by Zoe Chant
“We all are, I think,” Joel said. “I’ve never heard of shifters who just live like their animal forms all the time. I don’t know if it’s possible.”
“And it doesn’t work to live as a leopard and shift human only occasionally, because I end up dirty and—well, like an animal.” Nina shuddered; Joel could feel the shiver of motion against his side. “So I had to find a way to live as a human. I started looking for work in rural areas, which was hard because there weren’t always jobs. And I wanted so, so badly to find other shifters, so I’d stick around for a while, see if I could hear anything about whether anyone had heard of shapeshifting people, and then move on.”
“Did you ever find any?” Joel asked.
Nina bit her lip. “A few times. But I never fit in, so I kept going.” She seemed to shake herself. “That’s enough talking about me. Sorry.”
“No,” Joel said, startled by the sudden shutdown. “I want to hear about it. About you.”
But Nina shook her head. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Maybe...later.”
Well. Joel couldn’t argue with that. And she’d told him enough already. Kicked out of her house at sixteen because of who she was? Having to live on the streets, scared of what might happen to her, wondering if she’d ever find her people. And then once she did...I never fit in, so I kept going. Joel bet that there was a lot more hidden behind that.
“What about you?” She squeezed his hand. “It sounds like you had a hard time as a kid, with your parents and all.”
And now the shoe was on the other foot. Joel suddenly understood I don’t want to talk anymore. When he thought about those times, he just wanted to shove them away and never think about them again. Not bring them back up and hash them over.
But he’d asked Nina to be brave, and she had been. The least he could do was the same. “I didn’t handle it well when my parents died.”
“I don’t know how any thirteen-year-old would handle that well.” It was Nina’s turn to talk in a soft voice, to grip his hand hard.
Joel laced their fingers together, looking down at their hands rather than into the depths of her gray-green eyes. “I was sad, and scared, and angry. Really, really angry, and that was what felt safest to let out, so that’s what I did. I was awful to Zach—he’s a freaking saint for putting up with me. I don’t know how he did it. He was eighteen, and his parents had just died too, and he was working two or three jobs all the time to support us, and I was just the worst little asshole the world had ever seen.”
“I understand being angry.” Nina’s voice was serious. “Sometimes, if you want to be able to do anything, you have to be angry. Otherwise, if you let yourself just be sad and afraid, you won’t even be able to move.”
“Yeah,” said Joel. “Yeah.” He was both relieved that Nina understood him, and furious that she understood this at all. That she’d had to go through so much.
“So I was angry,” he continued. “And it was like you said, I couldn’t just stay human. I had to move, I had to get out. So I would sneak away and shift. And I’d do it in stupid places, in dangerous places. I almost got caught a ton of times, I was such an idiot about it.”
“And something happened,” Nina said, with true certainty, like she already knew him well enough to know the answer.
Joel swallowed. “Eventually I did get caught. Not by police, or anyone who’d call the news. Just a bunch of kids. I was in the middle of shifting—it took me longer back then, I’d only started doing it a few weeks before my mom died. So I was half-human, half-leopard, still all blurred together—and they started throwing rocks.”
“Oh, God,” said Nina. Joel looked up. Her eyes were wide and horrified.
“It was okay,” he said quickly. “It was fine. Because Zach was out looking for me, and he found them and chased them off. But there was a moment—I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish shifting. I thought I might just be stuck like that, halfway. Some of the rocks had hit me hard, so I bled, and I couldn’t focus—” He shook his head hard, as if he could knock the memory away.
Not a chance of that: it was burned into his brain forever.
“Anyway, that taught me a lesson. I was smarter after that, and I never got caught again.”
“But you were still angry,” Nina said. Joel blinked at her.
“Yeah, I was. I just held it back in. But it was still there. How’d you know?”
Nina shrugged. “I’ve been angry all my life. And you learn that it doesn’t work, it’s not helpful, you have to put it away. So I can put it away. But it never just vanishes.”
Joel closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. It’s still there. I’m angry at shifters, for exiling my parents like that for such a dumb reason. I’m angry at my parents for not making any kind of arrangements for if something happened to them. I’m angry at that stupid true mate system for forcing them to run away. And I’m still angry at Zach sometimes, for no reason at all. That’s the dumbest thing of all. He’s never done anything but help me.”
Nina pressed closer to him. Joel felt the touch with his whole body.
“That’s one of the reasons I want to move here, you know.” He’d never said this out loud to anyone. He’d barely admitted it to himself. “I’m angry at Zach for having a mate and just settling down and being happy, like none of that awful stuff ever happened to us. And that’s stupid and I know it. But I can’t just watch them be happy as mates, as though they’re not giving into this...controlling force that’s making them be together no matter what. I hate the whole idea of the mate-bond, because it makes them so vulnerable. Anything could happen, and they don’t even seem to realize that.” He shuddered a little.
Teri was the nicest person, but even then, it seemed crazy for Zach to be happy to have her forced so far into his life, to be so...intensely close, without any means of getting away. But he was happy. So it wasn’t Joel’s business to interfere, right? “So I’m taking myself away to let him be happy with Teri, and I’m not sure if it’s brave or cowardly to do it.”
