Spring Feve

by Emerald Wright

  Involuntarily, I clutched the sides of Jake’s head, and thrust my hips up against his face. The grinding, the hot, slow licking... and nothing was inside me, not even a fingertip.

  “How are you,” I stopped for a breath. “How are you making me... without even... nothing in,” I groaned again, my throat rattling as it constricted in pleasure. My voice barely worked, my eyes were either closed or I couldn’t see.

  “When things are right,” Jake ran his thumb along my entrance – but still outside my panties. He teased gently, like he was going to ram his thumb through the cotton and into me, but he just pressed. With his other fingers, he pushed into the tight spots on the insides of my legs, right around the tendons.

  I was sailing.

  “When things are right, our bodies respond,” he licked along one side of me, just the tip of his tongue going underneath the edge of my panties. The ferocious groan that escaped his lips was almost frightening. “And when that happens, our hearts won’t let us... do anything else.”

  He might have said something else. He probably did. But if I’m being honest, I wasn’t in any shape to listen to words. My eyes started to flutter as another trailing, teasingly hot breath caressed my sex and his tongue slid along my underwear to the other side.

  Jake was inhaling me, devouring me, and that thumb was somehow on exactly the right place to send me careening over the edge of sanity into the unknown abyss of an orgasm without anything inside me.

  I felt myself convulse, and all the nerves between my legs, crawling up my sides flared at once.

  Jake opened his mouth, enveloping my entire self in his mouth. The pulses of his tongue somehow matched the beating of my heart as it thudded heavily in my chest. My lungs forced out all my air in a wonderful contraction just as my vision went all wobbly and weird. He slid his tongue up me, then down, and when I next inhaled, I sailed right over that cliff I was sitting on.

  I grabbed him, I clawed him, and by the time the word came back to something approaching reality – when my vision stopped shaking, and I could see more than pinpoints of light in a cold, black sky, Jake was kissing his way up my belly. I tasted myself on his lips, and then collapsed in a heap, pulling his arm underneath me as I went.

  The skin of his chest was still burning hot, but his heartbeat had slowed, as had mine. I turned my head and looked at him, then got a wild urge. My hand shot out, wrapping around the tightness in his jeans. “That’s gotta hurt,” I said softly, into Jake’s ear. “Want me to help you with that?”

  He kissed the side of my face, just under my ear. The warmth sent a shock of excitement down me, once again puckering my nipples underneath my bra. The gentle rasping of my sensitive skin against the fabric was hard to ignore, especially with the other of his huge hands sliding along my belly.

  “Want?” he asked with a smirk. “Of course I want that... but we have to save something for next time. If I give in all at once, you won’t have any reason to want another date.”

  I curled my fingers in that wonderfully shaggy hair of his and could have just about killed him... if the thought of mystery wasn’t so obnoxiously damn awesome. “I don’t think,” I began, trilling softly when he kissed my jaw twice and then my neck, “that I’ve ever had a guy not want me to pay him back for something like that.”

  That was met with another smile that could have peeled the rind off an orange. “You’ve never had one like me.”

  He wasn’t asking, he wasn’t suggesting, he was telling. And he was right. Words didn’t seem like they were all that appropriate, so instead of yammering, I just curled up into the crook of an arm and kept languidly playing with his hair. “So, you’re saying there will be a next time?”

  “I’m saying there will. After all, I still have to model for that statue,” he whispered, kissing me again. “And you still have to tell me what my brother said.”

  My eyes shot open. “Your bro—but how? How did you know? I wasn’t trying to lie or anything,” which was true, “I just... how did you know?”

  Jake laughed under his breath. “Let’s just say that after long enough dealing with Dane, I’ve got a good idea of the things he does. But I want you to know that nothing he says or does is true. There’s always a kernel of reality in his bullshit, but rarely more.”

  I opened my mouth, but he hushed me with a kiss. “But that can wait until tomorrow. Right now, there’s another thing I want to show you with my tongue.”

