Howl for Me (2 page)

I nodded. The oldness of all these things – of the wolves and their politics and their packs – it was humbling. It’s like looking up at the stars on a clear night and realizing that every, single point of light is a sun that might have another planet, just like ours around it, and that planet might have people, just like us, living there.

“There,” Poko said. “Almost done. Show Lily.”

Damon turned to me, and I almost lost my breath. The thin lines on his forehead, four of which extended to his eyebrows, were almost regal. They conveyed such gravity, such power, and so perfectly framed his already gorgeous face, that it made me a little wobbly in the knees. Good thing I was already on the ground.

The lines on his chin followed the powerful sweep of his jaw, and somehow made him even more rugged, more stunning, than he was before. They had such a sense of place, of being, and of tradition, that it took my breath away.

“You two look a lot alike,” I said, noticing it, just as I opened my mouth.

Poko chuckled.

“It’s just the lines,” he said. “We’re almost done. Which is good, because my old bones are starting to ache.”

He turned Damon’s head to one side, and wet his knife, again, in ink. Along the curve of his cheek bone went the gentle tapping that drew drops of blood with each stroke. By now, Damon had numbed himself to the pain. No longer bothering to clench my hand, he just curled his fingers between mine, and turned his eyes to me, warming me with his gaze.

When he next turned to me, as Poko stood up and leaned left, then right, popping his ancient back, there were two thick, black lines that curled under Damon’s eyes and down the lines of his cheekbones, with two flourishes on either side.

“They’re... beautiful,” I said.

It sounded stupid even as I said it, but I couldn’t think of any other way to express myself.

“So delicate. So...”

Poko laughed. “You will not think them so delicate, soon. Both of you keep applying this poultice to your markings. The ink will make them very angry, if you do not.”

Absent mindedly, I touched the circles on my forearm, and was surprised to find them a little hot, even though the paste had cooled my skin.

“It’s the ink,” he said. “The way it’s made can be very irritating, if it isn’t treated.”

As he spoke, the old man seemed to go a little limp, and then started to collapse. If Damon hadn’t acted as quickly as he did, catching Poko in his arms, he certainly would have fallen.

“What happened?” Damon asked. “Are you okay?”

Poko coughed, and then nodded.

“Just tired,” he said. “The candle of my life grows short. And now that I have you, I can rest easy. I suppose this old body, and these old bones, are starting to realize that they’re not needed anymore. They’re starting to relax, whether or not I wish them to do so.”

His coughing turned to a gentle laugh.

“But that’s something for old men to worry about. You two you should go celebrate.”

Poko’s white eyes settled on me. For a second, I thought back to months before, when seeing his eyes freaked me out. Now, though, he was just another part of my life.

And he was
really
eyeing me.

“Go,” he said. “Go celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” Damon said, as I pulled him toward the mouth of the cave. “What do we have to celebrate? The markings?”

Poko chuckled softly. “Yes,” he said. “The ceremony – go celebrate. And I’m sure there are other things too.”

I looked back, and he gave me a look that said he knew a lot more than he was letting on.

“Celebrate that, and everything else. You two have a lot to live for. More than you know.”

“More than we...” I fell silent and relaxed the confused scrunch of my eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

Poko’s only answer was a thin smile.

Of course it was.

––––––––

T
he sweetness of Damon’s lips was sublime.

After a day like the one we had, I expected him to collapse, or at least need some rest, but nope. Not my Damon. It was hard not to smile at how hungrily he attacked me, as soon as the screen door slapped shut, and we were inside, safe from the strange desert cold.

I hardly had time to throw my beanie on the table, before he kissed me once, then again –deep and hard – and slid his kiss down the left side of my mouth to my cheek, and then against the side of my neck. Damon’s hot breath drew a quavering sigh from my half-opened mouth.

When he came back and sucked my bottom lip between his teeth, and I got my tongue wrapped around his, everything about him – his breath, his essence, his taste – filled me with tingling warmth I could hardly handle.

