Beasts Within (8 page)

             
“Yes,” she replied. “I did. I had to know.”

             
“Know what?”

             
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “If I could trust you. I didn’t know if Paul had people looking for me already or if you were just a friendly person that I could trust, and I had to know.”

             
“Okay, that makes sense, but…how does this help you know you can trust me?”

             
There was a look of sadness in those eyes, and Karic didn’t like it. He wanted to pull her to him and wrap her in his arms and blankets and make sure nothing could ever hurt her again. “This…I can sort of…get impressions of people when I touch their hands. Not read their thoughts, really, but see glimpses of what kind of person they are, the things they’ve done. How they feel. I don’t know why I can do it, but that’s why Paul doesn’t want me to leave. He makes me find out people’s secrets and then he uses them against them. That’s why…you shouldn’t feel things for me. Because I have to leave, and it’s not fair for me to know things that you haven’t told me. It’s prying, and I hate it, and I’m sorry.”

             
Karic was definitely having a hard time wrapping his mind around what she was saying. It wasn’t unheard of for shifters to have other powers to go along with their shifting, but he had never heard of someone being able to do what Camilla was saying she could. He supposed he should have felt like his privacy had been compromised, but really, he could completely understand why she had done it.

             
Now, he was just embarrassed that she seemed to know how he felt about her without him having to say anything. He didn’t know what to say about any of it, really.

             
“I’m really sorry,” she said again, and her eyes were so filled with regret. “I…if you want me to leave, you should just say so. I can go. I mean, I’m sure there’s a train I can catch, and I should be leaving anyway so you don’t get dragged any more into this mess than you already have been, you know? Because that’s not fair either, and I’m probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, and—”

             
“You’re not,” Karic said finally, cutting into her stream of babble. “Not by a long shot.”

             
“But—”

             
“No. No buts, Camilla. You’re…this is so stupid because we barely even know each other, but I feel like, I feel like I was sleepwalking before, going through the motions, and then you climbed out of a river, and…and now I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. But I feel something, and you know that now, so I’m not even going to pretend like I don’t anymore. Because I’m not sorry for it. I don’t care what you know about me. I’m an open fucking book to anyone who looks hard enough, and I know you’re not going to use what you know against me. You’re not like that.”

             
“How do you know?” Camilla asked sharply. “You don’t really know anything about me.”

             
Karic shook his head. “I know that it hurts you to hurt other people. I know that you hate being afraid and that all you want is to live and be accepted and not be used. I know that you look beautiful in the morning when the sunlight comes in through the window and hits your hair. I know that there are a million things I don’t know about you, and I know that I never believed in that whole mating and imprinting thing before you came along, but now I think that maybe…maybe I was supposed to find you. And I know that sounds insanely stupid, but there it is.”

             
Deer in the headlights was an understatement for the look of pure gobsmacked shock that was on Camilla’s face. Her eyes were wide, mouth slightly agape, and there was still that streak of mayo on her face. He reached out and wiped it away gently, letting his fingers linger just a bit before he pulled away and wiped his hand, suddenly not hungry anymore.

             
“I should go to bed,” he said, pushing his chair back from the table and taking the plate over to the drawer where he kept the plastic wrap. No use wasting a good sandwich, he guessed, and he wrapped it up and stuck it in the refrigerator. “Um…feel free to use the shower or whatever. I’ll see you in the morning.”

             
He was halfway out the door when she stopped him. “Wait…Karic, please.”

             
He stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”

             
“No one’s ever seen me before. Not just me. They see my power and what I can do for them. Or they see that I look weak or…I don’t know. But you’re different. And I don’t believe in mates or any of that either, but…”

             
“But?”

             
“But I think sometimes there are people that you know you’re supposed to be with even if it's just for a short time. People who just fit for whatever reason.”

             
"So, what are you saying, Camilla?" Karic wanted to know. He didn't want to jump to conclusions and he didn't want to get his hopes up. This didn't change the fact that their situation was a hard one. A ridiculous one when it came to this kind of thing.

             
Camilla got up from the table, and she looked so nervous, wringing her hands in front of her, but there was also a determined light in those amber eyes. "I'm saying that I feel it, too. Whatever this draw is. It's not just in your heard or whatever, and there's a part of me that wants to..."

             
"That wants to try?" Karic asked her, tilting his head, and there was no real way to disguise the hope in his voice.

             
"Yeah," Camilla replied, and she was right up on him now. "At least...while we can, you know? Because I feel like... I feel like if I leave here and have never even tried this with you I'm going to regret it."

