Shifted (20 page)

She grinned and undulated against him. “That’s not the only way I can touch you.”

His eyes all but rolled back in his head, which just made her grin more. He tightened his hold on her wrists in one of his big hands and ran his palm up her leg through the satin of her nightgown. The warmth of his body sharply contrasted with the chilly night air, and she could feel the heat of his hand running over her body like a brand. 

He stroked her hips and belly and legs until she was begging him to touch her, really touch her. Finally his hand closed over the heat at her center and they both groaned. 

He set his mouth on her throat, nipping at her skin with tender ferocity. She arched up to her knees, shocked by the lightning bolt of pleasure that ran through her, and he took the opportunity to hitch up her gown. 

She couldn’t feel the cold anymore. Her body felt like a live wire, sparking energy in every direction. She was balanced by his hand trapping hers at her lower back and his strong fingers on her inner thigh. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, the pleasure so intense she could barely breathe.

“You are so goddamn beautiful,” he whispered reverently.

For once, Briar didn’t mind hearing him swear. 

It seemed impossible that Independence Falls slept quietly around them while there was this roaring in her ears, this thunderstorm inside her body. 

Her eyes flew open again as he began to massage his way up her leg. He was there, right there, his eyes molten in the dark as he watched her writhe under his touch. She tried again to free her hands. She had to touch him, take back some of that delicious control. 

He smiled like a cat playing with a mouse. “Not yet.”

“Stop teasing me,” she begged, bucking into his hand. 

“But I like it,” he said. 

His sly grin fell away when his fingers brushed the curls covering the center of her. 

“No panties? God, you’re incredible,” he breathed. He kissed her, their tongues dancing and desperate. 

When one of his long fingers slipped inside her, Briar broke the kiss and arched back with a moan. 

Charlie pulled her back against him. “Shh,” he whispered in her ear. “You wouldn’t want Patrice to find us like this.” 

She thought she could hear a hint of laughter in his hoarse voice, and her heart leapt even as her body strained against him. She turned her head to take his mouth with hers. He released her hands so he could plunge a hand into her hair, angling her mouth to kiss her as deeply as his finger stroked inside her. 

Her arms hung behind her. She gave herself over to him, to his hot hands and mouth. His finger was moving faster now, driving her, and she wanted more, she wanted everything. 

He was breathing as hard as she was, and his eyes were glittering with need. Her whole being centered there for an instant, in the hungry and yearning look on his face. Then the world exploded.

When she could open her eyes again, she found that Charlie was resting his head against her shoulder, breathing hard. Probably trying to come up with some reason to be annoyed, she thought giddily. Suddenly full of energy, she slipped her hands between their bodies, flipping up his shirt and sliding her hand into his pants. 

He jerked in surprise, but it was too late to escape. Her hand closed around the part of him she had been dying to explore since she saw him naked in the woods. He grabbed her wrists, but she rolled on top of him and straddled his legs. She tore open the button fly on his dungarees and shoved down his jeans until he was free, all hers to touch.

“God, Briar, if you keep doing that, I’m going to finish so fast,” he whispered.

“Good,” she whispered back. “I want you to feel what you just made me feel. I want to give it back to you.” 

She was in charge now, and the thought filled her with amorous delight. She watched his face contort with pleasure as she stroked him harder and faster. 

He swore angrily, then reverently, as Briar leaned over to lay her lips against his neck. 

“I’m gonna … I’m gonna …,” then his body quaked, and she felt the hard organ in her hand pulse and shudder. 

It turned her on all over again, watching him reach his completion. 

She was surprised when Charlie covered his eyes with his hand. “Jesus, could I be any more pathetic?”

“What do you mean?”

He split his fingers to peer at her. “It’s generally not considered especially manly to come all over your shirt.”

She laughed and kissed him. “Even when the woman in question enjoyed every second?”

She couldn’t be sure in the darkness, but she thought he might be blushing. “It’s been a while, okay? I haven’t been with anyone since the accident.”

