Eveline's memories - Part 2

"Going to Sevenum is one thing," I was saying to father, as we discussed the human being outside who had started polluting the air with his pheromones the moment he saw me at the orphanage. "I'm fine going to Dusseldorf as well, but Berlin? You know that's over a thousand kilometres away, don't you?" I looked between both my parents, my tail beginning to sweep in frustrated arcs, distracting me. "And you want me to go with a human of all people?" The tail hit the back of my head, and I'd just had it. I grabbed it, hissing. "This fucking tail!"

"Eveline!" Mother called out, her tone aghast. "Get a hold of yourself, young woman! This is most unlike you!"

"You've always helped us out when we needed it," father told me just then.

I turned to him, my displeasure seeping into my expression. "If the human out there needs babysitting, you could ask Amélie to do it!" I barked, causing father to frown at me with displeasure. I felt a moment of sadness and dread as he did, but I pushed it out of my mind. "She's perfectly capable of defending the man, and she's on far friendlier terms with other people than I'll ever be-"

"She is needed to keep an eye on the cubs," father told me gently. "And while she is a good fighter, she is neither as skilled as you, nor can hide as well! Besides," he continued as my tail tried to twitch itself out of my grasp. "The human, as you keep calling him, is a decent man-"

This was ridiculous, and I found myself interrupting father, ready to brave his disapproval. "How would you know?" My protest registered, but father never even blinked. "He's been here less than a day. You can tell he's a good person just from looking at him?"

"I have some contacts from the old world," father told me. "They assure me that they know him very well, and that they would be willing to trust him, so yes, I believe he is a good man."

I glared out of the window, out on to the rooftops that surrounded our upper balcony, feeling irritated and annoyed. Babysitting a human was not on my list of things to do this year, no matter how tall, healthy or well-defined he was.

I found myself walking away from the city limits, already annoyed that I had this hairless ape to watch over, while he was on some ridiculous quest he needed to do. It was fairly early in the day, and I wanted to go off to hunt for small animals. It was a part of my cat physiology, my predator instinct, and I couldn't ignore it for long.

"I'm going to hunt," I told him in a tone that I'd hoped would not encourage argument. "I'm not asking, I'm telling you. It's bad enough I've been made to tag along with you in the first place-"

To my astonishment and irritation, the son of a monkey-faced primate cut me off and spoke over me! "Alright, enough! I didn't ask you to come on this trip. You can feel free to head right back home if you have such contempt for someone you've never spoken more than a word to today. I've a destination to reach and I'm not wasting any time getting into this kind of pissing match with you."

Even though I was learning a lot more in my daily lessons with my parents and the tutors that they had hired for me over the years than I did in my time at those disgusting places in my past, I still knew little about idioms used in the various human languages that we all still spoke. I certainly had no idea what he meant by a pissing match. Did humans really do that sort of thing?!

What was I even thinking? This arsehole was ignoring me! He literally thought he could be like the bastards in the breeding facility and treat me like a non-person? I glared at him, wishing that I could burn holes in his head, as I spoke. "You don't get to dismiss-"

Then, he had the nerve to cut me off again! "Fuck this," he muttered under his breath. "We're done here. Do what you like, but I've a long journey ahead of me."

To my astonishment, he turned around, stomped off, and left me behind.

Part of me wished I could just turn around and go back home. This arsehole had the nerve to walk away from me like that? I didn't need his disdain.

On the other hand, I made a promise to my parents earlier, that I would see this through. Letting them down was not an option, because the slight satisfaction of letting this guy get eaten by the first wolf that came along and jumped him from behind, was not worth the shame, embarrassment and heartache that came with the disapproval of my parents for failing a promise to them.

My perspective changed, taking us within Sevenum's limits.

I stood by a phone, speaking with my father, after having just called him to let him know about our first two days on the road. After Rick had taken me to task for assuming he was at the mercy of his pheromones, we had retired to separate rooms for the night. I'd decided to try and make peace with him the next morning, only for him to start shouting at me for insulting him when I tried to tell him I didn't need his pity or validation.

It was almost as though he was determined to take offence at everything I said.

