My Sister Is A Werewolf

CHAPTER 10

Once more, Elizabeth was surprised by the comfort of her bed. Soft, warm, scented like woods, and… male? She opened her eyes to see Jensen’s profile illuminated by the lamp on her dresser. Mellow light accented the cut of his jawline, the wonderful shape of his lips, the smudge of his thick, dark lashes against his cheeks.

What was he doing here? She reached out to touch him, as if she couldn’t quite believe he was here. Her fingers grazed over his lips, velvet soft, to the hint of rough stubble surrounding their fullness.

She sighed as her fingers strayed down to his chest. The skin there was smooth and velvety, too, but underneath was hard steel. Her fingers continued to stroke him, the desire that she’d been trying to keep at bay for two days roaring to life. God, she loved touching this man.

Her hands shaped over the curved muscles of his chest, trailing slowly downward over the ripples of his hard stomach. The hair around his bellybutton, and beneath, tickled her fingers, making her insides feel the same teasing tickle.

She rose up, watching her hands against his skin, the way she looked touching him. She loved all the textures of his body. Her gaze flicked to the fly of his jeans. Of course, there were some she hadn’t gotten enough chance to explore.

Without pause, her fingers honed in on the button and the zipper. Although she did stop, just for a second, confused as to why the worn material was a little damp. But she quickly dismissed it, more intent on what lay underneath.

He started as she slipped her hand inside and touched him, the tickle of more hair, the rise and hardening of his arousal.

“Elizabeth?” His voice was low and rough with sleep. She loved that sound.

Her fingers curled around him, moving over the length. He let out a slow, hissing breath and his hips rose into her touch.

“Darling,” he managed, his voice raspy, sliding over her, “you are sick.”

She felt that hoarseness deep inside her, his voice making her womb feel heavy and ready. His use of that husky endearment making her sex moist. She wanted him, had to have him.

She didn’t know what he was talking about, though. Sick? She felt great. Now that he was here.

“I’m fine. More than fine.”

She crawled out from under the covers, prowling on her hands and knees like the animal she was. For the first time, that idea didn’t repulse her. She wasn’t thinking about her past, about what she was. She was thinking about what she wanted. Jensen. Her only thought was Jensen-being with him, feeling his skin against hers, feeling him deep inside her, filling her, stretching her. But first, she wanted to taste him. To please him, as he’d pleased her.

She tugged at his jeans, pulling at them until he lifted his hips and helped her work them off. His boxers, which she liked very much, joined the abandoned pants. Then she positioned herself between his legs, running her hands up his inner thighs, more tickling of hair. She smiled at the sensation, loving it.

Reaching the thick thatch of hair surrounding his penis, she lingered. The dark curls were coarse yet oddly soft, too. She explored him, feeling such possession over him, over what she was doing to him. Her mate.

For just a second, the part of her mind that wasn’t wolf corrected her. Her man-maybe. Not mate.

Then all thoughts were gone as his thick length pulsed under her fingertips. Mmm. She liked that. She liked feeling all his power.

She leaned over and pressed her lips to the broad underside, deeply breathing his musky, aroused scent. Her tongue flicked out, wanting to taste that arousal. Hot and tangy and more delicious than she could have imagined. She licked him again and again, until his fingers knotted in her hair. She heard his hitched breathing. Then she took him fully between her lips, swirling him with her tongue.

“Elizabeth,” he breathed, raising his hips as she took him deep. She hummed a response and that elicited a low groan. She smiled and repeated the sound. Jensen repeated his own.

She continued the game until he caught her under the arms and dragged her length up his body. The thrilling friction of skin across skin. Then his mouth caught hers, taking control of their touch. He rolled her, until he had her pinned onto the soft mattress, his hard body heavy and wonderful on hers.

His legs nudged hers apart, his erection hard and hot against the moist folds of her sex. She parted her legs wider, begging him silently to enter her. To bury himself so deep they were one.