  And show me? Oh my God did he ever show me. But what struck me the most wasn’t the second mind-boggling climax, or the huge amount of meat he was capable of devouring, or even the way he made my whole body seem to twist with his words... it was that he made me feel, for some reason that I can’t really explain, partially because I hadn’t asked him why, but he made me feel special.

  As we finished our beer and sat down to binge on some House MD episodes, I slid my hand into Jake’s, and for a second, I almost believed that a girl like me could get a guy like him. Which, I realize, sounds pathetic. That’s not how I mean it though. We’re just two creatures from different universes – him some kind of high powered businessman, and me? Just a sculptor with a decent studio, a nice-ish house... but shit, I’m no billionaire. Not even close.

  “Why?” I finally worked up the courage to ask, as House was grumbling about how much patients lie.

  “Huh?” Jake looked over at me with a lazy, half-sleepy look on his face. I’m kind of weird, I’m the first to admit it, but seeing him let his guard down like that? Looking at me without any kind of pretense, without a practiced grin or some super-sexy wink or anything... it made me feel like maybe he did actually like me, though damned if I knew why. That would be why I asked, I guess.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because you had a panic attack when you were hot wiring your car,” he said simply.

  “Right, but I’m looking for something a little more emotional than that. I mean, why did you come in the first place? You could have just called and said you were coming in for the statue tomorrow.” I looked at him, studying his face for any clue of what he was thinking.

  “Because,” he started, before trailing off and sucking his bottom lip between his teeth.

  The fact that I made him, apparently, nervous, was pretty cute, I’m going to just come out and say it. “Because...?” I poked him in the side with an elbow. “Come on, you big, strong man, what’s got you all scared?”

  He looked back at me, eyes burning into my soul. “Because you caught me in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt. The way you laugh, the twinkle in your eyes...”

  “But what?” I asked, sensing something else hiding behind his words.

  He shook his head. “But nothing. You asked, I told.”

  Again with the finality. But I went with it. After all, there wasn’t any reason to push this guy that I’d known for exactly one week, and dated one single time – if this could even be considered a date. Instead, I decided to just enjoy it. In this life, who knows how long anything’s going to last?

  -7-

  “I’m really not into salads.”

  -Jake

  “Do we really have to do this again?”

  Jake sighed heavily, wiping the sweat out of his eyes. Leaning over the stove and stirring a massive pot of mac and cheese, he had his KISS ME I’M A WOLF apron on, and a handful of panko crumbs. He liked to be prepared when he was cooking, even if it was a little comical how prepared he was.

  “Well,” his mother, Greta, said. “You do in fact have to cook it all before you can bake it. Otherwise it’ll be—”

  “Mom,” Jake sighed for the eighth time, “you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Your brother is part of this family and part of this pack. Even if he did kind of... make some poor decisions.”

  Jake scoffed. “Poor decisions? Really? He abandoned us and then just showed back up when it was time to collect inheritance. And all you can say is that he
made a poor decision?”

  Frowning deeply, Jake kept stirring the macaroni, and also turned his attention to shaking a sauté pan full of onions, garlic, and bell peppers. She tried to get his attention with a tap on the arm, but Jake just stared at the popping vegetables and grimaced. “He’s a piece of shit, er, sorry, what I mean is he’s no good.”

  “I’ve heard profanity before,” Greta said. “But what I haven’t is you being quite this angry before. You were made alpha because you were so even handed and calm.”

  “Right,” Jake said, with a laugh. “It had nothing to do with Dane running away. Nothing at all.”

  Greta frowned and took the spatula from Jake, who was doing a very bad job at keeping the macaroni from sticking. “What’s bothering you? You never used to worry about this sort of thing so much. Who cares if he’s coming to dinner? Either way you should be happy – you never wanted to be alpha anyway, right? So what’s the problem?”

