“I smelled gold on you the first time we met,” I said, and my voice was hoarse.
“Impossible.” He managed to put one furred hand on my side so he could see the golden fur against my skin. He was growing softer with the wonder of it all, or the exhaustion, or the shock, and was able to spill out of me. The movement made us both writhe. When we could talk again, he said, “No one has four forms.”
“You do,” I said, and laid my hand against the swell of his pectorals. They’d been nice in human form, but everything got bigger in the beast-man form. He looked like a bodybuilder in this body. It made me wonder what some of the other wereanimals at home who were serious bodybuilders must look like in beast-man form. It was unusual to have sex in half-form, so I didn’t usually get this close.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
I moved my gaze from his chest to his face, that strangely attractive mix of human and cat. I said the only thing that I could say in that moment. “That you are beautiful.”
It made him do that cat grin, drawing back to flash teeth that could have torn me to bits. He drew me into his arms, his fur the driest thing in the bed. I’d never understood why the liquid from the shapeshift gets everything else wet and leaves the fur dry. “I’ll get you all messy,” I said.
“It’s my mess,” he whispered, and he drew me into the warm, dry, circle of his body, while I was still covered in the thick, cooling liquid. He hugged me to him, and I had to snuggle down to find that point where I could rest under his arm, against his chest, against his stomach, and vaguely against the rest of him, but it wasn’t about sex now, it was about comfort. He held me to him, held me close, and began to shake. It took me a moment to realize Ethan was crying.
I petted the fur and muscle of him, so tall now, so strong, able to tear me limb from limb without a thought, but all that big body clung to me. He clung to me and cried and I held him, my hands petting him, soothing him. I didn’t ask why he was crying; it didn’t matter what sorrow he was weeping out against my body, against the damp sheets, it only mattered that I held him and told him that it would be all right.
25
BEFORE I COULD go off crime solving I had to shower. I was covered nearly head to foot in thick, clear goop. I’d learned from past experience that it dried fast and became very tacky, very quickly. I didn’t even want to put clean clothes over the mess of it, let alone explain to the other cops what it was, and why I was covered in it, which was why I was in the shower when Ethan knocked on the door of the bathroom.
“Anita,” he called; his deeper voice must have been lost in the rush of water the first time, because he said my name again, and knocked louder. “Anita!”
I turned off the water, grabbed a towel to wipe my face, and got my Smith & Wesson from the little shelf in the back of the shower. That shelf’s supposed to keep soap from getting wet while you shower, but my soap could take its chances; some of the smaller handguns actually fit just fine there.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, towel in one hand, gun in the other. Depending on his answer I’d know if I had time to wrap my hair up.
“There’s a marshal at the door. I can’t answer the door like this.”
He was still in half-man form, and he was absolutely right. Wereanimals were legal citizens with a health issue, but to police they were a walking, talking public safety hazard. Some cops would shoot first and let God and the paperwork sort it all out later.
I called, “I’m coming.” I put the gun back on the shelf so I could wrap my hair up in the towel. Then I got the second towel and wrapped it around my body. I didn’t take time to dry much either. I did not want some overzealous fellow marshal to get a glimpse of a weretiger through a drape edge and think he had to save me. Having someone shoot Ethan, or my having to shoot another cop to save him, would have all kinds of suck on it.
With the towel secured, and my left hand on top of it just in case, I was as decent as I was going to get without taking time to throw on clothes. My modesty wasn’t worth Ethan getting shot.
I was toweled and gunned as I came out of the bathroom. “Get in the bathroom,” I said.
He blinked those blue and gold eyes at me. “Am I hiding?”
“No, just out of sight until I explain that you’re a good guy to the other marshal.”
Ethan did that cat smile again, a drawing back from the teeth. “Am I a good guy?”
I took the time to smile at him, as someone knocked very solidly on the door. “Of course you are.” I used the gun to motion him toward the bathroom. He did what I wanted, bending down to get under the doorway. As the door closed behind him, I went to the door. I called out, “Who is it?”