He obeyed, angling back to penetrate her with one stroke. Deep, hard, and so, so right. Her aroused body reacted instantly, her vagina clenching him, pulsing and vibrating, her release a violent thing that she couldn’t contain. She cried out, her voice breaking at the height of her ecstasy. And still he moved inside her, his movements forceful, demanding. Rocking her toward another powerful release. And another until she couldn’t tell where one orgasm ended and another began.

Finally, he joined her, his own release spurting hot and deep inside, his penis pulsing in response to her body’s rhythm.

He collapsed on top of her, his breathing quick, his heart pounding. Matching her own. In the same way her body always perfectly matched his.

After a few moments, he rolled off of her, only to tuck her tightly to his side.

“Elizabeth, I don’t understand what you do to me.”

She didn’t understand, either. She just knew she had to have him. She closed her eyes, her last thought before she drifted off was that she finally felt sane. Calm. At peace.

The next time Elizabeth woke, gray light had appeared outside the windows. And with that pale light came the clarity of what she’d done. Again.

She could feel Jensen beside her, his heat, his strength. She could smell him and taste him on her lips, although she couldn’t say how he’d ended up here. But she did remember making love.

Which wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d avoided him for this very reason, hard as it had been.

“Did you know you chew on your bottom lip when you are worrying?”

She started, turning her head to see that Jensen rested on his side, his head on his arm, watching her. He smiled, and her heart fluttered almost painfully in her chest.

“No,” she managed, still staring at his mouth. How was it that his smile could affect her so? It was just the curve of lips, just like everyone else’s. Except nothing like anyone else’s.

“Well, you do.” He reached over and brushed her hair away from her cheek. His fingers lingered. “You still feel a little warm, but nothing like last night.”

She pulled away, not sure what he meant. She couldn’t recall.

“I feel fine.” How did she explain that her temperature was always a few degrees higher than a human’s? Of course, he was a vet so he knew-say, a dog-had a higher temperature than a person.

“Okay,” he said easily, although she got the feeling her response didn’t please him. “So what are you worrying about?”

You. Me. Everything. The fact that I can’t remember how I ended up with you.

But she could hardly say that without encouraging more questions. But she couldn’t say nothing, either. He was too astute for that.

“My research.” She should be worried about that, but she hadn’t been thinking about it. Even though she’d been trying to concentrate on it for the past two days. With very, very little success. If anything, she was going backward. She tried to focus, to do the work that needed to be done, but mostly she’d obsessed about Jensen-and this strange, uncontrollable need to be with him.

And now that she was, it was as if the fierce, almost crippling ache that she’d fought for the past two days was gone. Not even real any longer.

She still felt attracted to Jensen-that never seemed to go away. But that feeling that she had to make love with him or die wasn’t there. She felt calmer, her attraction more rational, not driven by something she didn’t understand.

Okay, her need for him still wasn’t rational, and she didn’t understand it. At all. But… well, she felt normal. She felt content.

Jensen touched her, his large hand shaping the indentation of her waist. And she totally wanted him to keep touching her, and she wanted to touch him in return, but this was her wanting him-not the wolf.

And oddly, this felt just as dangerous, only in a different way.

“Is that what you’d been doing? Trying to work while you were sick?” he said, stroking his hand up and down her side. His fingers were long, strong, the skin slightly rough from calluses. She tried not to arch up against the wonderful caress like a cat. But mmm, it did feel so good.

“I still think you should go to the doctor,” he said. “That was a really high fever and you were obviously hallucinating-to be out there in the nude.”

She froze under his touch. She’d been nude? Is that how she approached him this time? Then his words clicked, falling into place in her mind. A high fever. Nude.

Dear God, she’d shifted. She’d shifted with him here. She could have injured him, made him like she was-or worse, killed him.

She fought the urge to jump out of bed. To put space between herself and him. To keep him safe.

“I’m fine,” she managed to mumble. “Just pushing myself too hard.” Of course, she wasn’t fine. She started to shift without the full moon. She never did that. And she’d done it with Jensen here! That was not fine.