Nina shrugged, a tiny motion that rubbed her shoulder against Joel’s arm. “Does it have to be one or the other? One thing I’ve learned over the years is that nothing is ever simple.”
Joel let out his breath in a sigh. “You’re right. I think it’s both. But I don’t know what that means. Whether it’s the right decision.”
Nina shook her head slowly, curls brushing Joel’s neck. “I don’t know. I never seem to know what the right decisions are.”
Joel gave into his instincts: he lifted his arm and put it around Nina’s shoulders, tugging her into his side. She let her head drop to rest in the hollow of his neck. They were both looking at the fire, but Joel felt more aware of her than he had ever been of another person.
They were two flawed, lost people. They’d both had bad luck in their lives, and they were both struggling to get past it, to start something new, as best they could. It was hard, but they were trying.
Joel’s arm tightened around her. Now, they could try to do it together.
***
Nina felt like she was caught between two extremes.
On the one hand, she’d just shared things with Joel that she’d never told anybody, ever. And she’d heard things from him that were just as private, just as vital to who he was as a person. She felt overwhelmed by tenderness, by this sense of connection to Joel’s experiences, his emotions. The sense that where it counted, they were the same.
On the other hand, her whole body was on fire with longing. She was pressed up against his side, feeling his breaths and his heartbeat and inhaling his heady, masculine scent, and it was filling her with heat and need.
Joel’s hand rested on her left shoulder, and his fingers were idly stroking up and down, making the material of her shirt rub against her skin. Nina could feel sparks rush through her body at every little motion, even though he wasn’t touching her skin.
The sensation built, until all she wanted was for him to slip a hand under h
er shirt, for him to take her shirt off, for him to—Nina reached up and caught Joel’s hand.
He stopped immediately. “What is it?” he asked softly.
Nina could feel the vibrations of that deep voice, all through his body.
“Speaking of things being complicated,” she said, and then couldn’t seem to figure out how to go on.
“I think some people would say this is simple,” Joel said finally. Nina sat up, keeping hold of Joel’s hand, and shifted in place to look at him.
“There’s something here,” he continued, when they were a few inches apart, watching each other. He motioned between them. “And we could call it simple. But I don’t think it is.”
“What’s simple?” she asked, almost wanting to laugh, but afraid it would hurt. “I want you. Is that simple? Because I want so many other things, and some of them contradict each other. I’m angry at my family, but I also want them back. I want to be with you, but I also wish I didn’t need to be with anyone. That’s not simple at all.”
Joel inhaled sharply at I want to be with you, and Nina realized that was the first time she’d said that out loud, or anything even suggesting it.
“I want to be with you, too,” he said, his voice sounding thick, and he leaned forward and kissed her.
His mouth was hot against hers, and the taste of him went through her like a shock. All thoughts of what was simple and what was complicated went up in smoke. Nina kissed him back fiercely, leaning forward and getting her arms around all of that huge, muscular body. She needed to touch him, suddenly, needed to feel all of him against all of her.
Joel's big hands spread over her hips, then slid up her waist to cup her breasts. Nina moaned against his mouth as trails of heat followed his fingers. Her nipples hardened as his thumbs came up to stroke over them. The touch was vague and blunt through her shirt and her bra, though. She pulled away.
Joel caught his breath. "What?" he asked, but Nina was already tugging her shirt off. Joel's eyes traced hungrily over her skin as she went for her bra.
"You too," she reminded him. He pulled his shirt off without hesitation.
Nina was arrested, her bra hanging unclasped from her shoulders, by the sight of him. The firelight played over his chest, outlining his muscles in light and shadow. She tossed her bra aside and reached out to touch him.
Joel's chest rose and fell under her hands, quick and shallow, while she touched him. He stayed still, watching her hands on his pecs. Her thumbs slid over his nipples this time and drew a silent shudder from him. Nina traced his collarbone, and then leaned in to place a kiss at the hollow of his throat while her hands slid down his chest to explore his abs.
That was apparently too much for him, because Joel caught her up in his arms and kissed her again. When she abandoned her exploration to wrap herself up in him again, he moved to lay her down onto the pillows.
He kissed her breasts, cupping them in his hands, which felt enormous against her. Joel made an appreciative noise as his lips moved over her skin. He bit her once, very very softly, and Nina shivered.
After several long minutes of his mouth dragging damply over the sensitive skin, making Nina's hips shift without her permission, he lifted his head. "Is this okay?" His hands brushed over the waistband of her jeans.
Nina felt too overwhelmed to speak. She nodded, and he slowly undid the button.
This was so different from any other experience she'd had. The delicious warmth permeating her body, the growing wetness between her legs, the ache to be touched...none of that had ever happened to her before.
And the way Joel looked at her. Most of the time when men looked at her, she wanted to hide. But when Joel's eyes traced over her, the firelight catching them and giving the silvery color a molten look...she felt like he was touching her all over again. Like she could feel his gaze, thrilling her body everywhere it landed.
