In the heart of the Canadian Rockies, along one arc of the vast, almost circular Lake Ambrosia, with mountains rising up on all sides, lay Ambrosian City.
It was not always one of the most fabulous and spectacular resort towns in the world. It had started out much more humbly, but ambitiously, with one ski-resort chalet on the face of one mountain. The Ambrosian Chalet was now a retreat and vacation property, rented out to business groups and well-heeled vacationers for as little as a day or as long as a couple of weeks. The business streaming into the town had simply outgrown the capacities of one single chalet, spectacular though the property was, when the wealthy metamorphs of the world started to come for their holidays, their exclusive and lavish parties, and their business functions. When the rich and influential two-bodied people made Ambrosian City their home away from home, it became one of the places where “everyone who was anyone” wanted to be.
The city was arranged in tiers. At the lowest tier were the beaches, the docks, the marina, the amusement park, and the casinos. Next highest were the shops and mall, bakeries, and restaurants; the galleries and theatres; the museums; the hotels; the apartmetnts and homes of the locals; and the administrative center. Above them were the luxury apartments and condos, mostly owned or rented by visitors and part-time residents, and the convention center.
Highest up sat all the ski resorts. On a day in the summer, such as when Justin, Suzanne, and Mack arrived, one typically saw aquatic weredragons swimming with necks raised like Nessies among the boats. Throughout the year, winged weredragons climbed and swooped through the air up and down the faces of the mountains and across the surface of Lake Ambrosia.
Early in the morning, Justin took himself, Suzanne, and Max aboard his private jet from L.A. up into Canada. When they arrived at the small airport outside Ambrosian City, the Jaguar that Justin had rented for them was waiting on the tarmac: a luxury car named for a big cat, rented by a man who was a bear. Once their luggage was in the trunk of the Jaguar, Max took the wheel and drove them from the airport to their destination.
As they entered Ambrosian City, she sat gazing out at their destination, fascinated to see how many metamorphs casually walked the streets in two-legged animal half-forms, something that morphs seldom did elsewhere. But Ambrosian City, she realized, was not like most places—even as the man who had brought her here was not like most men.
Quickly and efficiently they checked in at the five-star Ambrosian Premier Hotel and went to their accommodations on the top floor, Max taking a room and Justin and Suzanne occupying a suite. Justin took the three of them to lunch at the elegant restaurant on the ground floor, then excused Max for the rest of the day and took Suzanne back upstairs.
Alone in their suite, Suzanne and Justin undressed for bed. Everything came off—except the ring. Their clothing littering the floor, they stood naked before the mirror and Justin kissed, licked, and put love bites on her neck and shoulders. With his face buried in her golden waterfall of hair, Suzanne kept the hand wearing the ring lifted before her face and gazed into the sapphire as intently as she might have studied herself in the mirror. The stones sparkled at her, suggesting the world of possibilities that they represented—or would have represented if the whole thing were not an act. Only the tremble-inducing feeling of Justin’s fingers rustling at her muff and grazing the flower of her sex while he kissed and sucked at her neck distracted her from staring at that ring and contemplating what it could have meant under other circumstances.
Justin turned her around facing the mirror. He swept her hair to one side and had at her neck with his lips once again, while encircling her with his colossal arms. One hand cupped her breasts and squeezed and hardened her nipples, while the other continued to roam through the honey-colored thicket between her legs and probe at the cave of honey beneath it. A wildfire of pleasure burned its way through her when he put the thick shaft of his cock in the cleft of her buttocks and began to dry-hump her that way—well, almost dry, with his man-nectar seeping onto her skin.
Even with the tremors running through her body at what he was doing to her, Suzanne could not concentrate on the erotic sight of Justin feeling her up and playing with her reflected in the mirror while those rocks sparkled on her finger. It was only when, from the corners of her eyes, she looked up into the mirror and saw him staring, bemused, at her partial distraction, that Suzanne a bit sheepishly offered: “Oh. Sorry.”
He spun her around and pulled her into a hard kiss that set off a stronger tremor inside her. “Keep your mind on work, please,” he said, mock-scolding her. “Between now and the dinner tonight…,” he gave her bottom a squeeze, “you’re on the job.”
