After Dawn, What Came Next

He wasn’t going to last long. Her fingers cupped his balls, her thumb swabbing over the sparse hairs that grew there. She paused long enough to ask him, in a coy, husking, utterly feminine voice, if she was doing it right. Any righter and he’d be whimpering like a pup. Cat dragged her fingernails down his inner thighs doing just that and extracting the moan trapped in his throat. Christian flexed his fingers, clutching them into fists to keep from grappling with her scalp and guiding her faster and faster until he burst like a volcano inside of her mouth.

“You’ve got to stop,” he rasped. He wanted to let go, let it all go, buried to the hilt inside of her. He wanted to fill her with the hot jets of his impending release. Feel it, slick and hot, overflow down his length as she climaxed with him. That wasn’t going to happen if she didn’t cease and desist immediately. “Human guy here.”

Cat withdrew her mouth from Christian’s erection. The taste of him was saltier than she had expected. His scent was earthy, wild and musky, tinged with a hint of the soap he had used earlier in the shower. His whole body was a contrast to hers. Hard in the places she was soft. Covered in fine, soft blond hairs in places where her hair was thick and dark. They fit together like matching pieces to a puzzle. Custom made for one another. She smiled at him, knowing she was flashing a hint of fang from beneath her upper lip. “I don’t mind.”

Christian flipped Cat onto her back and hovered over her. He took the necessary precautions, because just because you never knew when opportunity was going to knock. He had absolute faith in science and had willingly laid his nuts on the exam table to have the temporary clips placed that would prevent him from making babies. Two small incision lines, an ice pack later, and he was safe. When the time came, he would put his nuts in the doctor’s hands, assuming his wife didn’t have him by the short hairs already, and reverse the procedure. “I’m safe, Cat.”

She doubted if Christian was safe, but she got his meaning. It was a good thing at least one of the two of them had their head screwed on straight. She hadn’t even given the possibility a second thought. She wasn’t safe in any way, at least not for him. She was the most dangerous creature he would ever encounter. A wolf wrapped in human skin and a predator at the top of the food chain. Yet, in his arms, she was the prey, tame and docile, completely domesticated, and willing to offer her throat.

Christian dipped his head to claim a quick kiss from the sweetness of her lips and slid down to lap the ripe peaks of her breasts. Cat arched beneath him, her hips bucking and bringing him in line with the place she needed him the most. He knew her eagerness and understood. He ached too, but with as urgent and dire as the situation building with him had gotten he worried he wouldn’t be good enough, last long enough to get her where she so desperately needed to go. He inched her thighs wider and eased his weight to rest at her side. Feeling his way he traced the warmth of her core with a fingertip and chucked as she bucked and shuddered beneath his touch. “I’ll take care of you, Cat. I’ll always take care of you first.”

All Cat’s fleeting insecurities about her body disappeared into a cloud of pink, lust filled vapor at the wild sensation of Christian’s mouth on her breasts. He suckled the tip spreading a new wave of desire spearing through her core. His fingertips worked absolute miracles, parting the flesh of her deepest parts and searching her out. She couldn’t form thought or force the words banging around inside of her head free. A man needed praise and encouragement. She should be touching him too, making him feel as good as he made her. She could do nothing but lay there with his touch setting her on fire in places she had smoldered but never truly burned before.

At Cat’s not so subtle urging, the urgent panting and thrusts of her hips, the grip of her nails digging desperately at his shoulders, the arching of her back, and throaty moans, Christian plunged his fingers into the soft heat of her. He was met with resistance and the tight squeeze of her suddenly tensed muscles around his fingers. He hadn’t expected to find any barrier between the two of them. He thought he’d send her to a place of wonder and joy. He hadn’t guessed that she wouldn’t have experienced such a thing before. Ever. Her virginity was there, at the tips of his fingers, intact and foreboding as a towering brick wall protecting some impenetrable fortress. “Cat, you’re a virgin,” he said in shock.

“Don’t care,” Cat rasped. She clutched Christian’s wrist to prevent his withdrawal from where she needed him the most. Sure, the invasion had been uncomfortable at first. But, he had her quickly forgetting about it and wriggling from the deeper, more intense and uncomfortable situation from his abrupt denial of what her body needed. He couldn’t stop now. He couldn’t!

