The Shifter's Desire Page 13

Thea lay back over Jack’s sweaty chest. Neither of them particularly noticed when he started fiddling with the bare skin on her ring finger.

  At the other end of the house, Celia’s hysterical laughter finally had Jean Luc laughing, too. They’d been mid-coitus when Arturo and Martine had burst out the house’s electricity and it had scared the living daylights out of both of them. They’d sprung apart, Celia pulling the covers over her head and Jean Luc finding himself naked and springing across the bedroom floor.

  Once her heart had started beating again, Celia had nearly lost her mind with laughter.

  “Are you standing in a karate pose?” she gasped at him as Jean Luc bashfully raked a hand over his face and made his muscles relax. He stalked across the floor and yanked her covers back to crawl in next to her.

  “Maybe.”

  “You saw that green burst of light, thought to yourself—I don’t know—aliens were attacking with ray guns… and you were going to naked karate chop them?”

  He chuckled low and deep and brought her flush against him. “I figure that’s better than hiding under the covers. At least I was gonna go out in a blaze of glory.”

  “You were going to go out butt-ass naked pulling a full on Ralph Macchio. I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘glory’.”

  They laughed into each other’s mouths, but promptly stopped laughing when their bodies demanded that they pick up where they’d just left off.

  Back in Martine’s room, she and Arturo lay in a twisted pile, breathing hard and trying not to fade off into the sleep that tried so hard to pull them both under. Neither of them wanted to miss a moment of this.

  Now that they’d finally let themselves feel how much pleasure they could find in the arms of the other, it was painfully clear how much time they’d let slip through their fingers.

  Arturo got up to fill them glasses of water from the bathroom tap which they both slugged down immediately. They collapsed back into one another’s arms and Arturo began to gently play with Martine’s hair. He knew that at some point he was going to have to speak. To put words to what had just happened. But he had the sneaking suspicion he was going to have to learn another language in order to talk about that, because there wasn’t a single English word that would suffice.

  He’d never, in his entire life, felt anything like that. It was better than sex. Better than intimacy. Better than ecstasy. In those moments when their energies had mixed, there’d been absolutely nowhere to hide. Darkness had no place there. It was only light. He was seen and known. And vice versa. She’d opened herself up to be known in every single way. She’d pressed herself into every single nook and cranny of his soul.

  Also, she’d just lost her virginity.

  What a complete and total mindfuck. He figured he didn’t need to wax poetic. He just needed to at least speak.

  He was just opening his mouth to make sure she was all right when she spoke up first.

  “Sometimes at night I imagine that I’m a schoolteacher.”

  “What?”

  “And that you’re a mechanic. And we meet each other in a grocery store.”

  “Oh. God.” He understood now what she was saying. She imagined them as ordinary people. She imagined them as two people who were allowed to love one another.

  “You ask me on a date and come to my house with flowers. Like in the movies.”

  He kissed her forehead and fitted her a bit more tightly against his chest. “Then what happens?”

  “You kiss me long and slow on the porch after the date. A few weeks later, I let you take my clothes off.”

  “You make me wait weeks?” he laughed.

  She nodded. “We have perfectly ordinary sex that feels so good we never want to let each other go.”

  “Ordinary sex? Us? Not possible.”

  “We worry about things like taxes. And parking tickets. And how to make ends meet.” She tipped her head back and reached up, playing with his hair for a second. “Actually, I don’t even know what ‘making ends meet’ means. It’s just something humans say a lot.”

  He might have smiled, but his lips didn’t get much beyond pressing against hers. There was a tenderness for her rising up within him so brightly it was painful.

  “What happens next in the dream?” he asked her quietly.

  “We get married in a small church and our friends are there. You take me to the mountains for a week and you make love to me three times a day.”

  “You’ve thought about honeymooning with me.” He repeated the words with a sort of blank wonder in his tone. It had simply never occurred to him that she’d want that with him. There was suddenly a hell of a lot to get used to.