I needed to speak to someone about it, because it was frustrating.

"Eveline," my father said, after hearing me recount our morning. "You have to understand something about a man like Ricardo. He is a man of principles, and one of those principles, if you haven't guessed already, is that every person has a right to determine their own course in life. Part of that is everyone needs to be free to live how they wish without others interfering."

"Dad, what's that to do with him screaming at me about insulting when I told him I didn't need his validation?"

"Because whether you admit it to yourself or not," my father said in a patient tone. "You did insult him. You assumed that the only reason he is so angry and distressed over human beings discriminating against beast folk, is because he wants your validation, your acknowledgment, your respect, or your thanks. That's not why he does what he does."

I sighed, striving for patience in what was already a frustrating exercise. Neither father nor mother could really understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of years of people looking at you like you're a lesser being than they are, as much as they try. "Then why does he do it?"

"For the same reason I run the foundation," dad told me. "Because it is the right thing to do."

Father then told me about some friends of his from the old world, who had family members who liked to discriminate against others on the grounds of things they had no control over. He reminded me of the parallels between the racism that was endemic to much of the world right up until the outbreak, where majority ethnic people in certain parts of the world would marginalise, discriminate, and even injure, torture and murder people who were from elsewhere or were a different ethnic group, all because of something as superficial as the colour of their skin or the patch of land they were born on. He said the same thing happened to people who had different sexual preferences, and he even told me that it happened across gender lines. In every case, none of the people involved could do anything to change themselves.

The only things that had changed in the time since then were the persecutors and the victims.

I had to admit, it made sense that a man like Rick would have experienced this before, and what he said about people he cared about in his past?

But why did he have to get so angry at me for it?

"Alright, I'll admit that maybe he has a point," I admitted to my father. "But he just got so angry. Dad, he was stood there, shaking and shouting, crying in the street. It was like I had personally and deeply offended him!"

My father sighed, and took a moment to respond. "In a way, you had, Eveline. I'm sorry," he sounded like he meant it as well, though it still hurt to hear him criticise me. "These are issues that have gone back for hundreds, thousands of years, even. Maybe Rick had a family member who was treated badly for this kind of thing? Maybe he had friends who were? Telling him that the only reason he was so upset about any of this was because he was trying to impress you in some fashion? Yes, Eveline, I can see why he would take that personally."

It hurt to hear those words. It was mainly a painful thing to have to hear because I knew how passionately I felt about freeing the victims of the breeding labs in the world, and I knew what it felt like when people either overlooked or dismissed the suffering of beast folk like myself.

And part of the pain was a sense of empathy, the sense that watching people you care about suffering through no fault of their own, being powerless to stop it at the time, was awful. I could well understand why Rick was so passionate about it.

It just took me a while to get to understanding the fact.

My perspective changed once more.

Rick had just asked me to start training him how to fight. The question caught me by surprise, given what had happened on our way here. "What?!" I asked as his question caused me to stumble in surprise.

"Teach me how to fight effectively?" he clarified.

Was he mocking me?! He managed to effectively throw me down, pin me on the ground and thrust his combat knife in the back of my neck to keep me held down, all in the shortest of moments. What would he need with me? "Are you playing a joke on me?" I asked in a scoffing tone.

"Why would I do that?!" He asked, appearing to find my outrage offensive.

"Did I imagine you throwing me to the road and sticking your combat knife at the back of my neck a few days ago?" I demanded, feeling my ire rising. "Or did that actually happen?"

The understanding that appeared on his face in that moment was confusing. "That happened. I learned that move in self-defence classes when I lived in the old world," he told me, his face blushing as he started rubbing the back of his neck. What did he have to be embarrassed about, here? "But that was all I had. You could have done anything at that point, and I’d have struggled to defend myself."

Hearing this was an immense relief, and not because I thought before, that Rick was able to beat me in a life-or-death fight. "So, you don’t really know how to fight?" I asked. When he shook his head, I felt immense relief. "Good. I thought he was lying for a moment."

"He who?" Rick asked me, his face reflecting simple curiosity.

