Author's Note: this chapter gets steamy. May up the rating.
Embry's POV
I was still hunched over when Winnie rushed for me. Shifting back, I was still balancing on my knees, just standing up when she ran back into the rain to engulf me.
"You're gonna scare me if you don't be careful." I manage to get out as my hands bolt out to catch Winnie if she falls, meeting her halfway when she vaults up into my arms and holds me so tightly I panic whether or not I scared her. Straightening up so we don't fall over, my hands come to keep her where she is at her knees, Winnie's arms and legs wounded around me with her ankles crossed at my lower back and her hands at my neck to hold me as close as possible.
"Thank you for showing me." Winnie grins against my bare shoulder. She doesn't seem to care about the rain, which is coming down even harder than earlier. She pulls back to look at me, giving me a chance to be soothed by her bright expression, breathing a relieved sigh that she isn't scared of me.
"Of course," I sheepishly smile at her, momentarily dazed by her smile. Then the storm reminds me we're out in the middle of the rain, the clap of thunder striking so viciously above us the ground trembles. Readjusting her, Winnie bounces in my arms while I make a run up the front steps to go back inside where it's safe and completely dry.
"You're a werewolf, you're a werewolf..." Winnie keeps muttering to herself with a hazy nod. When she first saw me phase she was stunned into disbelief, a complete state of shock. Now she's abuzz with the realization. It's like the opposite of the five stages of grief, more like the stages of acceptance. Though, this is still considerably a state of shock as Winnie is rarely this animated.
"You're handling this so much better than I expected." I glance up at her, stooping down to grab my clothes where Winnie dropped them by the door.
"I'm just happy I'm not crazy." Winnie shakes her head. Once inside she goes to jump down but I clutch her tight.
"Ah, hold on a minute." I advise.
"What for?" Winnie asks, pulling as far back as she can go to look at me. Even drenched she's so pretty it catches me off guard, making me slow down to a pause to take her in. Her hair sticks to her, blackened strands caught on the curve of her neck or her jaw or temples. Her wet clothes are the only thing between us, weighed down from the water, making her slippery which only makes my hold on her tighter.
"If you haven't already, you're going to see me completely naked if I let you down the wrong way." I explain slowly, remembering to walk again but my strides are stiff. Her mood dies down, the beam on her face falling into a flustered blush. The rain isn't the only thing she didn't notice.
"Right, the whole clothes thing." The sheepish tone in her voice makes it hard to fight off a smirk.
"Personally I don't really care," I shrug not so innocently. "Then we can call it even, that way we both would have seen each other naked." Winnie just nearly falls out of my arms, but there's not a chance my hands would let go of her. Her face is burning as bright as her eyes, her gaze so heavy against my face it could be a caress cupping my cheek. The shade of red on her face is so inviting I have to focus my all into walking straight to her bathroom. Wet clothes, wet clothes, I keep reminding myself I have to do something about her wet clothes... The faint rhythm of her heart is pounding between us, speeding up against her ribs, against my chest too, making my blood go hot.
"But I am always one for modesty." I shrug off once we're in the bathroom, reminding myself to keep my breathing even. Her bathroom is just as cramped as the rest of her cabin, only allowing enough space for the necessities. No hamper, no counter space, no tub but a standing shower and enough room for one person at a time.
"Is that why you took so long to kiss me? Modesty?" I come to a dead stop at the question in her voice. I'm suddenly too aware of how I was the one who took things slow. I didn't even make a move—hell, speak to Winnie till a whole year after I imprinted on her. I've only kissed her a handful of times. So little I could recount them all on one hand. I'm now too aware I haven't kissed her enough, not nearly enough.
"Your modesty, not mine." I clarify as if it's a warning. She ignores it when her legs tighten around me, squeezing me just so, I have to hold onto the shower door only to remember to loosen my grip before I break anything. "You really want to rile up a werewolf?" I warn with a serious look.
"Like you've said Embry, you've already seen me naked." When the hell did she make up her mind?
My hand goes for her chin, not letting her shy away and to keep her gaze with me. She's still blushing like mad, her ears and neck red. Yet, she holds my gaze despite her bashfulness, trying her best to be cheeky.
"I'll come over there." I growl. Not a normal growl but a deep raspy one that's unmistakably not human. I did warn her once I'll devour her.
"Have you been holding back this whole time?" Winnie's never heard it before, the werewolf. Her eyes soften in realization, but still dip down to my mouth.
Our story has been a lot of things; delayed, held back, slow. Even when our story finally picked up where it left off in the ninth grade, it was different than most. Winnie whose been forced to be still since she was fifteen, waiting for someone right. While me, whose always hinted, nudged, winked at but was never ready for all the rest.
Now that she knows, and now she has all of me.
"Yes." I choke out, my voice raspy. "Fuck modesty."
Then she's against the wall.
Winnie lets out a rush of air, the beginnings of a surprised gasp stifled by my mouth landing on hers. She tightens around me—arms, hands, legs—clutches at me till we're flushed against each other, making me growl against her lips. Her hands roam up my bare back, tracing a trail of heat up my spine that makes my head disoriented. She kisses me back, either shivering from me or the rain.