             
Karic tried hard to ignore than pang of longing that seemed destined to always start in his heart when she started talking about leaving. Nothing had changed in that regard, and he knew it. She was still on the run, and he would never ask her to compromise her safety and peace of mind just to try this with him. If it worked, then...there were ways. He could visit. He could try to get the police to look into her pride so that she could come back. He could...he could leave if it came down to it.

             
Soft fingers stroked over the furrow in his brow, and Karic blinked and looked down at her. "You're thinking very hard."

             
He smiled. "Can you blame me? There's a lot to think about. I...will you say it? What it is you want from this?"

             
She nodded and let out a low breath. "I want to try. I want to spend my last couple of days here not being afraid and learning things about myself. I to see what it feels like to be with someone that I like."

             
"And after that? When you have to leave?"

             
She looked torn. "I guess we'll see what happens? I don't want to make you any promises..."

             
It shouldn't have been, considering all he wanted, but Karic decided that it was enough. It was enough that she wanted to be with him at all and that she would feel the pang of separation and longing, too. It wasn't just him. So he nodded, quirking a lopsided smile at her. "That's enough." Her grin was brilliant and infectious, and Karic couldn't help himself. He smoothed one hand through her hair, touching those soft curls. "Can I kiss you?"

             
Her eyes were so wide as she looked up at him, and it was painfully obvious when she blushed and looked away that she had never done this before with anyone. That gave Karic a little thrill to think that he would be the one to show her the ropes of this, the first one to find out what she tasted like. But at the same time, it made him hesitate. "Are you sure?" he asked her, fingers tipping her chin up to make her look at him again. "We don't have to, you know. Only if you want it."

             
"Don't you want it?" Her voice was vulnerable and a little shaky.

             
"Didn't you see how much I want to kiss you?" Karic wanted to know. "But I don't want to push you into anything you're not ready for. That would be a shitty thing to do."

             
Her answering smile was grateful, and Karic definitely thought that she was going to say that she didn't want to do it. Which was fine. Totally fine. She had every right to refuse him considering all the things that made this a bad idea. But she surprised him by blushing a bit darker and licking her lips.

             
"I want it. I...I want to know what it feels like to be wanted. Even if it's just for a little while."

             
That was all he needed to hear. With both hands he cupped her face, his thumbs smoothing over her cheeks. Her skin was warm and still flushed, and she just looked so pretty like this. He was close enough to see the flecks of darker brown in her eyes, to see how she licked her lips, tongue darting over the little bow in the middle of the upper one. He wanted to follow that trail she was setting, chase that tongue back into her mouth and discover what her unique flavor was. But he started slowly. If he wanted this to continue for any length of time then he couldn't scare her away by being too eager. "Just...tell me if you want me to stop," he breathed and then pressed forward.

             
Her lips were just as warm as her skin, soft and yielding as he pressed his own against them. It was cliché as fuck, but he could feel the way they fit together. The way they were supposed to be doing this. The soft sigh she released was music to his ears, proof that she felt this as well, and he kissed her a bit more insistently, coaxing her lips into moving with his in a slow, delicious rhythm.

             
His hands slid down her face and then lower, smoothing over her waist to linger at her hips and pull her in closer. She wound her arms around his neck, going up onto her toes to keep the contact between their lips. Karic chuckled into it, nipping her bottom lip lightly and delighting in the answering sharp inhale of breath. It was even better than he had expected it to be, and he knew it was going to be hard to let this go now that he had it, but he told himself that Camilla still had at least another day, maybe two, left here, and he could be content with that amount of time. He didn't have to work, and there was no reason why they couldn't spend the time getting to know each other and figuring out where this could go. Because he wanted to know what their options were. Because this couldn't be the end of it.

Kissing was brilliant.

              That was pretty much all Camilla had to say on the subject. There hadn't been anyone in her pride that she had really wanted to kiss, and sometimes she wondered if there were something wrong with her because she had made it to twenty-one and had never kissed anyone, but this...this made all the waiting worth it. Not that the waiting had been conscious. It wasn't like she had ever had a bevy of people waiting to kiss her lined up, and even if she had, she doubted that Paul would have told her about it, just for the purposes of keeping her even further under his thumb. He had told her time and time again that there was no one else out there who wanted her. Her parents were gone, and he had said that he was sure she didn't have any other family, and even if she did, why would they want an orphaned or abandoned little shifter girl to come along and mess up the families they already had.

             
And at the time it had made a lot of sense. She had been a little girl, confused about her place in the world, and Paul had come along and showed her that she only belonged with him, which had of course really meant that she belonged to him.

