The Second Covenant

I drove around for a week with the little wolf in my car, I was avoiding Druex, trying not to just throw myself into his arms and ask him to make it all better. That felt wrong to me, to go to him while I was still upset over Peyton. My phone rang and I didn’t even think to look at the number before I answered. “Okay, Cherish, honey, I’ve given it as long as I can. But you’ve got to either cut me off or stop avoiding me.” I smiled at the aggravated, but playful tone of Druex’s voice. “Forget that first part, just stop avoiding me.”

I looked over at the little wolf. “I was actually just thinking about you.” He heaved a sigh, of relief I think. “Good, where are you?” I turned onto the road that would take me to town. “On my way to see you. I have a present for you.”
“Mm, bribery is good. I think my feelings are hurt.” I winced because that as the last thing I wanted him to feel. “Are you at the club?”
“Yep. coolin’ my heels, waitin. For you.” I sped up. “Be right there. Druex?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry I was avoiding you. I’ll explain when I get there.”
“I was just joking honey. You said you were going through some stuff. I can handle that. I’ll even help you if you want, if I can.”
“Oh, I think you can.”
“Thank god, I hate just sitting on my butt doing nothing when my prospective woman’s upset. You can park in the back and come up the stairs.”

Prospective woman huh? Chauvanistic, but…I kind of liked it. I parked in back and he was coming down the stairs as I was getting out of the car. My heart sped up just at the sight of him. He just kind of flowed over the pavement, a sure footedness, grace maybe, that I’d never been able to pull off. He walked right up to me and stopped, our shoes touching, just looking down at me. “Hi.” I said stupidly, just basking in the heat already pouring off him. His lips twitched, his eyes burning me when he took in every detail of my face, searched my eyes. “Hi.” he touched my cheek with his fingers, his throat working just from that little bit of contact.

Just from that little bit and the world seemed less unstable. I felt that roll of fur inside me, a gentle brush, but a swell of some power, not my own. “Can I kiss you now?” I said in a softly husky voice. “Please do.” He grinned and I came to him, put his present down on the hood of my car so I wouldn’t drop it before I wound my arms around his shoulders and stood up on tip toes to melt my mouth against his. He made a low sound in his throat, almost a growl, and wrapped his arms tight around my back.

I curled my fingers in his hair and he made another sound. He picked me up and turned a slow circle with me, it made me lift my head and laugh. “I missed you.” I said and he nudged my chin with his nose. My head fell back and he rubbed his face against my throat. “I couldn’t tell.” he said thickly and slid me slowly down his body.

Hugging him healed a part of me, it was hard to move on from loving someone your whole life, but I felt better than I had in a while, just being near to him. He smelled so good. I turned my nose to the crook of his neck and inhaled the musky scent, he always smelled like trees, and wind, and… He smelled like something I could wrap myself up in and hide, stay safe.

His pulse was throbbing against my lips and I had the strangest urge to nibble on it, lick at his skin, hold the feel of his heartbeat between my teeth, crawl up his body and rub all over him. “I’ve been missing you too.” He said and broke the spell over me. I blinked and moved away from his throat and looked up into those flaming blue orbs. Sighed and felt…home. “So…besides your delicious self, what’d you bring me?”

I laughed and reached for the box on my car. “I bought it for you while I was in Salem.” He kept my hand and took the white box with the other, giving me another, softer kiss. “Come up and talk to me honey, I’ve got some chocolate with your name on it.” I gave him a perky smile and let him tug me up the stairs. “What kind?” He shot me a look from under his lashes that was like a physical pull on my lower things. “Godiva.” If it had been anyone but me, I’d have said I giggled. But I wasn’t a giggler. “Man, you went all out. I dream of Godiva.”

He pushed the door open for me and shrugged with a grin. “Funny me too. I keep seeing you swimming in a river of it.” I batted my lashes at him innocently. “Was I naked?” The way his cheek’s mantled, just a hint of color, the way his nostrils flared, it just made me shudder. “You certainly were.” He had to clear his throat, I was learning that when men were in the throes of a rather lusty moment, they had trouble breathing.

He steered me over to the couch and took my coat to lay over the back of a nearby chair. He put the box on the coffee table and went to the kitchen, brought me back a mug of frothy hot coco, Godiva coco. Yummy. I sipped and murmured appreciatively. He grinned and sat down next to me. “Open it.” I said, lifting my chin at the box.

He did, watching the laughter, the pleasure he got from the little figurine sparkle in his eyes. It made me happy that I’d bought it. “Why a wolf?” He asked, taking my wrist to press a kiss to the inner side, right over my pulse, which leapt up at the touch of his mouth. “I just saw it and thought of you. All wild and white.” I flicked his hair with my fingertips. I took another swallow of my hot chocolate. “Where you been Cherish?” He asked softly and I leaned away to set my mug on the coffee table. “Thinking. Lot’s of thinking.” I said and looked back at him with a sigh.