  “Of course. I’ve been thinking about it for centuries.”

  She watched his face shutter down, his eyes grow dark and distant.

  “That makes you sad?” she asked.

  “Not sad,” he said at length. “I just think about who I was these last four hundred years. The things I’ve done for the demon. And I think about the fact that you wanted me, even then. And…” he trailed off, not wanting at all to say what he had to. “I just can't help but feel that I don’t deserve you. That I didn't deserve you.”

  She opened her mouth to object but he beat her to the punch, clapping one hand over her mouth.

  “Then again,” he grinned down at her, “modesty was never exactly my strong suit. Maybe I don't deserve you and your perfect, golden self. But I don’t give a fuck anymore. I know how badly self-sacrifice can turn out, for everyone involved. And I’m taking this and running with it, okay?”

  He rolled her over top of him so that her legs straddled either side of his hips.

  “I’m going to make you happy every single second that I can. No turning back.”

  “No turning back,” she said with a sharp nod. Her green eyes filled up her face. Martine gasped as Arturo gripped her ass in his hands and shifted her so that she slid along the length of him.

  But he was the one gasping when she reached down and guided him into her and then thrust herself down.

  “I might not survive this,” he groaned when she started to move her hips in an enthusiastic and unschooled way. She fell forward on a laugh, taking his lips with hers.

  ***

  Martine was the one who woke late the next morning. There was a vase of flowers on her bedside table and the unmistakable sounds of a man in her shower. For a moment, the only thing that Martine was capable of doing was grinning at the ceiling, naked in her bed.

  Her entire existence she’d wished that she could know what it was like to be human. To experience normal human things. And now she was having her very own morning after.

  She rolled out of bed and practically skipped to the shower. She pulled open the shower door with a toothy grin on her face. It faded into heat as she took in a soaking wet and sudsy Arturo.

  He was tall and wide-shouldered, but trim. His muscles were not vanity muscles. He was built like a man who knew how to be active, who knew how to get things done. His hair was inky black and flat under the water. She wanted to lick the ash brown hair on his chest, the stubble on his cheek.

  He turned and his eyes heated.

  “Your eyelashes are stuck together,” she told him with something akin to wonder in her tone. She was thrilled with her discovery, thrilled with him. With life.

  “You’re letting the warm air out,” he scowled at her, closing the shower door after her and taking the opportunity to crowd her under the falling water.

  “Ah! It’s so cold!” Martine lunged forward and adjusted the handles.

  “Jesus! You trying to burn my skin off?” He slapped her hands away from the knobs and re-adjusted.

  A scuffle ensued. A very slippery scuffle that quickly evolved into mouth on mouth and hands in very interesting places.

  “Mmm. Fuck. We need to slow down. You need to rest.”

  Martine jerked away from him, offended by the suggestion. “Me? I am a demon hunter. I’m designed for physical exer
tion. I do not need to rest!”

  He laughed and kissed the scowl off her pretty mouth. “I meant that your pussy needs to rest. You’ve never had sex before and we pretty much blew the roof off last night.”

  To complement his words, he slipped his hand between her legs and gave her a friendly little rub. Martine had to admit that as good as it felt, there was a little pinching sting there as well.

  Her lips pouted out. “Shoot. How long do I have to rest my… what did you call it?”

  His eyes shot to hers. He wasn’t rubbing his hand against her anymore, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to take his hand away either. He just sort of held her there. His other hand drew a line up her back, making her lean into him. His voice was gravelly when he spoke. “I called it your pussy.”

  “Huh. Did you make that up?”

  His eyes closed as he laughed. “No. That one’s been around for a few centuries. You’ll only have to rest it for a day or so.”

  “Do I have to rest anything else?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, a hint of something like suspicion in his tone.

  “I can use my mouth, can’t I?”

  “Uh—FUCK.” Arturo blinked and she was on her knees, her tongue painting a circle around the head of his cock. His hands buried themselves in her wet hair and he attempted to focus his suddenly fuzzy vision.

