A/N: My marvelous betas MunkeeRajah and Evelyn held my hand through this chapter, too. They rock!
Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, but the mental image of Nahuel in his boxers, THAT is all mine!
Chapter 8 – I Never Dreamed
Leah POV
After that panty-melting kiss on the beach nearly a week ago, Nahuel shifted gears faster than a Cullen in an Italian sports car.
Instead of avoiding me, he was up my butt every time I turned around. Whenever we were alone, he was on me like a dog on a bone. Nahuel was a groper; there was just no other word for it. His mouth was magic, his body, sinfully tempting, but his hands, well, his hands were just everywhere. He was like a horny teenager relishing first-time access—granted, limited access—to a girl's body.
More than once, Mom or Seth nearly walked in on us while Nahuel's pretty paws were working on wearing down my resistance. Still, I thought we were doing a fairly good job of keeping the change in our relationship under wraps. Until the day Jake brought Nahuel home from yet another marathon training session and my Alpha literally took me out to the woodshed.
My dad had been famous for his fish fry, but cooking it really stank up the house, so my mother insisted he do it outside. It was our family's dirty little secret that Harry Clearwater's famed homemade fish fry wasn't actually made in our home, but in the woodshed behind our house. Now, the shed housed our lawn mower and some gardening tools. The decrepit building smelled of grass clippings, old motor oil and faintly, even after all these years, Dad's fish fry.
Jake parked his dusty butt on our old John Deere and glared at me. "What's going on between you and Nahuel?" he demanded.
Dread bubbled up in my throat. "Why?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm. "Did he say something?"
"You could say that," Jake hissed. "He asked me if you're my mistress." He spat out the words as if they tasted bad. His disgust would have offended me, if the question itself weren't so damned hilarious. I couldn't help myself. I laughed in his face. Vague discomfort gelled into outright annoyance in his eyes.
"Why would he ask that?" I finally managed, after my loud guffaws settled down to intermittent snorts.
"Oh, I don't know," he snapped. "Could it be because you still haven't told him what's really going on between you two? Because you haven't explained to him how things work between wolves and their imprints?"
He crossed both beefy arms over his chest and leaned toward me, looking every bit like an Alpha wolf about to nip a lower-ranking pack member to remind her of her place. "He also wanted to know about imprinting and your sordid little love triangle with Sam and Emily."
That got my attention. "Why would he ask about that?"
"You haven't told him anything," Jake accused, ignoring my question. "He's so in the dark he doesn't know if he's coming or going."
"Really?" That damned psychic cable had wrenched painfully all week, every time I deflected vamp-boy's advances. I liked knowing that I was finally having some effect on him, too. My enjoyment must have shown on my face. The corners of Jake's mouth drew down in disapproval and he shook his head.
"I never figured you for a tease, Leah."
It was my turn to get angry. "Don't you dare judge me, Jacob Black," I growled, giving him a hard shove in the center of his massive chest. He nearly toppled backward off the mower seat. "You tried to put off telling Bella about imprinting on her baby girl for as long as possible. And just how old was your imprint when you finally explained everything to her?"
My sarcasm shut him up. Jake had hit the jackpot in that respect and he knew it. He'd never had to explain anything to Renesmee. She'd just known. He'd never had to face the terrifying, soul-exposing conversation that Paul had with Rachel, or that Quil would one day have with Claire.
He shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck. I felt a little bad for snapping at him. It wasn't his fault that he suffered from severe testosterone brain-poisoning like all the other males in our pack.
Finally he sighed, looked up and raised his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, okay? You're right. I haven't really been in your shoes, so I don't know how I would handle things in your position."
"Thanks," I grumbled grudgingly.
Quick amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Speaking of positions, I get the impression that Nahuel has a few he'd like to try with you."
I crossed one arm over my breasts protectively, and slapped the other hand over my eyes. That wouldn't hide my embarrassment, but at least I didn't have to see his knowing smirk. "Yeah, I know," I muttered. "He's been trying to get in my pants ever since that night he took off on his own."
"So give in already," he said with a chuckle. "Now that's one thing I can tell you I would do if I were in your shoes and didn't have a mind-reading future father-in-law to worry about."
"I'm glad my sex life amuses you," I said sourly. "But I'm not holding out on him to be a bitch, or because I care what anyone will think. I'm trying to make him want sex with me more than he wants to give up on fighting his father."
I paused and swallowed hard, forcing the words out. "… more than he wants to die."