"My father," I gave him a shrug. "He told me that being recently awoken from the old world, you would know almost nothing about how to fight. When you had me pinned at sundown yesterday, I thought he might have deceived me."

"And it’s important to you that he doesn’t," Rick told me.

My relationship with both my adoptive parents was built on an absolute trust, without reservation. The idea that he might have deliberately deceived me to get me to come on this mission, while it might have been minor and well intentioned, was eating away at me like a flesh-eating disease. To discover that he had been telling the truth all along was a relief that was almost painful, and restored my trust in him.

"So, will you help me learn how not to be completely useless in a fight?"

Something about his expression, despite trying to be self-effacing, told me that he was serious about this. It reached me, and I couldn't help but feel a slight thrill that I would be able to mould this man into something that I could say was my influence whenever he fought.

I also knew it would not be an easy task.

"As you wish," I told him in a flat tone that betrayed no hint whatsoever of my pleasure at being able to put him to the test. "I won’t make this easy. You’ll have to earn every skill I teach, practice every move until you can do it in your sleep, and when we do spar, and we will spar, I’m not going easy on you."

"That’s fair," he said with a nod. "When can we start?"

"After we break to eat. Speaking of, I'm going to hunt. I'll catch up to you when you find a good cooking spot."

"Understood," he said with a nod, confusing me. We had only met yesterday, and I never discussed the instinctual drive that I needed to indulge in to go out and stalk prey, hunt for live food, and engage in intense running and leaping exercises out in the wild, yet he didn't even argue with me.

With a shrug, I leapt and jumped into a nearby grass clearing, disappearing into tall grasses as soon as I found them.

After an intense and fulfilling take-down of some hares in the wild, I took the carcasses back with me as I relocated Rick's scent and found him, setting up a cooking fire.

"You like Hare?" I asked him, holding up the bodies of two of them.

He nodded, and I dropped them next to the cooking pot, shucked my backpack and then searched inside it for a skinning knife.

"You do the skinning, and I'll grill them," Rick told me, though his voice held more of a questioning note. "Sound good?"

I nodded as I pulled out the skinning blade, setting to my task.

Not long after that, I'd fashioned two practice blades out of some soft timber nearby, my nanite-sharpened and reinforced claws making short work of the task. As I did this, Rick took his combat blade out and buried the blade in the dirt. I guessed he wanted it close by but out of the way.

With a deliberate poker-face, I stepped next to Rick and extended one of the practice blades to him. The smile he gave me was unexpected. "Let's start now," I said, tersely, tossing my head to a patch of ground near the fire. "I want to see how you handle a combat stance."

"I don't know any combat stances," Rick laughed like a moron, irritating me in the process.

Rolling my eyes with all the irritation I felt, I stepped by his side to fix his balls-up. "You really are new at this!"

I then snapped out instructions that he should drop into a slight crouch, with his head ducked, arms up. The result was rather shameful for an experienced fighter, but I supposed it was passable for a first attempt.

I wasn't about to go easy on him, though. "You’re slouching like a horse with heat stroke. I told you to crouch, not slouch. Straighten your back and bend those knees."

I made some adjustments as I walked around him, and at a few points, he seemed to sag ever so slightly. "Hey! Pay attention!" I barked out sternly. "I’m posturing your arms the way I did for a reason. At least try to hold them still!"

He managed to restore his positioning, and I suspect he had some help from his nanites. I wasn't about to complain about it, though. My nanites helped me out in fights, as well.

I noticed that he held the practice blade hilt-up, blade down, as if he was going to plunge it into someone's back. It was most likely effective in doing some lethal damage in that way, but it left Rick open to attack. I knew just how to get that point across, so I said nothing for now.

I walked around, making some more adjustments, noticing as I did the definition in his arms, the density of his muscles wherever he had visible skin. I dropped into a crouch, grabbing a calf and moving it to adjust his footing and stance. He relaxed and let me work.

I could feel the muscles under my fingertips through his legwear, and they rippled noticeably with even the most minute movements.

"Tomorrow, you’ll need to wear shorts," I told him. "I need to know how much pressure you’re putting on each leg, and to do that, I need to see your muscles working."

