20 Take You Home

"Tell me and I'll kiss you," Ash said.

Hunter tugged at her hands and inched his face closer to hers, smiling playfully.

"I'll tell you everything and then I'll kiss you," he said, challenging her.

Ash pushed her cheek against his, avoiding his lips. And then she whispered in his ear,

"Tell me everything and I might let you."

Hunter liked the game she was playing. He didn't know the rules yet, but he was willing to find out.

"Okay, deal," he said, smiling, into her ear.

Ash didn't pull back. She stayed where she was and rubbed her cheek against his.

"Go on. Tell me," she said.

Hunter swallowed. The contact was making him feel unbearably warm inside. He wanted so badly to just kiss her and drown in the warmth.

"You ran away from me, in your werewolf form, and then you fell. I didn't see you, but I knew you weren't far away. So I looked around a bit and tried to see what you were running away from. But it was just me.

"I went to a tree and saw your clothes there. You must have shifted at the tree and then gone to hunt the deer. I didn't see anything else, so I went back to the deer and I ate it. And then I went up to you and you were on the ground. You were a human again."

Ash pulled her cheek away from his face and looked into his eyes.

"My clothes were at the tree? So when you saw me again, I was naked?"

" . . . Yes. You weren't wearing anything."

"You saw me NAKED."

"Yes."

Ash fell back and sat on her heels. She let go of Hunter's hands. She put her hands up, palms facing forward, signaling Hunter not to touch her.

Just like that, the game was over.

Hunter paused and tried again.

"It's normal, ba---Boots," he said, catching himself just before he called her "babe" again.

[Damn it. I almost called her "babe" again. Can't have her punching me in the face twice in one night. I'll be breathing through a tube at this rate.]

"You must have wrecked your uniform when you shifted, that's why it was at the tree. And when you went back into human form you weren't wearing leathers, so you came out . . . you know . . . without clothes on."

"So that's what the leather is for? For the shifting?"

Ash eyed Hunter's crumpled leather vest on the floor. Hunter followed her gaze to his vest and he reached over to pick it up. He held the vest up in front of her.

"Yeah, it's organic leather. It's all one piece and sewn together with organic leather thread. It's custom-made for me.

"Organic leather is the only thing we can shift in and out with. The leather works with the werewolf skin and just sort of melts in to it and sort of turns into part of the skin. Everything else we've tried just rips apart. Organic cotton kinda works too, but only a little bit. It's tricky, so we just stick to the leather, even if the material doesn't really breathe.

"I know it looks like a fetish outfit, but that's the best we've come up with so far. The alternative is just stripping down and going naked. Which is actually kind of fun, but it isn't great for when you're out in the world. The exposure alone could kill you."

"We? Who's 'we'? Are there others like us?" Ash asked eagerly.

He was still holding the vest up, so she couldn't see his eyes as he talked. Ash put her hands over his hands, pushing them down to lower the garment he held up between them.

Hunter met Ash's eyes briefly and then he looked down.

"I'm not supposed to tell you, but yes. My family. My father and my grandfather are werewolves too. The men in our line are all descended from werewolves."

"Does your mother know?"

"Yes. My mother and my grandmother know. Well, my grandmother knew. She passed a long time ago, but I know she knew. They were gypsies. They knew everything."

Hunter felt Ash pulling her hands back from his. It was hurting something inside of him to feel that she was pulling away, but he couldn't understand why that was. Every other little thing she did when they were together seemed to be pulling strings inside of him, making him feel things he couldn't quite understand.

Ash folded her hands in her lap and stared at her fingers. Her shoulders visibly went up as she took a huge breath.

"I don't know if I'm descended from anything. I didn't really know my mother nor my father. Maybe they were werewolves too," she said sadly.

"I'm sorry, Boots."

Ash reached out her hand and patted his knee.

"No, it's all right. It happened a long time ago. It couldn't be helped," she said, giving him a wan smile.

Hunter noticed that Ash was a very tactile person. She didn't seem to think twice about touching him when they talked or when she was trying to make a point. He liked it, he liked it every time he could feel her touching him.

Now he could feel her sadness in a way that affected him directly. He didn't just feel for her like he would for a stranger with a sad story: he felt how she felt, exactly as she felt it. It was like her feelings had seeped under his skin, and he was feeling her pain for himself. He felt tears well up in his eyes even though he wasn't sad at all.

[We have a really strong connection between us. Is this what it means to pair bond?] Hunter wondered as he felt the alien sadness filling up his senses.

"I've told you everything now," he said to her.

He didn't know what else to say, and so he spoke just to fill the silence.

She looked up at him, unshed tears building up in her eyes. She ran a finger across her eyelid and flicked away an imaginary tear. Then she gave a small, soft laugh.

"I should kiss you then."

Ash reached out with her right hand and grasped the back of Hunter's neck. Her fingers pressed gently into the skin on his nape, tangling with the hair on the back of his head and her thumb rested lightly just behind his ear. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Hunter's slightly parted mouth. He was surprised, then he closed his eyes and pressed back against her soft lips.

They stayed that way for a moment, lips simply pressed together, unmoving. And then they both took a breath at the same time, nearly gasping as if they'd both run out of breath together.

Ash could feel Hunter's pulse beneath her palm. Her own heartbeat seemed to match his rhythm. When she felt him inhale at the same time she did, she felt a surge of blue lightning go through her body.

She grasped Hunter's nape with both hands and climbed into his lap, straddling him. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her neck and the other hand holding her by the small of her back.

They moaned against each other's mouths, grinding their bodies against each other. Ash ran her hands over the front of Hunter's shirt, feeling his chest, then grasped his broad shoulders and dug her fingers into the muscles there. Hunter ran his hands down Ash's sides over her white shirt, tracing the curves of her breasts with his fingertips.

Hunter felt the warmth inside him spread all over his body. He wanted to trace his fingers all over Ash's warm skin. He wanted to push her on her back and take her on the dusty floor of the back building. He needed her to say yes to him. He wanted her to say yes to everything his body wanted from her.

Ash traced a line of kisses from Hunter's lips down his jaw and on to his neck. She was so warm, it felt like her fever had returned. She grazed her teeth on the skin of Hunter's neck, causing him to throw his head back and inhale sharply through his nose. As Ash closed her teeth around the skin at his collarbone, Hunter responded with a low growling moan from his throat.

He took Ash's face in his hands and planted a wet kiss on her lips, running his tongue all around the inside of her mouth.

Then he pulled away just enough so that the tips of their noses were barely touching.

"I want to take you home," he said to her, breathless.

Their faces were flushed and they stared into each other's eyes as they both struggled to catch their breath.

***

Deep in the woods, a dark shadow carrying a single drop of werewolf blood was making it's way deep into the earth.