Fulfillment 07

"Did you want to go?"

"No. I don't think so."

Ariel smiles to herself. Ah, the misunderstanding between sexes. "So, he didn't ask and you're mad he didn't even if you didn't want to go anyway." Joanna looks at her mother and pulls a face.

"Yeah."

Ariel laughs. "Mom! It isn't funny."

"Sweetie, males think differently than we do. You need to get used to it. In his mind if you're going to say no and he knows that then there's no reason to ask. Of course, it is possible the party was planned for family only and that you weren't invited."

"I guess."

"Alright, then, what about your essay?"

He feels her wake, recognizing the difference in her breathing. He whispers in her ear. "This is nice." He's spooned up behind her, holding her. He feels lazy, content.

"MMmm." She makes a noise of agreement.

"Lyssa. What did you mean when you said you couldn't give me pups?"

She tenses and her chest starts to heave. "Em." He waits, his breath warm in her ear. "It's been a couple of years. Maybe, maybe I can't."

"Sweetheart, we have plenty of time."

"You were so disappointed the last time. You think it should have happened by now."

"I'll be happy when it does happen. But we don't need to worry about it. You've seen that females don't catch every time they have an estrus cycle."

"I've come into heat seven times, Em, seven. Natalie couldn't tell me yes or no. Maybe because I was changed, cuz I wasn't born wolf..." Her voice gets rough. "Are you sorry I agreed to mate you? Can you mate someone else?"

He takes a minute, thinking carefully of how to answer her. "I don't want to mate anyone else. And, one day, I'll feel a pup kicking in your belly. My pup. Ours." He takes a breath. "It won't happen on your next heat, though. Too much has happened. Your injuries alone, so close to estrus.."

"Michael Ross." Her voice is full of venom. "There needs to be some sort of committee, a council or something, to oversee some things for the packs. He shouldn't be able to get away with it just because he's an Alpha. And Joanna. He was gonna rape and mate her. No female should be forced to be someone's mate against her will."

"You're asking for a lot, Lys. The packs are run independently and wouldn't take well to someone else telling them what to do. And the mating bite starts the female's estrus cycle. She'd have to be paired with someone."

"Sure, why not keep everything the same way, the way it's always been?" She's up on one elbow, looking down at him. "Would you want that for your daughter?"

Her mouth quirks to a slight smile as a growl leaves her lips. "Different when it's your family, isn't it? How do the widowed females handle it? There are ways, you just don't want to think about it. I know I'm a minority here, but some things need to be changed. The world isn't static; it's changed around you. The pack shouldn't stand still."

"You're going against generations of pack law. Hundreds of years of indoctrination. It's not that easy."

"Really? What have you asked me to change? And who jumped out of that window to keep me away from Thomas?" He looks up at her, she was right. "How strong was your indoctrination then, huh? It's not that you can't change, you just need a good reason to change."

He lays there, considering. They had been ready to hand her over to Thomas because they thought he had mated her. It was against her will. And, though it pained him to do it, because of her, he had taken her, left his pack, and run.

"Randall took me back."

She looks at him. "Yes. Is that normal? Would it have happened in the 'old' days?"

His eyes flick up to her and Lyssa sees surprise and shock there. His reply is low, quiet. "No." He swallows. "Absolute obedience to the Alpha. That's the way it's always been. To disobey risks punishment, or worse."

She touches his face. "Don't tell me you can't change. It's already happened. You don't live out in the wilds. You do business with human beings, live with them, help them sometimes. You've changed with the times, you just don't think about it. It's been slow enough that you didn't notice. And, why? Because you care about something, like staying alive. Or someone, like me. Or Randall and Ariel for you."

"I want Michael punished, you want him punished and you, we can't, because of a pack law, a pack consensus. You already work together, mingle, this would just make it a formal thing."

