image [https://cdn.midjourney.com/16f58a99-a93f-4e50-97a5-28fc052ce1a3/0_3.webp]
Kennedy…
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight, Terry. You, David, and that rogue band of overgrown middle schoolers downstairs pretending to be adults decided the best thing you could do was kidnap my Mom and Nan? They sincerely hate each other. Why would you put them on a booze cruise to Europe?” Kennedy stared out the window, looking across the suburban backyards full of children’s toys and dented grills. Their shadows twisted in the moonlight.
Terry nodded and ran his wide hand up through his messy hair. He needed a haircut. Bent over the notebook he carried with him, he wrote, “We made sure they had a chaperone.”
Kennedy wrinkled her nose. “Like YOU? Are you supposed to be my chaperone?”
“Protector,” he wrote.
She gave a snort as he joined her at the window. The moon hung fat in the sky below the gathering storm clouds. Terry stepped up behind her and wound his powerful arms around her. The solid, warm breadth of his chest pressed to her back. He reached past her and tapped the glass where the moon nestled in the tops of the trees.
Kennedy relaxed back against him. She said, “The movies always make it look like change is compulsive. But… wouldn’t the full moon be the worst time to be out? My eyesight was always better than my friends when the night was dark.”
Terry gave a soft grunt of assent and settled his chin on top of her head. His large hand came up and cupped her breast over her t-shirt. The possessiveness of his touch was calming. A shiver moved through her as his thumb grazed her tightening nipple through the soft cotton fabric. Kennedy pressed her hips back against his thighs, welcoming the distraction of his touch. On her own, she hadn’t been able to quiet her racing mind enough to sleep. The big man bent down and brushed his lips against the back of her ear. The warmth of his breath tickled across the sensitive flesh of her neck. When he bit the curve of her shoulder, her body throbbed.
His hands slid lower across her rounded belly. Terry growled with pleasure and the sound vibrated through her, a strummed cord that snaked to her sex. When he began to unfasten her jeans, she reached for the window frame and gripped it. As he forced the fabric down her thighs, she groaned with need and stepped her feet further apart. The big man sank to his knees behind her, and brushed his face against the back of her thighs, murmuring wordless sounds of approval to her. A man who could break her, crush her, worshiped her body as if she were an altar.
The hot sweep of his mouth, his kisses and bites along the backs of her thighs, made her knees weaken. Terry sank his teeth into the curve of her bottom, and she squealed and tried to wiggle forward. Holding her in place, he comforted where he had bitten, by pressing his face against her and breathing in her scent.
Heart racing, Kennedy pressed her cheek to the cold glass of the second-story bedroom and held her breath. She arched her back, tilting her hips toward him, desperate for the sweep of his tongue. When the intimacy of his mouth against her most tender places came, she released her breath, fogging the glass. Up on her toes, she swiveled and rocked as he toyed with her.
Slick and wet, the pleasure intensified as he used tongue and lips to focus on her most tender places, his fingers. Pleasure wound within her core, draining her body of worry and stress. As her first orgasm hit, he pressed her against the cold glass to keep her standing through the waves. Toes barely touching, she trembled violently. Wave after wave, the tension she had been holding for days left her body. Limp against the pane of glass, the night pressing toward her on the other side. The moonlight bathed her face as he began again, pressing her upward toward the stars.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
When Terry finally let her slide to the floor, her body felt boneless, and Kennedy sprawled with no thought to the soft carpet. He came over her, a forest god, a being of old. His body blocked out the light. Lifting her thigh along his side, he slid against her until her molten body yielded and opened to him. His scent became her very air. Pleasure lifted them both in a great wave. Their bodies united, and the room filled with stars. The pleasure became an endless spinning constellation. The roar when he came matched the distant thunder. Let the rain come. She was safe. His body was her shelter.
*
Sam…
He had it this time. Sam was certain. A full moon hung above him, luminescent with a blue halo surrounding it. This first time, he wanted to be alone. The others had already labeled him the dumb one. If what he planned tonight didn’t work out, he had no desire to hear their laughter. Plus, he was comfortable out in the woods alone. The clearing Sam had chosen was close to his favorite deer stand.
His clothes lay a few feet from him, neatly folded. A towel protected him from the prickliness of the high grass he had stomped flat when the sun set. The small pit he’d dug for his fire had heated the cast-iron pot to a merry boil. Orp was the specialist about the herbal component, but he’d hesitated to ask his advice. There were certain herbs that repeated in lore, and Sam had resourced what was most commonly mentioned.
And then there was the blue. He’d only found a few mentions online. Rumors threaded through the dark corners of the web, discussing transmutation of the body. Those clues had led him to a small European supplier who claimed to carry blue. Sam had told none of his friends about his find. He crossed his legs and stared down at the pot of salve in his hands. It was probably some bull shit. He’d wasted a month of salary on the concoction. Made in fucking Bulgaria. He turned the little jar on its side, looking at the acidic looking blue inside. It was the kind of shit that in comic book movies would turn you into a villain or a hero. He sort of fancied himself a hero.
Sam unscrewed the lid, and sniffed the bitter, acrid aroma, and his body recoiled. His testicles drew up tight against his body. The idea of smearing the blue onto his skin was not appealing. Last time he had been at Orp’s house, not his current little apartment, but his actual home, the big sprawling grand house. He’d spent a little time in the family treasure room, opening draws full of shrunken heads, and glistening preserved beetles.
The book of transmutation, usually kept locked and under glass, had been left with the case open. Orp’s obsession matched his own. So, the guy had probably planned to come back to his study of the text and left it vulnerable for that reason.
Using the edge of his shirt to protect the pages from the naturally occurring oil on his fingertips, Sam leafed past the endless explanations for turning lead into various other metals to the small section on the exchanging of the self of origin for something other. He’d used his phone to take pictures of the pages in the old book, something that Orp would have raged about.
Taking photographs in front of his friend would have started a fight. After he had the images, it had taken Sam a while to understand the text, and some help from a plain sparrow of a linguist who he had charmed into his bed. A pet project. An amusement.
Their pillow talk had been teaching him how to set the words properly in his mouth. His faith didn’t rest in the incantations, but it seemed to him the attempt would be half hearted if it did not include the theatrical element. He’d almost brought her with him, but if it worked, he’d have most likely killed and eaten her and that was not the level of cleanup he wanted to do alone.
Sam preened, thinking of their faces when he showed them the next full moon that it had been himself that solved the elaborate puzzle. He wanted to be more than Lucky. More than muscle. The alchemist. Face turned up to the ethereal light of the full moon, he longed to feel different. That nothing at all had altered for him after consuming the living blood of a werewolf was a disappointment.
With a sigh, Sam pulled up the image of the painted man that he had found. How accurate did the recipe need to be to work? His mouth taking strange shapes, he spoke the sounds that became words, that became…. if he was lucky, magic. Never a coward. He dipped his fingers into the blue cream and painted the first swirl above his right nipple.