Jake's eyes widened. "What?"
Part of me felt like I was betraying Nahuel by revealing to Jake what had happened on the beach. But if I couldn't tell my Alpha, my best friend, about my imprint's death wish, who could I tell? So I told him everything: Nahuel's terror and despair that his presence in Forks would bring Joham down on us all. His conviction that the only way to protect us was for him to die. I even told him about the kiss and where Nahuel had wanted it to lead.
"I know it's manipulative and bitchy and wrong to hold sex over his head, but I just can't think of any other way to make him want to stick around," I said, unable to meet Jake's gaze. I turned my back on him and moved to stand in the doorway, looking back at the house. Through the kitchen window, I could see my mother and Nahuel, heads close together, intently discussing something.
Jake rose from the mower to stand behind me, his ham-sized hands settling warm and gentle on my shoulders. He gave me a slight shake. "You always sell yourself short. Why do you do that?" Frustration darkened his voice. "You don't need to play some game to make him want to stay alive. You are enough. I wish you could see that."
I bowed my head, fighting against the wretched lump in my throat. "When you explained imprinting to him, he didn't make the connection, did he?"
After a few moments of silence, Jake gave my shoulders a light squeeze and dropped his hands. I turned to face him. He shook his head regretfully, his dark eyes soft and sympathetic. I drew a shaky breath.
"I'm just focusing on keeping him alive long enough for us to kill his father," I said, willing my voice to sound strong and determined. "Maybe when he's not living in fear anymore, we can find some kind of understanding about the imprinting."
He worried his lower lip between his teeth, studying me thoughtfully. "There are so many ways this game could backfire on you," he said, anxiety lacing his tone.
"I'm a big girl, Jake. I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself."
I headed across the yard toward the back door. "Nahuel and I are never going to be a grand love story like you and Renesmee," I said quietly over my shoulder. "That kind of thing … well, it's just not for me, that's all."
As I reached the kitchen door, I heard his truck engine turn over. I didn't watch him drive away.
It was a relief to have finally told Jake what happened on the beach at La Push. Of course, I'd skipped over two important truths I'd come to realize since that night. First, regardless of what Nahuel did or didn't feel for me, no matter how much or how often he infuriated me, I ached for him. The reason—whether it was the imprint or love—really didn't matter at all. I was hooked, body and soul.
And the second truth, the more important one, was that I wouldn't be able to hold out much longer.
SSW/SSW/SSW
Sure I bitched about it, but most of the time I was actually okay with being a werewolf. Turning into a powerful predator could be pretty cool. Plus, there were some great fringe benefits. I hadn't been sick or injured in years. I could eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight. And my tits were seriously spectacular, the kind of spectacular that Hollywood starlets paid tens of thousands of dollars to achieve.
On the other hand, what good were supernatural powers if they couldn't get you out of some of the more mind-numbing realities of being human? Like doing laundry. I'd rather scrub the entire bathroom with a toothbrush than do a single load of Seth's sweaty, smelly clothes.
But it was my turn to do the laundry, which was why I was bent over our turn-of-the-century, top-load clothes washer, head and shoulders wedged inside the drum. I was trying to loosen a really stubborn sock that had knotted around the agitator. You'd think one stupid sock wouldn't be a problem for a werewolf, but if anyone else had been home, I'd have called in reinforcements.
My curses reverberated loudly inside the machine. The smells of detergent and damp funkiness were overpowering. So I didn't realize Nahuel was behind me until he groped my butt.
Startled, and scrambling to free myself from the washer, I moved backward too fast, whacking my head hard on the lip of the opening. Worse, my hair snagged on some sharp edge. I was stuck.
Oh, gimme a freaking break!
I couldn't straighten up or reach the snag. I really couldn't do anything except stand there with my (also spectacular) ass in the air. Hard to believe I was the same she-wolf who once mowed through Victoria's army of savage newborns.
Of course, Nahuel took full advantage of my predicament. Without as much as a "hello," he curved his body around mine, molding his broad chest and muscular abdomen against my back and rear.
His hands—those God-damned, wonderful hands—dove beneath my T-shirt, which was riding up onto my shoulders because of my bent-over posture. Five fingers splayed across my stomach, the long middle one slipping just beneath my waistband. The other hand slid higher. I gasped when those fingers brushed silkily against the side of my breast. Jake's comment about positions flashed through my mind and I suppressed a shiver.