             
But Karic was showing her something different now. He was showing her that she could belong with him if she wanted to, and fuck it was getting hard to remember all the reasons why she shouldn't want it. She didn't have any other kisses to compare it to, but the way his lips moved against hers, the way he occasionally bit down on her lip and tugged, it was all lighting a path of liquid fire down her spine.              

             
A soft whimper echoed in the kitchen, and it took her a minute to realize that it had come from her and that she was pressed shamelessly against Karic's front, like she wanted more and didn't know how else to show it. Which...wasn't wholly inaccurate, she supposed.

             
Karic pulled back, and his lips were red and his eyes were darker. The way he looked at her made her shiver a bit, and she pulled her arms back down from around his neck and dropped back down to her feet. "Did you...did you like that?" he asked, and he sounded almost as nervous as she had felt when they started this.

             
"Yeah," she breathed, nodding. "I liked it a lot. It was...you're good at that."

             
He chuckled. "Had a little bit of practice. Nothing serious, but." Karic shrugged. "Enough, I guess."

             
"Yeah. I...sorry. That I don't know what I'm doing here at all."

             
"Don't be sorry," Karic said quickly, shaking his head. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. I mean, from what you've told me, your life hasn't exactly lent itself to having time to kiss random people, and I'm sure you didn't really want to kiss any of the people in your pride for obvious reasons. It makes sense that you're new to all this. And to be honest...I kinda like it."

             
That made her smile warmly at him. "You do?"

             
"Yeah." And his cheeks flushed. "I mean. It's kinda nice that I'm the first person to show you how good kissing can be. Especially when it's with someone you like and not just someone you met when you were drunk at a party."

             
She gave him an amused look. That was something she had heard and read about, but definitely not something she had ever been in a position to experience for herself. "Did you do that a lot?"

             
"No!" Karic said quickly, and Camilla couldn't even help the laugh that tumbled out of her. "I mean, no. It...Sometimes you get drunk, and things happen, but it wasn't like...a daily thing."

             
"Weekly? Monthly? Bi-Monthly?" Camilla asked, and her bright grin made it clear that she was just teasing him. And she never knew how good it could feel to just be relaxed like this. There was no one who wanted anything from her other than just...her, and she didn't have anyone breathing down her neck, telling her that she was going to be useful or she would regret it, and it was just so nice.

             
She didn't want to leave.

             
It was a thought that had taken up residence in the back of her mind. She liked it here. Even the ladies at the doctor's office had seemed like people she could grow to like if she stuck around, and she wanted to. She wanted to wake up and make breakfast for Karic and then have him make her giant, messy sandwiches when he came home from work. She wanted to see what could happen if she stayed here. Maybe there was a bookstore or something she could work in, somewhere that she could figure out what she really wanted to do. Maybe she could go back to school.

             
But the looming and ever present fear of Paul and his revenge for her leaving kept her from latching on to that dream. He would find her if she stayed, and he would make sure that she paid the price for running from him. And even worse, he would probably drag Karic into it. Camilla knew what he did to people who got in his way, and she couldn't let that happen. Not to Karic. Not to anyone else, for that matter.

             
“Hey,” Karic said, pushing an errant curl behind her ear. “Now who’s thinking too hard?”

             
She smiled up at him and shook her head. “Sorry. I just…a lot is happening in a short time, and I’m the girl who has never had anything happen to her, really. It’s all kind of hard to take in.”

             
He nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. You can tell me to back off if you want to, you know. I’m not going to be mad or hold it against you or anything. I want you to feel comfortable with me.”

             
“I do!” Camilla rushed to say. “I do, I promise. You’re like the only person I know outside of my pride and the few people I met at school or work, and I felt comfortable with you from the minute I took your hand. You don’t have to worry about that.”

             
“Okay. Good. It’s getting kind of late. We should probably think about going to bed.”

             
Camilla sighed. Due to her nap at the office and how riled up she was from the kissing, sleeping was the last thing on her mind right then. All she would probably do is lie on the couch and keep herself up all night with her thinking and worrying and constant ‘what if’ scenarios. She bit her lip and looked up at Karic with questioning eyes. “What if…what if we kept going?” It was an insane idea. She had only known him for a
day
, but who knew when her next chance to experience these sorts of things would be? The fact was that she knew she could trust him and she didn’t want to stop.

             
“What do you mean, kept going?” Karic asked her, frowning in confusion. “Kept kissing?”

             
“That. And…the stuff that happens after the kissing, you know. The…other stuff.”

             
He looked at her in surprise. “
Other
stuff? You mean like…sex and stuff?”

             
“Y-yeah. Is that okay? Should I not have asked about that?” She didn’t know what the protocol for this kind of thing was, and Karic seemed a little freaked out. “Never mind, then. I’ll just go to the couch, and you can go to sleep, and we’ll pretend like I never asked that question, okay? Okay.”

