Page 65 of Sapphire Flame
He struggled to catch his breath. Sweat poured from his body. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t even offer a telepathic word for her.
She sat up and rubbed his shoulders. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do this. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
The gentle touch of her hands and the sympathetic words did more to calm his wolf than anything else.
Finally, his vision cleared. He cupped her face with his hands. “It’s my wolf. Everything about you seems to excite and stimulate that part of me. I could barely control shifting while I was inside you.”
“Then shift. The wolf is you. I’d be okay with that. I think.”
He saw her doubts then kissed her. “It’s not what you think. I don’t know what I would do to you if I shifted. There’s a good chance I would hurt you. Don’t ask me how I know, I just know. Shit. I don’t know what to do.”
She leaned back a little and stared at him.I’m going to call on my wolf and see if I can help figure this out.
Okay.Telepathy made things better as well. He was wrung out from holding back.
She closed her eyes and he waited. He watched in awe as her wolf-sign appeared between her brows then washed down her face in a glow of color to disappear. She winced suddenly as though experiencing pain, but her expression soon cleared. The same wolf-sign then rippled down her chest and abdomen and settled to pulse just above her landing patch.
He had fallen to a half-aroused state, but the sight made him rigid again.
When she opened her eyes, she smiled. “I know now what to do. And don’t worry. I will be perfectly safe, and you will love it.”
~ ~ ~
Natalie watched relief flood his face. He reached for her, but she laughed and quickly levitated off the bed and out of range, so he couldn’t touch her, not yet. She grabbed the remote for her security shutters and pressed the key to lower a second, hidden set of external shutters. She might be flawed in all sorts of ways, but one thing she knew how to do: She was able to think well-ahead and to plan. This quality had always been part of her nature which she supposed might have contributed to her ability to see the future. In some ways, she always had.
“What are you doing?” Grant shifted to the edge of the bed but remained seated.
While the shutters did their work and until she received an all-clear from the remote, she went into the bathroom. She returned to Grant with a damp washcloth and a towel. She handed both to him.
“Exactly what I needed. Thanks.”
He’d sweated profusely after he’d withdrawn from her.
She moved to a panel near the nightstand and tapped the screen. A few more taps and she was able to see the outside. The shutters were nearly down over a grassy area beyond the bedroom patio. She would need the lawn and the fresh outdoors to appease Grant’s wolf.
Her heart pounded in her chest. She knew what was coming and her wolf couldn’t wait. The vision had come to her crisp and clear for what Grant needed and what would keep her safe as well.
Shivers chased down her body at the mere thought of it. The nape of her neck ached, and her sex clenched.
“You’re a very practical person, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she called over her shoulder. “I think I am. Or if not practical, then pragmatic. I like having plans and solving problems.”
“Like mine?” He was now wiping down his thighs and toweling off.
She shrugged, though she threw him a smile. “Any problem really. Yours just happens to be in front of me and very promising.”
She glanced at his arousal. She wanted to return to him and take up where she’d left off. At the very least, she could have given him relief with her mouth. But what she intended was so much better.
When he rose to his feet with a gleam in his eye and cast the towel and washcloth on the comforter, she held up a hand. “No, you don’t. Remember, I have a plan. So, let’s stick to it.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Better if I show you.”
He drew close, however, and peered at the monitor. “What are we looking at?”
She gestured to the patio where the original steel shutters still held the patio enclosed. She flipped to another screen in which a second set of sun-blocking insulated wood shutters had encased part of her outdoor living space including a stretch of grass. She’d had an artist create a mural of a Tuscan countryside on the shutters so that when she would awaken after a day’s sleep and it was still daylight outside, she had a view of something nice and summery yet completely out-of-doors.
