another shower,” he murmured.
“Yeah, we will.” I kissed him lightly. “Just . . . give me a minute.”
A few days after the night at the club, Alex went to see the specialist, and he asked me to come to the appointment with him.
We hadn’t been waiting long when they called his name, but he didn’t see the doctor yet. A few X-rays were taken and a nurse discussed his medical history, wrote down his vitals, and otherwise ran through the usual procedures. Then she showed us back to the waiting room.
“Dr. Rowland will be with you shortly,” she said. “Once he’s had a look at the X-rays, he’ll call you back in.”
So we waited. Minute after minute ticked by. We both flipped through magazine after outdated magazine. Other patients came and went. The receptionist’s nails clattered on her keyboard, sometimes while she was on the phone, sometimes not. File drawers slammed, papers shuffled, voices murmured on the other side of the door. A half dozen or so colorful tropical fish swam endless, bored circles around the huge tank. All the while, the second hand on the clock tracked every minute we spent here.
Waiting rooms were like their own special brand of purgatory, especially when so much was on the line. The specialist would have the answers Alex desperately needed, but for now, I felt like the diver in the fish tank who would never get any closer to the treasure chest.
Alex put a magazine aside and leaned forward. He rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. His head was bowed, almost like he was praying, his thumbs pressing into the bridge of his nose. He’d been optimistic and upbeat ever since the outpouring of generosity and support from people at the Mat, but all morning, he’d been quiet. Not necessarily w
ithdrawn like she’d been during depressions, but he was obviously preoccupied.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”
His head moved in a hint of a nod.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Very.”
There wasn’t much I could offer in the way of reassurance. I didn’t know if everything would be okay. I didn’t know if the doctor would have an answer that would let Alex get some real sleep. There were so many ways this appointment could go, and with the knot in my stomach, I could only imagine the one in his.
The door between the waiting room and the rest of the office opened. “Alex Nichols?”
We both looked up to see a stocky gentleman in a shirt and tie.
Alex rose. I followed him.
The man extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Rowland.”
“Alex.” He shook the doctor’s hand. “This is Damon, my partner.”
“Nice to meet you both.” Dr. Rowland shook my hand, then gestured through the door with his clipboard. “Come on back.”
We followed him into his office instead of an exam room. There, he indicated the pair of chairs in front of his desk while he went around to the other side.
As Dr. Rowland skimmed over some notes, Alex drummed his fingers on the armrest. Wrung his hands in his lap. Drummed his fingers again. I touched his arm, and he glanced at me. I managed what I hoped was an encouraging smile, and he returned it.
Dr. Rowland sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his lap. “Before we get too far into this, there’s one thing I want to make clear. Shifters often distrust my colleagues and me when it comes to these implants.” He paused. “With good reason, too. This profession is not always friendly toward things it doesn’t understand.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Alex muttered.
“Which is why I want to make sure you understand that I’m on your side.” He closed his eyes and exhaled. Beside me, Alex’s chair creaked. I glanced at him, and when his eyes widened, I looked back at the doctor.
My lips parted. I stared in disbelief as Dr. Rowland’s features softened. Blurred. Changed. I blinked a few times, trying to focus, but then realized it wasn’t my eyes at all. His clothing stayed sharp and clear, as did his surroundings, but his face and hands . . . changed.