“Yes, Sir,” she sighed, and let him kiss her again and sweep her from the carpet and into his arms. Justin carried her to bed and spread her out on it, and dove face-first between her open thighs. His lips and tongue wetly consuming her lady parts made Suzanne’s mind and heart glow as brightly as the gems mounted on her finger, which she still could not resist holding up and peering at while he ate her out. The waves of pleasure made her shut her eyes and open them again, dividing her attention between what Justin was doing to her and what sat upon her hand.
Only when Justin mounted her and drove the voluminous trunk of his dick inside her did all thoughts of the spurious engagement ring flee her mind. She simply threw back her head, held on to him, and received his urgent and wicked pumping, at last giving herself completely to what would take up the hours between now and this evening. She submitted to him, yielding up her body and reveling in his, filling herself with a pleasure far greater than any mere piece of jewelry could ever bring.
As evening approached, they tore themselves away from bed for sex in the shower (they definitely needed a shower, as they would be spending their evening in a place where they would be surrounded by shifting people who would smell the way they had spent the day) and dressed for dinner. It was when they were dressed that a sight greeted Justin Gates’s eyes that took his breath away as nothing else he had ever seen in his life had done.
Suzanne had slipped into her best black party gown. It was open-backed, bare-shouldered, with a slit all the way up her leg on one side. She accented it with a necklace of tiny pearls—real ones that she had bought herself with her earnings from one of her higher-paying clients. Her hair fell down one shoulder to the bust on one side like a waterfall of starlight. And, of course, she wore the ring. “His” ring.
Seeing her that way stopped Justin in his tracks. He was rooted to the spot, truly speechless at the way she looked. He had been to bed with more women than he could remember, but in all his years he had never set his eyes on any female, his own kind or human or any other breed, who looked anywhere near as wondrous as Suzanne Sutton looked tonight.
Suzanne looked him up and down as the man who was a black bear inside stood before her in a black suit and tie, looking every bit the gentleman that he was not when he had her in bed. With the tiniest of shrugs, she asked, “Do I look all right?”
He answered her in a partly hushed voice of complete awe. The feeling that now had possession of Justin was something beyond the desire that he had felt every other minute they had spent together. Something else was taking hold of him now, something that was very much out of place in the relationship that they had established. This feeling did not belong here, but here it was and it was not going away. “You look better than all right. You look…more beautiful than I ever thought it was possible for a woman to look.”
She smiled softly at that, her toes curling a bit in her most expensive black party shoes. She returned in her mind to the way she had felt looking at him for the first time when she opened his files on her Mac. Suzanne hoped that what Justin felt now was something like what she had felt then. She sensed that it was.
“Are we ready to go?” she asked.
He stepped over to her and offered her his arm, which she took. “We are ready.”
They went to the door to the suite and let themselves out. Yes, they were definitely “ready.” As they strolled together down the hall in the direction of Mack’s room, Justin told her, “After the Ceremonial Howl tonight, when I get you back up here, I’m getting you out of that gown and then I’ll have you howling.”
She allowed herself a little laugh at that, pleased to find that no matter how much of a gentleman he made himself, inside he was and would always be a beast. A lust-filled, dirty-minded, and incredibly gorgeous beast.
_______________
The evening’s activities, like the deliberations of the rest of the week, would take place at the convention center. It was a cavernous place of tinted glass and stainless steel set into a mountainside overlooking the lake. The lower floor was taken up with a ballroom, a huge dining room, and concert, performance, and exhibition spaces. On the upper floor were meeting rooms, conference rooms, an inner observation space, and an outer observation promenade from which one could look out at the lake and the adjacent mountains. The old Ambrosian Chalet was visible from there.
A client once took Suzanne to a performance of My Fair Lady as the “date” part of their evening. Coming into the ballroom on Justin’s arm with Mack by their side, Suzanne felt a bit like Eliza Dolittle coming to the Embassy Ball with Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering. Of course, Justin was the farthest thing from a “Higgins.” That character was a closeted old fussbudget of a Queen who had channeled his stifled libido into an obsession with English and diction and wondered aloud why women could not be more like men.
Justin was youth, handsomeness, muscle, hair, and raw, relentless sex, subdued for the evening in his expensive suit. He walked her around the room, displaying both her and the ring on her finger to everyone in his line of sight. If his cordial greetings and introductions had been subtitled, the subtitles would have read, Yes, this is the human female I’ve been screwing and I’m marrying her; eat all your hearts out.
