RawHeat (3 page)

“It’s just so hard for me, to have you come in here every
day and know that you…to feel that you might…”

When had she started trembling all over? She couldn’t
remember. She could barely remember her own name, so recollecting details like
minute body movements seemed like a Herculean chore.

“I mean, I’ve never been sure…”

He was lying. He had been sure, she knew he had. He’d
smelled it on her all along.

“But God, the other day when you came in it was like a wave
coming over me—I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop myself—do you have any idea
how long it’s been since—”

She let herself look at him then. Just out of the corner of
one eye—though out of the corner of one eye turned out to be more than enough.
He’d put a fist to his mouth, like before when he’d tried to keep his own moans
in, only this time…this time he was trying to keep something else in. Something
like words he obviously didn’t want to say.

Oh, how she longed to help him say them.

He cleared his throat and when he continued, he
seemed…calmer. Or at least calmer by comparison to the shaky heights his voice
had gotten up to before.

“I’m sorry. That was…inappropriate and irrelevant,” he said.

She realized, then, that she’d clenched her hands into fists
at her sides. That her fists were actually kind of shaking with the effort it
took to keep her fingers closed and away from him.

“I just wanted to explain why…it happened. And tell you that
it won’t happen again. No matter how I imagine you feel, no matter how I
respond to that or want you, I won’t ever let myself get into that state. I can
control myself. I can always control myself.”

Her voice came out different, when she finally managed to
speak—like something far away and not related to her. As though something had
broken inside her and could never be fixed again.

“What if I can’t?”

He looked confused. She could see it, even out of the corner
of her eye.

“I—”

“What if I can’t control myself? What if all I can feel is
this beating pulse between my legs?”

Her voice was clearer now. Stronger.

“I mean, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying that it
turns you on, to know that I’m excited. To know that I want you. And I do, God,
I do. I don’t even know why I thought I could stand here and pretend.”

“Serena,” he said, and she was sure he meant it as a scold.
Unfortunately it came out rough and heated, and the pulse between her legs beat
harder.

“It isn’t just your body—though God knows it’s been a
pleasure to run my hands all over that gorgeous thing—it’s the way you are too.
You’ve been kinder to me than any other man, did you know that? I’ve never even
dared to speak like this with anyone else, because I’m always afraid of what
they’ll say. But I’m not afraid with you. Isn’t that funny? I’m never afraid
with you.”

She looked at him then. It was okay to look, now that she’d
accepted everything—even though his eyes were burning bright and she could see
the hint of teeth below his upper lip, and when he shifted on the bed it was
obvious, so obvious that he had an erection.

The beat between her legs became an ache, a long and
insistent ache, and when he said, “You should be,” it only got worse. Not
better, the way it was supposed to. It should have dried up completely, with
words like those coming out of him and his body all tensed like that—as though
ready to pounce on her at any moment.

But it hadn’t. Instead she could feel herself getting wetter
and wetter, and she could see him reacting to it in the way he’d probably
always wanted to. Like a man half-crazed with lust, after a hundred years of
starving in the desert.

It was intoxicating, unbelievable—so much so that she found
herself scrabbling for the buttons on the front of her uniform.

But he didn’t do what she expected once two of them were
undone and a third had started buckling under her trembling fingers. She’d
braced herself for grabbing or ripping—not violent exactly, but certainly
forceful—and nothing of the kind came. He just looked stunned for a second,
eyes never leaving her busy fingers, and then when he finally spoke it was only
to ask a completely insane question.

“Are you taking your clothes off?”

She wasn’t sure what to say.
Yes
seemed too simple,
no
seemed like something a person would say if they’d completely misinterpreted
the whole scenario. And oh God, she hoped it wasn’t the latter. It couldn’t be
the latter, right? She could see his stiff cock beneath the sheet like an
immense exclamation point, and he’d said all that stuff and she’d told him she
wasn’t afraid and—

“Oh…I thought…do you want me to keep it on?”