"We, Lys. Don't keep saying 'you.' You're every bit a part of the pack, part of our lives. You aren't some outsider. When you were taken we weren't just looking for Joanna, we were looking for both our pack members."

She pauses, looking at him. "I'm hungry," she says as she sits up and swings her legs over the side. "Can we eat and keep talking? If you want to keep talking..."

What he really wanted was to make love to her for the next three days. But, he realizes as he looks at her back, her hunger was a good thing. And so was the talking.

They quietly put dinner together. Roasted pork loin, potatoes, onions, carrots. After the food goes into the oven, Lyssa starts hunting for something in the supplies.

"What are you looking for?"

"I'd kill for some coffee."

"Beans in the freezer, sweetheart."

Lyssa pulls out the coffee beans as he pulls the grinder from the box. She inhales deeply, "Oh, god," as she dumps some into the grinder. Lyssa taps the ground beans into the coffeemaker and starts it.

Emmett stands behind her, places his hands on her shoulders and runs them down her arms. He brushes his lips against her hair.

She twists, puts her arms around his waist and her head against his chest. He now puts his arms around her and holds her, close to him.

They stand that way quietly as water drips through the coffee grounds and into the pot below. As the last drop falls, she turns away and he releases her. She finds a couple of coffee cups and, filling them both, hands him one. Taking a deep draught, she swallows, "Oooh, that's good."

He takes her free hand. "Let's watch the movie, huh?"

She sits beside him as he starts the movie over, fast-forwarding to the awakening scene. She sips the coffee. The smell of roasting pork fills the cabin.

As they sit to eat Lyssa says, "Simon really made sure we had enough, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he's got a good idea of how much we'd need."

She takes a bite of the pork. "Mm, that's good."

"I think it's from our new supplier."

"Oh. Do we have anything sweet?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't look through everything."

He watches as she eats well and drinks the coffee she'd made. As they finish and clear the table, she pours another cup for both of them then digs through the supplies. Chips. Drinks. Canned goods. Pasta. "Aha!"

Triumphantly, she holds up a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

Setting them on the counter, she wanders over to dry the dishes he's washed. That done, she takes the cookies and coffee to the couch and sits. He joins her, picking up the remote. "Ready?"

She nods.

The movie picks up again as the darkness falls around them. The evening, the time is more relaxed than it had been between them in several days. The movie ends and he starts the sequel. Somewhere along the line, even with the coffee, she falls asleep, sliding sideways and leaning against him.

He sits, enjoying the closeness, enjoying her warmth, not really watching the movie, until his eyelids grow heavy. He turns everything off and pulls her into his lap. She murmurs pleasantly and turns into him.

Emmett carries his mate to the bed and lays her in it. He shucks his clothes and crawls in beside her.

It was odd, lying beside his clothed mate, but he wasn't sure she'd want him to disrobe her. She had seemed better this afternoon. The question was, would it last?

He lies and worries and falls asleep with her scent in his nose.

Joanna lies in her bed, a bit miffed, but inhaling Nathan's scent where it lingered.

Last night had been so nice. She was growing comfortable sleeping with him but, the other thing?

He had touched her, made her feel...weird...good...strange but...

So, she thought of what he'd done, how he'd touched her, and she felt a little thrill go through her. It had made her moan, and squirm, and yell. And she couldn't stop herself. It was a little scary.

Her hands had strayed to her boobs. Maybe, maybe she should figure it out.

Lyssa had said something about masturbating, that she had to have done it. Well, she hadn't, she never saw the point. After all, wasn't that the kind of thing a male was supposed to do?

But her hands moved and she touched her boobs through her t-shirt.

The tips were already in little points, hard and sensitive. The rest of them didn't feel anywhere near as much as the tips. She pressed on them, then rolled them around a little with the pads of her fingers. That felt good. And she scraped her fingernails across them, still over the t-shirt. Weird. That felt good, too. The t-shirt was new, and kinda heavy, and, as she tried to grab her nips with two fingers, they slipped away. Even that felt pretty good.