That wasn't the only reason, as I also caught my own pheromones surging. Fuck! Was I enjoying his proximity?!

Despite the fact that he had been putting out clouds of sexual desire, he was laser-focused on this task. I examined him some more, wondering what needed to be done next...

And perversely, just how I could trip him up.

I stood, grabbing his waist, tapping his feet to make some adjustments. Without any words, he understood what I was trying to do, and he adjusted his posture accordingly. Deliberately, I let my hand linger.

There it was!

His pheromones increased in intensity, cloying the air. I was going to ream him for being distracted, but when I stepped around with a stern expression, I noticed that in spite of polluting the air, he remained laser-focused, holding his posture. For some reason, that both infuriated me and made me feel a surge of pleasure.

Why was he so difficult to read?

"You know, If you’re going to stand there frowning at me," he drawled, though there was a warning edge to his tone. "You could at least tell me what I need to adjust so I can hold an acceptable combat stance."

Rick, you're so fucking annoying! I thought with a burst of frustration, stepping in front of him, putting enough distance between us to put his combat training into action...

And hopefully get my own mind on the job I was meant to be doing. “Now come at me with that blade of yours,” I ordered. Let's see how serious he was.

He waited a few moments, clearly trying to put me off guard with some timing game of some kind, maybe hoping I might be caught by surprise. The problem was, he was so new at this, he clearly telegraphed his intentions through shoulders, hips and his core.

By the time he leapt forward, I was already planning my counter, as he swiped his unarmed hand. I side-stepped, waiting for him to come in with his blade in a back-handed ascending swipe... Which predictably, he did. I quickly blocked the swipe, extending my claws only slightly, and tapping them across his knuckles, causing them to bleed slightly but deliberately not cutting the tendons in his knuckles.

He dropped the knife, the pain causing him to lose his grip, as he looked at me in irritation. "What the hell did you do that for?"

Now was the time to impart the lesson about his blade wielding. "Lesson number one," I barked, stepping forward and grabbing his knuckles that still bled slightly. "Never hold a knife facing down or toward you in a grip like you did just now. You left your knuckles completely unguarded, and if I had intended to, I could have quite easily cut open your knuckles and severed all your tendons. Quickest way for an experienced melee fighter to win against someone as inexperienced as you is to disarm you and prevent you from being able to wield a blade." I then drew in a breath, narrowing my eyes as he rubbed his knuckles. "Understand?"

He nodded, holding my gaze. I stepped back, unaccountably pleased with him for taking this seriously, though I refused to let it show. "Now, pick up your blade and this time, hold it hilt down, blade up and out, your thumb pointing toward the tip or along the guard. Never hold your knife the way you did a few moments ago." I hoped in that instant, that he would never let such a slip like that happen again. "Combat stance, hurry up."

We continued our sparring session for a while, making adjustments, practicing basic moves. It was useful, and it was fulfilling, being able to pass on my combat knowledge to the man, and I realised I was enjoying this far more than I ever thought I would.

My perspective shifted, and I found myself overwhelmed with irritation.

I was just leaving my room to prepare for my hunt for the day, when I was approached by a human woman, about my height, with very womanly assets such as an ample chest and rounded hips, a soft face and a curved smile. She seemed to possess an air of innocence about her that didn't fool me even a little bit. In fact, even though she tried to portray an innocent curiosity, I could see the calculating, appraising look she gave me on her approach.

I felt immediately uneasy. "Can I help you?" I asked, my tone frosty.

"Perhaps," she said in a soft tone, the Austrian accent she possessed coming through loud and clear, though we both spoke in English. "I'm here to meet Rick. My name's Lena, and my party are headed to Dortmund."

"Really?" I asked, affecting disdain.

Inwardly, I was angered. How could Rick do this? I was designated as his travelling companion, and if he wanted to tag along with others, he could have discussed it with me first. It wasn't as though he had no right to travel with who he wished, but it was a basic courtesy to at least discuss with your existing companions whether you wanted to invite others to join you.

"Yes," she said, as though she had no idea there was an issue. "He and I discussed our journeys last night. It's always a good idea to have more travelling companions on such a journey, isn't it?"

