Holiday Wolf Pack

by Bridget Essex

  But she breathes breath back into me as she embraces my neck and kisses me.

  Her mouth is different (how many women has she kissed since we were eighteen?). The way she kisses has changed (how many? Did she love them?). But what Carol is, the very essence of her, is still there, still true, still raw and real as she draws me against her tightly, her mouth tasting of vanilla and cinnamon, delicious, and oh, so soft. Soft, yes, and strong, the strength of her lurking just beneath the softness. There is an exquisite coolness to her, a coolness that sends a shiver over my spine, as if she were tracing a delicate fingernail over my skin there.

  I know that this is dangerous. It's been fifteen years. We just relived the past, shared painful memories together. We've been arguing, and if we speak, I worry that this tenuous spell will be broken.

  So I say nothing as I unbutton her coat. She says nothing as I peel the coat away from her chest, find the smart black blouse beneath it, made of tissue-thin material, pulled on over a black satin tank top, and the skirt riding high on her thighs.

  I hold her gaze while I trace my fingertips up, up under that tank top, under that blouse. She holds my gaze, and when I edge my fingers over the last inch of material on her skirt, find the heat of her skin, the satin softness of her belly, she breathes out in a low growl of delight.

  Yes. This. Yes. She reaches up, wraps her fingers around my wrist, and then she's pushing my hand up faster, under her shirt.

  There's no time for lingering. We both know that this moment is finite, that this tenuous peace between us...how will it end? Outside of this moment we're still two people who haven't spoken in fifteen years. But here and now, if we stay silent, if we don't say a word, if we're not arguing or wondering about the past...then there's only us in this moment.

  And we move within it, silently. Together.

  My fingertips graze the edging of her bra. Lace, so much lace, and when I unbutton her blouse, when I push up the tank top, my breath catches in my throat at how beautiful she is, laying back against the passenger seat, her lips swollen just a little from our kiss, her cheeks tinged pink, a soft, secret pink, her mouth open, panting, her chest rising and falling in time with her fast breath...

  I'd forgotten how beautiful she was. Well. That's not exactly true. I remembered...but I tried not to. Because to remember her beauty, the beauty of her body, of her heart, hurt me in a million tiny ways every single day. So I tried to forget, and I never quite could. And it caused me pain to remember her.

  But I bore the pain.

  I bend my head, trace my mouth over the flatness of the belly, the soft curves of her sides, trace my tongue up to the edge of the fine, black lace. I reach up my fingers, trail over the edges of the straps of her bra, of her tank top, tug them down over the perfect curves of her shoulders, and then I'm rising in my seat, moving over to the passenger seat, straddling her smoothly, a knee on either side of her thighs as I stare down at her in wonder.

  Her nipples are already peaked, and each time she breathes, her chest rises tantalizingly close to my mouth as I bend my head to her, but I watch her for a single heartbeat, two, flicking my gaze to hers up through my lashes. Her head is tilted back, her mouth open, and the lipstick has stayed on her mouth (miraculously), her magenta lips wet and parted from that kiss.

  She doesn't say anything, but she wraps her fingers in my hair now, tugging, and she pulls me insistently down to her heart.

  Her fingernails prick softly at the base of my head, and I shiver against her, at the sweet sharpness of that touch, at the strength in her palms as she pulls my head down, at the sight of her arching back against the passenger seat, burying her shoulder blades against the backrest to push her chest up to me.

  I bend my head down the last little way, and I taste her, taking the sweet hardness of that nipple into my mouth, pressing it against my tongue and teeth. I am all softness at first, tasting the satin smoothness of her skin, the remnants of her bodywash—something sweet and spicy, warm and inviting, but then comes my own sharpness as I drag that perfect pink nipple between my teeth, biting down so nicely at first. So nicely. And then so hard.

  Carol loved a certain kind of sweet roughness before, and I'm rewarded in my memory by her groan, poignant and low over the crescendo of wind outside this little car. The flashers are on in case anyone else comes along down the road (there hasn't been another car for quite a while at this point), but even the repetitive pinging of those flashers is drowned out by the insistent winds.