He reached over to reposition me, my knees on either side of his hips. It wasn’t a sexual thing, although it was a perfect position for it. He leaned back and had me draped across him, it was intimate. Comfortable to have his hands moving up and down my back. “Good thinking or bad?”
“Both.” I braced my elbow on the back of the couch and rested my cheek on my palm, sifting his hair through my other hand, almost petting him. “I went up to Salem to see Peyton mostly. I told you we grew up together?” Druex nodded, no assumptions or jumped on conclusions. Just waiting, ready for me to just talk to him. “He and I have always been closer to each other, a different kind of friendship I have with Tristan or Riley. I grew up thinking someday he’d grow up and fall madly in love with me.”

Druex grinned at my dramatic sigh. “You had one of those little girl crushes on him.” I nodded. “Oh yeah, in a bad way. But we grew up, and I watched him dating other girls, and it faded. I think it was more of a hero worship kind of thing, still very little girl, but he was always there to look out for me. Except once,”

I looked down at his throat for a moment, wondering what he’d do if I bit him. “Taylor?” His voice broke my focus on his throat. I nodded. “Yeah, but he’d graduated and I never blamed him for not being there. I didn’t tell anyone. Not for a long time. I always thought I was just a little sister figure for him, Peyton,” I clarified and Druex nodded, still stroking his hands up and down my back. I looked at him, searching inside me for what it was that drew me to him so tightly. “He changed the rules on me a few weeks ago. I think seeing me falling all over you made him jealous.” Druex’s smile didn’t slip, in fact, it became more…masculine. “Oh yeah? Falling all over me?” I blushed just a little and scraped my finger down his cheek softly. “He apparently was in love with me first and wanted me to remember that when I was with you.”

Druex clicked his tongue. “Guilt trip, that‘s low.”
“Yeah. I had this really terrible dream, one of those where you wake up terrified.” His hands firmed on my hips, under my shirt, just resting there, touching skin to skin. It relaxed me to the point where I felt like I’d just melted over him. It was so good, so…right. “What did you dream about?”

I looked down into his eyes and hoped never to see that hopeless kind of fear I’d seen in my dream. “I think it was kind of a metaphorical dream. You and Peyton were in it, and I had to choose.” His thumbs whispered back and forth over my sides. “Why was that terrifying?” I swallowed thickly. “I had to choose between you. Who got to live and who died.”

His brows lifted up. “That’s not a good dream.” I shook my head. He didn’t ask me who I’d chosen, he just waited and let me talk. “Not at all. I couldn’t choose, I didn’t and I lost you both.” The image seemed to float, perfectly clear across my vision. The moment where the knife flashed and blood flowed in a thick crimson gush. Almost black in the moonlight. It was the feel of Druex’s lips on mine that pulled me out of the memory. I sighed, wrapped my arms around his shoulders as he shifted, stretched us both out on the wide couch. But instead of lying on top of me, he chose to lay beside me.

It was me who rolled him onto his back so I could still be sprawled over him. It made him smile, he even cleared his throat and shifted so I wasn’t pressed over his groin. I was half tempted to wiggle back down. But I didn’t. “So you went to Salem to talk to Peyton about it?” He prompted and I nodded. “I…” how did I explain this right? I frowned down at Druex’s chest. “You have to understand, Peyton and I, we had something good, but totally dysfunctional between us. I loved him when I was younger, but I let him go because part of me knew he’d never love me back.”

There was the seat of my hurt. I’d let go and it turned out he had loved me after all. “And then it changed, for him. He was upset that I didn‘t just tell him right back I loved him too. I guess he thought I’d just wait around for him to wise up. But he confused me enough, and muddied up the waters enough that I wasn’t sure if I really had stopped loving him.” I had and it hurt because there was still that echo of a dream, a happily ever after. “I could have talked to him about my dream over the phone, but I wanted to see him. See if there was a real chance there for us.”

I smiled ruefully down at the pattern on Druex’s shirt. “With you and I…it’s something different.” I met those eyes, glowing up at me, patiently watching me. “What I felt for Peyton was good. And moving on from that’s hard, I‘m still kind of reeling from that loss. Being with you…its wonderful. I…”

I felt his heart under my hand, beating steadily, strong. He wasn’t nervous, or upset. He was just here, holding me. Waiting for me to spit it out. “I feel like I belong where you are.” I felt his heart trip then and smiled, looked up into his darkening eyes. “I’ve been avoiding you because I didn’t want to come here, to you, still struggling to get over Peyton. But I’m better when I’m near you.”

His smile was gentle and I stretched up to taste that gentleness. His hands ran up my back, pulling me down on top of him slowly, as gently as he was kissing me. But everywhere he touched me, heat, power flared, I shuddered with the feeling of it and his hands firmed on my back. I made a sound and just let myself go. Under my closed eyelids, I felt my eyes slip from purple to full black. Saw the fire burst under my lashes. But as soon as that happened it was gone and that feeling of fur, like some animal rolling up my spine, rubbing against places never before touched by anyone, building pressure at the base of my spine, pleasure that sent me seeking for more.