I refused to give her anything useful, so I kept my mouth closed and let her explain herself.

"I'd say it is," she continued, just as two others joined us. They were both fox hybrids, one male, one female, and the female was so skittish, I thought she would be a liability almost immediately. The male was fairly alert, but he was also rather stoic, and he projected indifference. "Hey guys," Lena said to the other two, whose names I had yet to catch. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"That's because I didn't give it," I told her. "I also-"

I could hear Rick's footsteps as he arrived in the lobby from the nearby stairwell, and stopped talking to wait for his arrival. He was going to explain this shit to me now, or these three were going to walk on their own...

Or I was going to leave him here.

This was not agreed to beforehand!

"So, we have company of our way to Dortmund?" I asked him, my tone imbued with my displeasure. "Was it too much to discuss it with me beforehand?"

His surprised expression was either genuine, or he was more capable of subterfuge than I gave him credit for. "Before I could discuss such a thing with you," he said, an undercurrent of anxiety imbuing his otherwise light tone, as he turned to face Lena. "I'd have to discuss it with myself first. I wasn't aware that we had anyone else joining us."

Was that bitch smirking? "Sorry I didn't discuss it with you first," she replied, as I glared at her fully displaying my own displeasure at her presumptive bullshit. "I thought it would be a good idea for us to travel together, considering we were headed that way anyway, and I'm sure you could both use the company."

"Are you?" I asked her frostily. Something about this situation was too convenient.

"I have to be frank with you here," Rick told Lena in far too reasonable a tone. "I think it was a bit presumptuous of you to assume we'd be fine with this. You should have discussed it with me, then given us a chance to talk it over first. Going to Eveline and telling her we'd agreed to travel together before even talking to me about it was a step too far for us."

The foxes looked on in apprehension, and I tried ignoring my tail's angry twitching.

The next moment, guards were sprinting across the opposite side of the street, heading west. I had no idea what was going on, but I heard them call for medics. Someone had been found mauled to death, so it was likely they would only be there to make the appropriate call.

I'd only seen a few such calls made in my life, back home in Eindhoven, and it was always hateful.

Turning back to the group, I caught Lena's shrug. "You're right," she told us both. "I should have discussed it with you first. Don't you see though, it makes sense? If we're both going to Dortmund anyway, why not travel together?"

"A fine argument," Rick said, his tone placating, and it made me want to scratch his face off. "You could have made that last night. It's not like I'd had a lot to drink, after all."

"Of course," she told us. "So, how about it?"

I looked sidelong at Rick. He was probably going to go into a lecture about safety in numbers or something, and I was abruptly tired of this exchange. "Do what you like, I'm going to hunt."

The female fox piped up all of a sudden, her tone almost too cheerful. "Oh! Can I come with you?"

"No," I barked at the bitch. "Fuck off."

As I strode to the exit to be by myself, Rick called out "Hey!"

I rounded on him. "You know never to question my hunting habits already," I barked, fury coursing through me that he would try to call me to task in front of these strangers, who I didn't trust as far as I could throw. "I hunt alone."

I also needed alone time, and this was often the best way for me to get it. That fox woman could go hunt elsewhere if she wished.

My perspective shifted, and I felt a combination of anger, anxiety and lust.

I was feeling out of sorts. While my distrust of Lena and her crew was still at an all-time high, my ambivalent feelings concerning Rick's attitude toward them and myself were beginning to affect me in ways I hadn't expected.

Over the course of our journey to Dortmund, I continued training him in combat.

Actually, my training had intensified. The combination of my anxiety at being near people I didn't trust, and the pleasure I got from training Rick to be a competent melee combatant, was beginning to raise my anxiety levels, and I had no idea why I was feeling that way. All I knew was that intensifying our training, and my manner of dispensing it, was beginning to make me feel more useful, more centred, and bizarrely, somewhat more lustful.

It was that last feeling which was irritating me. I didn't want to feel lust toward Rick. I didn't want to feel those kinds of feelings for anyone.