Suzanne smiled dazzlingly and performed her part in the charade, saying all the right things to everyone to whom Justin introduced her. Much to her surprise, she was actually taking pride in all this, and not just the pride of a job well and skillfully done. Suzanne wondered at the fact that she was feeling proud to be in this place with him.
She was proud to pass herself off as Justin Gates’ trophy fiancee, not because she knew how to play the part of the trophy for maximum effect, but because she was presenting herself as his trophy, the one that he, with his excellent taste and his ability to have any female he wanted, had chosen. It wasn’t her ability to do the job and “sell” the bogus engagement that made Suzanne proud. It was the fact that she was doing it for him. And the fact that with every introduction and every conversation, Justin seemed genuinely, honestly proud of her. They were both acting their roles beautifully, with true conviction, true motivation. There was an inescapable feeling of truth about the whole affair.
At one point they saw an older couple standing before them, dressed to the nines. The man was grey-haired and grey-bearded, the woman dressed in a pale blue-green gown. Suzanne guessed they were in their sixties. She also guessed from the wide, broad body frames of the two of them that this older couple were of Justin’s own breed: senior werebears.
The pair began to walk toward them, and Justin leaned over and whispered into Suzanne’s ear, “These are the Morants. They’re my kind. He’s in banking and they’re at least as rich as I am. Their money is even older than they are. And he’s a Marshal.”
“Understood,” Suzanne whispered back.
The Morants drew near them and pleasantries and niceties were thus exchanged. Cordially, Justin said, “Suzanne Sutton, I’d like you to meet Jordan and Veronika Morant. Jordan, Veronika, this is my fiancee, Suzanne Sutton. She’s in the party planning business. We met when she hosted one of my functions for me in Los Angeles.”
The older couple took her hand in turn, suitably taken in as everyone else had been by Justin’s little lie. “How do you do, Ms. Sutton?”
“Charmed, darling,” said Veronika, demonstrating her accent, which Suzanne placed immediately.
“Mrs. Morant…you’re from Russia, originally?” Suzanne guessed.
“Moscow,” Veronika confirmed.
“How very nice,” said Suzanne. “I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting your country.”
“You must, my dear,” said Veronika. “There’s no place lovelier.”
“And there’d be no one lovelier to be in it,” Justin said, giving Suzanne’s hand a convincing little squeeze.
“Then I’m understanding correctly, Suzanne,” ventured Jordan, “that you’re actually making an honest bear of Justin?”
Justin held up the hand on which the rented jewelry perched. “You can see for yourself, Jordan.”
“But after all these years, Justin, and always someone different every time we’ve seen you…” He offered to Suzanne, “No offense, young lady. But if you’ve had anything to do with Los Angeles society, Justin’s reputation must have preceded him with you.”
“I do all my homework on all my clients,” said Suzanne, coolly, unruffled. “Of course I knew everything about Justin, the same as I know everything about everyone I work for. I can serve them better that way. And I really don’t judge.” She looked up at Justin with an admiration that was truly more than a pretense. “Justin and I have a relationship of mutual understanding. We know who each other is, and we accept each other.” And she linked her arm with his for emphasis and practically drilled her smile into the older couple.
“You accept everything, then?” asked Veronika with a surprising bluntness. The unspoken meaning of the question was clear. You have no qualms about marrying a bear man who has bedded his way up and down the Pacific Coast?
“What’s not to accept?” Suzanne answered. “Everyone has a past.” She looked back up into Justin’s eyes with a meaning that only they shared. “Everyone. Isn’t that right?”
With the same meaning, Justin said to his old friends, “That’s right. Everyone.” And, unspoken, he added, If only you two old grizzlies knew…
“What’s more important to me than whom Justin has done things with,” Suzanne continued, “is whom he’s done them for. You know about his works outside of business, don’t you? The contributions he makes to the arts, to education, not just for your community but the other breeds, and humans too. And he makes sure all of his employees have living wages, and health benefits, and pension plans. Justin has always enjoyed his life, and he’s always thought of others. Everyone should have the sense of balance that he has.”
