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"Gage! Fuck! Gage!"

When I hear that, I almost come right then.

My forehead is against the wall, my hand tight around my shaft, and I can hear her voice like it was meant for me. Because it is. She's saying my name like a prayer, like she needs me.

Her tempo increases. I can hear the bed moving, the springs creaking. She’s close. I can feel it in the way the sounds get faster, wetter, more desperate. I match my strokes to the rhythm that I can hear, imagining I’m inside of her, imagining her walls clenching around my cock.

When she comes, she doesn't hold back. She cries out, loud, raw, shaking, and my name tears through the air like she'd been holding it in for days. I hear her whole body seize up, the bed frame rattling, her breath catching in stuttered gasps. I squeeze my cock hard and bite back my own groan, because I’m not ready to finish yet. I want to hear everything.

Her breathing evens out slowly. I wait, listening, and then I hear the sound of her nightstand drawer opening.

Then, I hear the click of something turning on and then a buzzing sound. It has to be a vibrator. I’m going to lose it.

I can tell by the way her breathing is measured and controlled that she is starting slow. It seems like she’s building back up, chasing a second one. I realize that only one orgasm thinking about me apparently isn't enough.

I have to admit, I feel a little smug about that.

I stroke myself again, slower this time, matching her new pace. I imagine the vibrator pressed against her clit, the way her thighs would be shaking, the way her free hand would be gripping the sheets. I picture her back arching, her short black hair sticking to her forehead with sweat, those hazel eyes squeezed shut.

"Gage... please..."

Please. Like I was right there. Like she was begging me. Every nerve in my body is suddenly awake.

I fuck my fist harder, my jaw clenched, my scar throbbing the way it does when I'm wound too tight. I want to be in her room, pull that vibrator from her hands and replace it with my mouth, my tongue, my cock.

Her second orgasm builds faster than the first. I can hear the vibrator's pitch change as she presses harder, and her moans get higher, sharper, until she is gasping my name again, over and over.

When she comes the second time, it’s longer. Deeper. I hear her ride it out, her voice breaking into fragments, and I let myself go. I come against the wall, my cock pulsing in my hand, her name a growl in my throat that I barely manage to swallow.

“Fuck! Maren!”

Silence. Both of us breathing hard.

I clean myself up, zip my jeans, and stand there for a long time stunned at what just happened.

How am I ever going to look her in the face tomorrow? I can never tell her about this.

At eleven she comes out.

Coat over a sleep shirt. Bare ankles, one of them still shiny where the salt did worse than the venom. Keys in her fist.

She crosses her own yard toward the shop and doesn't look towards me once.

I follow as far as the sidewalk. Inside Bell & Bone a light comes on. Her shape moves past the front window and stops in front of the far wall, where the mirror is.

She stands there a long time.

When she comes out she's pale. She locks up with hands that won't hold the key steady, and she walks back past me close enough that her coat brushes my arm.

Not a word.

The deadbolt goes home behind her. The one I paid for.

Go in, my wolf says. Tell her.

She asked me to leave. So I sit down on her steps and I don't.

October in this town gets serious after midnight. Fog comes up out of the low yards and pools around the trash cans and the fake gravestones, and every porch on the street glows a different sick color. Orange, purple, and a green nobody's grandmother ever approved of.