             
His look shifted from confused to amused, and he shook his head. “None of that. Do you…do you really want to do that? Most people prefer to wait longer than a day after meeting someone to want to sleep with them, but I guess these are unusual circumstances. I just want to make sure you know what you’re asking for.”

             
“Do you not want to?” She couldn’t help but ask, repeating her earlier question. Camilla didn’t want to try to rush him into something he didn’t want just because she was new to everything and over eager. “Because like I said, we can just forget I even asked that.”

             
“Look, Camilla, I’m probably going to want to do everything you want to do, so you really don’t need to worry about me not wanting to do something. You’re gorgeous and I like you, and it’s not every day that I get offers like this, okay?”

             
“Okay,” she said, nodding and shifting from foot to foot. “So is that a yes or…”

             
Karic laughed, shaking his head at her. “
Yes
, it’s a yes. As long as you know what you’re asking for. And uh…what you’re getting yourself into? How much do you know about shifters and sex?”

             
“About as much as I know about humans and sex,” she replied, shrugging a shoulder. “Not terribly much.”

             
“Well, I suppose you gotta learn sometime. C’mon.” He took her hand and guided her up the stairs, leading her to his bedroom. It smelled more strongly like him in here than in any other room of the house, and his bed looked nice and comfortable. Before she could really look around, Karic grabbed her hips and pulled her into another kiss, sitting down on the bed and bringing her to stand in between his legs. He was so much taller than her that she barely had to lower her head to kiss him back, and she was definitely starting to get the rhythm of kissing down.

             
She really loved the way his lips felt against hers, the way his tongue teased at her lips, encouraging her to part them and let him in. And oh, that was different. Camilla would have expected it to be unpleasant, but it was good, and it sent a flare of heat down through her that was honestly a little shocking.

             
It wasn’t the first time she had felt it, but it had been a while. When she was younger, she’d experimented with touching herself and seeing what felt good, and the pure ferocity of the flame that had burned inside of her had taken her by surprise. She figured it was normal enough, but simply bringing herself off with her fingers and then later her electric toothbrush, did nothing to really settle those flames inside of her, and she had refrained from getting herself worked up like that because the resolution was never satisfying.

             
But she knew it could be different with this. Karic had said that sex with shifters was different, and maybe that was what he meant. Maybe he had an equal ferocity to fan those flames inside of her and then put them out in a satisfying way. Just the thought was thrilling, and she moaned into his mouth, sliding her tongue with his.

             
The growl she got in response was incredibly alluring, and she shivered, pressing closer to him and trying it again.

             
“Camilla,” Karic broke away to say, and his green eyes were dark. “If you keep that up…”

             
“I want it,” she told him, and she could feel that heat inside of her. “
Please.
” That much she did know. She didn’t know how this was going to go, or how it was going to feel, but she knew that she wanted it. It was something she wanted to experience, and she couldn’t think of anyone better to experience it with than him.

             
“Alright,” he said. “But just…I mean it, Camilla. If you want to stop then stop me, okay?”

             
She huffed at him and bit his lower lip teasingly. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

             
“In that case…”

             
In a blindingly fast flurry of movement, Karic used his grip on her hips to lift her up and change their positions so that she ended up flat on her back on the bed with him on top of her, hands braced against the mattress on either side of her head. There was an almost feral gleam in his eyes as he looked down at her, and she couldn’t help but swallow hard. This was happening. And oh god, he looked like he wanted to devour her. In the back of her mind she wondered if there was something wrong with her that made that seem like something she wanted to happen.

             
Karic lowered his head and licked at her neck before kissing and nipping his way down to the place where her neck and shoulder joined, and Camilla couldn’t help the moan that spilled out of her when he bit down there.

             
“Oh fuck,” she breathed in a messy rush, and her hips pushed up as that heat burned brighter. “Oh god, I want you.”

             
His answering grin couldn’t be described as anything other than wolfish when he lifted his head, and he pressed his hips down, letting her feel the bulge in his pants. “I want you, too.”

             
Oh.
No one had ever said that to her before, especially not with that look in their eyes, and Camilla reacted to it instantly, shuddering and giving a little moan at how it made her feel. Karic was smoothing one hand over her side and down to her hip, and then warm fingers were slipping under the hem of her shirt.

             
No one had touched her like this either, and her heart was pounding in her chest. What if he didn’t think she was attractive? What if he thought she was too fat, too inexperienced?

             
“Stop thinking,” Karic said, and he kissed her, bringing her attention right back to him. “It’s going to be fine. Do you trust me?”