“No, God no—I just didn’t think you’d want to be that close
to me…with all of your skin…naked… Are we going to be naked?”

“Of course I want to be that close to you—I mean, unless you
want to do something else—”

He ran two shaky hands through his hair, then glanced at the
door.

“Put something under the handle first. Just…put something up
against it.”

He was trying to keep his tone even and reasonable, but it
wasn’t really hitting anywhere close. She couldn’t blame him, however. Her legs
felt like water as she ran to the door and shoved some flimsy, nothing chair
underneath the handle, just as he’d suggested.

It wouldn’t make any difference, she knew. But that wasn’t
the point, really. It wasn’t the thing that made her knees knock and her heart
try to escape out of her body. No, her heart was trying to escape because they
were actually going to do something that required a wedged-shut door.

And when she turned back around to face him…Lord. He looked
even better than when she’d first stepped away. He looked so good she could
hardly make it back across the room, and her hands wouldn’t cooperate when she
told them to finish unbuttoning her dress. She got to somewhere around the
seventh button down, before he stopped her with hands that seemed too patient
and too steady, and pulled her down to touch his mouth to hers.

It wasn’t even like a kiss, really. It was like a try-out, a
little brush of skin against skin, as though he wasn’t sure how scared she
might be of the sharp points beyond his soft lips. And in truth, she wasn’t
sure how scared she should be. If she pressed her mouth to his, suddenly, would
that be enough to cut her? To turn her, forever? She didn’t know and found she
hardly cared, when he moved his lips over hers like that and pushed his hand
into her curly hair.

He’d started unbuttoning the rest of her dress too. All the
way down to the bottom and then oh, his hand slipped inside. Just over her
stomach, but apparently her stomach had sprouted seven thousand extra nerve
endings and all of them were jumping. Sizzling, in fact.

Did he know how much she wanted to kiss him properly? She
could feel the tentative flicker of his tongue, just every now and then, and
when she parted her lips over his he didn’t pull away. But he didn’t push for
something deeper, either, so maybe it wasn’t okay, maybe this slow slide back
and forth was too much all on its own and he was going to…

She froze when he pushed a hand between her legs. She didn’t
mean to—he just did the whole thing so abruptly. One second they were making
out politely like teenagers, the next he had a hand between her legs all lewd
and rough, fingertips brushing over the place her panties should have been.

Of course he must have known she was bare down there. He
knew the difference between the smell of flesh clothed, and the smell of it
unconfined. But she still appreciated his suddenly hot and panting breaths
against her mouth, as though the idea excited him. As though he couldn’t get
enough of her slippery pussy all exposed like this, beneath his softly stroking
fingertips.

And he did stroke softly. He didn’t shove right into her, or
rub over her clit with a too-firm thumb. He just fondled, he just spread her
open, fingers sliding slickly over her swollen lips and the stiff bud nestled
between.

She tried to get away after a second. It was just too much,
far too much—it had been too long and him stroking her this way felt almost
like pain. He had his finger right on the tip of her clit, just lightly, and in
slow, torturous circles and oh dear God she couldn’t stand it. She had to do
something, grab something on him, get him inside her all hard and fierce and
fuck fuck fuck.

But he just held her fast—one arm around her waist now. She
wasn’t even sure why she’d been worrying about standing up on her own two
wobbly legs, because he’d been holding her clear off the ground for the last
who-knew-how-long.

And he was whispering in her ear too, all hot and rough and
breathy, that finger circling and circling while he told her that it was her
turn now, that she’d made him come so hard the other day and he wanted her to
feel the exact same way.

“Like my body’s singing electric for you,” he said, and she
could feel it surging up. She couldn’t remember ever coming this quickly—not
even under her own hand—but it was almost on her anyway. Her sex felt like one,
long, shivering pulse, and oh God her clit was so swollen beneath his working
fingers. So swollen and sharp with sensation, so ready to turn her inside out.