He unbuttoned her jeans, and Nina lifted her hips to let him pull them down. He got stuck down by her ankles, because her shoes were still on.
He flashed her a rueful grin. "Didn't think this through."
"Hurry," Nina told him, because the ache between her legs was starting to sharpen. She could feel her pulse down there, in her clit, and she wanted him to touch her.
She wasn't used to this. She hardly ever paid any attention to sexual feelings, had only ever touched herself a few times, when she was young and exploring, before she'd left her parents' house. It had always seemed like too much trouble after she was on her own, and sex had been so underwhelming that she'd figured she wouldn't get much of a reward out of it.
Now, she was having a hard time keeping her hands out of her own panties, as Joel undid her laces and slipped off her shoes one by one. He closed his hands over her left foot once it was bare, rubbed it hard, his thumb firm against the arch, and Nina's hips came right off the ground at the jolt of pleasure.
"Hurry," she told him again. This time, her voice came out low and ragged.
Joel did. He stripped her jeans and her socks off all at once, and came up again between her legs, eyes fixed on the scrap of white cotton between Nina and nakedness.
But he didn't yank it off immediately. Instead, he reached out a hand and stroked over the damp fabric.
Nina made a surprised noise at the drag of the fabric over her clit. Her muscles were starting to clench in a way she'd never felt before, clench and relax, as her clit jumped. Joel touched her through her panties again, and then started to rub, gently but firmly.
It was insane. The only place he was touching her was just the tips of his fingers against that tiny, tiny spot, and her panties were still in the way. But it was like her entire being was focused on her clit, all of her nerves concentrated just right there, blood rushing to swell it until it was so sensitive she could hardly stand it.
Joel kept up that rubbing motion, catching at her pleasure through the soaked cotton, over and over and over—
Then he leaned down and kissed her inner thigh, and the feeling of his lips, his stubble rasping on the smooth, sensitive skin, sent Nina past some indefinable edge. Her muscles clenched hard, and pleasure ripped through her, leaving her gasping and spasming against Joel's fingers.
"Wow," she breathed. "Wow. That's...that's never happened to me before."
Joel leaned back, startled. "Wait, never? You've never—"
"I've had sex before," she said quickly, not wanting him to think she was totally inexperienced. But honesty compelled her to add, "I've just never...it's never been like this."
Joel's face did something complicated; Nina couldn't quite figure out what the expression meant. But then it smoothed out into something that was definitely resolve. "Well, we're going to fix that," he told her, and then, finally, he yanked her panties off.
And then he went down.
Nina shrieked in surprised when his tongue touched her, a small and high-pitched noise that she couldn't have kept in to save her life. Joel pulled back slightly. "Too much?"
Was it too much? "No," she said, faintly. "No, keep going."
So he did. And somehow, through some kind of Joel-specific magic, he caught the end of the orgasm she'd just had, her first ever orgasm, which was still wringing her out a bit, little twitches and shocks of pleasure. Joel caught one of those with his tongue, and then another, and then suddenly they weren't winding down anymore, but building up.
He brought her off again in no time. It was like, now that her body had figured out how to do this, it was the easiest thing in the world to get it to do it again. Nina’s hips jerked against Joel’s mouth as he sucked lightly on her clit, and she cried out even more loudly when she came again.
The second orgasm was shorter than the first, but more intense, concentrated pleasure that sent her right out of her head for a long minute. When she came back, she was gasping.
Joel had lifted his head. “Need a break?”
In answer, Nina pulled him down for a kiss. He came forward immediately, kissing her hard and with a
n edge of desperation. He’d been hiding that well, she thought. Keeping his own desire back in favor of focusing on hers.
Well, not anymore. Nina arched up under him, her arms around his back, urging him down. She was strong enough to make it insistent, and he came willingly, his body pressing against her.
“Inside me,” Nina murmured into his mouth. “Come on.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, that ragged edge audible in his voice as well.
“Yes, I’m sure. I want you in me.”
And she did. Somehow, even two orgasms in a row hadn’t left her satisfied. She felt empty, which was another thing that had never happened to her. But there was definitely a sense of being unfulfilled, of needing more. She could feel his erection, long and thick against her thigh, and she wanted to feel it pushing inside her.
Joel pulled back just far enough to position himself. Nina helped, tilting her hips up and spreading her thighs open.
She had a sudden thought of what this must look like, and blushed hard, but somehow that sense of inappropriateness, of what it meant to just spread herself open for this man, only added to the thrill of doing it.
And then they were really doing it.
Joel pushed in slowly, his breath coming in deep bursts as he tried to control himself. Nina was braced for discomfort—it had always hurt a little, even after the first time—but there was none. Just a feeling of delicious, full-body satisfaction. Of being touched everywhere she needed it, of the emptiness being filled.
Nina heard herself let out a long, contented groan. Joel looked up at her face and smiled, surprisingly sweet, considering what he was doing.
“I guess I don’t have to ask if you like it,” he said.
Nina shook her head, wordless in her satisfaction. Joel settled in, seated fully inside of her, and let out his breath in a long sigh.
“God,” he said. “You feel perfect.”