  But inside, here, wrapped up in one another, the storm can rage.

  In the whole universe, there is only us two. And nothing else besides.

  I kiss her, and I kiss her everywhere, my mouth so greedy. I am starving, and she is a feast, and I lave my tongue over the tapered elegance of her collarbones, the curve of them so remembered, so beautiful, beneath my tongue. I taste the curve of her neck, too, trailing my tongue over the symmetry I've tasted so many times...but not in so long.

  Carol moves beneath me, her hands already at the waist of my sweatpants (I forgot how incredibly unsexy I'm dressed, but I'm in too deep at this point to worry too much about it), and then her palms are against my belly, the heat of her skin searing against my own. There is a low growl in the back of her throat, and she's pushing her hands up and under my hoodie, pulling up the fabric. I oblige, shrugging the hoodie up and over my head, and then it's just my gym tank top, and she's tossing that off, too, throwing it onto the driver's side seat.

  She growls with delight now as she pulls me closer to her, her fingers wrapping around my hips to draw me to her tightly. Her mouth descends between my breasts, and for half a heartbeat, she's not kissing me—her lips brush lightly against my skin there, and her eyes are closed. She doesn't move, only breathes.

  I wrap my fingers in her golden hair, a shiver of delight moving through me as I feel the softness of it, the silkiness of it, between my fingers. When Carol doesn't move for a moment more, I use my grip to softly pull her head back, resting it against the headrest, pillowed in my hands.

  “What were you doing?” I tease her, my voice low, gruff, as I push her tank top down, push down her bra cups, too, to free her breasts completely, my hands reveling in the softness of them, too.

  She stares up at me now, and her eyes are wide. Distant.

  “Remembering,” she whispers.

  We stare at one another for a long moment. There had been this unspoken rule (unspoken, of course): don't speak. Words would ruin this. The past will ruin this. But Carol isn't exactly shoved out of the moment as she curls her fingers tighter around my hips now, her eyes narrowing in determination. She gazes at me, panting, holding that gaze as she pushes her right thigh up and between my legs. I breathe out, put my hands on either side of her head, bend forward, as Carol's right hand drags fingertips over my belly, dipping down, beneath the band of my pants.

  My legs are spread on either side of her, and my balance is kept with the muscles in my thighs, my calves, so I'm open, deeply, exquisitely, as Carol moves past everything, dipping her hand, her first two fingers, into me. She hisses with delight when her fingers encounter my wetness—I'm so very, very wet—and she pushes deeper, deeper still as I gasp against her, my body reacting, asking, begging.

  She takes my right breast into her mouth, bending her head forward, and for a moment, she is pure softness—her soft magenta mouth closing around my nipple, her soft tongue drifting over it almost lazily. But then come the teeth, and I groan, my hips pressing down onto her hand, my entire body reacting to that simple, perfect bite.

  She wraps her other arm around my waist, and she pushes me down onto her own hand—not that she needed to. My whole body, still reacting from that bite, is moving of its own accord, every instinct moving it, every animal part of me responding, answering, to the questions of her hands, her mouth.

  There's no room for thought as my body moves, as my hips pump, as my wetness pools over her fingers, her palm, as I wrap my fingers into her hair an
d press her mouth to my heart and groan and growl, because her thumb knows exactly how to dance over my clit, knows exactly what to do, to draw out of me the sounds I'm making, to draw out of me that exquisite build...

  And as we move together in this moment, I know that no time has passed at all. The old scars seem to fade away, and we're made new as I hiss her name in the darkness. “Carol. Yes. Yes...” And:

  “Please.”

  That last one was her. “Please,” she growls into my ear, her teeth grazing my lobe, her breath hot against my neck as she nips me there, as the sharpness of her teeth is made that much more intense by the softness of her tongue. “Please, baby—come for me,” she tells me, just like she used to. Once upon a time.

  And I do. My entire body replies to her, and the orgasm slams through me almost viciously with its potent strength, its potent beauty. The orgasm fills my limbs, my belly, my head and heart and pussy with this exquisite lightness. I feel like I'm floating for just a heartbeat, but the warmth of her arms, of her mouth, bring me back to earth. She is everywhere in these moments, as the orgasm is pulled through me by her touch. We are merged together, and I sink into her with steady grace, pushing my forehead against her shoulder, groaning out a growl that would rival any wolf's.

