I barely remember most of my father's funeral. Part of that had to do with shock, I'm sure, and the numbness of grief. I still didn't quite believe he was dead, and though I stood and listened to the people that described him and told stories about what a great man he was, I felt hollow, as though none of it really mattered. I tried to be there for my mother as much as I could, but all my life she had been strong and independent, and even in the face of this it seemed like she was refusing to break. So I turned my attention to Seth, who wasn't ashamed to let the tears roll down his cheeks as various people who had loved my father took their turn to speak. I put my arm around his shoulders and let him lean on me for support, but I could not make myself cry, even though part of me wanted to. Maybe I was too overwhelmed with it all.
Standing there at the gravesite, holding onto Seth like an anchor, I found myself lost in my own mind even as I tried to focus on what was being said. I couldn't seem to stay present. My mind kept traveling backward, obsessing over the last few days, and all that I had seen and learned and felt in that time. It seemed like a lifetime's worth of experiences had taken place in just a few short weeks, and I felt like I could have slept for days if only I was given the chance. Instead, I was busier than I'd ever been in my life.
With half an ear, I listened as people spoke of my father's wisdom, his belief in the traditions, his patience, and his sense of humour. I listened to friends and relatives describe the love he held for his family, us, without really connecting to the words. The only thing that felt real was my arm around my brother's shoulders, but even that didn't quite feel like it was really part of me. Everything seemed somehow dulled… the sounds, the faces, even the smell of cedar burning, a scent which I usually found rich and soothing. Since my father's death, since the shift, everything had changed.
'Shift' was the word I came to use to describe my profound transformation, because it was more than a transformation, more than a simple change or event in my life. The word 'shift' implied a deep alteration in everything, yet it also implied subtlety, and that was the world I was living in now. My life was completely different, yet to nearly everyone, I was the same. It was an eerie feeling, and I'd come to understand very well why Sam had thought he was crazy when he'd first made the shift. If I'd been doing this alone, I certainly would have.
In wolf form, I was almost never alone. That had been the first thing that had overwhelmed me, but Sam was smart enough to have ordered everyone back to human form at first. That way, he was able to share that long story of my own past with me, all the things I'd never seen, in such a way that I could actually absorb it without my head exploding. Then, slowly, he'd allowed the others to introduce their minds to me. Despite their caution, it was an intense experience. I was shocked to be given such naked insight into their minds, and I couldn't stop myself from knowing everything about them, almost in a single instant. I learned their individual voices, but I also learned their pasts, their hopes, and their dreams.
Even my brother, who I thought I knew fairly well, was like a new person to me, and I felt so close to him after that. The near-instantaneous deepening of our relationship, as well as the relationships I built, basically from scratch, with the others in the space of a day, was amazing. When I came back to myself I found with surprise that I loved them all. I still loved Seth the most, but there was a strong, visceral connection between all of us. They may as well have been my brothers too, given the closeness we shared.
My initial fascination and excitement about the whole process was soon tempered by disappointment as I realized there was no way to shut off the connection. There were ways, by concentrating, to project certain images and memories through the connection, as Sam had done for me, but there was no way to hold anything back. My life, my memories, my feelings, were all up for grabs. It was an incredible intrusion, as I had always prided myself on being a private person who dealt with things internally. Now my mind was constantly being witnessed, explored, and examined by six boys, one of whom was my ex-boyfriend, and one of whom was my brother. I realized with panic that all the thoughts and feelings and knowledge that I had worked to keep from my brother would now exist, basically, at his fingertips, and as soon as I realized that, I didn't want to change anymore. Only I couldn't stop.
There were drawbacks to my connection with the others, too. Sometimes I overheard things I didn't want to, especially their doubts and confusion and sometimes even scorn about my transformation as a female, as though I had crashed their all-boys club on purpose. They didn't know quite what to make of me. Everything became a problem: they had taken for granted that they would constantly see each other naked because of the logistics of transformation, but now that I was in the equation things became very awkward. They also seemed unable to make up their minds about whether they wanted to flirt with me, shun me, or opt for a mixture of both.