“I do.” Against his will and guided by his hand, his fingers gently probed her depths. He did his best to keep well away from the barrier that separated him from the deepest heart of her, but she lifted her hips to meet every thrust of his fingertips deeper and deeper inside of her. He tilted his hand to massage her clitoris matching the rhythm of her quivering hips and his thrusting fingers. “I can’t.”

Cat snorted in humor. Drawn out of the haze of her lust, she slid her hand down Christian’s belly to stroke his length. Fully demonstrating that yes, he could, he definitely could. He squeaked in protest and then grunted as she tightened her grip and began pumping his cock to the rhythm of his strokes against her heated flesh. “I’ve trusted you. Now, you trust me.”

“But…I’m just an ordinary guy.”

“Yeah, so?” Cat huffed. The giddiness of her arousal was fading, leaving her shivering, frustrated, and just a little on the grumpy side. “I don’t care if you’re animal, vegetable, or mineral. Well, I do. The animal thing…I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. As for vegetables, well that’s just gross, lusting after produce and all that. Minerals? Well, diamonds are supposed to be a girl’s best friend, but that’s weird… really, really weird. I’m not into girls like that and you’ve met my…friends. Cavemen…real Neanderthal types, they couldn’t form a full sentence between them, if they tried. Christian, you’re so special, because you are so ordinary.

“I’ve spent my whole life being protected. Quit trying to protect me. I am capable of taking care of myself. Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want. I know my mind and my own body and well, they’re both in agreement. They want you.”

Cat’s palm, pumping up and down his cock to pause at the top, gently twisting the sensitive head was very, very convincing. Her words soothed the soreness of his conscience. He was rigid beneath her hand and the weight of her body. Battling with the angel and the devil inside of him. Nervous energy rippled though his nerve endings. He was just a human guy. She was new and inexperienced and didn’t know the pleasures and sometimes, disappointments of the flesh. He wanted her first time to be something worthy of poetry and lyrics put to music, not an embarrassing huff and grunt, brief pounding of flesh, and a resulting wet spot on the sheet. “I might disappoint you.”

“Christian, you couldn’t if you tried.” Cat straddled Christian’s body, pushing him onto his back and pinning him there with her palms planted against his chest. He was erect and tense beneath her. Biting his bottom lip to maintain control, his skin flushed and hot to the touch, and his eyelids fluttering with the urgency of a hummingbird’s wings. She was ready. Her body thrumming with an urgency of its own and every muscle quivering with the need to get him inside of her.

She hovered over him, poised to slide down his length. Handling him as if she had a clue of what she was doing, she positioned the ripe head at her entrance and gently eased herself onto him. Her gasp was one of surprise and utter shock. It hurt. There was the stretching of her body around him to accommodate his size and the tearing of that last barrier between adulthood and childhood. Christian sucked in a breath, holding it, mimicking her. Still as a breathless night beneath her, he waited for her to decide when to start. His eyes were wide with concern, staring up at her. The best she could manage was a shy smile and a harried exhale of reassurance. “S’ok, Christian,” she muttered. “S’ok.”

Christian had heard his share of locker room talk in high school. Not being that popular with the girls, he had never shared a woman’s first time with her. He knew it would hurt and he hated the thought of causing her any pain, no matter how fleeting. Cat was slick and ready for him, which probably helped. But, there was no avoiding the stretching of pure flesh and the breeching of the fragile membrane separating them so that he could fuse their bodies together as one. Easing his hand around the curve of her hip, he began massaging the soft nub at the apex of her sex, stroking it and gently coaxing it to blossom to fullness beneath the pads of his fingertips.

The pain was a momentary flash of unwanted impulses and suddenly pushed out of her mind as a burst of pleasure and warmth spread from her core to flow through her body and down her tense limbs. Christian stroked the pleasure, grasping and releasing his hold on her butt, coaxing her to move her hips a slow pace up and down his length. It was good and feeling better and better as she increased the depth and pace of her gyrations. Sweat beaded on his brow. He gritted his teeth, nibbling on his bottom lip to keep from exploding too soon.