  As the waves ebb, I pant, not taking my forehead from her shoulder. She's still in my arms, and I'm in hers, and the moment is still ours. I'm desperate, suddenly, to not let it end, and pain wracks through my heart, old pain I know so well. Because, yes—I know what a mistake I made. I can't fix it. I can't take it back, I can't take back leaving and—

  “Georgia,” Carol whispers in my ear, her breath hot against my skin, and I sit up a little, still straddling her, as she draws her fingers up, trailing wet lines from her fingertips over my stomach. She places the flat of her hand against my belly, and she holds it there for a moment, glancing down at it as if transfixed, her brow lightly furrowed.

  “Georgia,” Carol repeats, and she glances up at me, and now there's a deeper furrow to her brow. She swallows a little, licking her lips. She takes a deep breath. “Did you love me?” she asks me.

  My fingers bury themselves a little deeper into the headrest behind her head, and I'm so wracked with emotion in this moment that I find it difficult to form words. But, somehow, I do. “Yes,” I tell her, my voice hoarse, gruff, soft and low. “I never stopped,” I tell her.

  The truth.

  Carol stares at me for a long moment. Her mouth is open, just a little, her eyes wide in the relative darkness of the car. She grips my hips with tight fingers, but she doesn't say a word. Not until she takes a deep breath. She nods. Determination comes over her face again, and she's about to speak, and...

  The car moves. Just a little. A gust of wind slams into the side of it, and the metal groans, the engine making a sort of strangled sound. We both blink in surprise and glance out the windshield.

  It is a complete whiteout outside the car, snow and snow and nothing else besides.

  “I don't think that was just the wind,” says Carol suddenly, and she's sitting up a little straighter, glancing out the windshield again, her eyes narrowed. “I think there's something wrong with the engine.”

  “Huh?” I mutter, grabbing my hoodie from the driver's side seat. I shrug it on over my head, pull my sweatpants up a little more over my hips, and then I'm sliding over into the other seat. With the wind, it's impossible to hear if the car is still actually running, and I can't quite remember if I left it on or not, so I put my foot on the brake, take the car out of park and press the gas.

  Absolutely nothing happens.

  “Not good,” I mutter, then turn the key in the ignition to off. I try to turn it again, but again...absolutely nothing happens.

  So, Carol's van may have been a clunker. But my car? It's not exactly a brand new model by any stretch of the imagination.

  “Crap,” I moan and try to turn the key again. Ahead of us, out of the car, there's a small bit of smoke that curls up out of the engine.

  And it does nothing.

  Carol brings up her phone as I try to turn it on again and again. That is literally the most knowledge I possess about cars: if it doesn't work, try turning it off and on again. The “on again” part of this equation just continues to not work...so I've exhausted my extensive (ha!) knowledge.

  Carol sighs and glances sidelong at me. She hasn't righted her clothes in the slightest, and the curve of her breasts is soft and inviting in the light reflected from the snow outside. She holds up her phone. “This says there's a hotel down the road a few miles.”

  I raise a brow. “What are you saying?”

  “There's no way a towing company could come out to get us right now. According to my weather app, we're in the middle of a blizzard now. Hooray,” she says, raising a brow, too. “So, we're going to have to save ourselves.”

  “A few miles?” I ask her weakly, and she nods, turning her phone off and opening up my glove box. She rummages around and comes out with a plastic bag—it's a warming thought (if only for a second) that she remembered I keep tissues and plastic bags there. Because you never know when you're going to need them.

  “Let's put our clothes in here,” she says, and she peels off her coat, her blouse and tank top smoothly, putting the blouse and top into the bag—the coat's not gonna fit.

  I swallow a little, take the keys out of the ignition and hold them in suddenly clammy hands, clutched in my lap.

  Carol notices, glancing at me as the headlights on the car go out.

  There is only darkness.