Sam's constant thoughts of Emily were the most difficult. Not only did I have to listen to his incessant love for her, but his feelings also started to infect my mind and make me feel some of the same emotions for her. It was terribly confusing and it wasn't easy, especially the first few times I changed, to separate my own thoughts from theirs. It wasn't like a camera where I could watch a memory and think to myself, oh, I'm seeing something through Jared's eyes now; it was more like the memory was my own, only I'd forgotten it up to now. It was jarring and frightening, to be so certain that something had happened to me that I knew couldn't possibly be true, yet over and over again I felt that way. I kept second-guessing my own life, losing my grip on what were my own truths, trying to pinpoint the place where I ended and each of them began.
Maybe that's why I felt so cut off from my father's funeral. Some of the people who spoke knew not only my father, but also the parents of my new brothers, and even they had also known my father. Memories I had never owned before swirled through my mind: conversations between my father and Sam, his presence at each of their initiations, and private moments he'd shared with Seth. I felt as though I was intruding on all these things, yet they existed in symbiosis with my own experiences, and I had to concentrate incredibly hard to separate what was my own and what wasn't. Even to attempt to compartmentalize was exhausting.
If the telepathic connection we shared had persisted into human form, I don't think I could have survived it without some kind of mental breakdown. But it was still terrifying, and every time I changed back I was horror-stricken at the idea that I might lose something in transition, or accidentally swap a memory with one of theirs and never know that it wasn't always mine. But each time, as far as I knew, I came back whole, and they promised that those fears would fade as I got used to being like this. Still, it wasn't easy. Most people think of a connection like this as the ability of one person to look into the mind of another, to read thoughts and speak through the brain, but it's much more than that. It's living, simultaneously, as many people, and hard work not to forget who you really are.
In wolf form, I wasn't standing at a window, looking through a pane of glass into one of their minds. I was in a different place, as though I was standing in a physical space just big enough for one person, but with many people standing in it, overlapping. We weren't each in our own minds, with some sort of branch connecting us all; instead, we inhabited the same plane, the same mind, no bigger or smaller than each of our separate minds, but all of existing there together. Things were bound to get confused, or out of order. It was amazing that our brains knew, somehow, how to withdraw properly from that communal mind so that each of us remained the same person on the other side, again and again.
The funeral ended, it seemed to me, only moments after it had begun. I hadn't been expected to speak, and so my zombie-like presence at the gravesite had gone unnoticed, or at least unmentioned. Numbly, I accepted hugs and words of comfort as people filed past us, murmuring thanks to them for coming, internally shaking my head at the strange rituals we constructed in times of grief. The only people I felt real warmth for were the others from the pack. I'm ashamed to say I didn't accept a hug from my own grandmother as thankfully as I did from those boys. The connection had been formed, as real as concrete, cementing us together forever. I couldn't deny it. And in that moment, I didn't want to.
Embry and Paul came to my family first, and I watched as they each in turn shook my brother's hand gravely, which was exactly what he would have wanted: to be treated as a man in this situation, and not a boy. Then they stood in front of me. I was surprised that they didn't actually say a word to me. Embry just reached out, taking my hand and looking into my eyes, and I knew everything he might have said just from that look, because I knew him. I smiled at him, and then smiled at Paul, who reached out and pinched my upper arm before they moved off. I looked after them with as much warmth as I might have had if we'd spoken for two hours about my loss. Quil and Jared filed past me next, the jokesters of our pack, only they were quite serious now. One after the other they hugged first Seth, and then me, and then they moved away from us, as wordlessly as the others had.
Jacob felt the need to speak to me, but I wasn't surprised. He was far more talkative than the other four anyway, particularly when it came to emotions. He told Seth the usual things that people say- how proud my father had been of him, how much he would miss him, but he said those things with such empathy and sincerity that I knew he meant every word. When he stopped in front of me he smiled sadly at me and said, "Leah."