It all came to a head tonight, as we all stood in the tavern, Rick drinking like an ivrogne with Lena, who I was becoming certain was just the type of woman who used her sexuality as a weapon or a tool. Putains did that as well, and while I had no issue with the professions that people chose in their lives, something about this situation rubbed me the wrong way.

I tried to ignore their conversation, picking up snatches here and there, but then they got onto the subject of training, and Lena offered to train Rick in the use of combat knives. That was too much for me, and I refused to listen to any more of it. I also wanted to warn Rick that she was dangerous, so I strode past his chair, and demanded he meet me outside, which he did a few minutes later, the door slamming behind him.

"Enjoying yourself in there, are you?" I demanded, my contempt oozing out of my voice before I could censor myself.

"Not tonight," Rick said flatly, turned around, and started to walk back to the door to re-enter the tavern.

"What's she got that I haven't?" I asked, stunned at myself for asking such a loaded question. What possessed me to ask that?

"Manners, just to fucking start," Rick said with a sigh, facing me again. "I really don't know where I stand with you, and it's getting exhausting."

Part of me understood. Part of me was still angry.

"Answer me," I asked, frosty.

"No. You refuse to let me know where I stand with you, so I don't owe you an explanation," he told me. "For one thing, I don't know why her flirting outrageously with me bothers you so much. It's not like you can even stomach being in the same room as I'm in, so why the hell does it concern you so much that someone else isn't sickened by my presence like you are?"

"I'm not sickened by your presence," I told him, feeling both outraged and saddened. The truth was, while he irritated me and frustrated me, he didn't even come close to sickening me. I enjoyed our training, but I was frustrated, and I didn't know why. Things had started to go well a few days before. In a fit of pique, I said "Stop with the dramatics."

"Really?" His tone dripped with scorn, and I felt wounded. "You could have fooled me. You've made it very clear that as a human, I'm the scum of the Earth. There's no room for vagueness in anything you've told me there."

That certainly didn't help my mood. There were things I hadn't told anyone, and my past was a factor in how I felt about some humans, but Rick was still a new acquaintance. I certainly wasn't ready to discuss it with him. "My opinion about humans isn't something I want to get into with someone I don't fully trust-"

"Or trust at all, so like I said-"

"Just shut up," I hissed at him, feeling sick to my stomach for a moment. "I don't want to get into it with you. All I want to do right now is understand why you'd rather fuck her than me."

What possessed me to ask such a question?! I know I felt lust toward this man, but to say it aloud? What had happened to my sense of caution?!

"Why?" Rick asked pointedly, making me feel some sense of relief. "It's not like you want me to fuck you."

I could have agreed with him, put a stop to this dangerous course, but no, I didn't. Clearly, my senses had deserted me. "You don't know me as well as you think you do," I retorted, and while that was certainly true, this was the wrong time to point out the fact. It didn't stop me, because why would something sensible stop me from digging an even bigger hole for myself? "I detest that she's throwing herself at you and you're lapping it up like a dog in heat, yet despite your obvious sexual desire for me, you won't even so much as lift a finger to touch me."

"I'm not a rapist," he began, and I wondered just what he was bleating on about.

"What's that to do with anything?"

"Are you serious?" His response was incredulous. "I mean, I'm not a fucking rapist, Eveline. It means I don't force myself on other people, and you've hardly made it clear you'd be happy about me coming within ten yards of you." That gave me pause, and I thought quickly over all of our interactions before now. Despite putting out some rather intense pheromones at various times over the course of our journey, Rick had never actually tried to proposition me in any way, shape or form. This latest explanation for why he refrained from doing so made sense. "Like I told you before, I've never forced myself on anyone, and you're the last person on Earth I'd want anyone forcing themselves on, and that means myself as much as anyone else."

I could see a visceral revulsion within him at the idea, and it had an impact on me. Before I could censor myself, I stepped closer to him, searching his face. "So you're saying the only reason you've been keeping to yourself all this time is because I haven't agreed to let you near me?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," he told me, his gaze never wavering. "Nothing will ever happen between us unless you tell me you want it to happen."

My feelings about this proposition were ambivalent. I felt a strong sexual energy within myself, a surfeit of lust, and it mingled with frustration and irritation at the events of the last week. Part of me wanted to indulge my lust and release the sexual tension. Another part of me felt that this was a potentially dangerous road to go down.

