Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

I wandered into the center of the living room, tense. Nervous, too, though I’d never say it out loud. The locks clicking into place did nothing to relax me. Wyatt lingered by the door. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t ready to talk. Talking just complicated everything, and my life was complicated enough. My decision was made. Now I had to convince my heart to let go.

“Are you hungry?” Wyatt asked, the suddenness of his voice startling me.

A little. “No.”

A pregnant pause. “Thirsty?”

“I’m fine.” As if. “You know, Kismet was right about one thing.”

“Yeah?”

I one-eightied and smiled. “You do kind of smell.”

His face went perfectly still. Then a grin cracked through, and he chuckled. “Guess I should take advantage.” With a wicked glint in his eyes, he added, “Of the shower.”

“Have at it, Stinky. I’ll rummage for clean clothes.”

He strolled toward me, needing to pass in order to get to the bathroom, and my heart leapt. Then fell when he brushed right by. He whipped back a split second later, grabbed me around the waist hard enough to send heated flares up my healing back, and pulled. I tumbled into his chest, pulse racing, with a gasp he swallowed with a kiss. For its sudden buildup, the kiss was surprisingly gentle. His mouth moved softly over mine, tongue tracing gentle lines across my lips. Probing no deeper, even when I opened for him. Thumbs rose to caress the sensitive spots behind my ears. My scalp tingled. The abrasion of his beard scraped my cheeks. If a kiss could be both sensual and chaste, he’d mastered it.

I didn’t shake myself out of it until the bathroom door shut with a loud clack. A few more kisses like that and I’d never be able to leave him. Just thinking it made my heart hurt and my stomach ache. My cheeks still burned from the brush of his unshaven skin and a wicked plan formed in my mind.

I kicked off my shoes and socks and, ignoring my promise to find him clean clothes, darted barefoot around the apartment to the background music of running water, collecting a few things in the kitchen as I went. The two most important items, however, were behind the closed bathroom door. I briefly contemplated teleporting inside to get them. The quick shower shutoff decided for me. That had to be a record.

Why not, idiot? Isn’t like you have a lot of time to waste .

With one of the items in my hand, I staked out the bathroom door. Heard the clink of the shower curtain rings. Faint ruffling that could only be a towel over skin. The door pulled inward. Wyatt’s damp head poked out, searching. He caught me in his peripheral and jumped. Grinned. I smiled back. He glanced down at my hands.

“Am I supposed to wear that?” he asked.

“Yep,” I replied, twisting it around my fingers.

“Just that? I don’t really think it’s decent.”

“You got a towel on?”

He stepped out, presenting arms and legs and everything they were attached to, the best parts hidden behind a cinched bath towel. Water trickled from his hair, down his neck, making thin rivulets across his shoulders. Every muscle was perfectly toned, his abs well defined, though he seemed thinner without his clothes on. I guess I wasn’t the only one not eating much for the past week.

“I think the color clashes with my towel,” he said.

“I won’t mind and you won’t see it.”

His eyebrows arched dramatically. A playful grin quirked the corners of his mouth, showing me a side of him I rarely got to see. The man who knew how to tease and have fun when the world wasn’t crashing down around his ears.

“Turn around and close your eyes,” I said.

He obeyed without fussing. I stretched the candy cane–speckled necktie—who owned it or why was not something I wanted to contemplate—across his eyes and tied it tight.

“Evy?”

“Trust me.”

“You know I do.”

“Then hush.”

I led him into the kitchen, turned him around, and helped him sit on the dining chair I’d put near the sink. He tilted his head curiously when I tucked another towel around his neck and secured it with a chip clip.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, and then darted into the bathroom to collect the last two things necessary for this little experiment. I deliberately dragged my feet on the carpet as I returned. No sense in startling him. He was already tense, straight-backed, hands picking at the towel covering his lap. His head turned toward me with a question on his lips and in the slant of his eyebrows.

I placed one of the objects on the counter and shook the other a few times, then swirled an apple-sized amount onto my palm. The sudsy scent of shaving cream made his nostrils flare. I smoothed it across his cheeks and chin, over his upper lip, and as far down his throat as his prickly dark hair went, covering it all in a marshmallow of white.

“Tilt your head back.” I rinsed my hand in the sink and let the water run until it warmed, then held the razor under it.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

I laughed. “Nope. Want me to stop?”

“No.” If his quiet tone didn’t convince me, the slight tenting of his towel did.

I pressed the razor to his throat, struck by the sheer power of it. Wyatt had nothing to fear, no reason to think I’d use this submissive position against him. I’d die for him, and in some ways, it’s what I was preparing to do. For him and Phin and Kismet and Tybalt, and for all the innocent people in my city that Thackery had threatened.

My hand started shaking. I pulled the razor away, held a deep breath, then exhaled.

“Evy?”

“I’m fine. Just relax.”

The gurgle of running water and scrape of the razor over skin was all I heard until the unmistakable raspy sound of his increased breathing overtook them. I ignored it, as well as the tenting towel and the growing ache in my abdomen, and continued the intimate act.

His upper lip was last, the cream falling away to reveal clean skin that would be shadowed again in a few hours. I rinsed the razor, patted it dry, and used the towel around his neck to wipe away any excess cream. A dollop tried to hide behind his left ear. Leaning close, back aching, I inhaled the clean scent. Exhaled. Wyatt made a soft noise in his throat, recognizing the nearness of me. I pressed my cheek to his—first one, then the other.

“Close enough?” he asked.

“Definitely.”

Strong arms circled my waist and pulled me onto his lap. Instead of removing the blindfold, he traced the shape of my face with featherlight touches, the pads of his fingertips blazing a hot path on my cool skin. Over my cheeks, across my chin, down the slope of my nose. The seam of my lips. I flicked out my tongue and tasted his finger—the barest hint of soap still lingered. He shuddered. His erection strained hot and hard, even beneath layers of terry and denim.

I remembered the first and only time we’d made love—literally a lifetime ago—but the memories were faint. Like watching an old movie slightly out of focus. It was all there—his gentle, questing hands and possessive kisses, the strong slide of him in and out of my body—distanced and unclear, marred by my new body’s lack of physical memory. Knowledge without experience.

I hated it and loved it, because I got to try something no one else could—two first times with the same man.

I pulled off his blindfold and let it flutter to the floor. He blinked hard, eyes readjusting to the harsh kitchen light, and settled his hands on my hips. My fingers grazed his chest, the pads of my thumbs brushing over his nipples. He made a sound deep in his throat—something caught between a growl and a groan.

His right hand tangled in my hair and drew me down, and finally we kissed. Our mouths moved, lips parting, and I drank in the taste of him. His tongue darted into my mouth, stroked across my teeth, until it was met by mine. A delicate dance began as flesh teased flesh. I dragged my fingers down his bare arms and earned a soft moan. His free hand drifted from my hip to my butt and squeezed, sending a shock of heat searing straight to my core.