"Jacob," I said back to him. It was the first word I'd spoken in what seemed like many hours.
"Will I see you tonight?" he asked me. He meant was I coming out with the rest of them, running around in the woods, or 'patrolling' as Sam liked to call it, probably because it sounded much more important that way.
"No, I'm going to stay in," I said, and caught Seth's eye, not missing the relief that flooded his features. "Seth too," I added with a small smile. "We need some family time.'
"Fair enough," Jacob answered. Then I watched as he went to my mother and took her hand, expressing his apologies and condolences to her, which she took with a brave smile, as she had taken every hardship I had witnessed thus far in her lifetime. I had some problems with Jacob, particulary with the company he kept, but I had to say that he could be extremely sweet and thoughtful at times. After ensuring that my mother was alright, he moved off to join the others.
Sam came to me last. He and my brother had definitely put any differences our breakup had caused well behind them since Seth's shift. Sam hugged him, and even though almost anyone else doing that at a time like this would have made my brother turn away, face flaming, he hugged Sam back tightly, taking comfort from his strong embrace. Looking at them, I couldn't help thinking that, in another life, they would have been brothers-in-law. Sam would have held my hand through this day, supporting me, fielding the well wishings of strangers and family alike, and I would have been grateful for it.
Without him, I'd had to do all that alone. Yet with him, Seth would have been the one to have done it alone, and I probably wouldn't even have noticed. That was the window that opened when Sam closed the door on our relationship, and I couldn't say that I regretted it. I accepted his sympathetic arms around me now with real warmth. Never again would he be in love with me… but never again would that cause me heartache, either. He was now something different: a brother, a friend, closer to me, in many ways, than my own skin. It wasn't better, but it wasn't worse either. I found, with some surprise, that I could actually accept it.
"Your father was a great man," Sam told me. "I respected him, and I owed him a lot."
"He cared about you," I answered.
"He cared about you, too," he countered, and I had to smile, because even now Sam knew exactly what I was thinking. I put my arms around his neck and he held me close for a long time, not the embrace of a boyfriend but the loving arms of a caring friend. It was enough. It was better than enough.
I opted to sit in the back seat with my brother on the drive home. My mother was chatting about work and school, saying anything to keep from mentioning my father or his funeral, being forcibly optimistic; she did this not only for our sakes, but for her own sake too, I'm sure. Seth and I both tuned her out, though she didn't seem to notice, and though he and I didn't touch or speak the entire ride home, I knew my presence was as comforting to him as his was to me.
Suddenly something my mother was saying registered with me. "What?" I asked, and beside me Seth jumped. My mother's voice had become background noise, but mine was a jolt to him.
"I said that the council approached me about your father's seat."
"What about it?"
"It's tradition that when a person… passes… their council seat goes to a family member."
"Are you going to take it?" I asked warily.
She didn't say anything for a moment. Finally she said softly, "Yes. I think your father would want that."
I took in this knowledge slowly: my mother was going to find out. Is that something my father would have wanted? It seemed like he'd worked hard to keep that secret from her. From me, too, and if I hadn't changed I would have no idea what was going on with Seth.
"Congratulations, Mom," my brother said, forcing his voice to sound cheery. I looked at him sadly. With my eyes I told him he didn't have to do that, didn't have to pretend to be okay if he wasn't. That's not what I wanted for him, and it irritated me that my mother was setting that kind of example for us. I wasn't going to pretend that none of this was a big deal, and that we should just accept my father's death by heart attack as some kind of greater spiritual purpose that we couldn't understand. It wasn't that way to me. He was dead and we were all devastated by it: pretending that we weren't feeling those things did nothing for anyone.
But my mother wanted to insist that everything was going to be fine. Seth and I were teenagers, not five-year-olds; she could have chosen to include us in her grief, but instead she danced around the issue. Part of me understood: my mother had always been a strong woman, and maybe she was afraid that if she let herself be weak, everything would crumble to dust around her. Maybe she felt that if she structured our lives around her loss, she could keep it at arms length, and from there it couldn't hurt her, couldn't sneak up on her. I could understand that, too, but it wasn't what I wanted.
