Page 54 of Wolf

Wolf

We sit together on the couch in my living room, a laptop open on the coffee table before us. Julia bought it secondhand off some neighbor. The casing’s got a crack and it’s slow as shit. None of that matters because it can still connect to the internet and that’s what we need.

“Are you ready?” Julia puts her hand on my thigh.

“No.” I set my hand over hers. Nerves swirl in my gut. I feel like I could puke out everything I’ve eaten in the last three days, which honestly hasn’t been much. Ever since I went to the clinic and let them swab my cheek, I’ve been a wreck. It’s worse than when I was planning my daring escape from my fosters at seventeen, when I was sure my every guilty thought showed on my face. Fuck, it’s worse than all the waiting I did in prison, too. Waiting to fall asleep, for the guards to do their rounds, for the next fight to break out, for the next moment of stimulation in a dull gray concrete world.

The test results got emailed to me this morning. I told Julia. She came as quick as she could and now we sit here on the cusp of discovery.

It fuckin’ blows because I know what the result is going to be. 99.99% chance I’m a daddy unless there’s still some secret that needs to come to light, and I don’t think there is. I think all of that is done. I think we’re good to go. That’s the scariest damn part, that the rest of my life is about to be worlds different than I could have ever thought.

Julia squeezes my hand, then leans forward. She taps at the laptop’s grimy touchpad, clicking the email from the hospital, opening the results.

And there it is, that exact number I thought of, a 99.99% probability that I’m the father. The doc explained there’s no such thing as a one hundred percent match, that there’s always a minuscule margin of error. “Just like rocket launches,” he’d said. But what that means is 99.99% is as high as it can go.

Julia lets out a small, choked sound. I turn to her and she puts her arms around my shoulders, tucks her face against my neck. I’m too stunned to do anything except hold her. “What’s wrong, baby?” My lips feel numb. Everything else does, too. Reality hasn’t hit yet.

“I’m just so relieved,” Julia sobs. “I knew it was you, but I still got so scared.”

“Like drivin’ past a cop when you know you ain’t speedin’ but thinkin’ maybe they’ll put on their flashers anyway.” I tilt her face up to mine. As our eyes meet, warmth sparks inside me, at first not much brighter than a candle, then growing rapidly until all of me is full of a hot glow. It burns. It burns good.

Hope, that’s what it is.

“Julia, baby, everythin’ is gonna be okay now,” I say, and kiss her, and keep kissing her between words and phrases, unable to get enough of her even while I try to tell her all the things the hope inside of me is demanding I say. “Artie’s my boy. That means you’re my old lady, my woman, mine. Always were and always will be. I’ll help us get through this. And we will get through it. Ain’t no one in this world is gonna get between us again.”

Julia sinks against me, her mouth meeting mine again and again. She plunges her fingers into my hair. “Wolf, I…”

I feel the shape of the next word on her lips and thrust my tongue in her mouth to cut her off before she can say it out loud. She moans and arches her back, pushing her breasts against me as I rub my tongue on hers. Hot and slick, we grind together between our lips.

When we pull back, I gasp out, breathless, “Don’t say it yet. I know and I feel it too, but I want to wait until we got all this handled, baby. Alright? But just so you know, I feel it and you’re mine no matter if we’ve said it or not.”

Julia furrows her brow and frowns at me, except the corners of her mouth are curved up because she just can’t help it. I know her. I’ve known her all along and I know how that brightness inside her shines through even when she tries to hide it.

“I guess I can wait, but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

She tugs at my lower lip between hers. “Mark me again. Make me yours. Make it so I can feel that I’m your old lady even when I’m not around you.”

“As if we’re ever spendin’ a second apart ever again,” I growl, and then grab her to me to devour her mouth once more. I run my fingers down her spine, pushing underneath waistbands to squeeze her plump, peachy cheeks. She whimpers and wriggles, rubbing herself in my palms.

I slide one finger only between her cheeks, working it down from the top of her cleft to press right over her puckered entrance. She stiffens, then melts when I rub that forbidden spot.

“Gonna take you there one day. Show you things you never imagined.”

My cock throbs as she wriggles against my fingertip. Fuck, I wish I could do it right now, bury myself in that tight hole where no one’s ever been. All of her belongs to me.

But that’s for later. I can’t trust myself to be gentle enough for her first time. That’s okay, the old-fashioned way is fucking amazing, too.

I grab her around the waist and heave her up off the couch with me, putting her over my shoulder. She squeals and drums at my back with her small fists, protesting and laughing as I take her to my room like a caveman bringing his cavewoman back to his rocky abode.

She keeps fighting me, squirming on my shoulder, her fists thumping harmlessly and her legs doing little kicks. It starts to get difficult to hold onto her. She’s small, but wily, and right when I enter my room, she manages to wriggle free and slide down my body to the floor. I prepare myself for a chase. Instead of booking it and making me nab her again, she does something I didn’t, couldn’t, expect.

Julia grabs the bottom of her shirt and yanks it up over her head and tosses it on the floor. The clasps of her bra are in the front and with a swift practiced move, she pops them and slides out of it. Her breasts hang free and full, delectably round with pointed dark pink nipples, like rosebuds. She’s still not done, though.

She shoves her pants off, baring herself to my eyes, showing her pale, curvy body in all its glory. My mouth waters with the desire to taste her. I want to pin her down and lick her every inch, memorize the shape of her so thoroughly I could pick her out of a lineup, blindfolded.

She’s still not done and my groin clenches tight with excitement because she’s clearly got a plan for what she wants me to do to her. I know I should be the one taking the lead, but damn, I love seeing this wild side of her. I want to see what she wants and then give it to her better than she could ever have imagined in her wildest dreams.