Eileen Wilks - Only Human

The urgency remained, the pleasure and the sense of having opened a door on a vast unknown. But something new lapped over her. From his mouth she absorbed the knowledge of his delight, a wordless rejoicing. His hands stroked with slow intimacy over her back, her hips, telling her they were alone now, and they had time. All the time they needed.

Still her fingers trembled as she found the buttons of his shirt and, one by one, undid them. She ran her hands up his chest to his neck, leaning back slightly so she could see his face—the heavy-lidded eyes, the smile on his beautiful mouth. And she touched his hair, ran her fingers through it, testing the weight, the curl. Such freedom, to touch as she wished.

He glanced down at her shoulder holster, his expression wry. "Would you mind taking care of that yourself? I don't like guns."

That made her laugh, and laughter made her fingers less clumsy, so she was able to unfasten the buckle and lay her weapon in its holster on the bedside table. Rule came up behind her then and put his arms around her waist, pulling her to him. He'd slid off his shirt while she took care of her weapon, and she felt the heat of his skin through the linen of her shirt. The hard length of him nestled against the small of her back.

Her breath caught. He bent and grazed his teeth along the cord of her neck. A shock of pleasure vibrated through her and wrecked her breathing. He ran his hands over her body slowly, luxuriously, breasts to stomach, pubic mound, thighs— and her vision hazed.

He unfastened her shorts and pushed them down. She stepped out of them and would have turned around, but he clasped her to him, her back to his front, and carefully unbuttoned her top. Undid the catch on her bra, and removed it. And eased her panties down.

Then she turned and reached for his belt buckle. Her hands weren't steady. Neither was his breathing. The heat in his eyes made her fingers fumble, because she couldn't look away.

When he was as naked as she was, he said, "I don't think I can go slow. I want to. I want to spend hours on your body, but I can't. Not this time."

"Thank God." And she looped her arms around his neck, bringing their bodies together. They touched, skin to skin, and the world changed.

He lifted her, tumbling her onto the bed and following her down. She wrapped herself around him, trying to touch all of him at once while he tried to kiss her everywhere. His hand snaked down between her legs, where he stroked the slick folds. Her stomach went hollow. The muscles at the tops of her thighs clenched and quivered, a kinetic percussion with her heart pounding out the accompaniment.

She dug her fingers into his waist. Hurry. He slid up her body. Instinctively, her legs opened and the head of his penis teased her innerfolds ... the soft, silky, bare head of his penis.

"Wait," she gasped. "I'm on the pill, but—"

"Are you?" He had a funny look on his face, his eyebrows all awry and his mouth pressed down. His arras quivered with strain, but he bent and kissed her gently. "You can't catch anything from me, or vice versa. Bugs don't stick around in my system."

In spite of everything, indignation pricked her. "Does that mean you've never even had a cold?"

His' lips twitched. A drop of sweat drifted down the side of his face. "Afraid so. Lily ... now?"

He needed her. As any man needs a woman—in a purely human way—he needed her. Something softened and opened inside her, and she answered without words, cupping his face in her hands and lifting up gently with her hips. He pushed inside.

Full. Throbbing. Complete. Sensation pin wheeled through her, a thousand little sparks like colors spun into feeling. Her eyes squeezed closed, and the colors were there in the darkness with her.

"Ahh," he said. "Ah, Lily." And he stroked her face with his hand while he stroked her, deep inside, with his cock. "Look at me, Lily. Look at me while I'm inside you."

She opened her eyes and his were right there above her, waiting to catch her as she emerged from her private darkness. His pupils were huge. Growing. Darkness bled through his irises and beyond, pooling where white should be, a black, alien rainbow overtaking the colors she knew.

The shock of fear hit instantly, an electric tremor. But it was too late to pull back, too late to reserve any portion of herself—he was already inside her, deep inside in a way beyond the physical. Fear was only another sensation, giving claws to the need in her belly.

"Now," she panted, digging her fingers into his buttocks. "Now, Rule."

He shuddered. As if some inner chain had snapped, he dug his hands into her buttocks, lifting her, putting her where he needed so he could pound into her. She cried out. Need surged—his, hers, the two swirled together in complex patterns disturbing the lines that were supposed to divide them.

Fingers gripped, bruised. Flesh smacked into flesh as sweat dripped, running over heated bodies as the great, greedy beast of passion took them both by the throat, shook them—then flung them out into a clear, crisp darkness.

"SOMEDAY I WANT to see you in colors. Green, maybe." Lily's head was pillowed on Rule's chest. It was damp and warm, stirring slightly with his breath. The aftershocks had faded into drowsy bliss. Later, she knew, she would question, wonder, try to understand. That business with his eyes ... but not now. Not yet.

He opened his eyes. "I must have done something wrong. You have enough breath left to talk.”

Her laugh was husky and delighted. "Blue. You'd look good in blue."

He ran a hand over her hair. His voice was quiet, almost sad. "I wear colors sometimes at Clanhome. Tomorrow I'll wear blue for you."

Reality seeped back in, about as welcome as a cold trickle of rain leaking beneath a raincoat collar. And just as impossible to ignore. She propped herself up on one elbow. "You never did tell me why you had to see me so urgently, did you? It's because you're finally taking me to Clanhome. Your father is back."

"I'm taking you to Clanhome, yes. I believe my father will see you, though he hasn't said. He ..." Rule sighed. "He's been back for several days."

He'd lied to her. Though she'd warned herself all along not to believe everything he told her, learning that he had lied stripped her of something warm and important.

"I couldn't tell you." He touched her cheek. "He directly forbade me to tell you until..."

"Until what?" Hurt throbbed inside her. Honor bound Rule to obey his Lupois, whose decisions he was pledged to uphold with his own body. She knew that. And still it hurt. "Until I went to bed with you?"

"He didn't want his condition known."

"What do you mean?"

"Four days ago, on his way home from meeting with another Lupois, my father was attacked by other lupi. He was badly mauled. He nearly died."

THE RAIN OF last night had vanished as if it had never been. The sky was clear and cloudless, the land around them seriously rumpled, studded with live oak, juniper, and pines. Wind blew in the open windows of Rule's Explorer, smelling of dust and living things.

Lily wondered what it smelled like to him. She would never really know what his world was like, would she?

Returning to the real world was a bitch. She'd been mostly silent ever since they left her apartment, where she'd changed into clean clothes. But the doubts and the questions—and a few uneasy answers—hadn't waited until morning to hit. They'd plagued her last night, but they hadn't kept her from making love with him a second time, or sleeping in his arms. Even now the urge to touch him rose every so often, strong and compelling. Rather like a sneeze, she thought. If she ignored it, it went away.

But it kept coming back.

He slowed and turned off the pavement onto a well-graded dirt road. "We're almost there," he said.