When we got home, my mother declared that she had a headache and retreated to the bedroom. I imagined her lying there, inhaling the last remnants of my father's scent from his pillow. I could understand the hollowed-out feeling that she must have been feeling, and for a moment I was tempted to climb into that bed with her, to curl into her body as I had once curled inside her womb, and heal her from the inside out. But I knew that she felt she had to do this alone, at least now. If I went in there, she would declare herself whole and force herself out of that bed. So I let her stay.
I looked at my brother. He was standing just inside the door, wearing only one shoe- I followed his gaze and saw him staring at our father's fishing boots. He'd cast them off just inside when he'd come home only those few short days ago, the day Seth's fever had started. Mud still clung to the soles, and I knew what Seth was thinking: he would never wear those again. They would sit in this exact spot at that exact angle until one of us had the strength to move them, to tuck them away in a box or donate them to someone in need of boots, because our father didn't need them anymore.
"Seth." I walked over to him and touched his shoulder; my fingertips against his skin made him jump. "Do you want to go for a run?" I asked him.
He glanced out the window and I thought I saw longing in his eyes. I knew he enjoyed being in wolf form, running swiftly through the underbrush with the wind in his fur and his big paws leaving enormous footprints in the mud. It made him happy, but he shook his head and removed his other shoe.
"Nothing's going to change anything," he said softly. "He's gone."
"I know," I answered him, my voice equally soft. I didn't offer him any platitudes; I prided myself on avoiding that, knowing that most people wouldn't. "Do you want to do something? Watch a movie… play a board game?"
"I don't really want to do anything, Leah," he answered heavily. "I think I'm going to have a nap. I'm exhausted."
I nodded and swept my hand through his cropped dark hair, missing the crown of soft waves he used to wear. I missed my own long hair too, but there was no avoiding the shorter styles: our wolves looked ridiculous and shaggy, and the longer fur could easily get in your eyes. He gave me a small smile and then moved away from me. I watched him disappear into his room with an ache in my chest, wishing I could take this pain away from him. But I knew I couldn't, and it would be wrong to try. I looked down at my father's boots and wiped my tears away as soon as they fell from my eyes. Then I stooped and picked them up, and with one flick of my wrist I tossed them into the bottom coat closet, so none of us would have to look at them.
The house was silent, and the air sat heavily on my body. I felt like I was drowning in that silence, and without the distraction of my living family I found myself far too preoccupied with the dead. For me, retreating to my bedroom didn't offer me the same solace it did my mother and brother: my bedroom still felt like a trap at times, as though it held onto some remnant of my panic at being confined there. That leftover feeling seemed to descend on me as soon as I crossed over the threshold. My bedroom was not a refuge, and neither was my house- not now. I pulled off my shoes and socks, something I only wore for my mother's sake these days, as I was far more comfortable without my feet sweating and had developed a thick sole on the bottom of my feet to protect me against the forest floor.
Lots of people on the Rez live within ten steps of the forest, myself included, which is probably the only reason we can get away with turning into giant wolves and running around all over the place. I was dressed nicely because of the funeral and didn't want to wreck my good clothes, so I walked far enough into the forest on my human feet that I could undress in private. I stashed my clothes in a burnt-out tree stump and stood for a moment, just relishing the feeling of the cool forest air on my naked skin. It wasn't something most people- women in particular- ever got to experience, and it was one of the few things about shifting that I liked.