“Yes, of course,” said Jordan, almost blushing, and glancing out of the corners of his eyes at his wife, who was nearly pink as well. “I’ve always considered a balanced life a virtue.”
“Then you know that I know exactly what I’m getting in this man, and I couldn’t be happier.” Suzanne felt triumphant, watching the older couple stifle their amazement at the quality of the woman on the younger werebear’s arm. She had no doubt that she had just held her own with one of the most formidable couples in the room, and done it with poise and grace.
“And we’re very happy for you, darling,” said Veronika, putting her smile back in place. “We must take lunch together during the week while these men are having their deliberations.”
“Yes, we must,” Suzanne replied, pretending to look forward to it.
“I believe there are some other greetings we need to make before dinner,” said Jordan, gently but insistently tugging at his wife’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us…”
“Of course,” Suzanne grinned. Gladly, she added, unspoken.
Once the old banker bear and his Russian mate were out of earshot, Justin took Suzanne by the waist and pulled her to him as if he were going to French-kiss her, strip the two of them, and mount her right here in the ballroom. “You are brilliant,” he said, beaming a sexy smile down at her.
“Loved every second of it,” she grinned back up at him. “I really did do my homework. I didn’t want to leave any room for doubt that I’m the kind of wife Justin Gates deserves.”
“Trust me,” he said, “you’ve left no room for doubt at all. Not one bit.” And he wondered, though he did not say it, how he had gone all these years humping every beautiful female he had ever met, and never once hearing anyone speak of him that way or having anyone make him feel as proud as he felt at this moment.
And just now, Suzanne wished Justin actually could French-kiss her, strip the two of them, and mount her right here in the ballroom. That would really give the community of wealthy metamorphs something to talk about.
After the meet-and-greet in the ballroom, everyone adjourned to the grand dining room for dinner. Then it was back to the ballroom for the post-dinner dance, and then all there werewolves in the room excused themselves. Once the lycanthropes were gone, everyone else took the elevators and stairs to the upper level and the outer promenade for the final part of the Leaders’ Gathering Gala.
The view outside, with night fallen, was magical. Against a velvety indigo sky, splashed with stars, the mountains were silhouetted in black, and the convention center at the city set at the mountain face was now a spread of golden lights. The streets were now rivers of dancing orange radiance, flowing towards the shore of the lake. The torchlight parade through Ambrosian City was getting underway. Up and down both sides of the mountain face, the lights of other fires glowed and flickered and flashed against the blackness. The torches of the lycanthropes who had left the gala announced the finale of the evening. In the torches’ glow, the forms of the lycanthropes, transformed from human to half-wolves on two legs or full wolves on four, took their places. A hush fell over the mountainside—until at last the werewolves began to howl.
The howling rose up from the lighted spots on the blackness-shrouded slope. The sound of it wafted up towards the summit of the mountain and the stars above, and floated down the slope towards the city. They were the howls of the young and the old, joined and mixed in chorus, all loud and strong; high-pitched with youth and lower-pitched with age. The howls mingled and joined in an ancient harmony, as old as wolves and older than man. It was a song to tingle the skin and make the spirit light up like the torches, a sound reaching back beyond the dimmest times in human memory and up and out to limitless dreams and a limitless future.
In the crowd on the promenade, Justin and Suzanne had managed to grab themselves a spot near the outer rail, which offered the best view of the flowing lights of the parade below them and the glow of the lights on the mountain. This was a sight and a sound that Justin had experienced many times, but now he afforded himself the chance to see it, at least vicariously, through the eyes of Suzanne, who was here for the first time.
He watched the gold of her hair gleam as radiantly as all the lights in the dark, and her face illuminated with a light of its own to match. And he wondered how it would be to bring her back here again for the next nominations. And the next, and the next. Of course it was out of bounds to think such things—or was it? What was there to stop him hiring her for the next time? Or for any time? They were both business people, after all. She had a service to provide and he was a satisfied repeat customer. There was no reason at all not to continue the relationship.
Except that he had now couched it in a term that had other contexts, other meanings: Relationship. A word that Justin had always ducked and avoided, except in business. He appreciated “relationships” in business. He found them uncomplicated, for the most part, and rewarding. It was other “relationships” that had always been entanglements, encumbrances, things that he’d never cared to negotiate—until now. He had never had a “transaction” as satisfying as this—until now.