Something wonderful and unknown was happening within her. She moved faster, bolder, craving more and more of such pure elation. Her body was a wild thing no longer under her control. It moved as it would. It had no regard for her shyness and hesitation. It cared nothing for anything other than the pleasure his invasion brought forth in wave after wave of sensation. Christian grappled with her hips, pushing her faster and faster. Clutching her shoulders and driving her further and further, deeper onto his shaft. Their bodies crashed together. Their breaths, panting and out of control, matched one another’s pace. Hearts pounding, bodies slapping with the marriage of flesh to flesh, her toes curling and hands reaching for something to hold her earthbound, Cat found nothing but him to cling to. Safe in his arms, her body wrapped around his, she gave herself over to Christian’s keeping and let go of her little girl self, the world separating them, and the boundaries of flesh and bone.

Cat was beautiful, flushed and glowing with awareness and raw sexuality. A decent man might close his eyes and retreat into himself to afford her some measure of privacy while she climaxed. He was not such a man. He watched her, chest heaving, lips pursed, and eyes gleaming with wonder, orgasm for the first time. It was a beautiful thing to watch Cat’s rebirth as a new creature and to see her wings unfurl, carrying her high soaring into the heavens.

He was close, riding on the heels of Cat’s orgasm, holding back and letting his build and build, giving her time to find her completion before he sought his own. Only then, did he close his eyes, knowing she was watching him and coaxing him there to the place where there was nobody or nothing but the two of them together. He came on a shout and a roar, holding her clutched tightly against him with the palms of his hands digging into the tops of her thighs and arms trembling. He filled her and felt the warm gush roll down his length in a thick torrent.

Cat had never seen a man orgasm before. Christian’s face contorted as if he were in incredible pain. She blushed as he cried out her name and there was the frantic bucking of hips, the bones crashing furiously into her thighs, and then the calm after the storm. He relaxed beneath her, lazily cocking one eye open and peeking at her through the veil of his lashes. She was still seated on him, his length softer than before, but trapped in the depths of her. Christian reached up and cupped her cheek, using his long nimble fingers to find the corner of her jaw and reach around to the back of her neck, drawing her into his chest and the shelter of his arms.

She smiled and nuzzled down into the incredible warmth of him, using her hair as a blanket to cover them both. He toyed with the ends of her hair, curling it around his fingers. Cat giggled, a silly sounding feminine noise bubbling up from her throat, and tried to snatch back a length of her hair. He swatted her hand away and wound the strands up tighter around his fingers. He was bruised and the tops of his shoulders and thighs riddled with scratches, but he didn’t seem to care. She dragged her tongue over the gauges on his right shoulder, tasting the saltiness of his sweat and the coppery tang of his blood. “OW!” he playfully grumbled in protest.

She nipped the end of her finger and ran the bead of blood over the scratches, marveling at the speed in which her blood could heal. Pressing the bleeding tip to his lips, she watched his tongue snake out to capture the drop.

Christian tasted Cat’s blood on the tip of his tongue. He should be utterly repulsed, but instead was intensely aroused. She was taking care of him. He felt the itch of his skin knitting back together healing the scratches and the tingle as his bruises faded to pale pink. She was a miracle. There was no part of her from the top of her head to the soles of her feet that was not extraordinary. She claimed she needed no protection. He could see why so many people went to such lengths to keep her safe. She was special and gifts like the ones she possessed so rare. Cupping her hand in his palm, he pressed her fingertips to his lips. He would do likewise. Do whatever it took to keep her safe.

Cat eased her body off of Christian’s and cuddled in the crook of his arm. Tugging at his chest hairs and earning a grumble of amused dissension from him, she kissed her way up to his lips. He was human and as such more fragile and breakable than any of her kind. He would need her protection if he were to survive in this strange new world in which he had been unwillingly thrust. Nobody would understand why she had chosen someone incapable of protecting her. She couldn’t list the reasons why herself. Maybe, though it was that for once someone needed her worse than she needed them. In giving her the freedom to fend for herself. He was protecting her from the tomb of her sheltered life. With him, she felt she truly could change the world and this little corner of it that was hers was the best place to start.











Chapter 55

Ray retreated to the only safe place a sexually frustrated and heartbroken wolf trapped in the city and surrounded by vampires could go. He went to the gym with the misguided idea that he could sweat Tom out of his system. Vampires didn’t necessarily need to work out. They were kind of stuck with the body they had at the moment they…died.