"Is something wrong, ñi piuque?" he asked. He'd been sprinkling his conversation with those foreign phrases ever since we returned from the beach. Thanks to the internet, I was pretty sure the words were Mapudungun, the native language of his Mapuche mother. I didn't know their meaning, but I had no problem understanding the come-fuck-me tone behind them.
"My hair is caught," I offered breathlessly. I resisted an almost overpowering urge to grind my butt into his groin.
"Is that so?" He pressed his warm lips to the back of my neck, burying his nose in the hair at my nape. He inhaled deeply, as if he enjoyed my scent, and his tongue traced an intricate pattern, hot and wet, on my vertebrae. His voice dripped with saccharine sympathy. "Is it very painful?"
Painful? Hell no. That feels great! Oh, he means my hair …
"Hurts a little," I managed to wheeze out. Between the washer pressing into my stomach and his hard-on nudging my ass, breathing was majorly difficult.
When his thighs pushed between mine, spreading them from behind, I knew it was time to end this. I drew breath to tell him to get the hell off me, to help me get out of this damn washing machine. Between the intake and the exhalation, however, I lost the power of speech.
His hand cupped my breast fully, cradling its weight in his palm. His long, magical fingers stroked oh-so-slowly across my nipple, then pinched deliciously. I was instantly soaked. If he slid my shorts down my legs right now, I'd let him do whatever he wanted. Lick every inch of me. Sniff me. Fuck me until I forgot my own name.
I was squirming desperately now, bucking against him, grasping behind me trying to touch some part of his body. Suddenly I was free, out of the washer, and flipped around to face him.
Before my brain could fully register my upright position, he pressed me back against the machine. His face was so close to mine that his intoxicating scent saturated my every breath. Muscular arms bracketed my body as he placed his hands on the washer on either side of me. I wanted them back where they belonged, on me. He gazed in my eyes for a moment, giving me a chance to protest, waiting just a fraction of a second for me to order him away.
When I remained silent, his eyes dropped to my breasts and a self-satisfied smile played at the corners of his mouth. Moving again with dizzying speed, he slammed the lid on the washer and hoisted me to sit on top of it. In the next instant, my T-shirt was gone and his hands were back on my naked breasts.
My breast-fondling experience was, admittedly, limited. There'd only ever been Sam and he was an ass man. So for most of the time I'd had breasts, I'd thought of them as just something that made me look good. Or that got in the way when I was bending over and unloading the shopping cart in the grocery store check-out line.
Nahuel made me so glad I had tits, and even happier that he'd had the balls to finally get my shirt off. His long fingers stroked me gently, drawing sensual, slowly diminishing circles from the perimeter of my breasts in toward my nipples.
"Beautiful," he murmured. He meant it, and for the first time in a long time, I believed it. His touch was worshipful, considerate. He wasn't just caressing my breasts for his own pleasure, but for mine as well. I gripped the edge of the clothes washer and leaned forward, offering myself up in a way I'd never done before, a way I'd never imagined I would want to.
He removed his own shirt so quickly I didn't even realize his hands had moved until he drew me against his perfectly sculpted chest. I whimpered—yes, whimpered—at the erotic sensation of his hot skin moving slickly, silkily against my sensitized nipples. He whispered my name, and then lowered his lips to mine.
While his hands had covered a lot of territory since our encounter on the beach, he hadn't really kissed me again. That first time, he'd been wild with anger and fear. He'd channeled pure lust and rage through his perfect mouth and tongue.
This kiss was as different from our first as we were from each other. His arms stole around me tenderly, as if he regretted the marks his hands had left on me before. His lips were sweet, almost chaste, against mine.
What the fuck? I'm going up in flames and he's giving me sweet? Oh hell no!
Grabbing fistfuls of the soft black hair just above his ears, I tried to take control of the kiss and slide my tongue into his mouth. Instead of opening for me, he gently moved his lips away. Nestling his cheek against my throat, he pressed a soft kiss on my collar bone. His powerful arms curved around my back and he simply hugged me to him until our breathing calmed and fell into pace with each other.
Our first kiss had been about driving desire and desperation. This one had turned into something else entirely.
Five minutes ago he'd been crushing his erection against my ass and pinching my nipple. My breasts and stomach had tingled wherever my naked skin touched his. Yet now he was cradling me the way a child would cuddle a beloved teddy bear. He'd slingshot us both from crashing, screaming desire to tender, quite comfort in less time than it took me to get dressed in the morning.
The man was giving me emotional whiplash.
