Disclaimer: I don't own CSI.

A/N: ...This is different. But my super-awesome beta, Pati, approved it, so it's her fault. Lol.

Let me know what you think!

She was sixteen when she got the letter.

It had bounced around California a few times, by the look of the postage markings on the outside. It arrived in a clean, crisp manila envelope, with California Social Services as the sender, and inside, the crumpled, scuffed, and well-inked original envelope had waited for her, ominous.

She didn't know anyone from Colorado.

But 'Sterling' had been her mother's maiden name, and that was enough to peak her curiosity. What did P. Sterling want with the Sara Sidle who had lived in Tomales Bay? Where had he gotten the address to the B and B?

She waited until she was alone. She had a roommate who loved gossip more than she loved eyeliner (which was way, way too much) and the surname told her that whatever was in the letter, she did not want to share it with everyone she knew on campus.

Sterling—Peter Sterling, she learned—was her maternal grandfather. Her mother had never talked about her parents, at least not coherently, but her father had told her, in those rare moments of sobriety and calm, that Laura had run away from home when she was a teenager. She had apparently seen them, since then, but was not on speaking terms anymore. He did not tell her why, and as a child, Sara could not fathom what had happened between them.

As a pseudo-adult, she thought she could guess. Schizophrenia often first manifested in late adolescence. She knew this, because she was in late adolescence, and was constantly on guard for it. She feared becoming her mother. Or, at least, that's what one of the many shrinks she'd seen had told her. Regardless, she thought that Peter Sterling might not be the obvious bad-guy she'd always thought he must have been, when her childhood-self had imagined her mother running away from home, a sack on a stick slung over one shoulder like she'd seen in cartoons.

He wrote to tell her that his wife—her grandmother—had passed away the year previous. And in the wake of her death, he had tried to find their only daughter to attend the funeral. He had not discovered Laura's fate before the burial, but had kept looking, feeling that one has a right to know when a parent has passed away, no matter their past disagreements. When he discovered his only daughter's grisly fate, he had turned his mind to finding his grandchildren, whom he had never been allowed to meet.

Her brother, Michael, had all but disappeared, but Sara, he thought, he had a chance of finding, because she was a minor, and must still be in the system.

He left his contact information on the bottom of the page, along with a desperate plea that she contact him. He was alone, and did not wish to lose any more family than he already had.

It took her two weeks of ruminating over the issue before she penned him a response back.

Peter,

You will understand if I am tentative about trusting anyone from my mother's family. I have set up a P.O. Box. You may write me.

Sara

She had thought that, surly and short as this missive was, it would likely discourage the communication. She could insist that she had tried, and been proven right, once again, that family was more trouble than it was worth. And when he did not respond—she would give him six months—she could close the P.O. Box and go back to concentrating on making a life for herself, on her own.

She was surprised when, no more than two weeks later, she received a letter in return.

Sara,

You have no way of knowing how much it meant to me that you would respond to me. Of course, I understand that you would be wary of me, for many reasons, and I respect that. I confess that it is my greatest wish to fill these pages with inquiry after inquiry. Who is Sara Sidle? Why is she using a P.O. Box in Cambridge, Massachusetts? What does she like, dislike? What are her interests and her passions and her talents? Does she look like my daughter, or like her father? What does she want, out of life?

But the burden in this interaction must be on me. How can I expect you to reveal so much, when you know so little of me? So I will tell you about your grandfather, and hope that it does not bore you.

He went on to describe his life as it was at present. He was retired, but had been a successful businessman in Denver. He had kept the home there, when he and his wife had raised Sara's mother, but he spent most of his time in his cabin in the mountains, fishing and hiking and enjoying his retirement. He had two dogs—a husky named Annabelle, and a Newfoundland named Jack—and they occupied much of his time. He lived a comfortable existence, and tentatively questioned whether she might accept some sort of college fund from him. It was the least he could do, he said, after having been absent so many birthdays and Christmases.