Suzanne’s hand was in his and Justin gave it a little stroke with his thumb. She looked away from the panorama in the dark and up at him, into the expression on his face that said without words everything that he was thinking and feeling. She gave him a smile and a thumb stroke in return.
And the werewolves howled on into the night.
On a balcony on the slope to the west of the convention center stood a tall, slender woman with her hair pulled back tight and twined into a single thin braid. Everything about her, from her hair to the packing of her lean, hard body into tight clothing, to the hard focus of her eyes and the set of her jaw, suggested energy; humming, crackling energy, coiled up, twitching, waiting to be triggered and released. She focused herself squarely on the convention center’s outer promenade and the dozens of figures standing there. She completely tuned out the howling of the werewolves, the glow and flicker of the lights, the stream of golden brilliance heading for the lakeside. None of that mattered. She saw only that promenade and all the people on it. There was nothing else.
She did not care about the nominations gala or all the fuss and bother surrounding it. She had been here and seen that before and she was sure it was the same thing every time. What interested the woman, what completely claimed and monopolized her mind, was who she knew was over there in that group of people, inhuman not only in their two bodies but in their wealth. The woman had come into some means herself lately, but she commanded only a small fraction of the money that occupied that promenade. The money she had made was nothing, a paltry sum, compared to his fortune. He was rich beyond comprehension.
But soon, all his money would not save him. Not from her.
The woman smiled with just a corner of her mouth. With a thought, she transformed just her eyes. The blue of her eyes turned a deep brown-black. The whites of them turned a golden yellow. The acuity and sharpness of her vision multiplied. In her changed sight, what had been a collection of tiny dots on the structure set into the other slope resolved into a view of individual people, as clear as if she were using the most powerful binoculars. She loved the things she could do now. And she loved knowing how little he would soon love them.
Given time, she was sure, she could pick him out of that crowd over there. Her enhanced vision was sharp enough and she knew his face well enough. More than just his face, she knew every bit of him: every godly-handsome line of his features, every short bristle of his perfectly cut beard, every massively shaped and perfectly formed muscle of his body. She knew the sumptuous spread of hair down his spectacular torso and what lay beneath the dark thicket of hair at his crotch: the cock that was a limb in its own right, which he had plunged into her for so many hours on so many nights when she lay beneath him, worshipping him, adoring him.
If she were to pick him out of that crowd now, she would also find the one that the people she’d hired had told her about and secretly photographed from afar, the new woman that he’d brought with him. The blonde. She could almost have predicted that it would be a blonde. Who was it, she wondered. Another model? An actress? A dancer? To be with him, she would have to be the best of whatever she was. He only wanted the best, after all.
He had once thought she was the best. The woman on the balcony had truly believed it would last, that they were so good for each other, so perfect together, that he would not tire of her. She had thought that the next time he came to this event in Ambrosian City—this event, tonight, she would still be at his side. And in his bed.
But no. Now it was this other one. This blonde.
The woman on the balcony shifted her eyes back to human. She did not want to see him and the blonde after all, not right now. Not knowing what would happen when the evening’s festivities were over and he took her back, no doubt to the Ambrosian Premier. That was where he usually stayed when he came here—except for the one time that he brought her with him. Right now she was in their place, the place to which he’d brought her. The place where he’d banged her upstairs and downstairs when he wasn’t busy with morph business.
Let them have their fun, decided Mariah Porter. Yes, let him go to bed with his blonde. Let him fuck her and enjoy her as Mariah knew he would. That would be his last hurrah. By this time tomorrow she would see Justin Gates again. Justin would see what had become of the lover he no longer wanted. And he would learn there was something in the world more terrifying than a bear.
_______________
Justin had dimmed the lights and turned down the sheets and now sat on the bed, naked and erect, howling inside as if he were a wolf instead of a bear, waiting for her.
Suzanne stepped out of the bathroom clad in a strapped negligee that was just transparent enough to show the perfect curves and contours of her tall, toned body. He sensed that there was nothing under that diaphanous fabric but Suzanne’s soft, smooth, warm skin. Justin’s member throbbed approvingly at his crotch. She smiled at him and at it, and strode alluringly over to join him on the bed.