"Come with me," I told him, having decided to throw caution to the wind. "Right now."

We quickly made our way to my room, and stepped out of the cold. Once inside, I took off my travel jacket, still wearing my other clothes for the moment while I decided how I wanted to approach this.

I decided to just go with my instincts, as I turned to face him, I could see conflicting emotions on his face. I could tell he wanted me; his pheromones were flooding the room, pushing me into a state of sexual desire that would soon be too much to ignore, yet he also held uncertainty. Was he considering the implications of what we were about to do?

I was hoping that he was, even though I had no intention of stopping any longer, and then it no longer mattered, as his expression settled into one of resolution, before it was overcome with his own sense of lust.

The idea that he saw me as attractive sent a thrill down my spine, and I found myself sauntering over to him, my hips swaying as if they had a mind of their own, and I found myself looking at him as if I wanted to possess his body as my own prize.

I took his face firmly in my hands, tracing my fingertips along his jaw, pulling him closer and taking a breath, inhaling his scent. It caused a warmth to build up down below, and before I realised what I was doing, I licked his jaw, getting a taste of musky sweetness.

His hands gripped my waist, the solid, strong, yet soft grip sending a thrill through me, and I could feel a curious sensation within my nether regions.

"I wasn't expecting a human to taste so good," I found myself saying. The next moment, his hands slid around to my back, then slowly down, cupping my glutes, squeezing them gently. I felt a thrill as my body flooded with pleasure chemicals, and I gave a slight shudder, causing Rick to exhale.

I felt his dick against me, and the hardness caused me to flush with pleasure. Any other time, I might have pushed him forcefully on his arse and kicked him in the balls, but right now? I pressed myself against him, his dense muscled chest and abs pressing against my breasts and radiating a warmth that rivalled my own.

"You like that?" I asked as I grasped his own glutes, squeezing them firmly, hoping that he enjoyed the sensations as much as I did.

"Always been something of a hips and arse lover," he breathed into my ear, and I felt the temperature in the room go up a notch as more pleasure flooded me. The moan I let out was new to me, but I felt so good in that moment, I didn't care. The wetness I felt in my underwear became rather obvious, and I wanted to do something about it. "What do you want to do?" Rick then asked me.

The fact that he was willing to let me lead this dance of ours made me even wetter still, and I withdrew my hands from his arse, taking his hand and leading him to the desk table against one of the room's walls. "Let's start with this," I told him, as I unbuttoned my cargo shorts, letting them slip around my feet, stepping out of them.

Rick's eyes devoured me hungrily, and I felt an even greater thrill at being desired so strongly. This man, who refrained from acting upon his own lusts for my own sake, now had my permission to indulge in them, and given how strong his scent was now, he had been holding back a great deal.

I took his hand, stroking against my panties right where my clit was, and felt a shock through my system as I hit nerves that had been sensitised by my lust. "Ever done this to a woman before?" I asked in an almost breathless voice.

"Done what?" Rick asked, though he seemed to know where I was going with this, so I glanced down.

"Used your tongue to lick between a woman's legs," I told him, feeling a trickle between mine. His answering nod, combined with the sudden light in his eyes, pushed me over the last vestiges of my caution, and I lost myself to the moment.

I had no idea how much time had passed until I looked back at it much later, but over the moments that passed, Rick gently massaged against my panties, causing me to soak them gradually, his fingers doing a fine job of bringing me to the edge until he stopped. Before I could wonder what he was doing, he slid my panties to one side, and I could feel an ever-so-slight breeze over my flesh where it had become so damp. His gentle touch caused me to twitch, and I couldn't help the moan I let out at one moment. His inhalation caused my imagination to run wild, and I wanted to press his face in my pussy.

Instead, I stroked my hands through his hair. He was much better at this than I'd expected him to be, and I desperately tried to be patient, letting him drive this experience, until I suddenly hit a peak, as the first orgasm slammed into me and caused my entire body to flood with an intense pleasure that took my breath away for a moment.