Since Angela, Briar thought, and tried not to be jealous of a dead girl. “I consider it a compliment that you couldn’t hold back.”

He grumbled, but sat up so he could wrap her in his arms. “We’ve got good chemistry.”

She was grinning again. “I think so too. Do you want to be my lab partner?” 

That surprised a laugh from him, and Briar pulled back so she could see the humor on his face. 

“I can think of a few experiments I’d like to try,” she said with a wicked grin.

There was an interested light in his eye, but then he looked at his watch. “You distracted me. I’m late already. And now I need to change my shirt.”

“Okay.” A thought occurred to her. “Does Will know about your powers?”

“No,” Charlie said, drawing his brows together. “Well, he doesn’t know what I can do. And it seems like he doesn’t want to know. He keeps encouraging me not to tell anyone.”

Briar’s skin was starting to cool. She burrowed closer in to Charlie’s heat. “Isn’t that what you want, though? To keep it a secret?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, and she could hear that he was genuinely torn. “It kind of seems inevitable that it’s going to come out. And I hate lying to my parents. They ought to know, but they might be devastated. Will said his mother couldn’t even get out of bed the day the newspaper article came out.”

“Your mother is made of sterner stuff than Florence Briggs.” Briar didn’t tell him, but she envied his family. They were a tight, happy unit, unlike anything she had ever known. 

“Yeah, I know. Will’s my best friend, but I’m not sure if I should take his advice.”

Briar bit her lip. “If you get a chance—if you feel like the time is right—will you ask him if there is anyone else like me?”

“How do you mean?”

“People with powers that aren’t as obvious. Aren’t visible. The paper said that Butch can control minds, but what does that mean? And is there any way to … is there anyone who has been able to turn their power off?”

“Is that what you want?” Charlie asked.

She only shrugged. She had the feeling that either affirming or denying would cause her pain. “I’m wondering, that’s all.”

“You should come with me,” he said. He shifted her slightly and grimaced. 

“Oh, did I hurt you?” she said, lifting her weight off of him.

“I’m fine,” he said curtly. 

Briar shifted herself so she was sitting next to him, feeling guilty as he stretched out his leg with evident pain.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his voice so cold she shivered. 

“You should come with me,” he repeated as he stood and buttoned his pants. “Will is the most trustworthy guy I know. And if you’re right—if the rest of the Independents are there—you can ask them all your questions.”

She hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yup,” he said, then scanned down her body. “But you have to change your clothes. No one sees you wearing that nightgown but me.” 

The predatory gleam was back in his eye. This time, Briar’s tremble had nothing to do with the night breeze. 

She plucked her shawl off the ground, where it had fallen. “I’ll be right back.”

“Bet you can’t be ready inside of ten minutes,” Charlie grumbled. 

“I bet you I’ll be back before you can change your shirt,” she called back as she flitted off the porch and hauled herself up onto the lowest branch. 

She won that bet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Charlie

Charlie tried to keep his eyes on the road, but it wasn’t easy when Briar was beside him on the bench seat of his truck, humming along with the radio and staring out the open window into the night air. She was dressed simply, in skinny black pants and a sea foam green blouse that, with her wild blond curls, made her look like a mermaid. 

How in the hell had he gotten so lucky? This beautiful girl had let him touch her, had all but begged him to do the things of which he’d been dreaming. She wasn’t scared off when he blustered and fumed, and she hadn’t balked at his temper. That, more than anything, was proof of her power—she seemed to see the reality of him, even when he didn’t see it himself. 

He thought back to what she had said in her aunt’s kitchen earlier, about the thousand tiny lies that people tell every day. What would it be like to be denied that ability? To have to be completely honest all the time? Charlie shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He wasn’t prone to lying, but at least he had the choice. 

He sneaked another glance at her. Now that he knew about her childhood, he understood why she had wanted to fabricate her whole history. What kind of determination did it take to live in that lie, as if it were reality? 

