by Amelia Jade
That had been a year ago now, and it had been a decade before that. Opening up to people was quite literally a life-threatening experience. Though the battle earlier that night had been won by the wolves, it could easily have gone the other way as well. One blow from Josh’s bear would have changed the entire outcome. Her wolf form was strong and durable, but the raw power contained within a bear dwarfed anything she might come up with.
Chad had gone to his room immediately upon arrival, leaving Hannah alone with her thoughts. That troubled her a little, though she wasn’t devoting as much time to it as she should. Josh was dominating her mind, her thoughts, and of course, her heart. Their relationship had to be one of the rockiest, most screwed-up things that she had ever been a part of. There was no denying it.
Just as there was no denying the fact that through it all she had still managed to develop feelings of affection for him. Which complicated pretty much everything. A part of her wished that he hadn’t been so damn likeable, but deep down Hannah knew that there was something special about him. Even if it was just his ability to sit still and listen to her explain something that went against the grain of everything he knew. Many people wouldn’t have given her the time of day to speak.
Hell, many people don’t. I know that from firsthand experience. The world pretends to be open-minded, until it affects them directly. Then you see a person’s true colors.
Hannah had seen Josh’s true colors tonight. She didn’t know how the mixing of them would go, but she couldn’t get over the intelligence behind his eyes, and the way he not only listened to what she had said, but had thought about it. Had made his own conclusions without needing her to spell it all out.
True, he had tried to kill her and Chad when her brother stupidly decided to reveal himself. Hannah still needed to yell at him for that. The more she thought about it, however, the more she remembered the way he had looked at her, all animal and no humanity. Hannah was convinced that Josh must have been overwhelmed by the ingrained response from his animal, and had briefly lost control. Thinking back to the other day at breakfast, when Josh had brushed his hand against hers and she had lost control herself, Hannah couldn’t help but forgive him.
The question that plagued her now was would Josh be able and willing to overcome a lifetime of knowledge to accept the truth she had shown him. Just how flexible was he? Listening to her was one thing, but accepting and truly believing her was something else entirely. Very few people in her life had been able to do that.
On the bright side, that meant Hannah was used to the crushing blow when someone she had hoped would be her friend had turned against her and hunted her down or reported her to others. The other thing she needed to factor in was that he might use that against her. If he pretended to accept her, Hannah knew full well that Josh might be able to use her feelings from that against her, lulling her into a false sense of security.
Josh would never do that. He’s a good person. If he doesn’t believe you, he’s going to tell you. Then he will kill you.
The door rattled on its hinges under the force of a fist as someone knocked firmly at it.
Hannah jumped in the air, scrambling to catch herself as she knocked the chair over in her haste. Straightening, she pushed the sides of her pants down. I should have changed.
“Chad?” she called, wondering if he was ready to talk at last, to explain why he had been acting so distant with her all day.
Three more knocks. Whoever it was hadn’t heard her.
She crept toward the door and pulled her eye up to the hole.
It was Josh.
Hannah jerked back as if stung, eyes darting around the room.
Shit shit shit! What do I do? Is he here to kill me?
“I’m not here to hurt you.” His voice carried through the door with a calmness completely at odds with how she felt.
“That’s what they all say,” she replied.
Josh’s snort was loud enough to be audible. “I don’t think I would let this door stop me if that were the case,” he told her.
Hannah considered that point for a moment. It was a very good point. The door itself might be metal, but the flimsy lock wouldn’t hold up to a determined blow from the huge shifter.
“Fuck,” she said, the single word said aloud somehow amplifying its meaning to her.
Closing her eyes and throwing out a wordless prayer, she slid back the deadbolt and twisted the handle. There was a brief hesitation, then she pulled the door open, screwing her eyes shut and bracing for a blow.
Nothing came.
“I told you, I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, sounding rather amused.
Hannah opened one eye, focusing on him for a moment, then she opened both of them.
“You look like shit,” she said bluntly.
Josh’s white shirt was ripped and stained with blood, exposing much of his hard muscle to her eye, forcing a slight quiver through her lips, before Hannah bit down on her bottom one to try and stop them from betraying her. His jeans were much the same, and all of it been doused liberally in water. Despite the drive to the hotel, it still held more than enough dampness to force the material to adhere to his skin. To her eyes it just amplified his muscles even more. She could make out each thick bulge on his arms, the massive pecs that covered his entire chest, and the delicious, drool-worthy ripples of his abdomen.
Focus, woman. Just because he looks like a model straight out of a magazine doesn’t mean your life still isn’t on the line. Think with your brain, and not the thing between your legs.
“Thank you,” he replied. “I got beat up.”
“Oh you did, did you?”
Josh nodded. “Yeah, there were like twenty of them. Coming from every direction. I fought off probably half of them, but there were still at least fifteen or twenty left after that.” He shrugged. “One versus forty just isn’t fair.”
Hannah smiled as the number of his foes kept climbing. “And you did nothing to deserve it, right?”