She knew now why he’d put his fist to his mouth. She had to
do the same, only his immense body seemed to be in the way. Her hand was
somewhere underneath his massive left arm—the one he’d used to keep her in
place—and she had to keep the other one on the back of his wrist. She had to.
If she didn’t he was going to do something even more maddening to her clit, he
was going to rub it right on the sensitive underside or maybe push two fingers
inside her as he stroked and fuck, she couldn’t stand it.

Which is how she found herself with her mouth on his
shoulder—right over his scar, God, right over his scar—biting down hard to stop
the moan bubbling up and out of her. But it was okay, it was fine, because the
moment she did so obscene a thing he made a sound right into her hair, a
choked, thoroughly pleasure-spiked sound, as though she’d done the most erotic thing
a person could possibly do.

And then he pressed down hard on her clit and she bucked,
and held on tight to nothing and came in great surging waves, all over his
hand.

Chapter Three

It felt like a thousand years since she’d last been sensible
of anything. She couldn’t even be sure if she was sensible of anything right
now, with her head on his shoulder and her hands making long, languorous
circles all over his gigantic back. Everything in her seemed to have turned to
syrup, and though he was breathing all hard and shaky, and she could feel his
probably immense erection sort of brushing against her belly, she couldn’t work
up the wherewithal to do anything about it.

Until he started re-buttoning her uniform. Then she could do
something about it. Then it seemed like the utmost importance to do something,
immediately, before she found herself completely dressed again and no
reciprocation took place.

He did understand that she wanted to reciprocate, right? He
did get that this was all just stupendous-orgasm-laziness and she was on the
case, she was in business—in truth she couldn’t wait to get her hands on him in
some completely allowed, non-illicit sort of fashion.

But he just said, “No, no—we’ve been too long already.”

Even though that was a total lie. She’d gone off in about
thirty seconds. Hell, if he went at her again she felt pretty sure she’d go off
in less time than that. Nerve endings were jangling. Things were buzzing.

Why was he pushing her away?

“We have to do this in stages—slowly, okay?”

She wasn’t even sure if she still understood what the word
slowly meant.

“But…you…”

“Slowly,” he said, and somehow he’d gotten her entire
uniform buttoned up and closed back together. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Well, of course I will—but…”

“Go on. I’ll be fine. I’ve waited to touch you for a year. I
can wait another day.”

He sounded sincere. He really did. Strange thing was,
however, he didn’t look sincere. He looked in agony and most of him was
juddering like a broken-down washing machine, and when she finally sighed and
turned and picked up her tray, she could see he’d pulled his lower lip right
into his mouth.

The way he did when he was in pain.

“Are you sure I can’t—”

“Go, before someone realizes you’re missing.”

She went. Though doing so posed several problems she hadn’t
really thought about until she got out of the door and started walking down the
narrow corridor to the lab.

The first being that she couldn’t really walk properly. He’d
destroyed her major motor functions. Her body kept sort of sloping to the left,
and everything between her legs still felt hot and swollen and slick. Too hot
and swollen and slick.

She was almost certain people could tell. She only passed
two people on the way to the lab and then back, in the direction of her room,
but even so those two people definitely knew something was up. Her face felt
hot and her hair felt all coming out of her ponytail on one side where he’d
pushed his hand, and all she could think was,
I wish I’d touched him in
return
.
I wish I’d taken him in my mouth or in my cunt, then fucked him
until he burst. I wish it I wish it I wish—

“Hey, Serena, you okay? You look like you’re…straining.”

Oh God no. Tara. Tara coming down the corridor from the
canteen, as she tried to actively run toward the living quarters.

“Yeah, I’m totally fine,” she said, but there were two
things wrong with doing so. Number one—she’d shouted the words over her
shoulder as she got up a mild jog. Number two—she’d used the word “totally”.

Nobody said totally unless they really meant
I’ve just
let a werewolf bring me to a fantastic, incredible orgasm and now I’m thinking
about fucking him and fucking him until he dies
.