click on, after a fashion. I was familiar with the feel of this, from working in a bar: Amelia had a hangover. I smiled to myself as the witch thought of Bob, who was still asleep beside her. Aside from a basic, “How could I?” Amelia’s most coherent thought was that she needed coffee. She needed it bad. She couldn’t even turn on a light in the apartment, which was darkening steadily with the approach of the storm. A light would hurt her eyes too much.
I turned with a smile on my lips, ready to tell Quinn we might be hearing from Amelia soon, only to find he was right behind me, and his face was intent with a look I could not mistake. He was ready for something entirely different.
“Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, and I’ll back off,” he said, and then he was kissing me.
I didn’t say a word.
When the height difference became an issue, Quinn just picked me up and put me on the edge of the kitchen counter. A clap of thunder sounded outside as I parted my knees to let him get as close to me as he could. I wrapped my legs around him. He pulled the elastic band out of my hair, not a totally pain-free process, and ran his fingers through the tangles. He crushed my hair in his hand and inhaled deeply, as if he were extracting the perfume from a flower.
“This is okay?” he asked raggedly, as his fingers found the bottom back edge of my tank top and sneaked up under it. He examined my bra tactilely and figured out how to open it in record time.
“Okay?” I said, in a daze. I wasn’t sure whether I meant, “Okay? Hell, yes, hurry up!” or “Which part of this is okay, you want to know?” but Quinn naturally took it as a green light. His hands pushed the bra aside and he ran his thumbs across my nipples, which were already hard. I thought I was going to explode, and only the sure anticipation of better things to come kept me from losing it right then and there. I wriggled even further to the edge of the counter, so the big bulge in the front of Quinn’s jeans was pressed against the notch in my pants. Just amazing, how they fit. He pressed against me, released, pressed again, the ridge formed by the stretch of the jeans over his penis hitting just the right spot, so easy to reach through the thin and stretchy spandex. Once more, and I cried out, holding on to him through the blind moment of orgasm when I could swear I’d been catapulted into another universe. My breathing was more like sobbing, and I wrapped myself around him like he was my hero. In that moment, he certainly was.
His breathing was still ragged, and he moved against me again, seeking his own release, since I had so loudly had mine. I sucked on his neck while my hand went down between us, and stroked him through his jeans, and suddenly he gave a cry as ragged as mine had been, and his arms tightened around me convulsively. “Oh, God,” he said, “oh, God.” His eyes closed tight with his release, he kissed my neck, my cheek, my lips, over and over. When his breathing—and mine—was a little more even, he said, “Babe, I haven’t come like that since I was seventeen, in the backseat of my dad’s car with Ellie Hopper.”
“So, that’s a good thing,” I mumbled.
“You bet,” he said.
We stayed clinched for a moment, and I became aware that the rain was beating against the windows and the doors, and the thunder was booming away. My brain was thinking of shutting down for a little nap, and I was lazily aware of Quinn’s brain going equally drowsy as he rehooked my bra at my back. Downstairs, Amelia was making coffee in her dark kitchen and Bob the witch was waking up to the wonderful smell and wondering where his pants were. And in the courtyard, swarming silently up the stairs, enemies were approaching.
“Quinn!” I exclaimed, just in the moment his sharp hearing picked up the shuffle of the footsteps. Quinn went into fighting mode. Since I hadn’t been home to check the calendar symbols, I’d forgotten we were close to the full moon. There were claws on Quinn’s hands now, claws at least three inches long, instead of fingers. His