“Why take animal form at all if it’s dangerous? I can see it doesn’t take the moon cycle to change you.
If you control the change by your own willpower, why not always stay human?”
“Why do you have green eyes or brown hair?” he countered. “It’s what we are. To deny that aspect of ourselves is to not fully live. Like a dancer who’s crippled or a gay who’s afraid to leave the closet.
Understand?” As he stared into her bright, sharp eyes, he wanted her to understand.
She nodded. “Yeah, I guess I get that.”
Another wave of that terrible yearning to have her washed over him. The feeling was nearly uncontrollable as if it came from outside himself. He wanted to grab her and drag her up against him, kiss her hard and then fuck her harder.
John bent to scoop his discarded shirt from the floor and put it on, shielding his burning skin from her roaming gaze. “Any more questions?”
“What do you do when you’re not prowling around the woods or kidnapping women?”
“I have a sporting goods shop in town.”
Sherrie laughed then clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s just so…surreal, so bizarre.
You’re a real Clark Kent.”
“Except I never get to be Superman,” he reminded her. “I can run pretty fast as a wolf, but I can’t stop a city bus and lift it over my head.”
She smiled and her eyes crinkled at the corners. She had a dimple in each cheek that invited a kiss.
“I’d like you, if you weren’t keeping me a prisoner.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but only for a short while. When the Council decides what to do, we’ll leave here. This cabin was just a place to go where I could break the news to you, ah, gently.”
“Real gentle, knocking me to the ground and slobbering into my face.” She rubbed her shoulder.
He noticed she didn’t mention his dry-humping her. “Sorry about that.” Her dimples disappeared and a frown creased her brow. “What does it feel like? The change and being a…a wolf?”
John closed his eyes and inhaled as he tried to think of a way to describe it. The rich bacon smell tickled his nose and whet his appetite, but the subtler smell of the woman standing before him filled his senses and hunger raged through him.
“Like having a bandage ripped off and feeling air on a raw wound. Fully alive and painfully real.”
“Sounds awful.”
He shook his head and opened his eyes to look into hers again. “It’s the greatest pleasure I know.”
“Better than sex?” Her eyebrows shot up.
“Well…a different category of pleasure.”
“So, you and your people all live in this town and you only have sex with your own kind. Don’t you get a little inbred?”
He was amused by her open curiosity and ridiculously turned on every time she said the word sex.
“There are other packs living other places. Sometimes we have to search far away to find a mate.
You’re right. It’s not as easy as going down to the local bar and picking up some girl for the night like humans do. Not when many of the women in town are your cousins.”
“Why not just do it with a human chick? I mean, the body parts fit together the same way, don’t they?”
“Yes. Some shifters do that for quick relief. I don’t choose to.” He was starting to sweat and he stepped away from the hot plate. Her questions were making him think of things he didn’t need to be thinking about when his body was already so sensitized and ready to mate.
Food. Focus on food and getting it into her mouth so she’d stop talking.
“Why don’t you get some bread out? We can’t toast it, but we can have it with the bacon and eggs.” Sherrie pulled slices of limp bread from the bag that was crushed from landing on the floor. “What about food? You don’t eat raw meat?”
“No.” He removed the bacon from the pan and broke the eggs into it in quick succession.
“But when you’re…in that other form, you eat rabbits and squirrels and mice?”
“Yes.” He had to step close to her to get a couple of chipped and dusty plates from the cupboard above her head. It was a mistake. When he inhaled the scent of her hair and her warm skin, fresh arousal surged through him.
John slapped the plates on the counter and the bacon and eggs onto the plates. He thrust one at her.
“Here.”
“What’s the matter? Am I embarrassing you? Well, it could be worse. I could have knocked you unconscious and dragged you somewhere against your will.” His patience and his control were at a breaking point.
“Go ahead and eat. I’ll be outside.” John stalked toward the door.