Winter Howl (Sanctuary) (11 page)

“Take it, roll it between your fingers,” Britt whispered in her ear before kissing Renee’s neck, laving the line of the cord in a way that made Renee want to moan. She didn’t, though, not feeling comfortable with making any noise at all, especially with the possibility that someone would hear them. Hear
her
.

Renee did as she was told, feeling the nipple harden even more as Britt jerked her hips under Renee’s, putting pressure in just the right places.

“Look, I don’t expect us to complete each other, but seriously, Renee, I think I’m going to explode here,” Britt murmured. “Who would have thought?”

Who would have thought?
Renee repeated in her head. Everything was too much, and it was not too long before she was clutching at Britt’s arms as she
pressed
and felt everything on the inside clench and flutter into a release to the thrust of Britt’s tongue in her mouth. Renee was perfectly silent, almost afraid to breathe through it as the orgasm curled her toes and made her dig in her nails into Britt’s arms a little.

Renee felt Britt bring her free hand between them to circle violently at her own clit through her jeans. As Renee’s muscles began to loosen to the flood of endorphins through her system, Britt gasped through her own climax, whispering Renee’s name in a rhythm that became almost a chant. Finally finished, Britt fell back onto the bed so that they were again a tangle of limbs. Renee could not help but laugh into Britt’s shoulder, punctuating the conclusion with a few soft kisses before resting her head between Britt’s breasts and just feeling the warmth and smoothness of her skin itself, without any of the pressure of desire.

After a few minutes of hearing Britt’s heart beat under her head, Renee propped herself up and rolled to the side, adjusting her clothes as she flipped her legs over the side of the bed. She did not know what to say. She knew what she wanted, but she had no words for it.

“So…” Britt murmured, her pink lips darker and fuller, as they usually were after Jake had just finished kissing her. And it was from her, Renee, of all people. Her grin was tentative. “I think it’s safe to say that we’re compatible on this level. God, Renee, I didn’t think that you’d…you know. I didn’t think you had it in you yet.” Britt pushed herself up and rested her chin on Renee’s shoulder. “It was amazing,” she said quietly, soberly.

“You, too,” Renee replied. It was not nearly adequate enough to express the most primitive sense, deep in her stomach, that she wanted to hold Britt against her and keep her there like a stuffed animal all night, but she just couldn’t. She physically could not do it, and she physically could not say it. She could just reach up to touch Britt’s cheek softly to try and reassure her that everything was fine, that they could keep doing what they had been doing, that they could really try at whatever this could be. She kissed Britt on the corner of her mouth and stood.

She was the luckiest woman alive because Britt understood.

“You probably want a quick shower, just to rinse off after that,” Britt said, fingers trailing down the length of Renee’s spine and touching an unexpectedly sensitive spot just below the curve of one cheek under her jeans. “Remember, I’m next. Would you rather I not come in while you’re still in there, or…?”

“I’d prefer some time alone,” Renee said. Everything she said came out wrong, came out cold. She hated it. Even as she was walking towards the bathroom, she stopped herself and turned around, forcing herself to face Britt, who was looking remarkably happy and young in a way that Renee had not noticed in a long time.

“Brittany?” Renee said.

“Yes, Red?” Britt asked. The decade-old pet name made Renee feel a rush of warmth over her face in a flush. Not a bad one.

“I think… I think we can do this,” Renee said. The words were hard to get out, but once she did, the next words were even harder—although not painful—no matter how true they were. “And I don’t expect anything in our lives separate from each other to change. Jake… I want you two to still…you know, be together. I wouldn’t want it to change.”

Britt’s face became even more beautiful—Renee didn’t think ‘love’ was a facial expression, but if it was, that might have been it. “I’m glad you are the woman that you are, Renee Chambers,” Britt said. “Now go clean up.
I
am going to go downstairs and make brownies. We can have some tonight, just the core pack. I think this whole thing calls for chocolate.”

Renee smiled. “I agree.”

She went into the bathroom, retrieving a clean pair of panties from her dresser first. It occurred to her that she had just had what basically amounted to sex with her best and closest friend, with all her clothes on. And Britt had only lost her shirt. Renee thought that was amazing.

As rare as it was, even as she got into the shower and stood under the spray, Renee found that in the privacy of the moment, she could not stop smiling.

Chapter Four

The world hadn’t changed. Renee still had work, and she still did it without mooning. Too much. But it was part of the experience, part of the novelty. She could actually let someone touch her without going a little crazy—at least, not in a bad way. Britt continued to not push her, but they did sometimes take time out of the day to kiss. To keep in practice, Britt said with a grin on her face. Sometimes those kisses led to more, but it was still Britt who shed some of her clothes, more comfortable in skin, while Renee only let Britt touch her underneath her clothing, even though Britt had seen her naked without much fanfare before. For Renee, it was not a matter of modesty or fear. She just felt more comfortable with some kind of layer, although that layer seemed to be becoming more cumbersome by the day, even as she needed it. After all, the weather was getting colder.

Grant regularly brought in meat, but there were some days that he disappeared completely. He had made it through his week trial period, and although he was not exactly well-liked, he mostly kept out of the way. So everyone let him be, warily adjusting to his presence in the sanctuary. Renee was a bit concerned when the full moon came. She and the core pack stayed up just in case Grant tried to kill something under the moon’s influence, but as far as she knew, he never stepped foot on the compound.

He still watched her from a distance with an intensity that might as well have been right in front of her. He was somehow there whenever she and Britt were together outside of their room. Renee wasn’t innocent. She knew that some men liked watching two women, and she assumed that was the reason that Grant was around so much—that he was gathering fodder for whatever stroke fantasies were simmering in his brain. But as long as he did not invade their privacy and try to make them do something for him, as long as he did not touch her, he could be as uncouth as he wanted. There were assholes in every society. Grant just happened to be one of them. In the end, she and Britt decided to ignore him as best they could.