And she felt herself beginning to get wet, down below, and she thought about touching herself there, like he did. And she figured she could find everything by touch but she'd never really looked there, and maybe she should. After all, it was hers. It wasn't often but she had seen males licking their mates there. She should really see what they were looking at.

So, she got a hand mirror and propped it up against a pillow. She waited, and listened, and got nervous. So she shoved a chair under her doorknob. Most rooms in the den didn't have locks as everyone respected other's privacy, when they wanted it.

She settles back on the bed, with the mirror pointed at her crotch, and feeling kinda silly. She takes a big breath and looks. Fur, curly light brown hair, on top, and trailing around down the sides on the way to her butthole. She spreads her legs wider. She knew enough about biology to know they were called lips, or labia. And her little clitty was there, too.

Tentatively, she touches herself. The lips are soft, and warm, and look a little red and swollen. There is a slick, sticky fluid on the inner ones. She touches it and brings her fingers up to her face. Sniff. Kinda musky, kinda like her. Huh.

She thinks about licking her fingers but decides against it. She peed from down there.

So, she uses her fingers, opening up her lips, looking at herself a little more closely. There was a triangle at the top with a little nub in the middle. She touches it, then presses on it, then strokes across it. Mmm. The clitoris.

Last thing. Vagina. Where the male stuck his penis. There was an opening down there. As she looks more closely she sees there are a couple of holes, but certainly nothing big enough to put a penis in. She prods with her finger, it was kindof springy. Luna, a finger wouldn't even fit.

Right there, where there should be a hole, was a membrane. She had a hymen. And it would hurt when it broke.

Now she was a little more scared of what would happen her first time. Maybe, maybe, she should talk to Natalie about it.

As she pulls her fingers away, she strokes across her clit. Oh. A small jolt runs to her center.

Well, she decides, let's see if I can do it myself. So, she kicks the pillow and mirror off the back of the bed and settles back against her pillow, her hand between her legs.

Joanna strokes, touches, and feels her way. After stroking her lips a few times and feeling the wetness rise again, she exhales, puts her fingers on her little clitty, and begins to rub.

She starts slowly, rubbing lightly, in rather wide circles. It feels good but, so far, nothing like what Nathan had managed.

There's more juice, more liquid coming from her, and that feeling is kinda weird too. She discovers it feels better when she has some on her fingers, so she gathers more and, with little vibrating motions, rubs at the nub at the top of her thighs.

She feels her muscles start to tighten up as she rubs and, with a bit more work, she groans, feeling a couple of pulses at her opening.

She falls back, panting, and a little disappointed.

As she pulls the covers up and yawns she thinks, it was nowhere as good as what Nathan had done.

Emmett feels the mattress shift and listens intently to see what she was up to. Would she try to run again?

A trip to the bathroom then he hears her settle on the couch. [Sweetheart, are you alright?]

[Yeah. I'm good.]

[Then come back to bed.]

[I think it would be better if I stayed here.]

He rises and walks into the other room where she's lying on the couch and looking uncomfortable. He crouches next to her and brushes the hair from her face. "You're going to be uncomfortable here and I won't sleep either. Come back to bed."

Her eyes open and her dark eyes look into his. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"Lys, you haven't had a nightmare tonight. I want you in the bed with me."

She blinks. "Em, I could have killed you last night. I don't ... I'm gonna stay here."

So, he throws another log on the fire and lays down on the floor before the couch. She rolls onto her back and sighs. "Em, you don't have to..."

"Mate. My place is with you. I sleep with you."

Tears well up in her eyes and she sniffles. After a couple of minutes he sits up, slides his arms under her, and pulls her down onto the floor with him. Pulled on top of him, he strokes her back. She sniffles and he feels her tears against his chest as he continues to hold her close. Her breathing slows, the sniffling stops, and she falls asleep on top of him.