Unlike Seth, it didn't make me happy. I wanted it to stop, and I was determined to find a way to do that. It wasn't just because I was being called on to put myself in lethal danger fighting vampires, or even that all my plans had been destroyed precisely because of the shift… it was something much deeper than that. I wanted to be allowed to call the shots in my own life. I felt so trapped by what had happened to me: with the shift, it didn't look like I could even leave this reservation; the pull of the land had become so strong. With the shift, I was in constant danger of imprinting, something that at times seemed alluring because of its simplicity but also something that scared the hell out of me. The idea that I could lose my senses and worship another person regardless of how that person felt about me was frightening. If I fell in love again, I wanted it to be real, and I wanted the same for my brother. It made me sick to think that he might set eyes on some random girl and suddenly live for her and no other, and never get to grow up properly and experience the normal feelings of first loves, broken hearts, and spurned crushes.
But the shift had stolen more than my dreams of college or marrying Sam. I hadn't told any of the boys, and if they had seen it in my mind they hadn't commented on it. Since everything started, since I changed, my body seems to have gone quiet, its rhythms paused and muffled, non-existent. I'm not menopausal, and yet I'm not fertile either. My body sits, suspended in time, and I have no control over it. This is nothing I wanted, and nothing I asked for, and for no other reason than to know that it's still possible for me to be a mother, I want to learn control. With control, the council has told us, you can stop shifting, start aging again, have children, and die. Of course, they temper these promises with the warning that no woman has ever shifted, so who knows what will happen to me? But I feel a great urgency, as though every day that goes by where I remain in suspended animation is another day that my body assumes I don't need to know how to grow a life inside me.
Standing in the woods, nude, I lowered a hand onto my bare belly, imagining all the workings that had gone silent there. I still digested my food, still breathed, and my heart was still beating; yet that one little organ tucked behind my pubic bone had not made the shift with the rest. I could only hope that it was saving its reserves for later, rather than shutting down prematurely forever. I've always wanted to be a mother, and now that I'm afraid it's impossible, I want it even more.
Seeing Seth's birth and loving him as a baby and a child started me down the path of my longing, and when I was so sure that Sam and I would be together forever, I spent hours imagining what our children would look like. I couldn't quite picture yet having a baby with anyone but him, which is how I know I'm nowhere near ready, but I never counted on the option being taken completely off the table. As soon as I can stop, I will. And as soon as I figure out how to teach Seth to stop, I will… though it's becomes clearer to me every day that he probably won't be interested. It scares me, but I know it's his life, and it would be hypocritical for me to try to live it for him when his ability to make his own mistakes is the exact thing I'm trying to protect.
Shaking away my thoughts, I put my hands together as though I was swan diving off the cliffs near the highway where the Rez kids like to play, and dove into the underbrush. Midair, I shifted into wolf form, feeling the satisfying muffled thump of my four paws landing softly in the dirt. There were some perks to this newfound ability of mine, and it wasn't that I didn't stand in awe of my own talents or abilities. It just wasn't what I wanted long-term.
I had been running aimlessly through Olympic National Park for maybe an hour, thankfully alone with my own thoughts, when someone else suddenly joined me. I felt the presence snap on like a light switch, and quickly I tried to reign in my thoughts. I was still paranoid about what I was thinking about during the link, even though they were all remarkably polite about not repeating embarrassing things they had seen in someone else's head. Still, I had caught each of them, on more than one occasion, thinking about me naked. It was unavoidable; as much as we all tried, it happened: I saw them, and they saw me. I knew Jared thought that was one of the reasons why girls didn't traditionally become werewolves, and it could be pretty awkward sometimes. Still, it happened, and we all had to live with it, but I hated overhearing it almost as much as they hated me to know they were fantasizing about me. We all toed around the issue because there was no other choice in how to handle it.
Hey Leah, Paul's voice came to me through the link. You okay?
I'm fine, I answered. I just wanted to blow off some steam.
I'm not too far from you, he said. Want to meet up?
I hesitated. Did I? It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but then I realized that I didn't want to be alone, not really. Running with someone else would help keep my mind off things, and besides, it wasn't like I could really ignore him if he stayed in wolf form, even if he wasn't with me physically.
Sure, I said, and I'd barely thought the word before I heard him crashing through the underbrush to my right and then his dark gray wolf form was standing in front of me.