Druex’s tongue slipped past my lips and I found it. I was on top, but he was in control. He left no part of my mouth untouched, tasting, taking sips from me, suckling at my lips, nibbling lightly. I shifted again and felt the hard, solid rise of him under his jeans, felt him tense under me, his body clenched like he was fighting something. I wanted to rub against him, shred his clothes and roll naked with him outside, under the sky and wind… “No Cherish.” He growled, his hands clamping around on my hips to keep me from pressing down harder.

My heart was racing, I had to forced my magic down before opening my eyes to find that his had bled nearly to a deep, cerulean blue. “Why not?” He laughed, a dark, male sound of pleasure. “You’re not ready yet. Trust me.” I nodded. “I do.” He closed his eyes on a groan and pulled me down to hug me to his chest. “Careful Red, otherwise the wolf will eat you up.” I lay, with my cheek pressed to his chest, hearing his heart galloping, looking at the little wolf, howling on the coffee table. “Bring it on. I can take you.” I said breathlessly and he laughed again. “I’m sure you could. But you’re not ready yet, I don’t want any doubts from you baby. Nobody else in here but me.” He kissed the top of my head and I sighed.

He was right, it wasn’t fair unless he was the only one in my heart. “Okay.” I made to shift off him, but he held me tighter. “That doesn’t mean you have to get off me.” I grinned and relaxed, closed my eyes and just let the heat and scent of him wrap me up, surround me. We lay there together for I don’t know how long. “We open on Friday, are you coming?” He asked me after a while and I smiled, tilting my head back farther on his chest to look up at him, up at the contented, cat in the cream expression in his eyes. “Of course. But I thought it was a 21 and up kind of place.” He smiled slowly and sighed. “I forget sometimes you’re younger than that.” It wasn’t said as a bad thing, but I decided to nettle him. “But I’m old enough to make out with you on your couch?”

His grin turned sinful and I swallowed reflexively. “Barely.” He said sarcastically and I sat up, feigning a put off expression. “Barely? You know, you never have told me how old you are, I’m not pulling a Hayden and Milo am I?” His brow arched up. “A what?”
“She’s eighteen and he’s like in his thirties.” Druex laughed at me. “You think I look old enough to be in my thirties? Thanks very little.” I poked him in the chest playfully. “Hey, Mark Welling was thirty two when he played a twenty year old Superman. And he pulled it off amazingly. It happens.”

He shook his head slowly, still grinning and put one hand up under his head, making his shirt sleeve strain to accommodate the flexing of his bicep. “You watch a lot of TV.” I nodded and made my lips into a pouty moue. “What else am I, just barely legal, supposed to be doing? Do I have to guess?” He nodded. “Might as well.” I tilted my head to the side and looked down at him. Not a line to mar his face, no age spots, his body was so amazingly formed, not a bit of fat on him. He could be my age, or older. “Forty five.” He laughed incredulously. “What you said guess, so I guessed.”
“I’m not forty five, Jesus Cherish.” He said through his laugh and I crossed my arms over my chest, knowing that my breasts were about to spill out of my scoop necked top. His eyes flicked to them, he swallowed and looked back up at me. “Guess again.”

I rolled my eyes and gave a little wiggle of my hips, made his eyes fly wide for a minute. “Just tell me, or I’ll keep guessing wrong on purpose.” He gulped and tried to move but I tensed my thighs and he froze. Staring up at me, knowledge filling his eyes. He realized I knew exactly what I was doing to him, and liking it. “Brat.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Now I’m a barely legal brat. Mm, I’m liking this less and less.”

Druex came up on his elbows, looking at me, with his hair a little mussed from my hands. He pulled himself back to lean against the arm of the couch, with me still in his lap. “I’m twenty six.” I kissed him lightly for that answer. “Was that so hard?” I murmured and gave his lower lip a little nip. His hips jumped, just a bit, but enough for to realize how very much my touch affected him. “Terrible.” He rasped and I licked the spot I’d bitten on his mouth. “Mm, but when my daddy asks you that, you might want to lie.” his tongue swept over the curves of his mouth, licking me from his skin.

His hands moved to sink into my back pockets, gripping my bottom to pull me higher up his body, so that I was almost looking down at him. “Oh yeah, why?” I smiled slowly and twined my arms around his neck. “He gets really protective over me sometimes, head spinning, demon black eyes, it’s scary. And me being just barely legal and all…” He sighed heavily an closed the distance between us, caught my lips for a torrid kiss. “Alright, alright, I get the point.”

He growled and I settled off his lap to give him just a bit of relief. He pulled me right back down. “You’re old enough to make out with me on my couch, and come to the club opening.” He kissed my nose. “I know the owner.” He whispered and I grinned. “Oh, well that’s good. Can we make out some more then?” his laugh was wicked, his kiss more sinful that my mug of Godiva chocolate.