I want to give in, but her shaking is enough to give me pause. Pulling back, I tip my head back to pace myself. I could bruise her, I could press her straight through the wall, I could accidentally shift if lose control again...
"Embry," Winnie calls my attention back, a part of me satisfied by how winded she sounds. Forgetting every word of the English language, I just give her a nod to signal for her to keep going while I try to regain my thoughts.
"You always do that," The way her hands grazes up the curve my shouldering is maddening. "You always pull away when we kiss."
"Because I don't want to lose control." I grunt, sucking in a harsh intake of air. She gives a curious look.
"I'll make you lose control?"
"Not you exactly, but my emotions are tied to shifting. So if I get too emotional or feel too strongly..."
"You could change?" Winnie finishes for me. She's grasping this concept much better than I ever could have anticipated.
"Exactly."
"Oh." She nods. "I thought it was because you're poking me in the thigh." I plant her on her feet so fast both of us are surprised. My hand switches on the shower, a burst of cold hitting us before heating up. It's exactly the jolt I needed.
"You have to do something about those wet clothes. You don't want to catch a cold." I say over my shoulder as I bolt out of the bathroom.
"I think you're the one who needs a shower—a cold one."
"So, you're the one for modesty, not me." By the time Winnie comes back out I'm fully clothed.
She's nice enough to try to fight back a smirk, even nicer for coming out in pajamas instead of a towel. Her hair is wound up in a towel on her head, strands of hair peaking out. Her skin is freshly damp, fresh, dewy, smelling like vanilla and honey soap. Her pajamas are some light green pair, a soft material but shorts and shoulder straps to keep the humidity from the rain from bothering her. It makes her already long legs look all the more inviting.
"You're usually one for modesty, but not when you're around me." I sound flustered, busying myself in her kitchen. Now it feels like being in control around Winnie is ten times more difficult than before.
"That's because that's everyone else." Winnie shrugs, her towel toppling over to release her damp hair. "I need modesty with them since everyone else has seen me at my most indecent."
"But you don't feel like you have to be modest with me?" I ask, not exactly sure when our talk had taken a serious tone.
"Not with you." Winnie agrees softly with a small nod. We share a warm look before meeting in the middle for an embrace. It's not like the gripping from earlier, but a gentle hold where we simply fit into each other.
"I missed you." I sigh into her hair. This is the first time I've felt right in days.
"I missed you too—a lot." Winnie admits, glancing up at me, her brown eyes going worried. "Don't run off like that again."
"Never again." I promise, tenderly smoothing down the worry lines on her forehead with my thumb. "I'm sorry for taking off. I should have told you earlier Winnie but I didn't know how. Then all my excuses came belly up all at once." Winnie finally knowing gives me a sense of peace that feels so right, as if now our lives have been parallel to each other and now they're finally coming together.
"I have questions." Winnie leans back to look at me.
"Questions are probably the only normal part about this." I sigh.
"Is there anything normal about this?" Winnie retorts with a tilt of her head. As much as I want to say yes, the idea of trying to explain Bella's brief death then her hybrid baby takes away all the energy I had left from this long day. I ready myself by settling on her couch, letting her pace and fire off her questions.
"So," Winnie begins with a focused look that she usually has on at the Lodge. "Full moons?"
"Those are from the movies. You saw earlier, I can shift whenever. The moon has nothing to do with us." I explain as she mumbles something about how she already figured that.
"Silver bullets?"
"Doesn't matter what's the bullet is made of, it wouldn't work. We're just about indestructible. There's nothing man or man made that can hurt us..." I trail off, my hand coming up to rub the spot where the cut should be when Enola somehow cut me.
"Is that why that asshole's hand broke when he punched you?" I can't help but smile at Winnie cursing. She does it so far and in-between it's never not funny when she does use anything above a PG-13 rating.
"Exactly." I nod. "When something does hurt us, we heal fast. We also have super strength, speed, sense of smell," I tap my ear, "Super hearing."
"So you have your werewolf abilities all the time, even when you're human." Winnie sums up.
"Yes."
"You haven't been a werwolf since birth," Winnie paces the room in a tight circle, the spot between her eyes crinkling. "You got bitten?"
"No." I wince, remembering the Cullens. "No biting. Sam called it 'The Change'."
"Then I must be a werewolf too because I had my 'Change' at fourteen." I grin into my hand at her puberty joke, thankful she's not only taking this well but making jokes. Winnie thinks something over, stepping closer to run her hands through my hair. I lean into the touch, letting the back of her hand graze my jaw while her fingers trace the ends of my short hair.
"You dropped out of school when you changed, didn't you?" Winnie sounds sad when she's puts everything together.
"Yeah," I confirm lowly, failing at something that's suppose to be a grin.
"You were so young. You all were." Winnie says more to herself than to me. Her hand traces down my shoulder to the spot where my tattoo is. Even with the t-shirt she has the spot memorized and knows exactly where it is. "The tattoo, cutting your hair, missing school, the cult rumors..."
