Hal and Addy walked about a quarter mile in comfortable silence. The creek was broad with a sandy bottom and a shallow ledge of a waterfall that suited their purpose well. Addy knelt at the top while Hal stood below. She hissed in her breath when she saw the claw mark running from his right shoulder in a backslash toward his spine. After carefully washing her hands and cleaning under her fingernails with a rinsed off twig, Addy cupped water in them and rinsed the wound until she could see how deep it was. Considerably more than a scratch, but not a deep enough gash to need stitches.
"The patient will live." Addy admitted, "Where did you get all these scars? Prison? The French Foreign Legion? Jealous husbands?"
Hal threw back his head and laughed, "None of the above. Sparring for fun, mostly. The occasional miscalculation when hunting. I told you this was just a scratch."
"I would be whining like a jet before take off if I had this kind of scratch." Addy said.
"Guess I'll be doing all the fighting then. I may start whining if I don't get that all over washing you promised, now that you seem done fussing."
Addy responded by lifting wet sand in her palms and scrubbing his neck and muscled shoulders in slow circles. Pummeling as a kid and hateful comments even now by other athletes usually ensured she avoided considering them as potential partners, but Hal clearly had no such issues so she simply enjoyed feeling up his hockey player physique. She cupped water in her hands to rinse off the sand and repeated the process down his back and sides in a leisurely fashion, protecting Hal's wound. Both felt their breath quicken as her hands traveled lower. Addy halted at the small of his back.
"Hal?" Addy's hesitant question seemed to hang in the air.
"I'm yours, Addy. Whatever you want, that's what I want too." Hal sighed.
Addy wanted to jump him and ride him until they were both sore and exhausted, and had to concentrate fiercely to remind herself that a few hours of acquaintance was a bit early to act on the impulse. Slow seduction would be much better. Well, more prudent. Fucking him raw immediately would definitely be better.
Addy couldn't believe herself. She never, but NEVER had sex with men she'd just met. She had to be careful of that easy fat chick stereotype, even in BDSM circles where people should know better than to deliberately shame anyone. Addy knew she was both fit and attractive, and had too much self respect to indulge other people's prejudices. She just did not respond to anyone so strongly so soon, even ovulation didn't inspire this kind of blinding sexual need. She seriously needed to get a grip. Dammit, that phrasing was a mistake in itself, especially since it ended with her hands caressing his firm stomach muscles. Drawing a slightly shaky breath she chose to aim for his chest.
Harry already scarcely had the control to stay in his human shape and abstain from marking and mating Addy on the spot. She hadn't done anything unambiguously sexual, she'd just bathed his shoulders, back and neck. Her hands simply rubbing that sand on his back, then dousing him with cool water over and over, made him mad with passion. No other woman drove him into frenzied lust with relatively innocent touches. He eagerly anticipated what he would feel when Addy did intentionally arouse him. Like maybe now, he thought as his belly clenched under her soft hands. This was like being fifteen all over again.
Yet he knew nothing about her, he reminded himself in an effort to calm down. Beyond "evidently not jail bait" he wasn't even sure of her age, it was hard to tell with humans. Addy spoke like an experienced lover, but her enviable skill at verbal sparring might cover up inexperience. Not that he would object to playing the teacher. This train of thought led to a vision of Addy in a schoolgirl uniform over his knee, which he sternly suppressed. They needed to talk, maybe catch a movie and dinner. Get to know each other. Hal actually felt relief when Addy's hands headed north.
Addy gritted her teeth and tried to quell the overwhelming lust, "Hal, I'm sorry, I have to stop. Now. I don't think I'll be able to control myself otherwise. If you want to date instead of just screw during the foreseeable future, I need to stop touching you for awhile." She clenched her fists and forced herself to take her hands off of his dreamy body, the last thing in the world she wished to do.
"That's a good idea, you're right. We should stop. We're going to be mated in about ten minutes if we don't, and it's not a snap decision. Lifelong, life changing, especially for you." Hal agreed fervently, looking over his shoulder at her. Both still labored to breathe, and he tried very hard to ignore the effect that panting arousal and kneeling in cold water had on her lovely breasts. Suddenly he plunked himself down in the stream's shallow depth with a groan.
"Are you all right?" Addy asked, startled.
"Working on it." Hal replied in a strained voice, "Consider it nature's answer to a cold shower."
"Oh." Addy was at a loss for words, vaguely embarrassed. She decided to put some distance between them for safe measure, physically by sloshing ashore and mentally by putting on her scientist hat and looking at Hal's anatomy more objectively. She leaned against an oak and let herself stare.
Hal looked decidedly canine to her upon close inspection, as had Rob and Kevin, she thought. If "Lucy" had evolved from wolves and not apes, she might have looked similar. Hal's skull seemed slightly angular, his jaw narrower than hers. His body hair was much sparser than his wolven fur, but retained its texture and was straight all over, no curl or kink to it at all. His calves and forearms appeared leaner than an ape's and the bones more defined. Hal's musculature seemed slightly different than hers, but she quickly moved on because that was getting into dangerous territory. The hair on his scalp was fluffy and thick, a direct resemblance to his fur plain to her eyes, but not unlike a human male with wavy hair kept shorn to look butch. Fully dressed, none of this would stand out, especially to someone without much biology who didn't believe in werewolves. As it was the subtle differences caught her eye and intrigued her. He looked neither entirely human nor entirely lupine, but a blend all its own. Four species and counting then, she grinned.
"So, I know of werewolves only by rumor, Hal. Can I ask stupid questions for a bit?" she called out.
"Did you just quote Hermes stealing Apollo's cows there?" He inquired with a radiant smile, striding out of the water looking like a descended god himself.
"Good catch." Addy replied with shining eyes, as he settled himself cross legged a few feet away.
"My parents gave me _D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths_ when I was about five. Hermes stealing the cows then trying to trick Apollo was my favorite story, because he looked so sneaky in the picture. And I was pretty mischievous, so I guess I identified with Hermes, and the Elephant's Child from Kipling too. Pack life sucks for naughty children, all the adults have a parent's authority and they use it! My folks are Classics scholars, emeritus professors at the U."
"Small towns work the same way, it's like the Fifties never ended. I was always in trouble. Nobody believed Hermes style blarney, and everybody spanked me like the Elephant's Child, then called my parents so they could spank me some more. They didn't, they made me chop wood instead, much worse. Oh, and I had the Norse Myths too. Irish, Viking, same difference. But how can werewolves be classics professors?" Addy asked in wonder.
"Same way humans can, I suppose." Harry sniped cheerfully, then continued soberly, "People don't see what they don't believe or expect or wish to see. We're all over the place, hiding in plain sight as it were."
"Did you go to public school?" Addy followed up curiously.