“With your research?”

She blinked, not immediately understanding his question. Then she nodded. Busy trying to do her research. Busy trying to stay away from him. And failing miserably at both.

“I… I don’t really recall a lot of last night,” she finally said, needing to know what he saw. How they ended up here.

“Like I said, you were very ill.” Again he stroked the skin of her side, of her hip. And God help her, she let him, even as she told herself to pull away. “I found you in the barn. You were… ”

She studied him, holding her breath. She was what? Hairy? Scary? A wild animal?

“You were in a state.”

Well, that was putting it nicely. But she should have realized he didn’t see her wolf form, or he wouldn’t be here.

She suspected the reason she’d shifted was because she’d fought so hard to stay away from him.

She’d been on the edge, and if he’d startled her-not an easy thing to do to a werewolf-then she must have just acted on instinct. Her wolf instinct.

And she could so easily have attacked him.

She glanced down at their bodies, touching from chest to knee. Suddenly she felt the need to separate herself from him. That just by being near him, she was tainting him.

She started to pull away, but he tightened his arm around her, holding her fast.

“Where are you going?”

“I–I need to use the bathroom.”

He smiled at her, the curve of his mouth indulgent. “Do you really? Or are you running again?”

She tried to look offended, but she knew she failed. He really was too good at this. Too aware of her.

“Tell you what-you answer a few questions for me, and I’ll let you go.”

Despite herself, she felt herself giving in to his gorgeous smile. “You are holding me hostage from the bathroom?”

“Hey, whatever works.”

She smiled, but then sobered. She wasn’t sure she could answer the questions she suspected he was going to ask. Not truthfully-and she didn’t need to add any more to her sins, which had been piling up since they’d met.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “but just remember you do this at your own risk.”

He glanced down between their close bodies, then raised an eyebrow. It was probably for the best that he thought she was talking about urination.

“What is it about your research that is so important that it’s worth trying to do when you were so obviously sick?”

That was a relatively easy question-and one she didn’t really have to lie about. “I’ve been working on this particular problem for a long time, and time is running out. I need to figure it out soon.”

“Is your research for a company or a particular lab?”

She hesitated at that one-apparently the questions were just going to get harder. Which was what she was worried about.

“I work independently-but if I did find this cure it would help a lot of people.”

“A cure? Is it a vaccination? Or a medication? For what illness?”

She took a deep breath. How strange to talk of this with a human. She’d never thought she would, but she found herself continuing.

“It’s a vaccination to cure a very rare illness. One that I doubt you’ve heard of.” Oh, he’d heard of it-he just didn’t believe it existed. Werewolves, vampires, fairies-mortals never believed in those creatures. Until they met them. Then they usually wished they could go back to being nonbelievers.

Jensen levered himself up on his elbow, his gaze more intent. “Try me. I’ve heard of a lot of illnesses.”

“Not this one,” she assured him again.

“But you have this disease, don’t you? That was what happened last night. You had a bout of this-illness?” His eyes had darkened to a deep green, a color that she now realized showed his concern.

She thought to tell him no. There was no point in him knowing that she needed the cure-in some ways, worse than anyone. But she found the truth tumbling over her lips.

“Yes.”

The one hand, still holding her waist, slipped upward, out from under the covers. He caressed her cheek, the touch heartbreakingly sweet, the look in his eyes just tragic.

“The fever is part of it?”

For her it was. Her fever usually spiked to around 106 degrees, which always happened after her shift. She’d spent many a day after the full moon nursing a terrible werewolf hangover. Some werewolves could shift without any repercussions. She wasn’t one of them.

She nodded. “But that always passes. I won’t die from this… disease-I just won’t have a normal life. I–I’d really rather not talk about it.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but then he nodded.

They were silent for a moment, but then he seemed to remember he had more questions to ask.

“So if this isn’t your normal way of approaching men-”

She frowned, at first surprised by the change of topic. Then she rose up on her elbow, catching the sheet to her chest. “It isn’t. Honestly.”

