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I felt overwhelmed by his size, the searing heat of his skin. I’d never felt so small, so breakable, in a positive way. As his hands ghosted over my skin, I knew that I could trust him to be careful with me.
“Move,” I begged him. “Please move.”
He obliged, thrusting his hips and driving me back into the mattress. I felt his teeth, worrying at the same spot on my neck he’d attempted to bite before. Was this it? Was he going to claim me? He nuzzled my throat, scraping his sharp teeth over my skin. Just when I felt them digging in, I tensed, wincing away from the pain.
The silence of the room, punctuated only by the sound of our breathing, rang in my ears as he balanced his forehead against mine. He stroked a hand down my cheek and kissed me, long and hard. He grinned down at me and clutched at my ass, rolling against me until he hit a spot inside me that had me shuddering. Heat seared from my navel to my thighs, rippling up my body. The fluttering waves of release made me scream so loudly that our neighbors banged on the wall and told us in very colorful language that they did not appreciate my enthusiasm. Or volume. Or Caleb’s long howl when he followed me over the edge.
Caleb rolled onto his back, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me close. I clapped my hands over my mouth and muffled a giggle, because I figured laughing at our neighbors’ protests would not improve their mood. Caleb did laugh, pressing his face against the crown of my head. He looked indecently pleased with himself. “Been a while, huh?”
“Four years, two months, two weeks, and three days. Not counting the sex I’ve been having with myself, which was actually better than the two-party . . . never mind. So why weren’t we doing this weeks ago?”
“Oh, trust me, if I’d had my way, we would have christened every motel between here and Canada,” he told me. “But you were so jumpy before. You let me touch you, but you tensed up so much I was afraid that you would run off if I tried to get closer.” He nipped at my earlobe. I turned my head, admiring the way the moonlight played on his features, making him look like the sullen canine he was. “Please don’t run from me again,” he whispered into my hair, winding his legs with mine. “When I woke up and you were gone, Rabbit, I can’t tell you how that made me feel. I didn’t know where you’d gone. I didn’t know if you were OK, if I was ever going to see you again. I almost lost it.”
His whole frame tensed up just talking about it. His eyes bled gold into dark brown and glowed against the dark backdrop of the room.
I wondered if almost losing it meant he’d wolfed out and destroyed our motel room. What was the cleaning fee for something like that? Did he have a credit card devoted specifically to tacky-motel-room damage? I trailed my fingers along his cheek, stroking it in what I hoped was a soothing, non-werewolf-freak-out-inducing manner.
“Look, Caleb, I know you’re upset with me.”
“That would be a massive understatement, yeah.”
“But can we skip talking about it for right now?” He opened his mouth to protest, so I added, “You have every right to be pissed, especially with the whole lampshade thing, and we have a lot of things we need to talk about. And we can yell and scream as much as you want later. But for right now, for the next few hours, can we just not?”
He bit his lip and then bit mine. “There will be talking,” he told me sternly. “And possibly some yelling, but definitely a lot of talking, because there are things we need to talk about. Because you scared me. I’m angry. But I’m not going to do anything to make you run away again, because I missed you. Also because your running away again would just start the whole losing-it, pissed-off, scared cycle all over again.”
“I missed you, too.” I craned my neck to press my lips to his and let my head drop to the pillow.
10
A Furry, Friendly Wake-Up Call
Even if I did know about the existence of werewolves, it was still shocking as hell to wake up spooning with one.
I was still mostly asleep when I registered the feeling of a wide, warm tongue rasping down the length of my cheek.
“Morning. That’s different.” I chuckled, pressing my face into the pillow. I squinted into the semidarkness of early dawn, running my fingers through Caleb’s hair. It seemed coarser and thicker . . . and there was a lot more of it. In fact, it seemed to cover his entire body.
“What the—?” I opened my eyes and found myself staring into the brown eyes of a huge gray wolf.
I scrambled out of bed, falling to the floor, scuttling back over the carpet into the wall. “Caleb!”
Our sonar-sensitive neighbor pounded on the bedroom wall, and I heard his muffled voice call, “Too damn early for that! Decent people are trying to sleep!”
Whining, the wolf shook his way up onto his haunches and stretched. He looked over the edge of the bed at me, head tilted to the side, as if he was trying to figure out why I was acting all weird. OK, OK, this wasn’t a big deal. I’d seen werewolves before. Unless they phased out of anger or fear, they were usually pretty calm. And Caleb wouldn’t hurt me. It was just a shock to see him in his natural state. The Caleb wolf shook his head, and that golden light spread over the gray fur, slowly fading away to skin.
“Don’t be scared,” he said, scrambling toward me.
I flopped back against the wall, holding my hand up like a crossing guard. I looked up at my werewolf paramour, all panicked and wide-eyed. I looked down at the stray gray hairs on the sheets. And I burst out laughing. It was just so ridiculous, him crouching naked on the bedroom floor while asking me not to freak out over his wolf body. I laughed and laughed until I fell over. Until I realized I was touching nasty motel carpet and sat back up. I wiped at my eyes.
“Werewolf.”
Caleb’s mouth flapped open like a guppy’s as he stammered, “Uh-uh, no, you must be having a bad dream. Uh, yeah, that’s it, there was no wolf here.”
I smirked at him. “Are you trying to Jedi-mind-trick me right now? ’Cause you kind of suck at it.”
He cleared his throat and followed with a weak “Maybe you hit your head?” His tone was uncertain and quiet, as if he didn’t want our neighbors to overhear. He pulled my arms gently and led me to the bed. “You’re not running away and screaming. Why are you not running away and screaming?”
I winced, biting my lip. Right, how to explain this . . . “I kind of knew already.”
