Torn From the Shadows (18 page)

I nodded and continued up the stairs with Papan. When we reached the closet we didn’t cover the gaping hole with the plywood, just closed the door.

“Are you okay?” Papan asked, tugging on our joined hands so I stumbled against his chest. He wrapped his arms around my waist, holding me tight.

“I should be asking you that question,” I whispered, running my fingers over the sexy stubble on his cheek and staring into his beautiful eyes. I was surprised to find they were mossy green, dark with lust.

He leaned near my ear. “I know something that will make
both
of us feel better.”

I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder. “But Oren’s down there. He could come up at any moment.”

“He’s going to be down there a while,” he said, brushing his lips over mine. “Besides, there’s somewhere else we can go.”

I stood on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Where can we go?”

“The bathroom,” he whispered along my lips.

“I
could
use a shower.” I pressed my mouth against his, letting all of the tension, worry and sadness seep out of my tense muscles. Kissing Papan was one of my favorite things in the world and being so close to him with my tongue anxiously searching for his, I knew there was no better place to be.

Papan broke the kiss long enough to lead me into the adjoining bathroom. He closed the door and never taking his eyes from mine, ripped my clothes right off me. “After I’m done with you, you’re going to need another shower.” He threw the shredded sweater and leggings on the floor, tugging off my undies and bra just as easily.

I trembled at his touch. Every inch of my skin felt hot with need. “You’re insatiable, you know that?”

Papan removed his own clothes, now naked in front of me. “I saw the way you looked at me outside.” He lifted me onto the edge of the bathroom sink.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, eager to have him inside. “I always look at you like that.”

His eyes practically glowed with anticipation as he closed the distance between our mouths and kissed me with so much intensity my lips felt swollen, but in desperate need for more. I sucked in a quick breath while he nibbled on my jaw and licked my neck.

“What’re you waiting for?” I nudged his erection with my thigh.

“Protection.”
 

“Papan, we don’t—”

It took him only moments to slip it on, and even less to get inside me.

I groaned when he hoisted my butt off the sink. His big hands supported my weight while his strong arms propelled my hips, fast. I dug my fingers into his shoulders as sensation overrode everything. I could only focus on the delicious feel of his every inch pushing inside me as the friction between us rubbed me in the right spot.

An orgasm tore through me just as he pressed my back against the tiled wall and thrust in and out of me so fast and hard it didn’t take long for him to come. He growled, sounding more like wolf than man. I muted the sound with my mouth, kissing him roughly and holding him closer as he rode his own climax.

This was one of the most animalistic sexual encounters we’d had so far.

And I loved every second of it.

Chapter Eight

His naked flesh caressed mine, hard and soft at the same time. The sweat of passion built between us as our slick bodies blended together to become one. He moved inside me in a rhythm only the two of us could understand. I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began, there was only a sacred union making my body shimmer.

I ran my fingers up and down his smooth back, scratching at his moist skin as he drove deeper, enticing whispers of ecstasy from my mouth. I moaned and threw my head back against the fluffy pillows as the muscles between my legs tightened around him—so ready to convulse and peak. But I didn’t want to yet. This was too delicious, felt so good and right.

Even after what happened in the bathroom, I couldn’t get enough of Papan.

I licked my lips only to feel his press lightly against mine. His hand slid down my thigh, bending my leg at the knee as he pumped me faster. I wanted to say his name, wanted him to know how much I was enjoying this and how I craved it would last forever, but I couldn’t say a single word. Sensation was the only thing that mattered, the only thing driving me at the moment. No words or feelings were needed.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered in my ear.

No, I don’t want to. I’m not ready to.

“Sierra, open your eyes,” he said again, a little breathier this time. “I need you to see who can make you feel this way.”

“I already know,” I said.
Papan, you’re the only one I need.

His fingertips grazed my forehead and my eyes opened of their own accord.

When our eyes met, my heart thundered inside my throat.

No. This can’t be.

“Yes, it’s me. Remember what I can do to you, how good it feels…even after you wake up,” Gareth whispered near my lips.

The orgasm struck while he held my gaze. His brown skin shone in the moonlight streaming in from a foreign window, and I watched his face contort when his own pleasure hit.

“Remember, Sierra,” Gareth said as he faded.

I didn’t want to feel this good, didn’t want to ride this incredible sensation making my body tremble with pleasure. But it did, and as shameful as it seemed, I let it rock me awake.

My eyes snapped open, my lips slightly parted as the orgasm from my dream chased me into waking. A gasp tore from my throat and my legs trembled. My skin felt flushed, as if I’d really just finished having sex. But it felt dirty and wrong, almost like I’d betrayed Papan when there was no way I could control my dreams.

Could I?

I turned my head and found Papan still asleep beside me. He wasn’t the one I’d been dreaming about, and for some reason I felt guilty. I’d just had a sex dream about Gareth, and it clung to my brain like an endless echo. Images, sensations, climax—it all whirled inside my head until I wished I could erase it forever.

Why couldn’t this have been one of those dreams that faded upon waking?

What the fuck is happening to me?

I didn’t have time to ponder before Willow’s bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence inside the house. The alarm clock said it was seven o’clock—too early for a Sunday.

Papan sat up. “What’s going on?” He yawned, rubbing his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

Another scream forced me into action. I was barely able to stand and get into my pajama pants because the throbbing between my legs still felt very real, but I had to get downstairs. Pushing everything out of my head, I grabbed the silver dagger from under my pillow and raced out of the bedroom with Papan hot on my heels.

