Female ✔️

13. bridge from pelt to skin

The basement is stuffy with bodies and hormones and smoke. It feels cramped and hot, music thumping loud from the large speakers in the corner. It is such a contrast from Jack's room. This is the belly of the beast.

The lights are dim, only a few fluorescents along the walls illuminating posters. A various arrangement of bar games are lined up against the far side of the room and closer to the entrance is a huge wrap around couch were a few wolves lay across the cushions with leisure. Drinks in hand, females in laps. Kisses and touches exchanged. A crowd of pulsing dancers in the middle, a table of glass bottles near the wall. Couples moving in and out of closed doors. Smoke exhaled from painted lips followed by the raising of red cups.

"You look overwhelmed." Jack murmurs in my ear. "Come." Taking my hand, he leads me to the array of intimidating bottles. What they are capable of, I do not know.

I watch amber liquid spill into a red cup, the backsplash climbing the sides before settling back in. Jack hands the cup to me and smiles easy, making himself his own. I return the tilt of mouth a little, though it's hard to breathe right.

"Cheers." The wolf is out, clinking our cups together, he lifts the plastic to his lips, eyes on me the whole time. I watch his throat shift with the swallow before I raise mine. The going is quick, the burn trailing all the way down my throat. It lights a fire. Immediately, I'm dizzied, dazed by the intensity of such a taste. "Let's have fun." A whisper against my earlobe, my muscles twinging and brain shifting into overdrive as the thump of music consumes me.

"Let's." I agree, allowing him to pull me into the heart of the crowd. Spinning and kissing, hands grabbing and tugging. The lights turn purple, blue, green. So unnatural yet so amazing at the same time, as if I'm crossing a bridge from pelt to skins, seeing a new perspective.

Jack turns from me as my heart whirrs on with erratic beats. When he twists back around he slides his hands into my hair and draws me close, ducking his head to capture my lips with a hot, open mouthed kiss. I taste tang and alcohol and smoke. I taste pine and salt and wind. He's everything. My head spins and he pulls back, letting his tongue drawl out for me to see.

A little square of paper settles on the flat of the muscle, a red X across it. Eyes so dilated, I know it's the influences of this place. I blink as his tongue pulls back in and that wolf's grin doesn't make it to his eyes. I know I've lost him to this beast.

Jack holds me tight, hand roaming around my back, grasping at my rear, fingers clutching hard to the soft skin of my sides, slipped beneath my shirt. He lets everyone know I'm his. It feels so good to be loved, but the message escapes out my ear before I have any chance to think about it. Drugs.

Our kisses are ardent, hot, lots of tongue with his delicious taste. I want more more more. My fingers rake through his hair, body arching into his, grinding up. He turns me around, pressing my back to his front, combining our scents. My male holds my throat, tipping my head back, taking my mouth with his.

This is such a vulnerable position, such an act of sheer submission, it makes me so uncomfortable. I can't tell him, because I can't remember why. Can't seem to formulate the way Alpha Parsim held me down by my throat, or pressed a scalding burn iron into my back.

It's okay. It's okay because he's Jack and Jack won't hurt me.

My eyes open and I'm sitting on the couch, looking at a male with thick black strands of hair made of intricate twists that hang from his scalp in perfect array. His chocolate skin gleams red to purple in the pulsing lights.