Before she could decide what she could say to the warm and heartfelt words, she received another letter. This one was about her grandmother. Florence Sterling had, by her husband's account, been a saint. She had been a nurse, and had worked with the terminally ill most of her life. She had spent her free time frequenting soup kitchens, had marched with the Women's Movement, and had started an organization to help the victims of domestic violence with the money her husband had made in his successful business endeavors.

Sara wondered if the irony of that had ever occurred to her own mother, in her more sentient moments.

Sara was wary. Her grandparents, apparently, had been perfect people. Rich, but philanthropic and hard-working. Genuine. They had wanted a house full of children, but had only had her mother, and by the sounds of it, given her everything they were able to. Laura Sidle had likely had an idyllic childhood, if her parents had indeed had time for her, around their other obligations. …Maybe they hadn't, and that had been a part of their falling out?

But while Peter described his dead wife as an angel come to earth, he was fairer when describing himself. He was no angel, but rather a man with many regrets. And he signed his letters, 'Love, Grandpa'.

She wrote him back.

Peter,

I graduated from high school early, and have been at Harvard for the past three months. Thank you for the offer of a college fund. It is too generous; I could not possibly accept it. It is unnecessary, anyway. I have scholarships, and I work. I do not know which parent I look like—I can hardly remember them, now.

That was a lie. She was the spitting image of her mother, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

I think I would have liked grandma, and I'm sorry for your loss.

Tell the dogs I said hello.

Sara

Despite her reluctance to forge a relationship with the man, their correspondence—which had begun in early September—became quite regular, and a good deal more open. So when Sara mentioned the dorms closing over Spring Break, and having to find some place to go for two weeks, it was not as strange as it could have been, for him to offer to buy her a plane ticket to spend Spring Break with him.

Sara was wary, but she was also in a bind. Where did a struggling college student—who was also a germaphobe—go for a week? Anything in her price range was too unsavory to even be considered. So she accepted, and the next letter she received included her tickets, there and back.

She walked off the plane warily, scanning the crowds. She did not know what he looked like, but she figured he would probably have a sign, or at the very least be one of a few people waiting uncertainly.

She recognized him because he went pale when he saw her, like he'd seen a ghost.

She was now seventeen, and quite possibly a dead ringer for the young woman who had disappeared from her bed in the middle of the night so long ago. She blushed uncertainly, and stepped up to him. "…Peter?"

"By God, it's really you!" He said, and pulled her into a hug that she was altogether unprepared for. He let go a moment later, realizing that she'd stiffened in his arms, and drew in a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Sara. I kept reminding myself that you probably wouldn't be comfortable with displays of affection, right away, but when I saw you… Sweetheart, it's like looking back in time."

She swallowed, looking away from the tears in his eyes. "It's fine. …Should we get my bag?"

And that was that.

Upon hearing that, despite having had snow in Cambridge from October to the present, she had not done any of the ubiquitous snow-related activities, he made it his goal to introduce her to the winter wonderland that was his cabin, despite their original plans to spend the two weeks in the home Sara's mother had lived in.

In all honesty, Sara was relieved. The idea of sleeping in the room her mother had grown up in made Sara feel nauseous, even though sleeping arrangements hadn't been discussed at all yet.

They picked up groceries on their way out of town, Peter insisting that she fill the cart with everything she wanted; he had no idea what "kids" ate these days. And the first half of the week saw them engaged in the aforementioned activities: they built a snow man and made snow angels, had a snow ball fight and drank hot chocolate by the fire. They rented ice skates and he taught her to ice skate on the frozen pond he liked to fish in. He took her skiing and spent all day on the bunny hill, coaxing her through the steps, until she consented to trying one of the easy slopes.

Her grandfather, apparently, was a talented skier. But he only chuckled good-naturedly and helped her up each time she fell and her skis snapped off.

He was sick by the end of their first week, and could hardly muster a protest when Sara insisted she take his car into town for cold medicine, cough drops, and chicken noodle soup. Despite the man's obvious wealth, it was an old car, and he was reluctant to let her take it alone. She asserted that she was a big girl, and he was just miserable enough to let her talk him into it.

