"You were right," I told Quinn, propping myself up on my side and running my fingernails over his hard, sculpted chest the way he loved.
We lay on my bed completely naked in the middle of the afternoon, bathed in a sunbeam that streamed in through my bedroom window. It felt so decadent, skipping training for half the afternoon to have fantastic sex, then cuddle and nap a while. I could get very used to this, I thought.
"Hmmm?" he asked, too enthralled by the feel of my nails on his skin to register what I said.
"What we just did... I heard you think beforehand that if I put a lot of trust in you and it worked out well for me, that because I'm imprinting it would change things, make it easier for me to trust you... and it worked. I'm sooo relaxed now. I've had this knot of tension in the back of my throat for years, and it's finally gone. Thank you."
I had his full attention then. "I'm so glad," he said, kissing me tenderly. "You're not angry?"
"Why would I be?" I puzzled. "Although... this won't make me trust everyone, will it? Am I gonna be completely gullible now? Or more so, anyway."
"No, of course not!" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't do that to you. If those were my choices, I'd rather you never trust me than put you in danger like that. Imprinting is really specific, it only effects your instincts towards your mate, not the rest of the world. So you'll find it easier to trust me, but no-one else. And I'll do my best to be worthy of that trust, I promise."
"You are," I reassured him, but he still wasn't certain.
"You're not mad that I didn't ask you first? I wasn't sure it would work, but I've heard stories and I thought it was worth a try. I didn't want to remind you of all the reasons you find it hard to trust anyone just before we did that, though. I was pretty sure it would mess things up for you if I did, so I just went for it."
"I know," I smiled. "I caught enough of that in your thoughts to know it wasn't just random kinky sex, that you had other reasons as well."
"I told you one of my other reasons," he reminded me, trying to bring something up casually. "I wanted you to know how amazing it feels when you take control, so you don't keep freaking out about it... did that work, too?"
"Oh, yeah," I purred. "If that's what it's like for you... wow... the anticipation... all the wonderful surprises... feeling kind of conquered and cared for at the same time... I didn't know it could be like that. I didn't get why you like it so much, but I do now. I didn't think I'd ever be able to try that, either, but I could feel how much you wanted it to be good for me, and that made it OK."
He smiled broadly and crushed me to him, locking me in a bear hug. "God, you're amazing," he murmured in my ear. "It's so easy to be with you. No misunderstandings, no misconceptions... is it OK being in my head so much though? Hearing all my thoughts doesn't bother you?"
"Not at all," I grinned. "Your mind's so quiet and calm, it's actually kinda soothing."
"Not much going on in there, huh?" he joked.
I just rolled my eyes at him. People assume he's stupid because he's huge and built like a wrestler, and he loves to play up to it. To him, it's a tactical advantage; people underestimate his intelligence, so they don't notice him maneuver them right where he wants them. He apparently used it to great advantage when he was a pit fighter, but now mostly used it in business negotiations.
"Not much useless chatter going on in there, is all," I corrected. "Humans... it's just 'blah blah blah' so much of the time, that's what gets annoying. Shifter minds are much easier to listen to, y'all have a head full of instincts and images and feelings instead, not so many words. It makes things really straightforward.
"Like when you're hungry, you're hungry; you don't sit there weighing up the health benefits of all your options, or critiquing your body to talk yourself out of eating, or worrying what your boss thinks of you taking an hour for lunch while your colleague eats a sandwich at his desk. You just feel hungry, and if you don't already have plans to eat soon, you make some. That's so easy to listen to.
"Sex is the same, you don't have all the issues and hang-ups and fetishes humans have. You just feel horny, and get this urge to be near me, and that's it. You don't get into specifics about what you want to do and where you want to do it, usually... it's like you just want to get me alone and naked and see what happens. You don't even get hung up on coming inside me, although that's kind of the point, isn't it?"
He gave me a confused look for a moment, then figured out what I meant and chuckled. "What, because animals only have sex to make babies?" He laughed even harder when I nodded. "You do know that's a load of horse shit, right?"
When I shook my head, he propped himself up on one elbow as though he were about to tell me something important.
"Well, it is. Humans made that up so they can rant about how unnatural contraception or homosexuality or oral sex or whatever is, and it's just not true. Animals have sex because it feels good, a lot of species don't even know it leads to babies. They just feel drawn to someone, they want to be near them and touch them and kiss them, and if that goes well, it feels so good they get turned on and want to get even closer. And it feels so, so good to slide inside someone, and when you do it just right and they're making those noises that say they're loving every second of it... man, it's just the best. That's why animals have sex."