Why it was important to her that he know she wasn’t a hussy made little to no sense when the truth was, she was practically a husky. Which was worse?

“Since this isn’t your normal way of approaching a man, how did you pick me?”

She stared at him for a moment, taking in his mussed short hair, his gorgeous eyes, his mouth. She managed to keep her eyes from drifting lower, but she knew what an awesome body he had. Instead, her eyes returned to his.

She could see intelligence, kindness, humor there. His looks definitely drew her-but it was what she saw in his forest eyes that made her feel like she could easily get in too deep. Those eyes were what made her pick him. But she couldn’t say that. It revealed too much.

Instead she said airily, “I saw you and wanted you.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth. Not by a long shot.

He smiled slightly at that, then nodded. “I guess that’s fair enough. Because I felt the same way.”

“You did?”

His smile turned to that lopsided curl she loved. “You haven’t noticed?”

She hesitated as she felt heat creep up her cheeks. “I sort of thought you found yourself attacked.” She tried not to think about the potentially real attack of last night.

“Oh, you made your intentions very clear, but I think I’ve done my fair share of attacking back.”

He leaned in and kissed her. Soft and sweet and lingering. A very different sort of attack but just as effective. Even as she told herself to pull away, to let him go, she sank into his arms. The sheet slid down so her bare breasts were pressed firmly to his hard chest. Their arms and legs tangled until there was no space between them.

Jensen pressed several small kisses to her lips before he angled his head back to look at her. “I have one more question. Although this one is a bit late in coming-and my only excuse is that when I’m with you I really do forget everything else.”

“What?”

“Are you on birth control? Because we have been woefully negligent in that area.”

Birth control. She paused. She’d never even considered it as she’d never used it. Never needed it. Female werewolves could only conceive when they were in heat. And she couldn’t conceive with Jensen at all.

“Yes. I am.” That was her first outright lie to his questions. Although she wasn’t going to get pregnant, so was it really a lie?

“Good,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her again. But she couldn’t respond as she had before. The weight of what they’d been doing, what she was, and her past were too heavy for her to ignore.

“I think I do have to use the bathroom.”

He smiled. “I guess you held out for a pretty long time.”

She nodded, not really knowing what to say. She didn’t feel quippy at the moment, just guilty and miserable. She started to slide out of the bed, then realized she was naked. She looked around for something to put on.

Jensen guessed what she was doing and rolled over to retrieve something from the floor. He held out a mass of wrinkled blue material.

“It’s still damp, but it will work to get you to the bathroom.”

“Thanks.” She reached for it, but he pulled it back at the last minute, leaning forward to steal another kiss. Another of his sweet, heady kisses that she knew she’d never get tired of.

She forced herself to pull away. “Bathroom.”

He nodded and handed her the shirt. The material was chilly and a little difficult to pull on, the moisture making it stick to her skin. But she managed and scrambled out of bed. She didn’t look back at Jensen as she fled the room.

Jensen watched Elizabeth go, feeling overwhelmed by her. Physically, emotionally, even mentally. She had answered his questions, but with each question he had more. Not the least of which being, what was wrong with her? What disease did she have?

There were many illnesses that could cause fever. And was she lying when she said that it wouldn’t be fatal? Certainly she’d been working like she was running out of time, if she’d somehow staggered out there in the buff. He could tell she was stressed and she seemed a little scared, and that worried him.

No- worried wasn’t the right word. It scared the hell out of him.

Suddenly he had to see her. He had to know that she was all right. The need swirled in him, growing more and more until it was all he could do to remain on the bed and wait for her to return.

As if barging into the bathroom would help her in any way. Still, he felt anxious, like something dangerous lurked just outside the perimeter of their fragile world. A place where it was just the two of them.

The two of them. Hell, he didn’t even know if that was what she wanted. He had no more answers about their relationship than when he’d arrived here. In fact, he had more. For every answer she’d given him, another question popped into his brain.