She navigated her way to town with little difficulty, and found herself oddly satisfied with the idea of taking care of the man. He had been nothing but kind to her, and maybe—just maybe—having one member of her family want to see her could be a good thing.

Of course, the old car sputtered to a stop on her way back, just after she'd turned off the main road, onto gravel. She panicked briefly, but she'd always been a problem-solver. A survivor. The likelihood of someone else driving this way anytime soon was slim, but the likelihood of Peter crawling out of his sick bed if she wasn't back shortly was large. She knew the cabin could not be all that far, now that she'd reached the gravel road, and it was not that cold.

She stepped out of the car, dragging Peter's winter coat out of the back seat. He'd insisted she take it with her, even when she'd argued that she would only be outside when going from car to store and back again. It was bright red, which should keep her visible to cars in the approaching dusk, so for that, at least, she was thankful. She zipped it up and pulled the hood over her ears, remembering hearing somewhere that eighty percent of body heat was lost through the head. It sounded like an old wives' tale, but she figured it couldn't hurt.

Finally, she grabbed the plastic grocery bag full of medicine.

She walked along the gravel road at first, thinking that if someone did drive by, they might give her a lift. The longer she contemplated this, however, the more she disliked the idea. Would she really want someone to chance upon her on an abandoned stretch of gravel in the mountains? If they wanted, they could murder her and leave her out here, and she might never be found.

With a glance down at her tennis shoes, she thanked the trees around her for keeping the snow that had reached the ground light, and stepped off into the woods. She went until she could only just see the road, but thought the tree cover would hide her from cars.

And she continued onward.

To her surprise, she chanced upon someone no more than a half hour into her walk. Having been watching her feet, she looked up too late to avoid him. He was maybe forty feet in front of her, just this side of a large, open, snow-less meadow that was already sprouting wild flowers, and looking up at something in one of the trees, thoughtfully.

He heard her, not long after that, and turned in surprise. "…Are you lost?" He asked, and despite the less-than-welcoming words, he did sound concerned.

She realized that she was quite young to be out walking alone, and the shopping bag in her hand gave her away—she was obviously not just hiking. "No—my car broke down a little ways back. But P—my grandfather—lives this way. The walk isn't far."

He tilted his head, but nodded, turning his gaze back to the tree. She knew she ought to continue onwards and disregard the man, thankful that he did not appear to be an axe murderer, but she was curious.

"…What are you looking at?"

He glanced behind him again, somewhat surprised that she was speaking to him, but he smiled all the same, and pointed a gloved hand upwards. "Hogna carolinensis." He told her, in a teacher-voice. "Colorado's largest wolf spider. They're usually found on the ground. What is this one doing up here, I wonder?"

She got the feeling that he was asking her, the way some of her professors liked to teach by asking questions, but she had no freaking clue why a ground spider was in a tree. She looked up at it curiously, all the same, and flinched when she finally picked it out from the bark of the tree. It was a lot bigger than she'd expected.

He chuckled softly at her reaction, and she took in his appearance for the first time. He was not wearing a hat, despite the wives' tale, and he had dark curls on his head. His eyes were a striking blue, and his smile was… impish. Maybe even a touch dangerous.

She blinked. …That didn't fit with her impression of him as a teacher at all.

"Spiders—or any creature, really—don't like to venture out of their comfort zones. Wolf spiders are so named because it was once believed that they hunted in packs. While it is true that they do not lie in wait for prey to fall into their webs, they are solitary creatures… Lone wolves, if you will."

She took a step closer, eying the creature. Though it had intimidated her initially, it was really quite beautiful. It was black and gray, with peach along its… pincers? Mouth area?... and was as slender and intricate a creature as she had ever seen. "…So why is it up there?"

