He kissed her and she stroked him and they moved together in a harmony of gratification and glory until his movements got fiercer and his hands gripped her harder and he made a guttural noise of release that Clarice had only ever read about in books.
Their strokes slowed and gentled and finally fell off altogether as they lay together in sweaty, satisfied laxness.
“That was much better than talking about my cat,” Clarice had to giggle, feeling euphoric and limp.
Bruno’s chuckle thrummed under her ear. “Just like riding a bicycle,” he agreed.
“You are a very sexy bicycle,” Clarice laughed. Then she put her hand over her mouth because she didn’t want to wake up Gil talking at full volume. Bruno’s room was on the other side of the house and both doors were closed, butClarice wanted to lounge naked with him as long as she could, and a five-year-old interruption would have been very unwelcome.
“Does instinct make you a better lover?” Clarice wanted to know.
Bruno looked flattered. “It’s hard to separate what’s instinct and what’s just paying attention,” he confessed. “You were pretty clear about what you liked.” He trailed a hand over a place beneath her breast that made her hiss in a breath, even after everything they’d just done.
Clarice flushed. She could probably do it all again, and had very mixed feelings about how wanton she’d been, now that the initial afterglow was subsiding. Suddenly very shy, she sat up and pulled a pillow into her lap. “We should… probably talk about this.”
Bruno sat up more lazily and gave her shoulder a casual kiss. “We probably should,” he agreed. “I really like you, Clarice.”
Clarice held her breath and realized she was waiting for the but.Butthis was just a one-time thing.Butonly as a friend.Buteverything is really complicated—which it honestly was!—and nothing else could happen.
Bruno didn’t volunteer it, so Clarice said timidly back, “I really likeyou. But what do we do next?”
“Shower?” Bruno suggested.
Was he not taking this seriously? “I meant?—”
“I know,” Bruno said, and to Clarice’s astonishment, he leaned in and kissed her. It was a slow, serious kiss, and Clarice felt it relax all the tension left in her muscles.
“I don’t know what comes next,” he said, when he released her lips, “but I’m ready to find out if you are.”
“Yes,” Clarice said, feeling absolutely boneless to his touch. “Yes.”
30
BRUNO
There was something steely about Alan on Monday when Bruno dropped Gil off, and he lingered at the gate, clearly waiting for Gil to trot off to play so he could talk to Bruno privately.
“Any information from your new girlfriend?” he asked mildly.
Bruno could feel the hairs on his neck prickle. This wasn’t a harmless question or pointless conversation. “You’re concerned about something,” he guessed.
Alan gave him an appraising look, probably consulting his own instincts and inner animal. “There’s been some…restlessness along certain channels,” he said vaguely. “We’re hoping to stay ahead of anything we can.”
“I didn’t spend a lot of time interrogating her this weekend,” Bruno said, trying not to feel cross, but mindful of his duty to Clarice’s privacy. It figured that when he finally started to open up to someone, she came with complications.
Well, it wasn’t like he was without his own.
Alan scrutinized him, then turned away when there was a wail of a new timber from the play kitchen.
“I’ve got an appointment coming up,” Bruno said briefly. “I’ll be back at five.”
Alan gave a cool nod in parting.
Bruno spent some time untangling his feelings on the drive back to his office. He didn’t want to keep information from Alan that might endanger the shifter community, but he didn’t want to approach Clarice—his girlfriend?—the way he might any random informant.
He desperately wanted to trust her, wanted to believe that she really did fit as perfectly with him as she seemed to. Certainly she didphysically. But how much of Bruno’s blooming affection was his own longing for connection and his own desire for her hot, curvy body? He knew how easy it was to see what he wanted to and he wouldn’t be the first man to get swept up in sex.
The afternoon’s appointments took all of his focus and concentration, and he was mentally exhausted by the time he picked Gil up.