After charging down the stairs, we reached my sister’s bedroom in record time.
 

I pushed the door open and rushed inside with my weapon held out in front of me. “What’s wrong?”

Willow was pressed up against the headboard, cowering. She pointed at the end of the bed where a teenage boy, lying on his side, tried in vain to conceal his nudity.

I looked away, back at her. “What’s going on? Who is this?”

“I don’t know!” she said, shrieking. “I woke up and found him there.”

Papan headed straight for the boy who looked like a scrawny but tall teenager with olive skin, black hair, and caramel-brown eyes. When Papan reached his side and towered over him, the boy lowered his head in submission.

Where had we seen that reaction recently? I couldn’t think straight.

“Who are you?” I kept the dagger trained on the intruder, while examining the room to figure out where the dog was. I hadn’t stumbled on him on the way down. “What did you do with Freddy?”

The boy made a high-pitched noise.

“Did you hurt the dog?” I asked, stepping closer.

He shook his head vigorously, the long length of hair at the front covering his face.

Papan leaned over the naked boy who almost fell off the bed trying to avoid Papan’s extended hand. But he wasn’t reaching for the kid, instead plucked something off the mattress. He held it up in front of him, glaring at it with narrowed eyes.

“Looks like we might have found Freddy,” Papan said.

“What’re you talking about?” I lowered my dagger, trying to get a proper look at what dangled from his fingers. It was Freddy’s collar—the one Willow had bought. “It’s ripped!”

“What does that mean?” Willow asked, trying not to look at the naked boy.

“This kid is Freddy,” Papan said.

“No.” She wouldn’t stop shaking her head. “Freddy is a dog. Not some naked boy!”

 
“Shit.” It made some sort of insane sense. She’d fallen asleep with a dog by her feet and woke up to find a naked teenage boy in the same spot. As crazy as it sounded, this explanation corresponded with my crazy life.

“Please,” the boy whispered. His voice sounded raspy and wrong.

“Is he a dog-shifter?” I asked. We already had one of those stashed away inside a secret room. I didn’t want to deal with another.

Papan sniffed the air above the boy. “He doesn’t smell like a shifter exactly, he smells
different
.” He scratched at the stubble on his face. “I’ve smelled this before, recently…but I can’t put my finger on where at the moment.”

“Well, whatever he is, we need to ask him some questions.” Starting with,
“What the hell possessed you to shift from dog to human inside my sister’s bedroom?”
We might have only found each other this year but I was protective of her, and having a boy stay overnight in her bedroom wasn’t acceptable.

“Can you get him some clothes or something?” Willow yelled, shutting her eyes.

Papan held out a hand and the boy recoiled. “I won’t hurt you. Take my hand. We’re going to help you.”

It took him a few minutes before he finally accepted Papan’s offered hand. They shook, Papan helped him up and the two slipped out of the room. I avoided looking at him as much as my sister. I couldn’t help but wonder why this kid had been passing himself off as a dog.

“Willow, are you okay?” I looked at her, still cowering on the bed.

She opened only one eye. “Is he gone?”

“He’s gone. Papan’s going to help him.” I could already hear the shower running inside the bathroom down the corridor. “He’ll be dressed the next time you see him.”

“My room smells like sweaty boy now!”

“It’s not that bad. Still smells more like dog than teenage boy to me.”

“Gross.” She opened her other eye and sat cross-legged.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. One second I’m asleep and I hear this weird grunting, and then the bed started shaking.” She met my gaze. “I thought there was a demon trying to possess me or something, like that girl in
The Exorcist
.” She paused to wince. “Now there’s a movie I wish Mum had never made me watch. I had nightmares for weeks, and you know how much I love horror, but that movie was something else.”

I took her word for it. I’d never been much for horror, myself. Seeing spooks for most of my life was horror enough. “Okay, so you woke up and then what?”

“Freddy was gone and instead there was a
naked boy
kneeling at the end of my bed. So I did what any horror chick would do and started screaming.” She shrugged, looking away. “I didn’t know where he’d come from, so I kept asking what he’d done to Freddy and all he did was point at his chest.”

“So, you didn’t bring home a stray dog, you welcomed a strange boy into the house,” I said. “Do you still want to keep him?”

“Very funny, of course I don’t!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. If I didn’t start seeing the humor in these situations, I’d go bat-shit. So instead, I kept my dagger close to my hip and stepped out into the corridor.

“Sierra, wait, what do I do?”

“It’s early. Get some sleep,” I said, hoping she’d listen though I doubted it. “And stop inviting naked boys into your room.”

She scoffed at my statement. When we’d first met, she’d had her dead boyfriend attached to her. So yeah, freaky teenage boys were starting to look like her thing.

Papan stepped back into the corridor with a few T-shirts and sweatpants in hand. He smiled before ducking into the bathroom and back out in seconds, a trail of steam following him.

“So, do you know what he is?” I asked.

“I can’t tell yet.” His eyes were shaded. “Whatever he is, he didn’t intend to hurt Willow. He smells of fear and confusion. It’s so thick I had to settle my wolf a few times. This close to a blue moon, him smelling so much like prey isn’t a good thing.”

“You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” Willow asked, standing just outside her doorway.

“No, I won’t hurt him but we need to find out what’s going on.”

“From what Willow told me, it looks like he’s having trouble speaking. He didn’t say a word to her and all I heard were groans and murmurs, attempts at speech. Do you have any idea why that would happen?” I stared at Papan as he considered my question and Willow waited behind me for an answer.