  “Five years of growing up and realizing what I had to do, that’s the problem.” Jake looked back over his shoulder. “Is he really coming here tonight? Is that... I mean, why does he have to suddenly be a part of everything we do again?”

  “Put down the spatula and stop nervously shaking the peppers.” Greta took her son’s hand and looked him straight in the eye, which took a pretty good angle on her neck. “He’s your brother. It doesn’t matter what kind of business he was involved in, as long as he can leave it at the door, he’s welcome to come to dinner. Get it?”

  Jake was shaking his head. “That’s... yeah, I’m sure he’s going to put aside his mate challenge, and just forget about threatening to ruin everything if I didn’t play along on some idiot game – which by the way, I’m going to win – and... yeah, I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  Greta looked at him a little sideways. “What did you do, Jacob?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled a quirky, lupine smile. “You got a girl? Did she leave you after the first date again?”

  “What the hell do you mean ‘again’?” Jake grimaced, tried to look angry, but just couldn’t. After all, it wasn’t like she was wrong. “I... uh... well, no, she didn’t leave.”

  “Oh very good,” Greta said. “So what’s the problem? The only thing that’s going to happen is that your jackass brother will look like a fool. He’s had no issue doing that very well.”

  “She didn’t leave because we were at her house,” Jake said, choosing to ignore going any further down the dark path that was discussing his brother. Or at least that brother. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, it was one date. And I’m not even really sure it was a date.”

  He looked up at his mom, feeling a little flustered at all the weirdness he’d just splattered at her. “What? You’re staring at me and grinning. What did I do?”

  “Do?” she asked. “I don’t know why it has to be that. Jacob, you’ve found a girl. You’ve found a girl that you both like, and who didn’t run off. And you’re scared that your brother is going to once again ruin it for you.”

  “There’s a difference this time,” he said.

  “And so you’re flustered. You always get flustered when you’re close to something you want. Remember that one time you caught a catfish bigger than your fathers? And you didn’t even have to throw anything remotely explosive into Lake St. Francis? You got so excited and flummoxed that you couldn’t spell your own name for a week or so.”

  Jake flushed deeply, hoping that whatever extended family was milling around in the living room hadn’t heard that bit. “It’s not that, ma—”

  She cut him off again. “It’s cute, dear. You never wanted to run the business, I know that. You never much cared to run the pack, I know that too. But in the five years you had, did you realize that intra-pack violence is down eighty-three percent?”

  Jake quirked an eyebrow. “Really? That’s pretty good.”

  “Yes, dear, it is. And it’s all because you took a stand against us killing each other. Your father never did that, and lord knows your brother wouldn’t have. Dane was always a hothead. You were always... not.”

  Still, he was absolutely certain that when he spilled all the beans – that Delilah wasn’t even a wolf from their pack, much less a wolf at all – that would be an abrupt end to the whole business of how cute it was that he was wiggly-eyed over a woman.

  “Remember those poems you used to write in school? I have one over here, laminated, let me get—”

  “No!” he raised his hands in submission. “There is absolutely no need to invoke my high school poetry. No, no, no, we don’t need to do that. It’d destroy whatever is left of my feelings of masculinity. And if anyone else heard?”

  Greta pursed her lips. “Spartans were quite manly, you know, and they valued poetry.”

  “Right,” Jake said with a sardonic grin. “And they also oiled each other up and gave one another rubdowns before fights. I think whatever anyone can say about me, at least I don’t braid my beard.”

  A terrible noise – a crashing sound, and then something that sounded like a door being slammed so hard the jamb broke – interrupted their conversation. Greta looked downward at the floor and shook her head. “Sometimes I wish we had a little more gentleness in our family. I don’t understand the constant need for shouting and fighting. I really hope your uncle Elbert didn’t just break my curio cabinet, because if he did I’m going to be very irritated.”

  Jake sat down and reached for the oversized mug of coffee he’d forgotten he made. “There’s something else,” he said, his voice low and shamed. “I need to tell you before anyone else does.”

