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His hands flexed in the bed on either side of me. I heard the cloth tear, ripping. I turned my head and saw his hands lengthening, turning into human claws. Those claws ripped the mattress with a thick, tearing sound.

I stared up at Richard and couldn’t keep the fear off my face. “Richard,” I said.

“I would never hurt you.” He whispered it, and when his hands convulsed in the bed, bits of white bedding sprang in the air.

I said, “Richard!” My voice was high, not panicked, but close.

He sliced claws down the length of the bed and pulled out, rolled off me. He rolled onto his side into a tight ball. His hands, his claws were long and thin with his fingernails turned into something monstrous, dangerous.

Shit.

I smoothed my hands down his back. “I’m sorry, Richard. I’m sorry.”

“I won’t change during sex, Anita, but this close to the full moon, it’s hard.” He turned his head to look up at me, and his eyes were still amber. His hands began to re-form, shrinking back to human. I watched them change, felt the rush of energy like a wave of dancing insects on my skin.

I knew that if I left him like this, he’d never recover. It wasn’t my loss, not really. It was that this would confirm his deepest fears: that he was a monster and only fit to be with other monsters. Richard was not a monster. I believed that. I trusted him not to hurt me. I trusted him more than I trusted myself sometimes.

“Roll over,” I said.

He just looked at me.

I rolled his hips over, and he let me. He wasn’t completely hard now. Nothing like having your lover scream for help to take the fun out of it. I touched him, and he shuddered, eyes closing. I held him in my hands and stroked him until he grew warm and hard.

I slid over him, and he was almost too big from this angle, almost too much. It was more intense with me on top, sharper somehow. A small moan escaped him.

“I love you, Richard. I love you.” I moved above him with him so deep inside me, it felt like I should be able to taste him.

His hands slid around my waist, then to my breasts. The feeling of his hands on me while I rode his body was almost too much. I moved my hips gently at first, then faster. I forced him into me, hard and fast and deep, until I wasn’t sure if it felt good or hurt.

I felt the orgasm growing. I felt it filling me up like warm water in a cup, filling from the bottom up. I felt it flow over me in small spasms.

Richard’s breathing changed, quickened, and I knew he was close. “Not yet,” I whispered, “not yet.”

He dug his hands into the bed on either side of me. I felt his hands go. I felt them slip their skin. I felt it like the small release it was, like an echo of what his body was doing inside of me. The claws tore into the bed like nails. I heard the mattress material make that heavy ripping sound, and it was too late.

The orgasm caught me in a burst that bowed my spine and made me cry out. It washed over me in a skin-shifting, nerve-jumping dance as if every part of me were trying to leave every other part behind. For a shining second, I felt skinless, boneless, nothing but the warm roll of pleasure and the feel of his body underneath me. Only his body anchored me, only the feel of him going inside me in one great release reminded me where I was, who I was.

I opened my eyes and found his eyes brown and human. He raised his hands to me, and I fell against his body. I laid my head on his chest and felt his heart beating against my cheek. I lay there feeling his body pulse underneath me. His arms holding me.

He laughed, and it was joyous. He raised my face to his and kissed me lightly and carefully. “I love you, too,” he said.

28

WARM . HE WAS so warm. He? My eyes were wide open, and sleep fell away like a crash of glass. I was left lying in bed with my heart pounding and a tanned arm flung across my stomach. I stared up that arm and found Richard on his stomach, hair flung over his face like a curtain. I was lying on my back, sheets down past my waist, trapped