"It was the change." It doesn't bring her any comfort knowing that part of the truth.
"The first time you shifted, did it hurt?" Winnie immediately asks.
"Like hell." I admit in a gravelly tone. "Nothing has ever hurt as much as that. It started with a growth spurt, then another and another. Then I was hungry all the time, and moody. My mom isn't Quileutae, she's from the Makah tribe, so she didn't know and I defiantly didn't. Jacob's dad Billy knew once it was too late, when the fever started—"
"That's why you're always running a fever?"
"Our bodies are always at a constant 108.9 Fahrenheit. It's survival or maybe evolution, to keep us warm in cold temperatures or to not overheat. Sam explains it better."
"People die at 105.8..." Winnie paces again, taking this in. "And the constant appetite?"
"Shifting requires a lot of energy. Part of the change is a hyper metabolism." I explain.
"And your hair?" She looks pained asking that question. It stings me too, my hand going up to feel where my hair now ends at the nape of my neck. That's the part of the change I still haven't gotten use to.
"Fur and hair." I sum up with a defeated sigh, which doesn't make the sad look on her face budge. The mood needs a change of subject before Winnie asks us something even more depressing. "Anymore questions?"
"If werewolves are real. Are mermaids real? Unicorns? Elfs?"
"I want to say no, but after shifting I realize humans are not the only things out there. So let's chalk it up to anything is possibility." I shrug.
"What else is there besides werewolves?" That question steels me over, an icy jolt threatening to go down my spine. Winnie's expecting face asks for an answer, her brown eyes already noticing I'm thinking over my answer.
"I firmly believe that everything they say about the Appalachian Mountains are true." I offer up, feeling guilty. "There's also the Cold Ones."
"Enola and Old Quil kept mentioning whatever that is." Winnie nods along with some knotted expression, a look on her face that makes me sit straight up when I notice it for what it is; fright. Something burning hot coils in my stomach, my nerves steeling over into something so overwhelmingly protective and fierce I'm on my feet.
"What did they tell you about them?" I would loom over her but the cautious hand that lands on the inside of her arm grounds me. Feeling Winnie solid and safe, sturdy and capable as always, makes it easy to breathe again.
"That you protect the reservation from them." Winnie answers, taking in how tense I am with concerned eyes. The last thing I want to do is scare her.
"That's something better to talk about with the pack." I make a mental note to meet with the rest of the pack—Sam and the elders especially. "There's a lot of things that needs to be explained with the pack." Explaining imprinting will be easier if Winnie sees Sam and Emily, Jared and Kim, Paul and Rachel. I also don't want to leave it to Enola or Old Quil this time.
"Okay, whatever you think is best." Winnie nods, seemingly done with her questions. Then she wrings her hands together, doing a double take at me she thinks I'm not looking.
"But I'll answer what I can." Winnie takes a long moment to choose her words, whatever she's thinking seeming like a big question.
"Embry, why did you tell me?"
"What?" I choke out, completely taken off guard.
"Why did you tell me? This is an ancestral tribe secret. Am I allowed to know? I'm probably not meant to. I'm just some girl from high school you're seeing. This—" She gestures between the two of us, "—is casual. But this werewolf secret is something so important, on a need to know basis, it's something you tell someone important, like your mo—"
"You are important, Winnie. You're important to me." I didn't mean to interrupt her. But this was too hard to hear. She opens her month to remake her point, probably about how our relationship isn't serious enough or whatever else crap she was about to insist on. But I won't hear of it.
Winnie never gets to make her point. I cut her off again with a kiss before she can.
Winnie's surprised at first, jumping against my mouth. Then she melts into me, giving in with a faint hum that is meant to be my name. The blissful sigh I make comes out as a growl, my hands bringing in her close at her waist. She leans into me, leaning all the way back till the only thing keeping her balance are my hands. Bent at the back in a dip, she presses against me, nearly skin to skin, practically fused to me or else she'd be on the floor. Before Winnie ending on the floor sounds too tempting, I straighten us up, bringing her back to her feet.
"Do you remember those tulips I bought you?" I breathe into her hair, the damp strands doing nothing to calm me down since they smell as good as the rest of her.
"Yeah," Winnie's pants against my throat, the wonton huff of air making it all the harder to calm down. To satisfy the urge, I press a kiss to her forehead, my eyes momentarily shutting. "I still have them, Embry."
I meant to ask "You kept them?" But I just swoop down to kiss her again, this one brief or else I'd kiss her till the sun comes up.
"They're probably dead now." Winnie tries to chuckle but she's so dizzy she barely manages a sound at all. My eyes sweep her cabin for them, finding them limp and dead in a vase on the kitchenette counter.
"I'll bring you more. I'll pick every flower on the res for you." That makes Winnie smile against my neck, the curve of her lips driving me mad. I take a steadying step back, letting Winnie glance at the pile of wilted petals for herself.
"I bought them to ask you to be my girlfriend." When Winnie turns back to me she looks bewildered, her eyes wide with awe. I wait for the words to settle, feeling a wide grin spread across my face when her eyes turn warm.