more sensitive whiskers. The air is fresh and the scent of rain fills questing nostrils. Pause. Listen. Leap forward, following the night sounds. Sounds that bring speed. The taste of blood is fresh. The tongue remembers the way the rabbit twisted and leapt to avoid the lethal snap of powerful jaws. It is good here, in the woods. It’s always good to run with the freedom of four strong legs and long, sharp teeth.
Tonight, though, something feels different. Head lifts. Air is scoured for scent. New scents, not crossed before, sounds of others nearby. Unusual. The way is alone. Solitude is life. Pausing, head raised. No! What’s happening? The world changes, shifts. No! There is no air. Suffocating! Trapped. No way to move, no idea where or who, no…
Mei blinked, held herself perfectly still and forced her racing heart to calm. It wasn’t all just a figment of her dreaming mind. She was trapped, sort of. Oliver’s arm wrapped around her waist from behind. Adam’s nose pressed between her breasts and one long leg stretched over her uppermost thigh. Eve was snuggled against Adam’s back, but the hand she’d thrown over his slim waist rested on Mei’s hip.
Mei felt like the runt in a basket of puppies, buried under so many warm bodies. Her heart still raced but she managed to extricate herself without waking anyone. Adam groaned, Oliver squirmed closer, and the three of them settled back into sleep.
Mei used the bathroom and washed her hands and face, moving like she was on autopilot. So much of the last hours of her life felt as if someone else had lived them, some other woman experienced them. She scrubbed her face dry with a clean towel and glanced at Oliver’s wristwatch on the counter. It was barely six in the morning. The others had come in so late, Mei was sure they’d sleep for hours more, but she was wide awake. After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into the shower.
The sharp sting of warm water woke her even more. She washed her hair and decided to shave her legs again. Would Oliver touch her today as intimately as he had last night? He’d seemed fascinated by her smooth skin, especially at the juncture of her thighs. She frowned as she ran the razor carefully across her slippery mound. She wanted to be certain everything, everywhere, was sleek as silk, but she still wasn’t all that sure what had happened yesterday.
Sex with Eve. Then with Oliver, both of them essentially strangers, yet more intimate than she’d ever been with anyone else. She felt as if her life was changed forever. As if both of them had become terribly important to her. As if her heart would break should either of them leave.
She never let other people into her life. Not ever. She had no friends, no family. Now, suddenly, she had Eve and Oliver. And, from the looks of things, Adam Wolf as well—a man she hadn’t even been properly introduced to, yet he’d spent the night with his body next to hers, his warm breath tickling the curve of her breast. Feeling terribly insecure and confused, she twisted her wet hair in a towel and wrapped another one around her body. Then she went back into the room and cuddled up in the big chair near the window.
She needed time to think. Time separate from the others.
Separate from the three beautiful people who slept on in the big bed. Without her. Mei felt a quick stinging in her eyes and swiped the back of her hand across her face. She would not cry. There was no need for tears, but her emotions were all tangled up, just like those bodies on the bed.
She’d been alone for as long as she could remember. She’d never spent as much time with other people as she had in the past twenty-four hours. It hadn’t even been that long, actually, since Eve had saved her butt from a fine or worse. She could have gone to jail, and that would have killed her.
Mei sighed and watched the three of them, still sleeping so soundly, so comfortably together. They were all curled so close together there
Tonight, though, something feels different. Head lifts. Air is scoured for scent. New scents, not crossed before, sounds of others nearby. Unusual. The way is alone. Solitude is life. Pausing, head raised. No! What’s happening? The world changes, shifts. No! There is no air. Suffocating! Trapped. No way to move, no idea where or who, no…
Mei blinked, held herself perfectly still and forced her racing heart to calm. It wasn’t all just a figment of her dreaming mind. She was trapped, sort of. Oliver’s arm wrapped around her waist from behind. Adam’s nose pressed between her breasts and one long leg stretched over her uppermost thigh. Eve was snuggled against Adam’s back, but the hand she’d thrown over his slim waist rested on Mei’s hip.
Mei felt like the runt in a basket of puppies, buried under so many warm bodies. Her heart still raced but she managed to extricate herself without waking anyone. Adam groaned, Oliver squirmed closer, and the three of them settled back into sleep.
Mei used the bathroom and washed her hands and face, moving like she was on autopilot. So much of the last hours of her life felt as if someone else had lived them, some other woman experienced them. She scrubbed her face dry with a clean towel and glanced at Oliver’s wristwatch on the counter. It was barely six in the morning. The others had come in so late, Mei was sure they’d sleep for hours more, but she was wide awake. After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into the shower.
The sharp sting of warm water woke her even more. She washed her hair and decided to shave her legs again. Would Oliver touch her today as intimately as he had last night? He’d seemed fascinated by her smooth skin, especially at the juncture of her thighs. She frowned as she ran the razor carefully across her slippery mound. She wanted to be certain everything, everywhere, was sleek as silk, but she still wasn’t all that sure what had happened yesterday.
Sex with Eve. Then with Oliver, both of them essentially strangers, yet more intimate than she’d ever been with anyone else. She felt as if her life was changed forever. As if both of them had become terribly important to her. As if her heart would break should either of them leave.
She never let other people into her life. Not ever. She had no friends, no family. Now, suddenly, she had Eve and Oliver. And, from the looks of things, Adam Wolf as well—a man she hadn’t even been properly introduced to, yet he’d spent the night with his body next to hers, his warm breath tickling the curve of her breast. Feeling terribly insecure and confused, she twisted her wet hair in a towel and wrapped another one around her body. Then she went back into the room and cuddled up in the big chair near the window.
She needed time to think. Time separate from the others.
Separate from the three beautiful people who slept on in the big bed. Without her. Mei felt a quick stinging in her eyes and swiped the back of her hand across her face. She would not cry. There was no need for tears, but her emotions were all tangled up, just like those bodies on the bed.
She’d been alone for as long as she could remember. She’d never spent as much time with other people as she had in the past twenty-four hours. It hadn’t even been that long, actually, since Eve had saved her butt from a fine or worse. She could have gone to jail, and that would have killed her.
Mei sighed and watched the three of them, still sleeping so soundly, so comfortably together. They were all curled so close together there
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