She curled up beside him and he wasted no time bringing his mouth to hers, wrapping her up in one powerful arm and sending the other hand up under the hem of the flimsy fabric in which she was dressed, seeking and finding her moistened treasure. She accepted and returned the kiss, while her own hand took hold of the incredible instrument of joy that pulsed huge and hot between his legs. He parted the kiss and Suzanne was ready to lean down and take his root into her mouth when Justin said, “You made me feel really special and important tonight.”
Mildly surprised, Suzanne blinked at him. “You should always feel special and important,” she said.
“Tonight was different,” said Justin. “I knew everyone tonight would look at you as my ‘trophy.’ But if I’m really honest…I’m the one who felt like the trophy. I’m the one who felt like the prize.”
Suzanne’s expression melted into something that Justin could not read. She actually pulled away from him at those last words, and a knot of anxiety coiled up in him as she withdrew to the other side of the bed, staring out into the dimness of the suite. What had he said? Could he possibly have hurt her in some way? What could he do to make it right?
He put a hand on her shoulder, stroked it through her hair, and finally put his fingers under her chin and turned her face back to him. Justin’s heart sank to see the tears tracing little rivulets down Suzanne’s face. Whatever it was he’d said, had he hurt her that badly?
“What is it?” he asked, growing sick with worry. “What did I say? Please, tell me.”
Half-whispering, Suzanne answered, “It’s not supposed to be this way.”
“What way?”
“I’m only supposed to be doing a job. I’m…” And at this she hesitated.
“You’re what?”
On the edge of sobbing, she finished: “I’m not supposed to love you.”
And now, Justin’s heart crumbled; cracked and crumbled and fell to pieces with a pain such as he had never felt in all his life. As awful as the pain he feared he had caused her, and perhaps more so, was the pain that now turned his heart to rubble. “Oh my God, Suzanne,” was all he could say.
“I know,” she said, beginning to weep. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Justin; it’s against the job, it’s against the rules, it’s…”
He cut her off by pulling her back across the bed and back into his arms, and claiming her lips in another kiss that felt to Suzanne like the glow of the lights of the torches on the mountain. It was a kiss that rendered all words feeble.
Keeping her wrapped up in his arms, Justin said, “You’re right, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I’m not supposed to love you, either.”
She straightened up to look him directly in that handsome face. Too many feelings to name now welled up inside her. “Oh, Justin, no,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s how it is. I’ve actually gone there. I love you, Suzanne.”
Suzanne was fit to cry again. This was a game changer. This was an everything changer. Her entire future was now a question mark, any plan she might ever have made for her life was now meaningless. “What are we supposed to do now?” she wondered.
Justin shook his head. “I never saw myself being in love at all, let alone like this. I don’t even know your real name. You don’t work under your real name, I take it…”
She sighed at the question itself and at how perceptive he was. Before she knew what she was doing, Suzanne Sutton heard herself saying, “Tricia Eaves.”
Her eyes widened at what she had just done. There it was, something that she had never done with any client. Or something else that she had never done with any client. Suzanne had never fallen in love with one, and she had certainly never told one her real name. She had now truly, totally, completely exposed herself to him, making herself more naked to him than if she had slipped out of her negligee to join him in bed instead of letting him do the honors. She felt on the brink of something, on the precipice of something, and it was making her head spin with apprehension. What would come next?
Justin said, “Let’s stick with Suzanne. This is the real you. This is the you that’s free to be whatever you want to be. I never knew you as Tricia, but Tricia probably had limits. Suzanne doesn’t. I want you to want to be mine. I fell in love with Suzanne.” He kissed her tenderly, more tenderly than he had ever kissed her in all the short time they had known each other. “I love to fuck Suzanne.”
In a burst of joy, she returned her lips to his and took his tongue into her mouth, and she gave herself into the pure, total, absolute amazement of this moment. There was absolutely nothing to which Suzanne could compare the way she felt, or the way she sensed that he felt. There was nothing to do now but seal this moment with the deepest, most impassioned kiss into which they could pour their hearts.
“What is this going to mean, Justin?” she asked at the end of a glorious kiss.
Justin felt a little sting in his heart at the memory of other women who had asked him that question, to which he’d given answers that they did not want to hear. He studied her, looking for the words.
“Will I be your ‘kept woman’ now?” she asked.