He eyed the creature for a moment, and then glanced back at her. "He's hungry. There's probably a shortage of insects at ground level, and he's gotten desperate. Animals—any animal—will rarely disrupt their normal routines for anything other than food or sex."

When she did not speak, he offered his gloved hand to her. "Gil Grissom. Entomologist. I'm doing a lecture series at UC Denver and thought I might… introduce myself to the locals."

Ah, that explained it. He was not, in fact, a creepy spider guy. Or, he was, but he had a degree to show for it.

She grinned, and shook his hand. "Sara Sidle."

He nodded. "Is your grandfather sick?"

She glanced down at the bag. Its clear plastic sides gave away its secrets, and she nodded. This guy was observant. "Just a cold. …I'd better get going. I'm sure he's miserable, without his medicine."

She started walking, but the man called after her. "Does he drink tea?"

She stopped, glancing over her shoulder. "…I'm not sure. Why?"

His head jerked in the direction of the open meadow. "Echinacea angustifolia. Elk root. The purple flowers. It's used in herbal teas as an immune booster. Native Americans began using it when they noticed Elk would seek out the plant and eat it when they were sick or wounded."

She glanced at the flowers, and back to him. "…Thanks."

He nodded, and turned back to his spider.

Sara let her gaze linger a long moment, almost wistful, and stepped into the meadow. She was torn between a myriad of emotions. On the one hand, the guy obviously knew his stuff. He was a scientist, and drew her respect and admiration for his quiet knowledge and unassuming manner. On the other, he was a creepy spider guy in the woods. …On yet a third hand, he was surprisingly attractive, for a quiet intellectual/creepy spider guy. His build was stocky, strong, but not so oversized that he looked like he'd eaten steroids for breakfast. His eyes were precisely the color of the Pacific on a hot summer day, and she had missed it more than she cared to say. And that smile—that incongruous smile—had sent shivers down her spine.

She almost wished he would come help her identify the flower, or that she had the time to stay and listen to him.

With only a little hesitation, she turned into the meadow, and went about the picking purple flowers, glancing back to see that he'd already moved on. She stuffed them into her bag, and sighed. The sun was slowly setting, and it would be dark soon. And though the day was not particularly cold, her toes were beginning to go numb. She needed to get back to the cabin.

She took off again, and was not back into the trees ten minutes before a voice called out to her.

"Hey!"

She jumped about a foot, and jerked her head up to see a man in a tree-stand. With a gun. He grinned at her. "You shouldn't be wandering in the woods alone. It's dangerous."

She raised an eyebrow at the man, who was dressed in camouflage. A hunter.

"I'm fine. Thanks for your concern." She turned from him, rolling her eyes, but within a moment he had scrambled down and caught up to her.

"Hey wait! Where are you headed?"

Despite having told another stranger that very information not long before, Sara glanced at him warily. "To my grandfather's cabin."

"You should be careful. There are wolves in the forest."

"Mmm," she said, unimpressed.

"Maybe I should come along with you. You know, for protection."

She stopped, giving him a more concentrated once-over. He was probably only a year or so older than her, and looked like the boy next door. He was tall, and muscled, and was probably his high school's quarterback. Dark hair, dark eyes. Mr.-tall-dark-and-handsome. Mr.-take-me-home-to-your-parents. Mr.-I've-never-suffered-a-day-in-my-life.

She sighed. "You know, I really think I'll be fine. I just want to get home."

"I'll just walk with you. I won't slow you down. …Don't you want the company?"

She didn't particularly, but it was getting dark. And on the surface, he was the type of man she ought to have jumped at the chance to spend a little time flirting with. He was cute, she supposed, and it wasn't his fault he'd had an easy life.

"…I guess that's fine."

"Great!" He said, falling into step beside her, a little too close. "My name is Danny."

Ugh. Danny. "Sara."

"Who is your grandpa?"

"…Peter Sterling."

"Mr. Sterling is your grandpa! Cool! He and my dad go fishing together! …I didn't know he had any kids."

Sara bit back the urge to roll her eyes again. When she didn't respond, he continued.