Told you I wasn't far, he said, and I could practically hear the smirk in his voice.
Yeah, great, I answered dryly as we moved off, running side-by-side. Now if there are any hunters in the vicinity they'll all know just where to come looking for us.
He laughed. There's no one, he said. So don't worry. We startled a small herd of white-tailed deer and they quickly leapt away from us. I saw Paul's thoughts drift to how hungry he was. I preferred to avoid eating in wolf form at all costs, but the boys enjoyed it and accepted it as part of the shift. To me, it was disgusting, and I'm sure he overheard my revulsion because the thought faded from his mind immediately.
Instead, he started imagining a platter full of vegetables, fruit, and tofu squares, just to irritate me, I'm sure. Because they were stupid boys, the entire pack, even Seth, all thought it was hilarious that I refused to swallow huge chunks of dripping, bloody raw deer meat, but I enjoyed eating, say, a cheeseburger from McDonalds. In their idiocy they didn't see the difference.
Hey, don't call us idiots just because you're squeamish, Paul protested, overhearing my disdain.
Can we talk about something else? I retorted.
How are you doing? his gentle voice came back to me. I saw an image of my father's face flash through his mind, and then my own face as I stood by the gravesite at the funeral. Two things in quick succession surprised me: one, that I looked absolutely awful, and two, that he'd thought I looked pretty. He'd thought I looked brave and maternal, too, which I actually found more flattering. Anyone can look pretty with the right clothes and makeup, but where does that get you in the end?
I'll be fine, I answered him.
Next to me, his wolf form slowed from the flat-out run we were on to a leisurely walk, and I was forced to do the same, though I'd been enjoying the run. He looked over at me, his dark eyes exactly identical to his human ones. After my initial shock of my first shift, I had spent some time staring into a mirror. I found it both beautiful and creepy that my eyes were so human in wolf form; now, looking at pictures of the eyes of real wolves, they looked strange, almost fishlike in their lack of expression.
I know you'll be fine, he said pointedly. But how are you now?
My immediate reaction was to tell him I felt fine, but I knew that was pointless. In this form, I couldn't lie to him. So I slowed my pace to a stop and sat down on my haunches in the dirt. I wondered if we could cry in wolf form.
Paul sat down very close to me and lifted his head up on top of mine; because I was smaller, he was able to tuck my head under his chin. At first it seemed silly, but then I welcomed the comfort of his body next to mine. I wanted badly to change back to human form so he could hold me properly, but the logistics made that impossible.
I hid my clothes not far from here, his thoughts came through to me as he heard what I wanted. I have enough that it could work. I heard him thinking about his clothes- he also hadn't bothered to change after the funeral, so tucked into the boughs of a tree nearby was a full men's suit, rented for the occasion.
Without waiting for my reply, or probably picking up on it without the need for me to actually form the words, he left my side, returning quickly with a bundle of clothes. Oftentimes when we went running we tied our clothes to our legs, which could be awkward but came in very handy if you had to shift back quickly, but as this was an impromptu shift for both of us, we hadn't had the opportunity to really plan ahead.
Paul held the clothes gingerly in his teeth, taking care not to get them covered in saliva. He laid them on a relatively clean patch of ground and used his nose to separate a few articles for me, which I carried into the trees a short distance away. I shifted and quickly pulled on what he'd given me- the shirt, which hung to my mid-thighs, and a pair of his boxers, which I hesitated to put on until I realized that the bottom edge of my butt peeked out just a little at the back of the shirt. Well, at least they weren't briefs. I finished dressing and returned to the clearing, where Paul was already dressed in the suit pants; the jacket, socks, and shoes he'd piled on a nearby stump, since he knew neither of us would be cold enough to want them. I could hardly remember what cold felt like anymore.