Damon grabbed my hips, holding me tight against his heated skin. I felt his tightness, his hardness, against my stomach, thrilling me with the promise of what was to come. I’m not exactly the best at not letting my imagination run away with me, and especially when it relates to Damon.

“I love you,” he said, kissing me again. “I love you more than anything. When Poko was saying all that stuff about our trials, and how hard our life would be, I couldn’t think of anything but how much I wanted to keep you safe. How the most important thing in the world to me is you.”

Trying to tug at the second button on Damon’s collar got him to do the same to mine, except he got me three buttons down, while I was still working on number two. He flattened his hand against my chest, pressing the wolf-fang pendant he’d given me, all those months ago, into my skin.

By the time his shirt was off, and he whipped his undershirt off over his head, and his long, brown hair cascaded across his bare, scarred shoulder, I was ready for anything he could have possibly done to me.

He grabbed my hips and lifted me off the ground, and I wrapped my legs around him – that tantalizing thickness pressed against my sweetest, softest place.

“You’re quite a catch, Damon,” I said, gasping, as he pushed himself against me. Just about then, my eagerness hit a boiling point. “How do you keep doing this to me?”

My sex tingled, clenching and releasing as his strokes got harder, longer and more intense against my body. He pressed me against the wall of our house.

Our house
. Just thinking it still got my head reeling.

The textured wall scratched against the bare skin, between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans. The pressure between my legs had me almost gasping for air, when he finally pinned me there, and damn near ripped my shirt in half getting it off.

“I keep doing it to you,” He paused to plant another kiss underneath my ear. “Because, you keep doing it to me. You’re all I can think about, all day long, Lily. You and me and... and this.”

His hands under my shirt made the skin on my back prickle. Seconds later, when the pleasure wrapped around my stomach and crept up my chest, my nipples stiffened inside my bra.

“Feels so good,” I moaned, as he traced my jaw with the tip of his tongue. “I’m so... so...”

Damon’s skilled fingers curling against my back interrupted me, reduced my voice to a low groan – a mix of desire and longing, begging, and wishing.

I had my eyes closed, when he unbuttoned my jeans and slid his down, somehow, not letting me off the wall, not even for a moment. His strength, his heat, pressed against me. He stoked a fire in my core so hot it could have melted iron. Or melted me, as the case may be.

My whole body was liquid for Damon – every inch of me ready for his love.

He twitched against me, hot on my thigh, and then the next moment, he shoved my panties aside, and we were one. Moving deep, so achingly deep, Damon made me feel things I had barely realized were possible, until we were together. Since then? I felt them more than any one person should have the right.

I drew a breath, and held it in. I clenched my fists in his hair, and I scraped up and down the wall, the texturing pleasing and hot and scratchy against my skin. It was the kind of pain that’s just sweet and good enough, that after the first couple passes, it turns to warm, pleasured heat.

“It’s a really good thing you’re holding me up,” I said, both laughing and moaning, at the same time. “If I had to stand up, I’d be in a giant heap right now.”

I let my hands slide down Damon’s muscled back, my fingers curling and trembling, as he drove me ever closer to the edge.

“Scratch me,” he groaned. “Scratch so... So good... Oh my God, Lily – just like that. I love it when you scratch those white hot tracks down me.”

Digging my short nails into his shoulders, I gripped Damon as hard and as tight as I possibly could, squeezing my legs around him, and urging him as deep as can be. He shuddered, and I felt his heart beating, faster and faster, against my chest.

A bead of sweat that started on his temple, made its way down his perfect face, and slid along one of the new lines on his chin, before disappearing between our smashed-together bodies. At exactly the same instant, I felt myself start to melt, to disappear into my Damon, just like the sweat, now vanishing between us.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “I can hardly think... I’m right on the edge. I... I...”

Unable to speak, anymore, I let my head relax. My hair softly rasped against the wall, the exquisite pleasure between my legs, more than I could handle. Damon didn’t answer, he just breathed deep, faster, harder, until he was sucking air between his clenched teeth.