As more and more flurries swept over the sanctuary, more frequent donations began to come in from her regulars. Most of them knew that the winter was sometimes the hardest time for the sanctuary, because more energy was required to keep things running. Winter was also the time for more adoptions and sometimes more inhabitants due to poor Christmas gift-giving. Renee was happy, though, that three of her dogs had been adopted over the course of three weeks.

Things were normal, and maybe better.

Then someone buzzed her doorbell at the gate. This caused an alarm to go off over the facility. Just a short buzz—nothing loud or obnoxious. Enough to let everyone know that someone was there and to tell them to change if they needed to. Most of the shapeshifters reverted to their dog skins when company came. Renee thought it had something to do with keeping their whereabouts a secret and hiding their identities. Most people probably assumed she had someone working with her—there was no possible way that she could run an operation like this all on her own. But the shapeshifters did not want anyone to know that
they
were ones doing it.

The buzzing sound also told Renee to drive down to meet whoever came. The sanctuary could use a security camera at the gate, but they hadn’t come up with the extra money for it, mostly because it was not as needed as all that. Who would take the time to come all the way up to her sanctuary to make trouble? Besides, the dogs themselves were her built-in security. Even those who were not dominant knew an intruder when they saw one—and the shapeshifters had an even better sense of those who were not supposed to be there. A security camera was never high on the priority list of purchases.

Renee looked up when the buzz filled the compound, although the people at the gate probably could not hear it, so far was the facility from the gate. No one was supposed to come today, but maybe someone had not read the website rules about calling to make an appointment. Maybe they thought they could come on their own time. Either way, she would need to tell them to make an appointment, although she might let them in if they seemed okay. After all, it was a long drive back to civilisation.

Britt came into the computer room just as Leslie turned to Renee in confusion.

“What’s going on?” Britt said. “I didn’t know there was someone coming today.”

“Neither did I,” Renee replied.

“Do you want me to go down with you?” Britt asked. “I’m beginning to dream about shipping orders and gardenias.”

“Sure, if you want to. Human or dog skin?”

“Dog skin,” Britt answered. “In case it’s someone from town, they should see me in the state they’re used to. It could just be a squirrel having fun with the doorbell, though.”

“Best to check.” Renee minimised the window she was working on and ran to get her proper shoes on. She grabbed her scarf and coat as Britt shed her clothing layers and changed into the malamute. She then trotted behind Renee as she headed to the car.

“What the hell was that?” Grant came out from behind the log home and rubbed the side of his head as though the buzzing had pained him. Renee did not understand why it would—it was not at a frequency that harmed the dogs.

“Doorbell,” Renee said. “I have to go down and see what they want. Choose which skin you want to be seen in if someone comes up. Or just…go away.”

“I’m going to ride in the back of the truck,” Grant said. And before Renee could say anything, he opened the door and jumped into the covered bed, then pulled the door closed behind him.

Renee looked down at Britt, who looked back at her with an inscrutable expression on her face. Finally, Renee shrugged, thinking that saying anything would be more trouble than it was worth to make a fuss. As long as he didn’t make her crash. Britt did a little huffy thing with her nose as Renee sighed and opened the driver’s door. Britt got in first, and Renee climbed in after her.

Renee could see through the back window that Grant was lying down with his hands cradling his head. He was insane, and she shook her head before buckling herself in and turning the truck on.

The drive there was fairly uneventful. Grant didn’t do anything, just lay there in the bed, sitting up near the end in order to brace himself against the unbalanced shaking and sudden stops that came from driving on a dirt road.

When she reached the end of her driveway, Renee groaned. Josh and Marcus and one of their friends, Will, were there, and they leaned against Josh’s truck with their arms crossed and faces smug, obviously glad they could waste her time and harass her with their fucking passive-aggressive bullshit. She barely realised that she’d said that out loud before Grant opened the back window and said, “Kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Shut up,” she muttered as she turned off her truck and got out.

“Hey, bitch, got a dog for sale?” Marcus asked. The man didn’t need to be drunk to be crass.

“Fuck off,” Renee said from the other side of the gate.

Josh raised his eyebrows. The other two did their ‘oooooohs’, which had been old way back in high school.

“Come on, this is a charity, right?” Will said. “We’re here to be charitable.”

She did not even try to be polite. “This is a sanctuary. We screen each potential adoption, and you can’t get in without an appointment. So. Fuck. Off. I don’t have time for you.”

“But what if we want a dog? We have money. We can pay,” Will said.

“I would never give one of my dogs to you. This isn’t a business, it’s a non-profit organisation. I decide whether to let the dogs go or not. I’m not doing it for the people that come in, I’m doing it for the dogs that go out. And I would never ruin one of my dogs’ lives by letting you bring him home,” Renee said.

“God, you’re chatty when you’re safe behind an iron fence,” Josh said. He curled his hands around the wrought iron and pressed his face between the bars. “I’d half a mind to think you were slow.”

“You
do
have half a mind,” Renee muttered.

“I heard that,” Josh said. “You know, I may not be able to get this truck through the gate, but I can find a way over the fence. Primitive system you’ve got here.”

“You do that, Josh,” Renee said, stepping closer to the fence and stopping short of his arm’s reach. Her voice could shatter ice as she continued, “You could fall and get barbed wire in your balls. Or, if you make it over, one of the dogs could take a bite out of your face. Or ass. Or worse. See, my sanctuary doesn’t need anything more than it has. You come in here and find that out.”