  Of course she would be eager and zealous and affectionate and joyful when she was licking him from stem to stern. Of course.

  It only made sense considering they’d had four hundred years to be doing this and they’d only started when the demon was absolutely chomping at the bit to destroy them.

  He pushed those thoughts aside and braced his back against the shower wall. He reached down and held her jaw, gently, and thrust into her wet heat. Her eyes flew to his and he could have sworn that if her mouth hadn’t been full of his cock, she would have smiled. He showed her how to swallow him down, but the plan backfired when his knees went abruptly weak and he started to slide down the wall. His hands in her hair, she followed him all the way down until he was sitting on the shower floor.

  His orgasm took him by surprise, and so did the fact that she deftly swallowed all of it right down. He came in three hard spasms into her mouth and she took it all. He sagged to one side as she popped up off him, wiping her mouth and grinning. He tugged her into his lap and rocked his forehead from side to side along her collarbone.

  “Anything,” he murmured. “I’ll give you anything.”

  ***

  She hadn’t asked for anything more from him, but Arturo suddenly found himself in a tremendously giving mood. If she’d asked for the Titanic, he would have personally scuba-dived every piece of the wreckage up from the bottom of the ocean.

  Four centuries of being an asshole and one good blow job had him turning into fucking Santa Claus.

  He didn’t care. He was walking on mother effing sunshine that morning as he and Martine finally emerged to see six people smiling at them in the kitchen. The smiles ranged from smirks (Tre and Thea) to full-on grins (Caroline and Jack). Jean Luc just had his hand clamped over Celia’s mouth who seemed to be in the throes of some sort of giggle-fit. The only intelligible words that she managed to get out sounded something like ‘alien karate’.

  Whatever. Arturo didn’t care. Let them stare. Let them laugh. Let them grin their shit-eating grins. He’d gotten laid by a goddess last night. And she was smiling up at him like he’d invented sunshine.

  He poured a cup of coffee from the carafe and handed it to Martine before pouring himself one.

  “Awwwwww,” Caroline crowed from across the room, her hands bundled under her chin, her heart in her eyes.

  Still, Arturo ignored them all.

  He got a cup for himself and rooted around in the fridge for some breakfast. The others had obviously already eaten, although he wished they had food they could shove in their stupid grinning mouths and perhaps somewhere else to put their prying eyes.

  Arturo came up with a leftover bowl of fruit salad and two forks. Martine was already sitting at the table with the group and he frowned. He did not want to eat breakfast with this group of idiots.

  “So,” Tre said.

  Here we go, Arturo thought.

  “You’re looking mighty relaxed this morning, Arturo. And Martine, you’re practically glowing.”

  Arturo scowled and tossed a bowl down in front of Martine, started shoveling fruit salad into it.

  “Actually,” Thea cut in, “I was thinking Martine looked a little… green.”

  “You mean she looks sick?” Caroline asked, peering across the table. “She doesn’t look sick to me at all. Ohhhhhh. You mean green because of the light the two of them made when they had sex?”

  Jean Luc snorted half his coffee up his nose.

  “Oh,” Celia said, looking around at the group. “So, we’re just speaking candidly about that, then?”

  “I mean, something blows all the lightbulbs in your bedroom ‘round midnight, I think you’re allowed to mull it over the next morning,” Jack said through a clenched jaw that looked suspiciously like it was holding in a grin.

  “Blew all the lightbulbs?” Martine asked and then squinted her eyes at the lamp in the corner of the room, and then at all the recessed lighting in the kitchen ceiling. Her face went slack with delighted surprise. “Oh my God! Arturo! We blew all the lights out!”

  “You don’t say,” he replied blandly, staring over his coffee cup at all the Nosy Nancies.

  “Say, Martine,” Tre said, leaning forward across the table with an innocuously curious look on his face. “How does one blow all the lightbulbs out?”

  “It’s not rocket science,” Arturo cut in. He lifted his hand, shot a ray of blue energy across the kitchen and blew out the single remaining lightbulb in the light fixture.

