Well, tomorrow's Saturday, so no one has school. Therefore, I expect reviews!

Chapter 20

Leigh could feel a delicious shiver race down her spine. At that moment, her heart rate doubled. It had already been beating fast at the prospect of biting Doug and as soon as he agreed, her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. She could smell him—it wouldn't have taken her acute senses to do that. A good soapy smell was lingering over him, laced with a little sweat from his earlier run.

Doug turned to face her on the couch, sitting cross-legged. She noticed that his cheeks weren't quite as gaunt as when she had first laid eyes on him. They were beginning to fill in nicely. Doug really was a good-looking guy, if not noticeably so. She had the wild urge to pull her fingers through his reddish-brown hair. Instead, she scooted forward until she was half sitting on his lap. She could feel the teeth in her mouth sharpening to points in anticipation. She controlled the change, keeping it from going any further. The wolf in her had been acting up lately and she didn't want to give it the chance to be set free.

She cupped the back of his neck, bringing him forward slowly. His pulse raced at an astronomical rate. He's nervous, she realized, although she wasn't exactly sure why. She was the one who should be nervous, seeing as every time she touched him, her fingers tingled with energy. The tingles spread along her arms, creating a balloon in her chest and rising into her throat. A good and searing feeling rushed through her. His scent around her was so human that she had a hard time not thinking about prey—about the hunt.

Her breath brushed across his throat as she brought up the courage to bite. If she got close to him like this—she might not be able to stop herself from telling him how she felt about him. There was a lingering fear that he might push her away—tell her that he didn't feel the same.

Mustering all her courage, she struck. She couldn't help but feel the sick pleasure of her fangs sinking into her neck. The formula sacs above her jaw swelled, aching sweetly. She let them free, focusing on his heart beating against hers. Somehow she had moved closer to him so that she was flush against him. She felt herself trembling with the realization.

His arms moved up to hold her, to comfort her.

There was something nudging at her consciousness…another entity. She reached out with her mind and met Doug. Suddenly, he was all around her, warm and comforting, but demanding too. Leigh wasn't used to having someone this close to her, so intimately linked. His very consciousness surrounded her like soft wings and brushed up against her. A part of her rose up in panic, not wanting this kind of contact.

Relax, she told that part of her mind. She had a hard strong wall around her emotions; around her whole being in fact. An impenetrable wall. Nothing had ever broken it down before and she hoped nothing ever would.

Then she became bombarded with images. She could feel Doug's own anxiety at letting the images go. Doug playing with Jamie when they were kids. Young Doug trying to help his mother make cookies and failing horribly. Doug feeling accomplishment about achieving in school. She realized that he was filtering out the bad images. He wanted to protect her from his haunting past.

She felt herself wrapping her arms tightly about his broad shoulders. The images were coming faster now. Doug running every morning, sorting out his thoughts. Doug trying to comfort the Colonel after he had taken a long and self-pitying drinking binge. Watching after Jamie when the Colonel got mad. The smell of early morning dew and the feeling of a long swim. Listening to the soothing and rhythmic pattern of rain against the window.

Every once and a while, a bad image would get through. But Doug made up for it with a hundred good images, even if he had to resort to sensations. Then new pictures rolled forward that nearly shocked Leigh out of her senses. There was a picture of her standing in front of her house, her back to Doug. Her long straight hair fell back straight and glossy and her hip swayed slightly in the snug pair of jeans. Leigh's head turned to the side, and she saw she was chewing on her lip nervously. She reached out to touch the emotions Doug associated with that image and was sent reeling. Doug saw that girl as beautiful, with a core of steel…and yet fragile. Doug thought she had looked so lost, had wanted to protect her—to make everything all right.

Leigh in wolf form, a midnight blue eye flashing. Leigh looking jittery and a little guilty as she forgot her shoes on the front porch. Then there was an image that made Leigh's cheeks heat up. She was standing up at the top of the stairs, wearing nothing but Doug's blanket. She hadn't really thought of it from a guy's perspective at the time. She had only been trying to get out of a bad predicament.

