Chapter 110: Inseparable

Nash

Route 7 North was a long, slow road between Rutberg and Burlington, most of it a straight narrow highway with rolling fields and quaint, picturesque farms on either side, broken by the occational small town, where the speed limit dropped to twenty-five miles per hour.

Since I had already earned myself one speeding ticket recently, I forced myself to ride the brakes and obey the limits. Especially when I spotted the state trouper sitting half-hidden in a pull-off beside the bridge.

Not today, you sneaky bastard.

According to the GPS on my phone, I still had a five-hour drive ahead of me. I rubbed my dry, gritty eyes and grunted at the gas gauge. I would have to make a stop soon, fill the tank, drain the lizard, and get a giant cup of coffee for the road. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a decent night’s sleep.

I think it had been months. I think it was the time that I fell asleep on that stupid, twin-sized bed with Daphne in my arms.

But just the thought of seeing her again filled me with energy. Maybe that’s why I was starting to feel uncomfortably warm despite the fact that I was running the air conditioning. I angled the vents more toward my face and switched the fan to high.

The sun was out, and it was warm outside, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was inside of me. I felt almost feverish all of a sudden. I couldn't be getting sick, I never got sick.

I saw a convenience store with a gas station ahead on the left, switched on my blinker and quickly pulled in, swerving dangerously close to the oncoming car as I did so. They punched their horn angrily as they passed, but I ignored them.

I pulled up in front of the pump and parked, but I didn’t get out of the jeep immediately. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands as I felt my heart beat accelerating, and my breath beginning to come quickly. I rubbed my chest and began to worry that I might be having a heart attack.

I finally released the steering wheel and reached for the door handle. Jumping down, I didn’t turn to the gas pump. Instead, I marched toward the front door, and almost tripped over the threshold on my way through the swinging glass door.

The inside was a cross between a gas-station convenience shop and a small-town country store. There were shelves of snacks, over-priced grocery items, a counter full of coffee carafes and slushy machines. On the other side there was a wall of coolers with every soft drink known to man, along with beer and cheap wine. There was a little deli counter that sold sandwiches, macaroni salad and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I went straight for the restroom, which was, thankfully, unoccupied. It stank like stale cigarette smoke, air freshener, and s.hit. Some lazy bastard had pissed all over the toilet seat, and the waste-basket was overflowing with crumpled paper towels.

I locked the door behind me and went to the sink to look at myself in the tarnished mirror. I pushed my fingers into the artery on my neck and tried to count my own pulse, but I couldn’t concentrate. It was fast, like I’d just sprinted two-hundred yards or something. Sweat beaded my forehead and my upper lip. My eyes looked too bright in my reflection, and, much to my embarrassment, I felt my dick getting hard, for no good reason at all.

I twisted the handle on the faucet, and ran cold water into my hands, then, lowering my face into the basin, I splashed handfuls over my face, even over my hair, hoping that the cold water would reach all the way into my blood and cool things off. Water dripped from my hair and my chin, but the scorching hot feeling was only getting worse.

When I closed my eyes, I immediately saw Daphne. Her pretty blue eyes wide, her cheeks flushed, her swollen lips parted as she panted for breath.

“What the hell,” I muttered to myself.

Forget coffee, I need a cold drink.

Really cold. I wiped my hands on the industrial brown paper towel, tossed it in the over-flowing bin, and went back out into the store, and hoped no one would notice the freaking tent-pole in my jeans. I tried to be casual and nonchalant as I strode over to the slushy machine and filled an extra-large plastic cup with blue raspberry slushy.

It tasted like windshield washer fluid, but at least it was cold. I had sucked down a quarter of it before I even got to the cashier to pay. The kid behind the counter looked at me wide-eyed as I fished cash out of my pocket. “Are you okay, Mister?”

“Yeah,” I slapped a ten dollar bill down on the counter. “I’m fine. Great. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing, no reason.” He quickly rang in my beverage and counted back my change. “H-have a good day.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I jumped back into the jeep. I still hadn’t pumped any gas, and another car was already pulled up behind me, waiting for the pump. I swore and put the Jeep in gear, but I didn’t dare drive back out on the road, not until I had myself under control.