“Of course not. I’m innocent,” he said, flashing her a grin that made her legs waver.
Then his expression sobered. “You know, when I was younger, living in foster home after foster home, whenever I was lucky enough to go to school, the other kids made fun of me. Even the ones that came from homes that were barely better than what I had.”
Her expression stiffened as he began to talk, the smile fading the longer he went on.
“As you’re well aware, at that age, I wasn’t a shifter. I didn’t even know I was. Nobody had known my parents.” He grimaced. “I was the literal poster child for a basket baby, dumped on the steps of an orphanage and abandoned by my parents.” The big man shook his head. “Anyway, like I said, the other kids wouldn’t play with me simply because I didn’t have a family. That was it, the single reason. That apparently made me different from them, even the ones who had drug-addict mothers and criminal fathers. At least they had parents. It never really made any sense to me of course. I knew I was normal enough. But they refused to believe me. So I stopped trying to play with them one day.”
Hannah was nodding along, understanding the point he was making, but also intrigued by the details of his younger years.
“When I stopped trying, they mostly stopped bugging me. It was an uneasy truce, but I knew that if I ever went back, it would start up all over again. I couldn’t go to the younger grades, you see, because they told them the same thing. And of course the older boys knew that everyone beneath them was to be treated like they didn’t exit. So there I was, trapped in a circle of ostracism.”
His eyes bored into her then as he continued to speak, letting them tell her the story as much as his words did.
“But the next year, there was a new boy. He didn’t have a family either. He would play with me, and suddenly we were having fun. The others tried to show us they were better than we were, but the two of us didn’t care. For that entire year we played together, showing the other kids that we were the same as they were
, even if we didn’t have their concept of families.” Josh looked up for a moment, his eyes distant as some memory or another played through his mind.
“What happened after that?” she asked quietly.
“The next year the boys stopped teasing us, and we could all play together.”
Hannah nodded, understanding. All it had taken was one person to give him a chance, to show him that he could be normal like the rest of them. That’s all people wanted, was reassurance that she could be normal like the rest of them. That she wasn’t crazy.
“So why are you telling me this?” she asked.
There was a brief sliver of hesitation, but not enough to matter. Then Josh spoke. “I was wondering if you wanted to play with me?” he asked.
Hannah grinned. “Is that an offer?” she said mischievously, her grin turning almost delightfully evil.
Josh shrugged. “I suppose it is, yes. Though,” his voice lightened to match her tone, “I hope it’s okay that I’m not really little.”
“Oh, it’s very okay,” she replied, feeling her cheeks heat at the blatant sexual references passing between them.
She looked up at him in wonder for a moment, the surprise of his acceptance of her still sinking in. She was having a hard time believing it.
This is too good to be true. How did I get so lucky?
“Can I come in?” Josh said after a moment, his face twisting into a lopsided grin that sent the butterflies in her stomach on a wild rollercoaster ride.
“Oh, of course,” she said, pushing the door fully open and turning to head back inside, her hair swishing around down the back of her neck as she did.
It was only when the door thudded oddly did she realize that he hadn’t followed her into the darkened room.
Fearing that perhaps she had made a mistake, Hannah slowly turned back to look at him.
“Josh?” she asked nervously.
He was standing still in the doorway, staring at her in abject shock, unresponsive to her call.
“Josh?” she said again, moving slowly back toward him.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said in surprise.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Turn around,” he said as she neared him, standing in the little hallway that led from the door into her room.
Hannah frowned, but did as he asked. His tone wasn’t aggressive or demanding, but filled instead with wonder. As she spun, the decorative wallpaper design flashed by her eyes, the columns printed onto the material giving the little hallway the feeling of being an old arched corridor.
“Holy shit,” he whispered softly behind her.
“What is it?” she asked, feeling her hair settle down her back once more.
“It’s you,” he said.
“Josh, I don’t understand.”
The big man laughed, a happy, burbling sound, and then he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, the powerful limbs pulling her tight to him. She hissed in delightful surprise as she found herself pressed against his hard body.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “It was just a dream.”
He refused to explain any more. Hannah thought about objecting until his searing-hot lips burned her neck, almost making her cry out in surprise at the touch. Her hands came up to wrap around the thick muscles of his forearms, her nails digging slightly into his skin as he continued to nibble at her neck, weakening the muscles in her legs until they felt like jelly.
“Josh, I—”
“Shh,” he said, turning her around and lifting her from the floor until her head was above his.
Now it was Hannah’s turn. She lowered herself to him, head tilting naturally to the side as she pressed her lips against his. Her hands slid up his body until she could grasp the sides of his head, pulling him tight to her as they locked themselves together, finally exploring the depths of the relationship that they had kept to themselves until that moment.
Strong, powerful emotions exploded within her. Desire. Lust. Passion. Relief. Many more accompanied those, swirling around and around, threatening to overwhelm her. To call her wolf forward, the way it always happened. Hannah tensed, dreading that moment. She would be in control of her wolf, but she literally could not control the change itself.