As I thought about what he'd just said, I remembered watching deer wander out of the woods and mate in my backyard when I was a kid, and quickly realized that what I'd seen then matched up with his take on things: how the buck always spent a while licking the doe's rear first; how he'd then try to climb onto her back (and she'd usually let him, even though she could easily walk away if she didn't like it); how he'd lick and nuzzle and gently bite her neck... I'd never seen a deer have a screaming orgasm, but I'd definitely seen what looked like a pleased expression on their faces during sex. I'd even seen pairs of bucks do it a couple of times, and a pair of does once... So much for all that being 'unnatural', I thought.
"Can't only people and monkeys kiss?" I asked a moment later, sure I'd seen that on a wildlife documentary somewhere.
He shook his head. "Lot of animals like mouth-to-mouth contact, even if they can't kiss the way humans do... so many sensitive nerves there. Staring into someone's eyes is great, too. It feels even more intimate when you can't use words at all. Tigers sit facing each other with their noses pressed together for ages when they're courting. See, even big scary predators love to smooch."
"That's what you meant about being a bit wild, huh?" I teased. "You love to smooch."
He rolled me onto my back and kissed me forcefully, holding me tight against him, showing he was still a big, wild predator - and I was his prey. His delighted, squirming, moaning prey.
"I love it all," he told me, finally coming up for breath to stare down into my eyes. "Kissing, cuddling, touching, licking, fucking... I'm happy to do it all, any way you like. You're right that I don't have the hang-ups and issues humans have... being a wild animal lets me off the hook for all that," he grinned. "Whatever feels good, I like... and almost anything can feel good if you do it right. You know that anything you want, you can ask me for? I've tried almost everything, I'm sure I'll be OK with anything you want."
He'd brought up something I needed to talk to him about, but I was still uncomfortable discussing it. "John," I started hesitantly, "what I told you about before, you know I couldn't actually... I mean, I like thinking about it, but... it's not really me to actually do that. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to lead you on or -"
He stopped me talking by kissing me sweetly. "It's OK," he murmured a few moments later. "You don't have anything to apologize for. I would never put pressure on you to do something like that, you know that, right?" His eyes searched my face, looking for some confirmation.
"Then why did you want me to tell you about it so much?" It didn't make any sense to me.
"Because it seemed like something that really did it for you," he smiled, "when you were talking about it in your sleep this morning. I just like knowing what turns you on, even if we never actually do a lot of it. We can get most of the thrill just by talking about it, with none of the complications, and I really like that. It's just a fantasy though. I'm not sure I'd be OK about doing it, either, I just like watching you get all turned on thinking about it."
"But you've done that before..."
"Yes," he confirmed, looking me right in the eye. "You know how I said I've tried almost everything? Well I meant everything... well, apart from meeting the right woman and becoming mated. That's completely new to me," he beamed, thinking and it's the best. "But yeah, I've done it before, and even among shifters, who don't exactly have many hang-ups, it can get really messy."
"Messy?" I couldn't quite work out what he meant by that.
"Emotionally, I mean... even shifters have feelings about sex, so it's easy for things to get weird and awkward. People love the idea of it, but then the reality can be really different to what they expected, and if they've been hassling their partner for ages, they don't feel like they can turn around and say 'this doesn't feel right, let's stop', especially when there's another person involved. It's really not something to do lightly, I've seen great relationships completely implode over one threesome that didn't turn out how they wanted, and -"
"How?" I asked curiously. "What goes wrong?"
"Are you sure you want me to go into detail about my past?" He eyed me warily, but when I nodded he figured he should be honest with me. "OK, I've been the extra person a few times, and mostly it was great, but a couple times... a lot of guys have this fantasy of watching someone else fuck their woman, they find it really hot to think about, but then they do it and all they feel is jealous, especially if she seems into it at all. I've seen guys talk their girlfriend into fucking someone else and then split up with her for cheating on them, even though she only did it 'cos he hassled her for so long. It can get really messed up, when that stuff goes wrong. Not all fantasies are worth the trouble of acting out, and some things only ever work out the way you want them to in your own head."
"I get it," I nodded. "I've caught that stuff in people's thoughts so many times, and it makes more sense if they don't actually want to do it, they just like thinking about it. I kinda would like to try that other stuff you were thinking about though." I grinned at the thought of it, getting excited again already. "I mean, where it's just us, but you use other things to make it feel like... well, you know." I could feel myself blushing bright red, even talking about what I wanted.
"Good," he kissed me gently, trying to take the edge off my embarrassment. "Anything like that, if you wanna try it, all you have to do is ask." He gave me a hungry look, wanting to hear about every erotic thought I'd ever had in my life - and make as many as possible come true for me.
Boy, was I tempted. I could think of a few things I'd been curious about, things I might like to try, just once, just to know how they felt... things I might whisper in his ear in the dark one night and see what happened... but I always felt a lingering unease when we talked about this.