Overall, his power was a blessing in his life. Being able to transform into a mountain lion had given him his body back, made him feel young and whole for the first time in years. It was the opposite for Briar. Her power had taken away the lies that comforted her and made her life easier. In its place was hard, cold truth, every second of every day. 

“What’s that?” Briar said, sitting up in her seat.

Charlie’s headlights caught a reflective yellow caution sign in the middle of the road. Beyond it, floodlights were bathing the bridge that united the east and west sides of town. Army Jeeps were parked on both sides, blocking the bridge.

Charlie slowed his truck to a stop. He could feel Briar tense beside him as a soldier approached their car with a flashlight.

“Sorry, folks, road’s closed,” the soldier said cheerfully.

Charlie squinted against the glare of the soldier’s flashlight. “What’s going on?”

“Just doing a little maintenance on this old bridge here,” the soldier said. “The mayor asked us to take a look.”

“What’s wrong with the bridge?” Briar asked.

The soldier moved his flashlight from Charlie to Briar. “Nothing, by the time we’re done with it. Where you kids headed?”

Briar looked at Charlie with panic in her eyes. She couldn’t answer the soldier without lying or exposing their friends. 

“Just going for a drive,” Charlie said smoothly. “How long is the bridge going to be closed?”

“I reckon we’ll be done in two, three hours. We figured this would be a good time to do the maintenance, but there’s been a lot of traffic. People in this town must be night owls,” he said with a chuckle.

Charlie and Briar shared a look. “Well, I guess we’ll find another place to drive,” Charlie said, shifting the truck into reverse.

“See, in my day we called it ‘parking,’ not ‘driving,’” the soldier said with a wink. “You two have a good time tonight.”

He turned and walked back toward the rest of the soldiers. Charlie waited until he was out of earshot before he sighed. “Well, this was a waste of time.”

“What about the rope bridge?” Briar piped up.

He scoffed. “That thing’s no more than a couple of strings stretched over the river.”

She shook her head. “A week or so after the fight on the Fourth of July, I was driving around out by the spot where the bridge crosses over from the mine. The ropes were gone, and there was this bridge made of vines in its place.”

Charlie’s eyebrows raised. “Ivan Sokolov?”

“That’s my guess. Maybe he wanted to make an easier route to the mine from the east side of town.”

Charlie considered. “Do you think it’s strong enough to hold the truck?”

“Oh no. It’s not wide enough either.”

“Well, there’s no point, then,” he said, with an irritated gesture toward his leg. “I wouldn’t be able to cross it.”

“Let’s take a look anyway,” she cajoled. “It might be easier than you think.”

Charlie scowled, all his prior cheer forgotten. “Nothing’s easy for me anymore.”

Still, he shoved the truck into gear and followed the river south toward the mine.

“Who all do you think will be there?” Briar asked, clearly making an effort to distract him. 

“Will and Meg, I guess. Maybe some of the others, if they have been meeting out there already.”

“Isn’t it amazing, all the different kinds of powers people have? Why do you think people have been manifesting in so many different ways?”

He shrugged. “That’s how it goes in the comics, right? Plastic Man’s exposed to an acid, the Black Terror inhaled formic gas. Selina Kyle gets thumped on the head during a plane crash and suddenly she’s Catwoman.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a comic book fan.”

He shifted in his seat. “It’s just a guilty pleasure. I read serious books too.”

“Oh, I know you do. Charlie Huston’s always got his nose in a book,” she said wistfully. “I like the comics, too. The pictures make it easy to follow along.”

He grimaced. Her words served as a reminder that Briar wasn’t the smartest cookie. If he remembered correctly, she was in all remedial classes in high school and still hadn’t performed well. But, he thought, that wasn’t really in line with her behavior. She spoke intelligently, and the way she had talked about the intricacy of her power showed she could reason her way through a problem. So why had she done so poorly in school?

Oblivious to the line of his thinking, she continued. “Wonder Woman was always my favorite. I guess that’s ironic, since now I’ve basically got my own golden lasso of truth. Now if only I also had an invisible plane.”

Charlie chuckled. “I thought girls only read
True Romance
, not real comics.”