Confused but content, I sighed and closed my eyes. Wrapping my arms around his shoulders, I returned the embrace and savored the perfection of the moment. Of course, perfect moments never last, at least not for me.
Gradually, two sounds and two scents intruded on my bubble of bliss: a heartbeat, quick and frantic, that belonged to neither of us. Breathing, shallow and rapid, also not ours. The odor of cheap aftershave.
Nahuel gave no indication he noticed any of those things, but he must have been feeling the pressure of reality against our sphere of perfection as well. He burrowed his face into my shoulder, like a child who hopes the covers he pulls over his head will block out the sound of the morning alarm.
It was the second scent, the unmistakable tang of gun metal, that forced my eyes open.
In full police uniform, Charlie Swan stood in the doorway of my mother's laundry room. His left hand was bracing the impressive-looking gun that he clutched in his right. That gun was pointing at Nahuel.
My gasped "Oh, shit," finally got Nahuel's attention. He lifted his head and looked over his shoulder, but didn't take his arms from around me. One look at Charlie, and Nahuel tightened his grip. I couldn't blame him.
"Get your hands off her," Chief Swan growled, taking a threatening step into the room. Suddenly, the laundry room felt very crowded. Charlie gestured with the gun, pointing to the corner of the room farthest from the washer. "Get over there. Put your hands on that wall. Make one funny move and I'll put a bullet between your eyes."
Charlie had no way of knowing the danger he was in, but I did. Even as I opened my mouth to warn him off, to clear up whatever misunderstanding he thought he saw, I felt Nahuel tense minutely in my arms.
He moved too fast for me to see anything more than a blur. Being human, Charlie saw even less. Before Bella's father had time to register that he'd been disarmed, before the sound of Nahuel's low growl reached his ears, my imprint had him by the throat. He slammed Charlie against the wall. Charlie's head met the faded wood paneling with a loud crack. He dangled, wheezing and gasping, in the air. With his other hand, Nahuel crushed the gun into scrap metal.
Lost, broken, frightened at first, then sweet, sexy and polite, Nahuel had made it easy in these past weeks for me to forget what he really was. Easy to forget that he'd been born in blood. That death had held his perfect, beautiful hand from the moment he ripped his way from his mother's womb.
The salty, metallic scent of blood reached my nostrils. Charlie was bleeding. A smudge of bright blood was visible on the wall where his head had met the paneling, and a trickle threaded from the corner of his mouth down his chin.
As a snarl curled his perfect lips away from his gleaming, sharp teeth, Nahuel brought Charlie's purple face closer to his and inhaled deeply. Enjoying the bouquet before guzzling the wine. In that moment, I saw no trace of the man I'd started to believe was the other half of my soul. I saw only an aggressive vampire, and the wolf in me acted instinctively.
With Nahuel's teeth just inches from Charlie's jugular, I phased and launched myself at my imprint. When I hit him, he dropped Charlie. We hurtled through the laundry room door and into the kitchen. Rolling over each other, our bodies crashed into the kitchen table. The table toppled. Chairs splintered around us.
Nahuel didn't want to hurt me. That's the only explanation for how I pinned him so quickly.
I used the sheer weight of my wolf form to hold him to the floor, my jaws clamped tightly around his throat. He trembled feverishly and his fingers gouged the linoleum beneath us, scrabbling to reach Charlie and his blood. But he made no move to throw me off.
Out of the corner of the eye closest to his face, I saw his wide, wild eyes . They were coal black, desperate and begging. His voice was a rattling hiss around the pressure of my hold.
"Don't let go. Please, don't let go."
And suddenly I remembered what he'd said that night on the beach, how he was tired of being a monster. If I'd been in human form, I would have cried for him. I would have kissed every inch of his beautiful, terrified face and reassured him that I would never let him go. But I was a wolf at the moment, and all I could manage was a low whine that I hoped he understood.
I focused on the laundry room door, where Charlie now stood, swaying drunkenly . His uniform shirt was torn and livid purple bruises were beginning to appear on his throat just above his collar. Blood was smeared across his face. His hands, clinging to the door jamb for support, shook badly.
His eyes darted from Nahuel to me and back again, as if he couldn't decide which of us was the more heinous monster.
Of course, he'd seen everything.
End Note: So I've had several people tell me I should tweet about this story. I have to confess I'm soooo 20th century I don't have a twitter account. What do you all think? Would you be interested in following SSW on Twitter?