One moment we were there, in that room, making love. The very next instant, my soul was pulsing in time with the pounding of my heart. Every twinge of energy, every hot breath from Damon’s lips, pleased me, curled against my prickling skin. I wanted him to rip my bra off, to squeeze my breasts, but there was no time.

One instant, we were two bodies loving one another, and the next, we were one.

He threw back his head, howling a fierce, savage howl that made me shudder, as I convulsed around him, my entire body – my entire being – fluttering with sweet release.

I opened my eyes, as my spirit’s vibrations slowed to a low thrum, and found Damon doing exactly the same thing. With a tantalizing slowness, that almost seemed like we were both teasing each other, we slowly opened our eyes, and shared a gaze.

“I
am
safe,” I whispered. “No matter what, no matter where we find ourselves, as long as I have you, I’m safe.”

I don’t know why I said that. It just seemed right.

“I am, too,” Damon said softly, lowering my feet to the floor. “You’re all I need, Lily. You keep me strong, keep me from falling down in the dark. I’m... I’m gonna be honest with you, though.”

I curled my toes into the carpet, anticipating a weakness in the knees that never came.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Damon ran his hand through his hair, sweeping it backwards, and giving me a full look at the delicate lines that were already healed on him. That reminded me of the mark on my wrist, which was much redder when I looked down at my forearm.

“The way Poko was going on and on about trials and tribulations.” He paused to take a breath. “Yeah, I guess I’m a little worried about something coming down the line. The way he was talking, it was almost like he knew something was about to happen.”

I chewed my lip, looking up at him, and wishing I could do something to take away his worries, but knowing there was nothing to be done. This was his life – our life – and this is just what it was going to be. No time to rest.

“Well,” I said, smiling warmly. “As long as we’ve got each other, right?”

I wrapped my arms around his thickly-muscled waist and held him tight, the heat from his shirtless chest emanating through me.

“Right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess Poko also kept saying that, too, huh?”

Looking away from Damon, I couldn’t stop thinking about the last thing the ancient werewolf said, as we’d left his cave.

“What do you think he was talking about, with that thing at the end? About us having a great deal to celebrate, I mean. Do you think that was just about the ceremony?”

Damon shrugged, and gave me half of a smirk.

“No way to tell with him,” he said, sliding his hands along my back. Up and then down my bare skin they went. He hooked a finger in my bra and tugged it, until I pulled my head away from his chest and looked up at him.

He bent and kissed me, exploring my lips with his tongue, before he sucked a kiss off my bottom lip, and pulled away.

“No way to tell what he meant.” Damon smiled. “But, he’s right about one thing.”

“Yeah?” I asked, grinning. “What is it?”

“The two of us. We’ve been through more than most people do in a whole lifetime. And I can’t think of a person I’d rather have with me, through all the ups and downs. I don’t have any idea what he was talking about, but it doesn’t even matter. Whatever vague hint he was giving, the only thing that matters to me, is right here.”

He kissed my forehead and I could have just about died.

But then again, if I’d died, then there’s no way I could keep doing this – keep being with him. I giggled softly.

“What is it?” he asked, letting a little space open between us. “What are you getting all giggly for? Did I screw up another old saying?”

“No,” I said in a low whisper. “No. You’re just so perfect, you’re just so... So
you
. I was giggling because...” I smiled to myself. “Because without you, I’d laugh a whole lot less. I’d smile a whole lot less. And without you, I’m almost sure I’d never have left Fort Branch. This little town woulda been my birth and death. But, with you? I get the feeling we’re going to see the world together.”

Right there, in that one moment, with Damon’s arms draped over my shoulders, and the moonlight streaming through the bay window, I had everything in the entire world – more than I ever dreamed.

*

M
y phone was so loud, that even in the bathroom on the far end of the house, I heard Rod Stewart yelling about Maggie May, in a voice sexier than most any other one on earth.

Except for Damon’s.

Damon’s leathery, gruff-and-soft voice could turn me to Jello on a bad day, and if I was already in a good mood when he gave me one of those ‘Come here, Lily,’ lines that he gave me all the time? Just thinking about him gave me a little wriggle of pleasure.