Maybe, it was kind of a selective thing. If you weren’t attractive, you weren’t in the club and you most certainly could never hope to hold the market on immortality.

He had seen short vampires, and tall ones, but he had never seen an ugly, old, or fat vampire in his life. Most vampires had a beauty, a sort of preternatural grace, about them. Something in the gleam of their eyes that drew a person to them and left you standing there helpless in their presence. All hunters were equipped with some kind of an edge in which they could capture the prey. For the vampire, it was the external…the beauty, so raw and wild that was just a part of them.

The Guardians had a nice set up as far as gyms went. There was a bank of treadmills lining one wall and a sweet sparring ring in the center of the room. A series of ropes and ladders trailed high up the walls to challenge balance and feats of acrobatic grace. Ray wasn’t in the mood and didn’t have the concentration to try his hand at swinging like a chimp from the frayed end of a rope. He had already made an ass out of himself and wasn’t about to compound the error.

A long run on the treadmill, mindless and exhausting, suited him fine. He stripped off his t-shirt and wiped his palms on his jeans. Choosing the highest setting the treadmill had to offer, he didn’t bother with a warm up. He went for it full bore, panting and sweating, running as if he could run away from the lingering memory of that kiss. What would Tom say? Would he even remember? Did Ray want him to forget and spare them both the shame and embarrassment? Ray was angry, not with Tom, but with himself for showing his deepest vulnerability and unfortunately, his most sincere regret.

Who the fuck was he kidding? He didn’t regret it. Tom was upstairs sleeping it off. Tom wouldn’t remember shit. Ray would. Forever. His muscles burned from the effort of keeping his legs pumping at such a furious pace. Sweat poured off the ends of his hair and trickled down his neck. He could kill something right now. Wring the life out of someone with his bare hands. Rend and tear, bury his muzzle in the warm flesh of his prey and lap up the red torrent of life to swallow it down his throat.

Carter watched Ray pound himself in to a pulp. He doubted the treadmill would outlast the man so determined to run himself into the ground. It was so difficult to watch R.J. without seeing him as the innocuously adorable round-eyed toddler he had been the last time Carter had set eyes on him. Ray was a man tortured by things he so desperately wanted, but could not have. Perhaps, Ray had inherited something from him after all.

Carter strode across the gym and pulled the plug on the treadmill, practically throwing Ray from the belt with the machine’s sudden lurching stop. Ray cursed and glared at Carter. What the hell? Ray gripped the treadmill’s safety bar in his fist. The metal groaned from the force of his hands. “What the fuck!” He shook his head, flinging droplets of sweat on the fine silk of Carter’s shirt. The vampire fucktard stood there so cool and stoic, breaking him down with that icy blue stare. “You want your ass kicked or what?”

Carter handed R.J. a towel and brushed at the droplets of sweat on his shirt, making a messy smear into the fabric. Ray stood on the elevated platform of the treadmill, glowering down at him as he scrubbed the towel across his clenched jaw. Carter lifted a brow. This pup could not kick his ass and was a fool to even think it. “You know, if you want to commit suicide, there are easier ways.”

“Fuck off,” Ray barked. He tossed his sweaty towel at Carter’s face. Carter said nothing, but caught the towel before it hit him. Ray leapt off the treadmill and stormed toward the locker room. The last thing he needed was the slightest bit of care and concern from the friendly neighborhood prince of darkness. He paused mid stride, feeling the weight of Carter’s stare between his shoulder blades. “You ever been in love, Vampire?”

Carter chuckled at R.J.’s question. Had he been in love? Every day of his life

since the boy’s mother had come careening with the grace of a freight train into it. “That is something I would not wish on my worst enemy.” It seemed R.J. had inherited something else from him as well after all. “Love is a fool’s errand, son. A fool’s errand.”

“Why do you think we do it? Fall in love, I mean.” Ray scrubbed his hands through his sweat soaked hair and felt a twinge of regret for being so hateful to Carter. He guessed his anger need an outlet and Carter had made himself readily available. Carter stood there, cool and unfettered, contemplating his answer before he drew breath to speak. “The whole thing is so stupid. I mean…you can’t help who you love, can you?”