  We're both silent for a long moment, but then Carol's clearing her throat. “Georgia...I can try to call a towing company,” she tells me gently. “Would that make you feel better?”

  I nod, wetting my lips. She knows I'm uncomfortable about turning into my wolf form, and she doesn't want to be uncomfortable—that's a very big start. So Carol turns her phone back on again, finds and calls a number...but the line is busy.

  She tries a few others before I reach out, curling my fingers over her phone. My heart is hammering against my ribs, and my mouth is suddenly so dry. I try to lick my lips again.

  “This is kind of dire, isn't it?” I ask her. My fingers are curled around her hand, too, the hand holding her phone. She lets it drop into her lap, and she threads her fingers through mine.

  “Kind of,” she agrees, wrinkling her nose and staring out the window. “I heard weather reports that it was gonna be bad, but...I wasn't expecting this. Honestly, when was the last time we saw a car?”

  “I think we were too wrapped up in...this...” I manage, glancing at her before lowering my gaze to our hands, entwined on her lap. “I haven't turned into the wolf in years, Carol. Not since...not since I left Pine Springs,” I finally manage.

  There. More of the truth. She deserved to know.

  She nods, and I think she's trying to figure out what to say for a long moment. Finally, she clears her throat, leans across the seat toward me.

  “I meant what I said...all those years ago,” she murmurs to me, searching my gaze in the dark. “I know you don't feel right in your wolf form. I know that's still the case...right?” she asks, and I'm nodding, gazing at her questioningly. “I'm sorry,” she whispers now, her voice so warm, so soft, as she holds my hand tighter, reaching up, placing her palm against my cheek. I turn my head, into her touch, close my eyes, breathe out. “I'm sorry,” she repeats, and her voice is softer, somehow. “I don't understand what that's like. But I'm here. I'll do whatever you need. I'll help you however I can. I meant it then. I mean it now.” And then, so soft, the wind outside almost drowns out the words—but not quite: “I never stopped loving you either.”

  I grip her hand tightly. I close my eyes.

  “I'm here with you now,” says Carol, her voice as light as snow. “We'll do this together.”

  We put our clothes in the bag—our coats won't fit, and we leave them behind. I put in the car keys and our wallets. She ties the bag up tight
ly, making sure the loops are something a wolf's jaws can carry. She stretches them out a little, tugging on the plastic as she glances outside with a grimace.

  “Dammit. I hate leaving these gift baskets in the car.”

  I laugh at that, and she does, too, glancing sidelong at me and then laughing hard. At the ridiculousness of the situation. At the fact that we're stranded in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the storm. We would be so screwed if we weren't werewolves, and I think the both of us are realizing that now.

  I take another plastic bag out of my glove compartment and roll down my window just a little. I leave the bag wedged there, and then we both get out of the car.

  I'm sure if someone was watching right now, we'd look a little ridiculous, two naked women leaving the car, stepping out into a snowstorm. But there's not a single soul within miles, or—if there is—I feel fairly sorry for them. The second I'm out of the car, the wind takes my breath away, the snow pummeling my naked skin like a punishment.

  Even as a werewolf, it's fricken' freezing out here.

  Carol steps close to me, and I'm wrapping my arms around her, drawing her heat to me, the warmth of both of us enough in this moment.

  “I'm with you,” she tells me, practically yelling it into my ear, her eyes narrowed against the flakes that are driven like needles into our skin. “Are you with me, too?” she asks, and her brow is furrowed. I reach up, rub the pad of my thumb against that sweet, deep furrow. I kiss her cheek. I kiss her other one. I press my mouth to her eyelids, first one, then the other, cupping her face in my hands as I stare at her wonderingly.

  “Yes,” I promise her. “I'm with you.”

  It has been fifteen years since I donned the shape of something I don't quite feel is right. But Carol is beside me as I bend forward, as I place paws on the snowy ground. Carol is beside me, her wolf nose pointed to the air, bumping my shoulder steadily, softly, with her own, her eyes wide and brown and good in the dark.

  Through the snow, through the forest we run, side by side. And it is not easy to be the wolf. But with Carol beside me, the crawling under my skin lessens. The pain lessens.