Hell, he hadn’t even gotten the one answer he’d wanted most. He didn’t know what she wanted from him. Did they even have a relationship? She hadn’t said one way or the other. Why had she chosen him? He wanted to believe it was for a reason.

Again, the idea that she was sick jumped back into his mind. Then he was reminded of what he’d thought he’d seen. How she’d appeared almost-inhuman when he’d first found her in the barn. How strong her impact had been when she’d barreled against him.

He sat up, another wave of agitation flooding him. His eyes must have been playing tricks on him. He must have imagined what he thought he saw. There was no other valid explanation. After all, there wasn’t a disease that transformed you into some sort of…

He shook his head. He’d imagined it. Tricks of light. And she’d caught him off balance. That was it.

His eyes locked on the half-closed bedroom door. He listened for some noise to indicate she was okay. But the house was quiet.

He couldn’t wait any longer. He crawled out of bed and tugged on his damp jeans. He wanted to ask her more. But he paused with his hand on the door, realizing he could hardly grill this woman for more answers while she was using the bathroom. He didn’t know much about the state of their relationship, but he did know they weren’t there yet.

He paced the room instead. Looking around, trying to know more about her. Everything was very tidy. Everything in its proper place. She had a wooden box on her dresser, carved with leaves and flowers. The box looked old, and he suspected it was an antique. A jewelry box, he guessed.

There was also a bottle of perfume. This, too, looked old, the liquid inside a golden color. He lifted the bottle to his nose. He grimaced at the scent-cloying and slightly off. Definitely not the scent that always seemed to surround her. That wonderful spicy scent. Strong yet somehow not overwhelming.

He put the bottle back, careful to place it in the exact spot where it had been. He turned and wandered across the floor again. On the walls were several needlepoint pictures. He walked up to them, studying the precise stitches, the intricacy involved. The person who did these had to be very patient, very focused. Then he noticed tiny initials along the bottom of the picture on the right. EY.

Could Elizabeth have done these? He moved to the next. The initials appeared on all of them. EY. Some of them seemed to be quite old, the cloth yellowed in the frames. He supposed that could be caused by sun damage or other factors. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the one over her bed. It looked very old. Fragile, almost.

A sound caused him to look away. A thump that seemed far away. Downstairs, maybe. He frowned, then glanced at the door. How long had she been gone? A long time.

Again, a feeling that something wasn’t right snaked through him. A cold feeling. An unnerving feeling.

He decided it wouldn’t hurt to just go to the bathroom and knock. She might find it a little invasive, but he was driven by the need to be sure she was okay.

As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he knew something wasn’t right. The bathroom door was wide open, and the light was off. He walked down to peer into the darkened room. Empty, as expected.

“Elizabeth?” he called as he started back down the hall, stopping at each room, hoping she was there.

The upstairs was empty. He hurried back to her bedroom to finish dressing, only to realize she’d taken his shirt when she left. He hoped that was a good thing. He then bounded down the stairs, hoping she’d just gone to get something to drink or eat. But he had a feeling that wasn’t the case.

The living room was empty, as was the dining room. He strode into the kitchen hoping he’d find her, even as he told himself he wouldn’t.

He didn’t. The light was on over the large, round kitchen table, but otherwise there was no sign anyone had been there. He walked farther into the room, anyway.

“Elizabeth?”

As he got to the center of the kitchen, he spotted a yellow sticky note, stuck to the middle of the table. He hesitated, not sure he wanted to look at it. Even though he knew it was a note for him.

The yellow paper was indeed marked with small, precise, very feminine writing.

Jensen,

I’m sorry I’m saying this the way I am.

But this isn’t going to work out.

I cannot see you again. I’m sorry.

E.

Jensen stared at the yellow paper, the adhesive sticking to the pads of his fingers. She’d done it again-her usual disappearing act. Only this time, he did have an answer.

They didn’t have a relationship. That much he finally got, loud and clear. And he wasn’t getting his shirt back.