  “Yeah.” Tre looked back and forth between Arturo’s hand and the smoking lightbulb. “Now I only have more questions.”

  “Christ,” Arturo griped, grabbing Martine’s hand and standing up.

  “Waitwaitwait!! We’ll be good,” Caroline said, shooting a death glare at Tre. “You don’t have to leave. We’re just all so happy for you two!”

  “We’re leaving anyways,” Arturo told her. He liked Caroline, probably loved her, in fact. She was the first member of the crew that he’d been drawn to. She’d reminded him so much of Amelia, his first love. But for some reason, right now, her happiness grated on him.

  They were all looking at him as if he and Martine were at the beginning of some holy journey together. Look at all of them, with their smug smiles and laced fingers, playing footsie with their lovers under the table.

  The only thing they had to worry about was surviving this whole ordeal. After that, they could expect to live long lives characterized by true love and good sex and as many babies as any of them could ever want. He wished them a billion babies. He hoped each and every one of them found themselves up to their ears in babies.

  He wished an infinite number of dirty diapers on all these happy hearts.

  Didn’t they all realize that he and Martine were rocketing toward destruction? That he and Martine had only a number of days, or maybe even hours of happiness before they obliterated themselves to take down the demon?

  “Where are we going?” Martine asked, drawing his attention back down to her wide green eyes.

  Arturo looked down at her and immediately felt all his sharp feelings start to dissolve away.

  She made him… not want to snap at people. How strange.

  “We’re going to have some fun today.” He found himself stroking a hand over the glossy strawberry hair at her shoulder.

  He glanced back up to see an assortment of shocked and gooey eyes staring at him, as if the sight of him being gentle and sweet was a revelation of some sort.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I take it you’re skiving out on shifter practice, then?” Tre asked.


  “Yes,” Arturo answered immediately, an idea occurring to him. “And we’re taking the van.”

  There were more questions, all of which Arturo ignored. He sent Martine up to gather anything she’d need to be gone for the day, and accepted a handful of cash that Jean Luc jammed into his hand.

  “Don’t be an asshole to her,” Jean Luc grumbled.

  ***

  The wind filled the van that Martine was certain Arturo was driving much too fast. He’d never driven a car before, but neither of them particularly cared about that. They were immortal after all, until their date with the demon, at least.

  Martine, for her part, had never felt so human in her entire life. She wore her usual black leggings, but also one of Arturo’s new T-shirts, soft and roomy. Wind filled the sleeve and tickled her everywhere. Her feet were on the dash the way she’d seen Celia ride before. She’d always wanted to do that.

  She wore her hair in a high ponytail and the ends danced in the wind. Arturo had a pocket full of cash, courtesy of Jean Luc, and she was using Tre’s phone to navigate to a destination Arturo didn’t want to tell her about.

  They were playing at being human, at normalcy.

  They drove for hours, stopping at a gas station for snacks and cheap, gaudy sunglasses. Arturo pulled over one more time and purchased both of them two bathing suits. Martine’s was black, because he knew her. His was also black, because he knew himself as well.

  They arrived at the Great Salt Lake, hungry and wind whipped. Martine couldn’t remember a time she’d been so happy in all her life. She allowed Arturo to feed her a ham sandwich and half a bottle of Gatorade while she delighted in the sunscreen-applying, big-hat-wearing, potato-chip-eating, laughing, shouting, radio-playing tourists who swarmed the parking lot.

  After changing into her swimsuit in the front seat of the van, Arturo’s eyes on her the entire time, she stood perfectly still while Arturo rubbed sunscreen onto every single part of her skin. She did the same for him, and marveled at his silence. She might have billed him as a complainer previous to this day. But for the first time since he’d sacrificed himself to the demon, she noted that he seemed perfectly content. Happy, even, to be where he was. He squinted out at the lake, made a chuff of surprise as the salt that was caked on the shore crumbled and poked at his bare feet.