"So… you don't live around here, huh? Where are you from?"

"California."

"Oh yeah? When do you graduate? Do you think you'll go to school around here, to be close to Mr. Ste—your grandpa?"

"I graduated early. I'm a freshman at—in Boston."

"Awesome! I bet there's some sweet parties at college, huh?"

"Mmm," she said again, beginning to regret allowing him to come along.

"…I'm a senior this year. I'm hoping to get a football scholarship to Colorado State."

She didn't answer, and he shifted uncomfortably, looking around. He jerked to a stop, putting a hand out to stop her, which she ran right in to. She glared, but he didn't notice.

"Look!" he whispered, and pointed through the trees. There was a buck, nosing under the snow for a bite to eat, his antlers tall and proud. Danny pulled up his gun—rifle? Shotgun? She didn't know—and aimed it at the beautiful creature.

"What are you doing?" She shrieked, and the buck snapped its head up and took off into the forest. Danny turned to frown at her.

"Hunting. You just ruined my shot."

"…Are you even allowed to do that right now? It's spring! Shouldn't they be… mating… or whatever?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's only illegal if you get caught."

"…No. No, that's not true. And even if it were—it's immoral, no matter what. They have hunting regulations in place to protect the animals. It's bad enough that you could kill something so beautiful, but to not even care about the future of the species…"

He looked at her like she was crazy, and she scowled right back at him, before taking off in her intended direction. After a moment, he caught up with her again.

"Sara! Wait!" He grabbed her arm. "Listen, I didn't mean to upset you. I think… things are probably different here, than where you're from. It's just a misunderstanding. …How long are you in town? Maybe I could take you out."

She pulled her arm from his. "Yeah, Danny, I'm not really interested in going to a 'sweet college party' with a guy in camouflage. Sorry."

He grabbed her again, this time pushing her back against the trunk of a tree. "What the fuck is your problem?" And there, in his eyes, she saw a flicker of something dark. Something inside him that she did not want a closer view of. "…I'm just trying to be nice to you, and you've been nothing but a bitch." He said, his voice conciliatory, even as his words remained harsh. "Who cares about a stupid deer?"

"Yeah, I'm sure the authorities will see it that way, too." She snapped, shoving him off of her, but he immediately pressed her back, more roughly. He opened his mouth, but Sara had heard more than enough from him. A well-placed knee to the groin had him falling to the ground, even as his over-ready trigger finger squeezed in response to the pain.

A shot rang out, off into the forest, and Sara screamed in response, convinced she'd been shot.

After the initial fear, when it became clear that Danny was even more of an idiot than she'd previously thought, she retrieved his gun in disgust and took off running, ignoring him calling after her from his place on the ground, rolling in pain.

She did not realize she had dropped her bag by the trunk of the tree.

Once Sara was a decent distance away from her pseudo-attacker, she ditched the gun in a snow bank beneath a tree, feeling that she had rendered him impotent, for the moment, at least. And then she looked around herself.

The road was nowhere in sight. She had wandered far off her chosen path, and she had no idea which way she was going. Briefly, she panicked, but this was not so difficult if she could just stop and think.

She could not see the stars clearly through the canopy of the trees, but the moss on the trees gave her a direction for north. She had run southeast from the road, so moving northwest would bring her back to Danny, and the road. But her grandfather's cabin was on a driveway off the north-south gravel road, to the east. So if she went straight north, she should find the driveway without running into Danny.

Taking a deep breath, and eyeing the nearly-darkened forest around her, she took off. At the very least, it was easy to check if she was moving north. Her breath was becoming visible in the air around her, her feet hurt, but her toes were numb with cold, and she was beginning to feel discouraged. Sure, she was Sara Sidle, survivor, but her grandpa had been so worried she couldn't manage this simple trip to town alone, and…

Well, he was right, wasn't he? She had no idea, now, where she'd dropped the bag of medicine. The poor man would be miserable and probably worried out of his mind. She should have been back hours ago.