But it didn’t happen. Something within Josh reached out and enveloped her. It was so strong, so powerful, that Hannah just knew it couldn’t be her imagination. His animal was reacting to hers in some way, doing something she had never known was possible.
“Do you feel that?” he whispered through their kisses.
“Yes,” she said simply, shocked that he could feel it too. Her lips redoubled their attention as she fell deeper and deeper into the moment.
The calming, soothing effect continued to grow stronger within her the more she let herself open up to it. Something told her it was amplified by skin on skin contact. It was more of an image in her head than spoken words, but she got the point. Her fingers, previously running themselves through Josh’s hair, moved to his waist, finding the edges of his tattered shirt. Instead of lifting it over his head, Hannah flexed and literally ripped the shirt from his body, using the power of her shifter in a way she rarely did while in human form.
Josh smiled, using one of his hands to have her wrap her legs around his waist. Then he held her still while she stripped her own clothes off, the wet, sticky material a challenge. But after a momentary struggle, the shirt and her bra fell to the ground.
Hannah saw Josh eyeing her breasts, and she leaned away from him, arching her back slightly to allow him to better take them in. She could feel the reaction in his pants as his cock began to harden, the bulge of it pressing against her.
“Come here,” he growled happily, the arm behind her back pulling her forward, until the bare skin of their chests pressed together.
Despite the fact her eyes were closed to kiss him, Hannah felt them try to pull open in surprise as her wolf calmed even more. She trembled, realizing that for once in her life, she might have something—no, someone—to help her in her fight with the disease that removed her control over it at crucial times. With Josh by her side, perhaps Hannah could once again live in and around society.
Josh’s teeth nipped at her neck with a little more pressure behind them, eliciting a low moan from her that seemed to banish the silence in the room. She moved her hips slow and purposeful against the outline of his hard cock. Josh’s groaned deeply into the crook of her neck, the noise vibrating her skin slightly, amplifying her enjoyment of the noise.
“I want you,” he whispered into her ear, his tongue flicking the edge of it in a way that drove her mad with lust.
“Then take me,” she replied breathlessly. She cried out in surprise as he pulled her from the wall and moved down the hallway until it widened. The bed was off to the right, but he didn’t go there.
She continued to kiss him, wondering where he was going, until the bare skin of her back pressed up against glass. Hannah shivered, both at the cool touch of the glass, and also at the knowledge that anyone looking up into their window would see her.
Josh peeled one leg and then the other from around his waist, setting her down on the floor. He undid her pants, and together they pulled the wet clothing off her until she was standing in the window, stark naked while he took in an eyeful.
“Do you like what you see?” she asked, trying to remain strong despite the risk of the situation.
To her surprise, Hannah found that she enjoyed being shown off like this. The blaze of desire that flared in his eyes as he drank in her exposed skin was a powerful aphrodisiac. Without waiting to be told, she stepped closer to him, hands reaching forward to fiddle with his belt and button. Instead of just sticking her arms out straight though, she curled them under her breasts so that when her hands came together at his waist, the movement naturally pushed her breasts together and up.
The reaction from Josh was noticeable. As her hand brushed against the outline of his cock, she felt it stiffen ev
en more, likely just as much from the show she was putting on as from her touch.
“You are so sexy,” he murmured, draping his hands over her shoulders and running his fingers up her neck.
“You’re just saying that so I won’t stop,” she teased, his belt finally coming undone. The pants quickly followed.
Josh shrugged. “Not just for that reason,” he admitted with a grin that sent a burst of heat between her legs. “Besides, I’m going to repay the favor,” he said with an evil grin.
Her hands dragged up the inside of his thighs and Josh hissed in surprise. She slipped her fingers over his cock, still covered by his boxers, and her eyes widened slightly at the size of him. She had known he was big, but without the jeans in the way, it became clear just how large he was.
The shifter looked concerned for a moment. “Is that going to be okay?” he asked, clearly meaning his size and her ability to handle it.
Hannah grinned. “Oh, yes. I think it will be just fine,” she told him, winking as she dropped to her knees, taking his boxers with her.
Looking up at him as she prepared to suck his cock in full view of anyone who happened to look up at that particular ninth-floor window, Hannah couldn’t help but be turned on by the way he looked at her. She had had sexual partners before, but as she’d known from the start, there was something different about the bear shifter.
Her tongue flicked out, dragging softly along the underside of his cock while she wrapped her right hand around its base, the entire time keeping her eyes focused up at Josh. His lip had curled under at some point, and he bit on it now as she took his head into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it gently.
The big shifter moaned, a deep thrumming sound that seemed to vibrate through her.
“Damn that feels good,” he said, his eyes fixated upon her.
Hannah smiled around his cock and continued to suck on it, noting how hot she was getting with a cock in her mouth, completely naked in public view. She had never realized it before, but this was hot. She was ready for him to fuck her, right then and there.