Bone Crossed

There should be only so much terror you can feel in a night. I should have met my limit and then some. And the fear of something that wasn’t going to happen—Adam would never hurt me—shouldn’t have been enough to register.

Still, it took every bit of courage I had to crawl into his bed. Once I was there, though, in one of those odd little psychological twists everyone has, the scent of him in the sheets made me feel better. My stomach settled down. I yawned a few times and fell asleep to the sound of Adam’s electric razor.

I awoke surrounded by Adam, his scent, his warmth, his breath. I waited for the panic attack that didn’t come. Then I relaxed, soaking it up. By the light sneaking in around the heavy blinds, it was late afternoon. I could hear people moving around the house. His sprinklers were on, valiant defenders of his lawn in the never-ending battle against the sun.

Outside, it was probably in the seventies, but his house—like mine since Samuel moved in—had a chill edge to the air that made the warmth surrounding me that much better. Werewolves don’t like the heat.

Adam was awake, too.

“So,” I said ... half-embarrassed, half-aroused, and, just to round things out, half-scared, too. “Are you up for a trial run?”

“A trial run?” he asked, his voice all rumbly with sleep. The sound of it helped a lot with the halves I was feeling—virtually eliminating embarrassed, reducing scared, and pushing aroused up a few notches.

“Well, yes.” I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. I could feel his willingness to participate in my trial pressed against my backside. “Thing is, I’ve had different things happen with these stupid panic attacks. If I stop breathing, you could just ignore it. Eventually I start breathing again, or I pass out. But if I throw up ...” I let him draw his own conclusions.

“Quite a mood breaker,” he observed, his face on the back of my neck as he wrapped an arm more fully around me on top of the covers.

I tapped his arm with my finger, and warned, only half in jest, “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve heard stories about what happens to people who laugh at you. I like my coffee without salt, please. Tell you what,” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “Why don’t we just play for a bit—and see how far it gets? I promise not to be”—amusement fought with other things in his voice—“dismayed if you throw up.”

And then he slid down in the bed.

When I flinched, he stopped and asked me about it. I found I couldn’t say anything. There are things you don’t tell someone you’re still trying to impress. There are other things you don’t want to remember either. Panic tightened my throat.

“Shh,” he said. “Shh.” And he kissed me there, where he’d caused me to shy. It was a gentle, caring touch—almost passionless, and moved on to somewhere less ... tainted.

But he was a good hunter. Adam isn’t patient by nature, but his training was very thorough. He worked his way back to the first bad spot and tried again.

I still flinched ... but I told him a little. And like the wolf he was, he laved the wound in my soul, bandaging it with his care—and moved on to the next. He explored thoroughly, found each mental wound—and a few I didn’t know I had—and replaced them with other ... better things. And when passion began to grow too wild, too fast ...

“So,” he murmured, “are you ticklish here?”

Yep. Who’d have known it? I looked at my inner elbow as if I’d never seen it before.

He laughed, bounced over a little, and made a raspberry noise with his mouth on my belly. My knees jerked up in reflex, and I bopped him on the head with my elbow.

“Are you all right?” I pulled away from him and sat up—all desire to laugh gone. Trust me to clobber Adam while we’re making out. Stupid, clumsy idiot, me.

He took one look at my face, put both arms over his head, and rolled on his back, moaning in agony.

“Hey,” I said. And when he didn’t stop, I poked him in the side—I knew some of his ticklish spots, too. “Stop that. I didn’t hit you that hard.” He’d been taking lessons from Samuel.

He opened one eye. “How would you know?”

“You have a hard head,” I informed him. “If I didn’t damage my elbow, I didn’t hurt your head.”

“Come here,” he said opening his arms wide, eyes glittering with laughter ... and heat.

I crawled over on top of him. We both closed our eyes for a bit while I made myself comfortable. He ran his hands over my back.

“I love this,” he told me, a little breathless and yellow-eyed.

“Love what?” I turned my head and put my ear on his chest so I could hear the pounding of his heart.

“Touching you ...” He deliberately ran a hand over my bare butt. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

He dug in with his fingers. Tension from the night before had left me tight, and it felt good. I went limp, and if I could have purred, I would have.

“Someone looking at us might think we’re asleep,” I told him.

“You think so? Only if they don’t notice my pulse rate ... or yours.”

He hit just the right spot, and I moaned.