My last experience was much different, as once I'd hit my peak, I became too sensitive, the wolf who had brought me to pleasure incapable of being gentle, forcing us to stop.

Rick though?

He knew what he was doing, as the pressure of his fingers had eased up to almost feather-touches as I crested past my peak and started to come down from my experience, until I started to feel relaxed, feeling that this might be the end of the experience, only it wasn't...

He started to speed up again, applying an almost negligible pressure on my flesh as I started to feel the pleasure build up again. Losing myself in the experience, I was astonished as the second orgasm slammed into me while I was still enjoying the after-effects of the first. I had barely started to crest off of that one when his tongue suddenly lapped against me, causing a surge within me.

"Where the hell did you learn to do all this?" I asked, breathless, as I grasped weakly at his head, and then in the next moment, I realised it didn't matter. His fingertips stroking my inside leg at the same time as his tongue continued lapping up my juices had me wrapping my leg around his back, and I pressed his head firmly into my crotch as my hips started to gyrate.

Part of me wanted to feel his dick within me, and then his fingers started to join in at that moment. I lost my mind in the experience as he hit something within me that I still had little experience with.

I then experienced my third orgasm, as I let out a sudden squeak that I'd never intentioned, feeling a small surge of embarrassment that almost took me out of this moment, but Rick didn't let up his attentions. I felt the pleasure coursing through me, pushed me over the edge. I felt my body tremble, then twitch in response to the waves of pleasure coursing through me from my stomach all the way through every extremity. Another sudden intense rush coursed through me as Rick's pheromones suddenly intensified, flooding the room even more. He was definitely enjoying my reaction here, and that made me feel even more heat below.

He never stopped, and with a skill I had never experienced, he brought me back down slowly, and with a tenderness I never expected, he licked everything clean, leaving me with nothing more than slight dampness from his own saliva. Gently, almost tenderly, he lifted my underwear back into place, letting hot breath flow over the region, and I grasped at his head once more.

This had felt different to the occasions I had enjoyed in the past, and I couldn't explain why. It wasn't just the intensity of the sensations, the sensitivity of his touch, or the heat that was coursing through me, that was greater, either. Something else coursed through me.

Something almost... Comforting, and I felt for a moment, like I'd float on a wave forever...

Only for a moment.

Reality soon sank in, as I started to feel the pleasure ebb away, and I wondered if what we just did was a good idea to begin with.

We needed this, I knew. If tonight hadn't happened, then tomorrow might have been the day, but it was going to happen. Now, in the aftermath, I felt like I had questions, doubts. Possibly regret that we did this.

It wasn't like I had no attraction to Rick. I could never have enjoyed it to such an intensity otherwise, but attraction at a physical level was not enough, and I wondered if this had been too soon.

"What's the matter?" Rick's tone was playful, and amusement warred with irritation within me. "Did you not like that, kitten?"

That question, so casually asked, was a knife through the gut. I felt cold ice in my veins, as my heart started pounding in my chest, and I felt sick to my stomach. What would have been utter panic was cut off by my nanites, so I was left with the resultant fear-induced anger. "This was a bad idea," I told Rick.

"What's happening?" Rick asked, his facial expression confused, but I was done for the night. Reminding me of that monster Andries caused a sense of utter revulsion to course through me, and it not only angered me, it set me on edge with a combination of anxiety and a dark sense of lust I absolutely hated myself for. "What did I do?"

The question might have been innocent, but I was feeling flighty, and needed to lash out. With a burst of anger, I pulled my shorts back up and fastened them, grinding my teeth. "I've changed my mind. Women are allowed to do that, you know."

Rick took a step back away from me, and while I might appreciate the gesture at any other time, tonight I couldn't. "Whatever it is, I'm sorry," he said in a quiet voice, and that set me even more on edge. I tried to rein it in long enough to get him out of here before I did or said something stupid.

"See yourself out," I said flatly to him as I held the door open, waiting impatiently for him to walk through it.

"Good night, Eveline," he said quietly as he stepped out. I resisted the urge to slam the door, and desperately tried to ignore the shaking in my hands as I slowly closed it and latched it shut.