above me, and then his body convulsed again, thrusting deep, tearing screams from both our throats, and with the second release his body gave. The human body above me spilled outward in an rain of thick, hot liquid, and the body between my legs was golden furred with stripes of dark amber framing that face with its hazel-blue eyes.
He growled my name. "Anita, what have you done to me?"
I ran my hands down the light, dry fur of his arms; it was unbelievably soft. "Brought you home," I said.
He collapsed on top of me, and I had to push at the last minute so this larger, heavier upper body didn't press me into the bed. He was still deep inside me, bigger there in this form, too. It made me turn my body, so that we were on our sides, one of my legs over his thigh. I couldn't move well enough to wrap myself around his hips yet.
I think he tried to pull out of me, but he wasn't used to the new size, and he'd just had sex, and just done a violent shapeshift that had left him exhausted. He blinked at me. "This isn't me."
"I smelled gold on you the first time we met," I said, and my voice was hoarse.
"Impossible." He managed to put one furred hand on my side so he could see the golden fur against my skin. He was growing softer with the wonder of it all, or the exhaustion, or the shock, and was able to spill out of me. The movement made us both writhe. When we could talk again, he said, "No one has four forms."
"You do," I said, and laid my hand against the swell of his pectorals. They'd been nice in human form, but everything got bigger in the beast-man form. He looked like a bodybuilder in this body. It made me wonder what some of the other wereanimals at home who were serious bodybuilders must look like in beast-man form. It was unusual to have sex in half-form, so I didn't usually get this close.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
I moved my gaze from his chest to his face, that strangely attractive mix of human and cat. I said the only thing that I could say in that moment. "That you are beautiful."
It made him do that cat grin, drawing back to flash teeth that could have torn me to bits. He drew me into his arms, his fur the driest thing in the bed. I'd never understood why the liquid from the shapeshift gets everything else wet and leaves the fur dry. "I'll get you all messy," I said.
"It's my mess," he whispered, and he drew me into the warm, dry, circle of his body, while I was still covered in the thick, cooling liquid. He hugged me to him, and I had to snuggle down to find that point where I could rest under his arm, against his chest, against his stomach, and vaguely against the rest of him, but it wasn't about sex now, it was about comfort. He held me to him, held me close, and began to shake. It took me a moment to realize Ethan was crying.
I petted the fur and muscle of him, so tall now, so strong, able to tear me limb from limb without a thought, but all that big body clung to me. He clung to me and cried and I held him, my hands petting him, soothing him. I didn't ask why he was crying; it didn't matter what sorrow he was weeping out against my body, against the damp sheets, it only mattered that I held him and told him that it would be all right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
BEFORE I COULD go off crime solving I had to shower. I was covered nearly head to foot in thick, clear goop. I'd learned from past experience that it dried fast and became very tacky, very quickly. I didn't even want to put clean clothes over the mess of it, let alone explain to the other cops what it was, and why I was covered in it, which was why I was in the shower when Ethan knocked on the door of the bathroom.
"Anita," he called; his deeper voice must have been lost in the rush of water the first time, because he said my name again, and knocked louder. "Anita!"
I turned off the water, grabbed a towel to wipe my face, and got my Smith & Wesson from