“Would that be a bad thing?” he asked in return.
For the first time, she actually frowned. “Everyone sees what I do as wrong—legally, morally wrong. But it’s made me independent, Justin; independent in a way most people aren’t. I like my independence. I love you, but…I don’t want to be ‘kept’.”
Reassuringly, Justin brushed her hair with his fingers. “I will support anything you want to do, Suzanne—except staying in this business. You can’t have the business you’re in and this relationship; they don’t go together. Anything else you decide you want to do, I’ll support. Do whatever you want; become a party planner for real, like we were lying about, or anything else you want to do. I’ll support you all the way. Just so long as what you do in bed every night from now on, you do with me. Only me, no one else.”
There was silence in the bed, silence in the dimness of the suite, as Suzanne weighed the words that he’d just told her and Justin weighed the feelings and the honesty with which he’d said them and meant them. In the silence was the question of what would happen next.
Suzanne took his hand and moved it to one of the straps of her negligee. “Take this off me,” she told him.
In as little time as it took to say it, the sleek, see-through garment was tossed to the foot of the bed and Suzanne and Justin rolled back and forth together, kissing, tonguing, fondling. At length she had him on his back, and took as much of his immense length as she could get into her mouth. Justin, who had promised to have her howling, once again felt more like a howling wolf than a bear.
The sex went on for hours, the two of them going down on each other and Justin drilling her lady parts and penetrating to her womb, into which he poured deluges of seed. But this time it was different. This time it was sex such as Suzanne had never known since she was in school, and sex such as Justin had never known in his life.
It was mingled and punctuated with breathless moans of “I love you” back and forth, during and between. For Suzanne it was a return to something pure that she wondered if she would ever have again. For Justin it was a total revelation, an astoundingly wondrous discovery. For Justin especially, entering Suzanne over and over was like entering a new world, a world that belonged to them alone.
As they lay together before dawn after a long night of Justin’s sweet, hard fucking, Suzanne ran her fingers along the line of his jaw, through the short, short hairs of his immaculate beard. Their eyes were still locked together as their bodies had been. Their feelings were still entwined the way they had entwined their limbs. It felt as though nothing could ever untangle them, and they welcomed it.
“When did you know?” Suzanne asked softly.
“Hmm…?”
“When did you know how you felt about me?”
He grinned a little, playing with her nipple and making her grin back. “Oh. When did I know? Tell you the truth, it started sneaking up on me, kind of like a hunter in the forest. Which is not a metaphor that a man who’s a bear uses lightly, I might add.”
She chuckled a little at that.
“It started over dinner that first night,” he went on. “I started to see you weren’t just someone I’d hired. You weren’t just a walking sex toy. You had depth—substance. I saw right then that you’re not just what you do. You’re more. Just…more.”
Suzanne now brushed her knuckles lovingly over his beard. He had made her feel not only loved, but understood, which was just as pleasing.
“So when did you know?” Justin asked.
“I think it was that first morning,” she said, “when you came up out of the pool in your other body and morphed back to human in front of me. There was just something so sweet about you. You were like…”
He cut her off. “Please don’t compare me to a Teddy bear. I am not any fucking Teddy bear.” And he smiled at her as much as he scolded her.
They broke into a laugh, and Suzanne squealed a bit at his squeezing her nipple.
“That’s not what I meant,” she giggled like a teenager. “I only meant you were like some wild thing that was making itself tame just for me. That’s when it started.”
“I don’t feel tame when I’m in you,” Justin said. “I feel like the horniest fucking thing that ever lived. I feel that way all the time anyway, but…with you I feel…connected. Connected like I’ve never felt with anyone else. Fucking you feels like our bodies were made for each other, like I belong in you. I’m asking something of you that I’ve never asked anyone else in my life. Love me, Suzanne—my body, my dick, all of me. Just love me.”
Suzanne, with a feeling in her heart like one of the roses in his garden unfolding into a bloom, slid closer and curled up against him. “Yes,” she simply said with a sigh. “Yes, I will love you. I will love you. I do love you. Yes.”
Justin held her, feeling something in his arms that was more precious than all his billions and all his other holdings. His other holdings were nothing compared to what lay curled up in his arms right then. A deep and blissful sleep took them as they had taken each other.