She crossed her arms in frustration. She just needed to get back. She would have run, but common sense overrode the impulse. It might be faster, and warmer, but if she was going the wrong way, she would use up all her energy too quickly, and still be no closer to finding the cabin. Plus, she was in a mountain forest—there was no knowing what she might run into, especially in the dark. She didn't want to accidentally go running off a cliff.

She was half frozen by the time her feet fell on the pot-holed old driveway and her eyes turned up the road to see the lights of… home, kinda. She did run, then, and burst into the mudroom abruptly, her eyes closing against the light shining through from the kitchen, despite the darkness still around her.

"Sara?"

The voice was deeper, but seemed familiar enough to confuse her—had his throat really gotten so sore? But her eyes were foggy in the darkness after taking in the light. "Grandpa?"

Rough, calloused hands fell to her cheeks, tilting her head up as if checking to see if she was okay, and she marveled at their size. What big hands he had. Her grandfather was tall and slim, like her mother, and herself, and she had thought his hands would be long and slender too.

A moment later, apparently satisfied that she had not been harmed, the hands fell from her face and one flicked on the light beside her. She blinked in confusion, finding the Wolf Spider man standing before her, without his coat and gloves and boots. In her grandfather's home. …Or was it not?

"…Am… Am I in the wrong place?"

He sighed. "No. I… I was packing up my things when I heard a gunshot, and a scream. I ran towards it and found your bag, and I… worried. This was the only cabin nearby, and when I knocked… Your grandfather answered, but he was pretty delirious with fever. He kept asking for you. I… couldn't just leave him, and I… I was worried about you."

"Is he okay?" She asked, rushing into the cabin and up to the door of Peter's bedroom, taking in his softly snoring form, surrounded by the two hairy lumps of Jack and Annabelle, keeping him company.

"He's fine. I gave him Advil to take his temperature down and Nyquil so he'd sleep. …He wasn't in very good shape, but I think he'll be okay now. I just… didn't want to rush him in to the doctor, and have you stranded out here alone if…"

His words finally sunk in. He'd been worried about her. He might have even thought she'd died. She pulled her grandfather's door shut behind her, watching the older man fidget in her kitchen. When she didn't answer, he cleared his throat.

"I, uh, started the herbal tea, while I was waiting for you. …Are you sure you're okay?"

She nodded, moving over the fire, feeling the beginnings of a coiling tension in her stomach, and in the room around them. She was, for all intents and purposes, alone with a man. A man who made her short of breath, despite their obvious age difference. Her grandfather would be out for at least eight hours, and she had adrenaline still pumping through her system.

"I'm fine. Just… cold."

He nodded. "You… should probably get out of your wet clothes."

Without breaking eye contact, she unzipped the red coat and tossed it onto the hearth, within dangerous reach of the flickering flames. "That's true. I won't need them anymore."

He swallowed, watching her kick off her muddy tennis shoes and peel off her wet socks. Both were tossed onto her coat, and though she vaguely wondered why she did not do this in her bedroom, the question was idle.

She knew exactly what she was doing, and despite feeling as though she ought to be nervous, she wasn't.

When she began unbuttoning her shirt, one slow button at a time, he stepped closer, into the living room, away from the lights of the kitchen. His features flickered in the fire light, and his hands tensed around the back of a chair. "Sara…"

It was a warning and an uncertainty, all in one.

She slid the shirt from her shoulders, and it too fell to the hearth.

"Sara, your grandfather…"

"Is asleep, Gil."

She watched as her use of his name caused him to tremble, and she smiled.

"This is… isn't right. Are you even…?"

"I'm a freshman at Harvard." She said, skirting the age question as her fingers popped the button on her jeans. His eyes fixed themselves on her fingers as they slid down her zipper. "…I felt the connection, the moment I saw you. I feel it now."

