And wait.
We stay there, on the brink of everything. I feel him everywhere. His scent. The steady warmth of his skin. His fingers, traveling to curve around my rib cage. “Let me make something very clear, Serena. I’m never going to regret any of this, okay?”
Our mouths are touching. I feel as though we’re made of the same stuff. Me and him, set apart from the remaining matter of the universe. “I think . . . this is going to hurt, Koen.”
“After, yeah. But not yet.”
“Not yet.”
Our first kiss is about as romantic as our first meeting, the first night we spent together, or my first visit to the ocean with him. It’s a pattern for us: unmemorable (at best) or questionable (at worst) firsts. This once, though, it might be my fault. The impatience. The lack of harmony. I should have thought this through better, but it ends up being a scrape of teeth against the corner of his mouth, the delicious drag of his stubble, a lot of sharing air and breathing in between us. My upper lip slides against his lower, because that’s as high as I can reach. He doesn’t kiss me back, but there is a faint groan in his chest, just loud enough for me to hear.
“Serena,” he sighs, and makes it better. Flips us so that I’m sitting on the desk, him between my legs, and then it’s the rough swipe of his tongue against my lips, loud breaths, the heat of our open mouths. Fingers pulling at my scalp, new angles, tongues stroking. He tastes like a distilled version of his scent. I laugh against the seam of his mouth, giddy, and he grunts, “What?”
“Just- ” He doesn’t let me finish. Deepens the kiss. Slides a hand under my top and the pleasure startles me. I grip his forearms. When he sucks the gland on my neck I exhale roughly, and say, “Just, for someone who hasn’t made out with anyone in over twenty years, you’re not as bad as you-
Oof.”
He tosses me on the nest. Air whooshes out of my lungs. I’m belly-down, spread-legged. Laughing without oxygen. “It was a compli- “
My shorts and underwear are forcefully pulled down. The mattress dips between my legs.
“I was joking!”
“So am I,” he says, dead serious, pressing an open-mouthed kiss at the base of my spine.
I quiver. Take in a big gulp of air, but my throat won’t comply.
“I saw these the first day we met. Been thinking about them.” He lifts the hem of my top and just stares. I squirm as he presses his thumbs to each side of my spine. “Dimples.
Very cute. Wholesome, really. Ready to be defiled.” He leans in, and his tongue traces the cleft of the right one. “C’mon, Serena.”
“W- what?”
“I thought you were joking. Joke some more.”
I would write him a whole comedy special, if his hands weren’t squeezing my ass, making my brain ring like some kind of . . .
“Phone.” I drag myself up on my elbows.
He hums like he heard me but keeps staring down. His fingers tighten on me, acquisitive, like he can’t help taking. I turn and find him heavy lidded, his breath shallow. His biceps are tense, prepared, anticipating. His fingers stroke between the globes of my ass.
“Koen,” I gasp, “it’s your- “
“Fuck my phone,” he says, distracted, bending to lick the other dimple, and-
“It could be Nele, or they could have found Irene, or- “
He groans against my right asscheek. Then bites into it like it’s a piece of fruit.
“Koen!”
“Sorry,” he says. Before doing it again.
“Koen!”
“I said sorry.” He presses a kiss against the small of my back. I roll around just as he leaves the room, catching his small smile.
The caller is Lowe, wondering whether Koen’s toaster oven exploded and took him out. “All good. Serena tackled me,” I hear him say. And, after a pause, “Told you, she beat me up. Slapped the phone out of my hand. What is there to understand?” I bury my laughter into a pillow. And there, in a nest that smells like Koen, listening to talk of pack jurisdictions and Human authorities, I fall into a calm, deep sleep.
This is it, then. What he was born for.
IWAKE UP WHEN IT’S STILL DARK, FEELING LIKE AN ABOMINATION.
My skin itches, too tight for my body. I arch against the mattress and press a palm to my abdomen: something hot and angry is pulsating inside me, and if I let it rip me apart, maybe it’ll stop clawing at my insides. I’m sticky. Covered in sweat, strands of hair glued to my throat. My inner thighs are so wet, I refuse to think about it.
This cannot be normal, even for a Heat. It must be my ever fucked- up biology. Layla- I need to call her. Maybe she has something for the pain.
Are you really going to do that in the middle of the night? Wake up a woman with a small child who may very well be teething, just because you have a boo-boo? Are you that self-centered?
A whole-body cramp splits me in two, and-
Yes, I fucking am.
Layla’s number is on the desk across the hallway. I can get there. I can hike the Rocky Mountains. I can swim to outer space. I may even be able to do all that and keep quiet enough to let Koen sleep. He’s wrapped around me, chest to my back, and I gently slither under the arm he draped around my hips. I pause when his grip tightens on me, but it’s a reflex, and a moment later I’m free.
Sitting up sucks the air out of me. My head swims, so I take a well-deserved break and beg my racing heart to slow down, giving myself a little pep talk.
You are able to breathe, Serena.
Have been for years. If your life had a performance review, it would not be marked as an area of improvement.
Then I hear, “Serena.”
Shit. Woke Koen up.
“Just going to the bathroom,” I lie. It comes out slurred, a chain-reaction crash of vowels and soft consonants, so I add, “Go back to sleep,” making an effort to enunciate better.
“Are you okay?”
His voice rolls over my skin. Makes the thing pulsating inside me purr sweetly. For a second, it almost feels nice. “Yup. Don’t worry.” It’s a bad idea, trying to answer him and to stand at the same time. I’m in no condition for simultaneous activities: all it gets me is jelly knees and more pounding in my head. I remember, once upon a time, being able to walk and chew gum. Ah, past glories.
“Serena.” Rustling behind me. The mattress dips as weight is redistributed. Koen, always one to show me up, gets into a sitting position with ease. His hand closes around my upper arm to pull me back into him, and his touch, the sheer ecstasy of it, it hurts. My entire body clenches. “What . . .”
He goes unnaturally still. So quiet, I wonder whether he’s feeling poorly, too. I turn to scan his face in the semidarkness, and after a long pause I hear him say, “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean to- “
Make a mess of the bed.
Make a mess of you.
Get this grossly sick.
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