She pushed further into his mind. He felt protective toward her, that much was clear. He felt fond of her. But he felt those same emotions for Jamie. Did he feel anything more than that for Leigh? She had to find out.

It was then that she felt something burrowing into the thick walls around her mind. It was Doug trying to break through. She recoiled instantly.

It's private! She thought and knew that the emotion was immediately conveyed to him as she forgot to block it.

You're reading my mind, Doug thought back to her.

There was a feeling that was associated with the thought. It was gone before she could grasp it, racing back to Doug. She chased after the emotion, grasping hold of it. Mistrust. I wish I could trust you but I can't.

Doug didn't trust her. All of the sudden, his reservations about her flowed to her mind, bombarding Leigh. She wouldn't let him see her mind, what if she didn't want him to know that she was using him? What if he was making a big mistake? He had risked everything for her.

Leigh felt herself drowning in the onslaught of accusations.

No! She protested. I'm not! I would never do that to you! I…love you. She just barely managed to stop herself from sending the last part of the message.

Prove it, his mind parried.

Everything in her protested at opening up to such scrutiny. She had hidden behind her walls for so long! But she suddenly realized so terrifyingly but clear, that she wanted him to see her. She wanted him to know what was beneath her locked doors and giant chasms. She wanted him to know how she felt…all of it.

Slowly she moved forward, until her own mind sat in the center of his. The barriers around her thoughts dissolved. He rushed forward to meet her, almost overwhelming. She had almost lost track of her body altogether, but she realized distantly that she was breathing quickly. Panicked.

Tendrils of thought wrapped around hers, comfortingly. He knew how hard this was for her and he was trying to make it not so terrible. She felt herself leaning forward into his strength. He was Doug. He would protect her—like he always did.

She could feel him probing through her mind. She could see what he was seeing—feel it. She sat there in a sleepy calm, pressed against his muscled chest. He laughed at her funny mistakes and got angry when her mother lectured her. He understood the dark parts of her mind. He embraced the wolf in her, and didn't judge her for stupid past choices.

You're just like me, his mind relayed to her in awe. All of you are just like humans. You have souls. You care about others and want to make the world better.

This information was so incredibly important to him. He wrapped his arms around her tighter, in gratitude. Leigh wished that she could stay like this forever.

But his mind was slowly falling upon more recent events. For some reason he found her anger at him at their first meeting amusing. He chuckled over the misunderstanding. A part of his mind drifting back. It wasn't so funny at the time, but now…

Now, Leigh responded. There was no need to end the sentence.

His thoughts brushed upon more recent thoughts and he bristled. She suddenly realized what he was looking at. A picture of her sitting on the front porch that day. Their hands brushed when she gave him the key and electricity crackled up his arm. She could still hear her distant thoughts. Maybe he does like me. Maybe he could…

No, Doug's mind was retreating from her. Jamie's age. Too young. Too young. Too young.

Doug, wait!

She could feel his strong arms dropping from her back. His hands fell on her shoulders, prising her away. Their whole cocoon shattered. Leigh blinked with the shock, trembling slightly at being pulled away so suddenly.

"No," he said aloud. His eyes were shut off. There would be no convincing him otherwise. He pushed her away, gentle but firm. He stood, distancing himself. He looked away for a moment, catching his breath.

"Doug?" She managed in an unused voice.

"No," he responded.

Leigh felt her heart plummet into her stomach. He was rejecting her—just like that. It was all because she was too young. Leigh didn't doubt there were some other reasons too. He just didn't want to hurt her feelings.

She stood, feeling sick. Slowly, she moved upstairs to the bedroom. She shut the door behind her, letting the light fall away with it. Encased in the dark and silence, she fell to the bed, allowing the hot and angry tears to fall free.

He didn't want her and he never would.