Her jeans slid almost silently to the floor, leaving her in only her white, cotton underthings. He growled, uncertainty forgotten, and stalked forward. His rough palms slid around her waist, pulling her close to him, and her slim fingers landed on his shoulders. She looked up.

What big blue eyes he had.

"Are you sure, Sara?"

She smiled, softly. "I'm sure." And she slid his long-sleeved cotton shirt over his head, letting it too fall to their feet. His chest was broad and masculine and made her shiver against him, her breasts puckering almost painfully.

He bent to kiss her, and though he held her gently, his mouth ravaged hers. She moaned, swept up in his rough affections, breathing in deeply through her nose and taking in the scent of him; the woods, and raw, masculine heat. Her hands moved over the strong planes of his chest and his flat stomach, freeing the button on his pants as easily as she had her own. He pulled back, his hands coming to his waist. He kicked out of his shoes and shuffled both his pants and his underwear down his body, his socks coming free in the process.

He stood before her, completely naked, and looked… wild. She glanced down, below his waist.

"What a big—" he stopped her with a kiss, and she giggled into it, palming his erection, relishing his gasp against her lips.

It was apparently his breaking point. He clutched her closer, all but tearing her remaining clothing from her body and tossing it in the direction of the others, his large hands kneading her small breasts and her tight ass, another growl slipping from him.

Together, they stumbled down onto the rough wood before the fire, legs intertwining as their passion grew in time with their kisses. Sara was eager to explore every inch of him, and kissed her way down his chest, hesitating only a moment before taking him into her mouth. He groaned, bucking up against her mouth, and in a deep, broken voice, beseeched, "Move over here. Move your legs over here."

"Why?" She asked, in genuine naiveté, even as her voice came lust-rough in the darkness. He chuckled, and after a wild, scrambling moment, caught her legs and dragged her around on top of him, so that her knees were against his shoulders, and she was spread open like a feast above him.

She thought, foolishly, as she felt his mouth rise up to touch her for the first time, that she'd heard him mumble, "The better to eat you, my dear." But no, that didn't make any sense at all. It was just the amazing things he was doing to her body—it was making her as delirious as her grandfather.

One finger, gently, and then two, until she was shaking above him, her own ministrations on his body stuttering to a halt as she felt her stomach tightening. Oh, oh…

She crawled off of him. She had brought herself to orgasm before, but her first time with a man, she wanted him inside her. On her hands and knees, her feet close to his, she looked over her shoulder at his prone form. "Do you have something?"

He rose up behind her, digging his wallet from his pants pocket and ripping open the little packet in a frenzy. Once on, he bent over her, arms wrapping around her slender frame, his furry legs pressed firmly behind her smooth ones. Kisses slid between her shoulder blades and up her spine as his fingers dipped down, teasing her into widening her stance for him.

He bit down gently on the sensitive curve between her neck and shoulder, and pressed his way inside her.

She felt the intrusion, but not the pain she'd been given to expect from pop-culture and trashy romance novels. He was full inside her, a large, throbbing beast within her, but there was no mythical maidenhead to break and mark her as his own. No blood spilled to make this moment any more significant than the joining of two bodies ought to always be.

She shivered, pressing back against the delicious bulk of him, soaking up the warmth of his strong body behind her. She moaned as he began thrusting, her nails digging into the wood beneath her even as she felt herself building up to her precipice again. There was no name for the untamed feeling within her, the power of leashing such a man between her legs.

"Close… so close…" He whimpered out against her ear, and she realized that he needed her to come first. That he was struggling to contain himself, waiting. She bent her body down, her face to the floor, to free up one hand to slip between her thighs.

The switch in angle and the rhythm she set up sent her over almost instantly, and she clenched around him so tightly that he howled as his thrusts became desperate and the warmth bloomed inside her.

They collapsed together, and he pulled the thick blanket from the couch beside them to the floor, wrapping her up in it and in him as they drifted off before the fire.

He was gone before she woke up, cold before the smoldering ashes, naked as the day she was born. But Sara wasn't worried.

Wolves, after all, mated for life.