  Without a shred of hesitation, Greta took over the stirring of the macaroni, and a moment later, poured it into a casserole and added the panko that Jake apparently forgot, since he left the entire handful in a pile on the countertop. She scooped that on to the creamy, steaming mass, and reminded him in the most motherly voice imaginable that he could tell her anything.

  “He challenged me.” Jake said, gritting his teeth and taking a long pull on the coffee. “He came to the office the other day and challenged me to a mating.”

  “Oh,” Greta said, trying to sound unconcerned but failing. “Oh, dear.”

  For a moment she busied herself with the oven. She removed three pot roasts before sticking the four gallon casserole in and adjusting the heat. “Well,” she finally said, “you have your girlfriend. That’s a good start. And what does he have? Certainly he isn’t going to simply force someone to mate?”

  “He’s after my girl,” Jake said, still gritting his teeth. “At least I think he is. She mentioned him the other night right after we... well anyway, she mentioned him. And this wouldn’t be the first time he tried something like this.”

  That got Greta’s attention. She wadded her apron up in a balled fist, and made a long, drawn-out humming sound. It was her thinking noise. She made it whenever something was working its way through her considerably cunning, though completely unassuming, self.

  “You could always trap him,” she offered.

  When she started in with the cunning plots, her grandmotherly appearance took on a much darker tone. She was, really, a wolf in grandma’s knit sweater, but she was usually the most passive, sweetest wolf you could ever hope to meet. But when someone messed with one of her cubs? That’s when the teeth came out.

  “Trap him? I don’t even know how to begin trapping him. He’s got the support of part of the pack, you know that. If I just sneak into winning this mating challenge, they’ll never back me.”

  “He has the support of the part of the pack that wants to freely kill people and eat humans whenever the urge strikes. That’s not the population anyone wants backing them.”

  She hadn’t ever been soft when it came to Dane. Even when their father was alive, she frequently refused to let him in the house when he’d get in a rage, or when he’d start throwing things around. Partly it was because she wasn
’t Dane’s natural mother – that surely had something to do with it, although she selflessly raised him like he was – but partly it was because she just hated the violence.

  “Those wolves,” she continued, “are going to be the death of us. We’re strong, certainly, and we can always cause some havoc – but the thing they don’t consider is that as far as population goes? I’m fairly sure humans outnumber werewolves... what, ten million to one? More, maybe? We start up with that medieval business of hunting people in the alleys and terrifying cities, like your silly brother wants? We’re the ones that’ll be hunted down. We’ll be killed to a wolf, don’t you doubt it.”

  She was getting worked up, and Jake knew better than to try and get a word in edgewise.

  “This isn’t a fairytale we’re living. This is the twenty-first century, Jacob. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but if your brother takes over the pack? He’s going to kill every single one of us to satisfy his idiotic, teenage bloodlust. And I doubt it’ll stop just with our pack. Once people find out about us, and realize that we are exactly as terrible as the Grimm tales have us? They won’t stop until there isn’t a single breathing werewolf left on the planet.”

  After sitting for a moment longer, she crossed her fingers in her lap, patted her thighs and stood up. “Rutabaga pie is done. Didn’t you say there was something else you wanted to tell me?”

  “Oh,” he said, still reeling from the monster of an info-dump his mom had just put in his lap. Even though none of that was news – he’d known how dangerous it would be for wolves to be outed. After all, that’s why they worked so hard to keep secret. That’s why they kept to themselves and only their most trusted advisers – like George – were privy to the unbelievable reality that there were actually werewolves. And, Greta was exactly right. Dane’s unbelievable rage and his utterly childlike glee in killing humans and forcing them into... whatever it is he forced them into? That wasn’t going to go unnoticed. He also knew that if Dane were willing to go to such extremes to satisfy his own stupid urges, there was no telling what he’d do to win this challenge and take over the pack.