Page 55 of Thirsty
Charlie’s feet left the ground.
The world tilted, he thought he might puke, and then he realized that Lorenzo had picked him up as if it were nothing and vaultedoverthe werewolf, then crashed back through the woods, down the hill, away from the carnage.
Charlie held on tight and tried not to scream. Lorenzo was running so fast they were in the trees half the time, covering ground with a desperate efficiency that was somewhere between running and falling. The further they ran, the more steeply the ground started to roll downhill, and the sounds of mayhem from the party faded away.
He heard the crashing of foliage, felt it whipping by on his hands and face. Then there was a snap of teeth by his ear, startlingly crisp; Lorenzo yelped, and there was a jolt as they both slammed suddenly to the side. Lorenzo roared something Charlie couldn’t make out, and they ran—leapt—for another few heartbeats. Then there was a final horrible jolt, andhe realized that he and Lorenzo were falling, like they’d been shot out of a cannon.
And then they landed.
The first thing he registered was dissonance. The crash had been so loud, and the impact had jarred him down to his bones. He hurt all over, and as he regained his senses, one of the first to return was a harsh, horrible smell—like rended metal and leaking gasoline.
But he was resting on something nice. Something supple and soft, whose gentle hands were roving over him.“Charlie?”
“What,” he whispered, as more sound filtered in around him, like waves passing overhead.
“Are you okay?” Lorenzo asked. Charlie blinked, and his face came into focus slowly—covered in tiny cuts that were rapidly healing. Charlie’s own skin felt raw and abraded, and his heart was pounding.
“What happened,” he said again. There were trees around them, silver in the moonlight, and asphalt, and—cars. Other cars.
It started coming back to him—the carnage at the wedding, the flight into the woods. The fall.
He and Lorenzo were lying in some kind of twisted glass and metal wreckage that was groaning and popping as it buckled. Part of it was on fire, hissing and crackling.
They’d landed on Lorenzo’s car. They’d punched a crater into it.
He was probably only alive because Lorenzo had taken the impact. Taken it as if it were nothing—he didn’t seem injuredor in pain at all, just slightly frantic. He was cupping Charlie’s head in one hand, looking at him like he was worried Charlie had a concussion. There were blunt shards of glass digging into Charlie’s palms and the backs of his elbows, he still ached from the fall, and his eyes stung. But he could breathe; he could feel the ground beneath them, somewhere. The wolves were gone, and the night was quiet. They were safe.
He blinked at Lorenzo, his focus still sharpening. He was sweating, and there were streaks of blood on his face. But his brown eyes were soft with concern in the firelight.
You saved my life.
That’s what Charlie tried to say, but instead he surged forward and kissed Lorenzo clumsily.
Lorenzo gasped and Charlie climbed on top of him, clutching them together as Lorenzo’s hands found his hips and he canted his head to kiss Charlie deeper. The car screamed and groaned around them as they shifted to find their balance, Charlie’s knees bracing Lorenzo’s hips as Lorenzo slid a hand onto his neck. Lorenzo was—god, he was cool to the touch, just like Charlie remembered, which was actually kind of perfect with the flames catching nearby, and he felt incredible, his soft tongue and his hard chest and his clever hands fumbling at Charlie’s belt.
They managed to get a few clothes off but kept getting distracted, because there wasn’t so much a goal as a shared, frenzied need to keep going. Finally Charlie got clearheaded enough to pop the button on Lorenzo’s waistband. Lorenzo pulled back, looking dazed, and shook his head a little. “Charlie,” he said, in a tone that sounded like reason was beginning to seep back in.
Charlie kissed him, a hand firm on the back of his neck, while his other hand pulled down Lorenzo’s zipper. “Charlie,”he gasped. Nearby, something glass screamed and then shattered.
Charlie touched him, and shivered with a rush of jagged need. Here, at last, something was alive and pulsing beneath Lorenzo’s dead flesh; the rest of him may have been cool to the touch, but he was searing hot in Charlie’s hand, hard and sweaty and demanding. He squeezed gently, and what felt like every muscle in Lorenzo’s body rippled. “Charlie,” he panted.
Lorenzo’s eyes darkened when Charlie licked his palm, and he groaned, shuddering backward, while around them the ruin of the car buckled and popped menacingly. Everything was on fire—the night and Charlie’s skin and the frantic pace of his arm, the way he was panting into and biting Lorenzo’s throat. He knew he was going too fast, being too rough, but he couldn’t help it—he felt blinded with need, starving, touching him like he could pull his own pleasure out of Lorenzo’s skin.
Lorenzo didn’t seem to mind the brutal pace, hanging on to Charlie for dear life and slurring something unsteady and desperate in what sounded like Italian. Charlie sucked on Lorenzo’s neck and scratched his stomach, and when his hand went dry he moved down and took Lorenzo into his mouth, sucking him steadily until Lorenzo came down his throat, his fingertips scraping against the back of Charlie’s neck. That hurt too but it felt good; it was all so good.
They sat together for a moment, silent but for their panting breaths and the groaning of twisted metal. Everything hurt a little and tingled a little. Charlie briefly wondered if the car was going to explode.
He almost didn’t notice when Lorenzo started touching him again—long slow passes of his hands over Charlie’s body, lingering in achy places that were just starting to wake up. Herealized he was panting again, and Lorenzo kissed him, molding him more aggressively now, lifting him back onto his lap, shaping him how he wanted him, hands trailing up his thighs.
“Oh,” Charlie gasped into Lorenzo’s mouth. He was kissing him in the strangest way—so calm and completely single-minded, as if he hadn’t just come in his mouth, as if they hadn’t been chased through the woods, as if the world wasn’t ending. Even as his hands roamed over Charlie’s body, making him shudder, it was as if he wasn’t distracted at all, kissing him slow and intoxicating as he stroked Charlie, as he drove him wild. It was too gentle, too maddening, too delicate to feel so good, but it did.
And when he wasn’t kissing Charlie’s mouth or throat or shoulder, Lorenzo kept whispering low, soft encouragement into his ear as he touched him, like he was amazed to even be here, to even have the chance to watch Charlie like this. “Charlie...” he said over and over again, his voice hoarse. “Charlie.”
Lorenzo kissed him, and Charlie clung tight to him as he came apart.
Chapter 16
Lorenzo spent the early evening filling out paperwork that had been brought over by a few of the packs’ lawyers. Werewolves could be beasts under the full moon, but they were nimble after a crisis, and quick to ensure that all parties affected by any sort of incident were incentivized not to cause trouble. He’d signed a few of these before.