"You've been around a lot," I stated, trying not to let my voice betray how much I hated thinking of him with anyone else, even in the past.
"Not since I met you," he replied carefully. "If you're worried about me screwing around on you, I won't. I love you, I don't want to lose you. Besides, sex has never been as incredible with anyone else, and I just don't find myself as interested in other women as I used to be. Or at all, really. After we split up, I tried to move on a couple times, but I just couldn't get over you. You're the sexiest woman I've ever known, by about a factor of ten. Besides, being faithful to someone isn't exactly new to me, and it's not that big a challenge, really.
"But I did sleep around for a while, a long time ago. After I got out of the pits... when you're even a little bit famous, people want to fuck you for that reason alone, so there are always offers. Wherever I went, there'd be someone hitting on me. Even at really ridiculous, inconvenient times, when there was no way I was gonna go for it. When you're -"
"Like when?" I asked, suddenly curious.
He thought about it for a few seconds, and I caught more than a few silly situations flash through his mind. "I guess the worst was about five years ago, in Charleston..." he decided. "No, it was Atlanta. I was in Atlanta for a packmaster contest, I think, and Frannie used all my shaving cream on her legs, so I had to go to the drugstore to get more. I stupidly asked her if she needed anything, and she says tampons and chocolate. So I get there and the chocolate's fine, I know the types she likes, but there's about fifty kinds of tampons, and I have no idea what to get her. So I tried calling her, and she's not answering because she was dying her hair blue so I couldn't send her back to boarding school that Monday," he looked really pissed for a moment, then continued. "So after ten minutes standing around in the tampon aisle at nine o'clock on a Saturday night, trying to call her, all the people working in the place have decided I'm some sort of weirdo -"
"And then someone hit on you?"
"No, it gets better. I could hear two girls behind the counter discussing whether they should call the cops about me, so I decided I'd just buy her one of each and get out of there. Then when I go to pay, I've got this whole basket of tampons and a can of shaving cream -"
"And someone hit on you then?" I couldn't believe anyone would do that; it seemed so rude.
"Yep. This woman who's about twenty years older than me walks up and goes, 'I saw you fight once, you were incredible', in this annoying trying-hard-to-be-sexy voice, and starts rubbing my arm. And normally I try to be nice about all that crap, but I just spun around without thinking and said, 'They're for Frannie. My sister, Frannie', and she says right back to me, right to my face... well, she called my sister something really bad. Right to my face!" He was fuming, and I caught in the tangle of thoughts in his mind that the woman said, 'oh, the rape baby'. "And then she tells me Frannie's really only my half-sister so I can ditch her for the night. And Frannie's, like, twelve or thirteen or something then. I couldn't just leave her alone like that!
"So I said some not very nice stuff and stormed out, and then I realize when I'm halfway back to the hotel that I left everything behind: my shaving cream, Frannie's stuff, my credit card... I even slammed my wallet down on the counter when that bitch called Frannie that name and just left it there." He shook his head, thinking how stupid he got when people said rude things about his sister. "So I had to turn around and go back and get everything, and when I get there -"
"There's more?"
"Oh, yeah. I got back there and the girls behind the counter were actually really sweet, I think they decided I was OK when they saw me stick up for my sister like that. Or they went through my wallet while I was gone and saw that I have a couple of high-spend cards in there, so I must have money," he rolled his eyes, unimpressed by people who liked him for that. "Then one of them starts asking me what the woman meant and I just gave her the usual explanation I give humans, that I was a pro wrestler once but wasn't very good so I quit... and then she asks me what I'm doing later! And she's about fifteen!"
I laughed then, as much at the bemused expression on his face as anything else.
"Oh, did I mention that the woman rubbing my arm used the hand her wedding ring's on, and her husband was right behind her, looking really pissed off?"
I stopped short then, no longer finding it funny. "Wow," I marveled. "That's pretty bad."
"Yeah, that one was the worst. It wasn't all like that though. Lots of people want to have sex with someone just because they've famous, people you completely wouldn't expect, even."
"Like my sister-in-law," I grumbled, without thinking.
"Crystal? But I only met her once, at... oh, you mean she was thinking about me at her own wedding?" he said with distaste.
"Uh-huh. When you turned up, my brother suddenly wasn't so interesting any more."
"God, you must hate being a telepath sometimes."
I just nodded. "It was pretty hard not to slap her for that one."
"I can imagine. Even I want to slap her for it, and I don't hit women," he muttered. "I'm not prudish about much, but that just seems so wrong."
"I kind of am prudish," I admitted, my voice barely more than a whisper. "I hate the thought of you with an endless procession of pit groupies."
"That makes two of us then," he agreed, leaning over to kiss me once more.
I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not.