Now that I had gone away and come back again, I felt a bit silly resuming our embrace. I still wanted to, but it seemed awkward. Luckily, Paul wasn't shy, and with the surety that could only come from having read my thoughts and knowing, without a doubt, what I really wanted, he crossed the clearing and pulled me into his arms. I let him hold me, and I felt the steady, even rhythm of his heart under my ear as he again tucked my head under his chin. His warmth surrounded me and that soothed me.
"I'm fine," I said softly, after a long time had passed.
"You know," he answered, sighing a little. "When people die, it's really us who are the only ones that suffer. I think your dad's all right, Leah. I don't know if there's a heaven, or whether we all get reincarnated, or whether we just stop, but whatever the end result is… he's okay. But you got left behind. You lost him. So there's nothing wrong with you not being okay."
I blinked my tears back and focused on the way his breathing lifted and lowered my face gently, how my perspective of the trees changed just a little with each breath. "Your dad was always nice to me," he said after a while. "Even before I changed. I know I'm not an easy guy to get along with… but he was always nice."
"You're alright," I told him. I felt him shrug and I pulled back a little to look at him. It was true that most people thought Paul was nothing but a short-tempered jerk; I had always thought that, growing up. But now I knew him better than my own mother, so I couldn't really boil him down in that way anymore. I couldn't boil any of them down. "You are," I insisted. Paul smiled at me and gave another little shrug, so I poked him in the belly playfully.
I can't say that I was completely surprised when his lips closed over mine, but I was a little taken aback by how much I wanted him to do it, once he started kissing me. When I didn't pull away he took hold of my shoulders and backed me up until I felt tree bark against my shoulder blades. Then he deepened the kiss, and as his tongue slipped past my lips to touch my own, I moaned and raked my hands through his hair, grabbing the back of his head to pull him in closer. As soon as I gave him that permission, one of his hands moved to my chest and, our lips still locked together, he quickly grabbed a handful of my shirt in his fist. With a single flick of his wrist, he tore the row of buttons from their holes and his hand closed over one of my exposed breasts. I reached down and pushed the hem of his boxers down past my hips, where they fell in a bunch onto the soft dirt at my feet. Then I attacked the button and zipper of his pants, pulling them open and letting them fall as well. He kicked them away and took hold of the bottom of my legs, hoisting me upward.
The shirt I was still wearing offered little protection against the hard bark of the tree, which chewed into my back as he lifted me. I hissed in a breath at the pain, but through my passion it translated into pleasure and without thinking I raked my fingernails over his back to share the moment. Paul let out a low growl, and I was surprised how my body responded to that as I melted into his arms. He kissed me again, biting down hard on my bottom lip and my hands found his shoulders, gripping him so tightly I would have been sure to leave bruises if he couldn't heal so easily.
In one swift movement, Paul lifted my leg and tucked it up over his shoulder, supporting the bottom of my other thigh with one strong forearm. I pulled at him urgently, the torture becoming too much now, and as he lowered his head to suck one of my nipples into his mouth, I bit down on one of his shoulders hard. He hissed in a breath, and then in an instant he let me drop just far enough to join our bodies completely.
I let out a low groan as he started moving inside me. Only one man had ever touched me, and this was as different from that as night was to day. Where all my experience up to now had been of slow, passionate, tame lovemaking, this was wild, frantic, rough sex. To do this with Paul, or at all, was nothing I would have ever planned, but it was everything I wanted in that moment. All thoughts of grief or worry disappeared instantly from my mind in the face of what he was doing to me, and the only thing that existed was the two of us together. With his body he drove out my sorrow, until all I felt was rapture and freedom and no thoughts at all.
Author's Note: Sorry again for the long wait between updates. I am a daily or semi-daily updater, but school is so intense this semester that my former timeline is probably not realistic. Just so you all know, I'm in midwifery school, so in addition to lectures and tons of homework I'm also running around at all hours of the day and night attending births- I'm a busy lady! But I am going to keep writing and I'm still really enjoying this story, so I hope you'll all stick with me on it! Please review this chapter- I'd love to hear what you think! :-)