I drove around and found a parking place beside the building. “I just need a minute,” I told myself, “Just a minute to catch my breath.”

I tugged at the pant legs of my jeans, and spread my legs, trying to relieve the discomfort in my groin. Then I made the mistake of closing my eyes.

I saw her again, her beautiful brown hair spread across a fancy pillow, her gorgeous naked body spread before me on silky sheets that I’d never seen before. She was panting softly, and it seemed like her lungs were in sync with mine, as I gasped for breath in time with her. Her soft breasts swayed as her body rocked beneath me, and the tempo of the rocking seemed to match the throbbing between my thighs.

But when I looked down at her body, the hands splayed across her belly weren’t mine. They were long-fingered, with perfectly maincured nails.

In my daydream, Daphne arched her back and moaned, and so much pleasure flooded my body that I thought I was going to come right there in my jeans. I swore and reached for the snap of my pants.

Josiah once told me that if a mate cheats, you can feel it. He described it as the worst pain imaginable. Not that he had everexperienced it personally. Olivia would never do that to him. But supposedly it was common knowledge in the werewolf community. The pain of an unfaithful mate could be deadly.

What I was feeling wasn’t pain. Not unless you counted the fact that my jeans were too constricting for this kind of excitement, and the seam of the zipper was chafing against my dick something terrible.

It couldn’t be real, could it? I couldn’t be witnessing Daphne’s pleasure through another man’s eyes. That was just too bizarre to contemplate. I was just having one hell of a hallucination, that was the only explanation I could fathom. A sort of waking wet-dream, where I imagined my face was buried in the soft folds of her femininity, that the taste of her was on my tongue.

I tried to shake myself out of it. I gulped down that stupid raspberry slurpy until my lips were colored with blue dye and my head throbbed with a brain freeze, but it didn’t stop the pulsing, hot river of sexual pleasure that was coursing through my body. It didn’t wash away the sweet-salty taste of her body from my tongue.

I knew I was in a f.ucking parking lot, cars were pulling in and out, there was probably a goddamned security camera recording me even as I lowered my zipper just to get some relief.

The man in my vision was not me, and yet, it was like I was inside his body, feeling everything he felt, feeling everything Daphne felt as he moved over her body, as he finally slid inside her hot, wet, welcoming center. I should be f.ucking pissed at the idea of another man touching her body, but somehow, it felt right. Sinking into her body was so overwhelming, almost like it was my first time. Or his first time. I was getting confused about where he stopped and I began. Gritting my teeth, I slammed my head back against the headrest of my seat.

Eyes open, eyes closed, it didn’t matter, the hallucination didn’t disappear, the sounds of passion didn’t stop echoing in my ears. Grunts, groans, moans and whimpers, and the sound of skin slapping against skin. I tried to be still, but my body didn’t want to obey, it wanted to writhe with them, to buck against her hips with the faceless man. When she grabbed his shoulders, it was like she was grabbing my shoulders, and I felt her nails biting into my skin.

And when she came, when her body clenched hard around him, when he lost himself deep inside her…

My body finally relaxed. I became vaguely aware of the air conditioning still blowing full blast on my sweaty face. My fingers were locked so tightly around the steering wheel my hands were cramping. My shirt was soaked with sweat and stuck against my chest. My almost-empty slurpy cup was precariously balanced on the dashboard.

I felt eyes on me, and cautiously turned my head. There was an old station wagon parked beside me. An old man had climbed out of the driver’s side and was leaning his elbows on the hood as he stared into my window. He gave me a wide, toothless smile, and lifted his drink - also a blue-raspberry slushy, and gave me a thumbs-up before he took a long draw on the straw and climbed back into his station wagon.

Grimacing, I reached back with one hand to rub my shoulder, where I swore I could still feel her fingernails biting into my skin. My groping fingers encountered something wet and sticky. When I pulled my hand back and looked at them, there was a small smear of blood on my fingertips.

“Jeezus,” I groaned, looking back down at my lap. I hadn't even touched myself, but it didn't make any difference.

Good thing I had clean clothes in my bag.