Shapeshifter Ch. 05

"There's no first-aid-kit out here," I finally called, staring hungrily at the buns. I probably could eat all of them with PB and J to help me get through the night, but that would leave nothing to nibble on in the morning. It was a hard decision to make; either be a little hungry when going to bed and be able to quench that hunger in the morning, or go to bed sated and be hungry when I woke up.

I only then realized there was no answer from the bathroom.

"Noom?" I asked, but got no reply.

My fingertips started to itch right where my claws had broken through the skin the last time I changed, and I balled both hands into fists. No, I would not change. I would go to the bathroom, look inside and find out what he was doing, and I would not change. My constant state of panic had already cost me too much time and energy, and I'd had enough of being too frightened to move, damn it!

My heavy breath sounded way too loud in the silent room, my steps too heavy and clumsy, and I had trouble swallowing through the dryness in my mouth as I reached the bathroom door and found it open, and the room behind it still dark.

I hugged myself as my eyes got used to the darkness, and my own fingers felt small, strange and hard against my hypersensitive skin. This was stupid. Noom had to be there, and I would have heard the door or windows opening. He just had to be there—

And there he was, a dark scheme in a dark room, standing next to the window and staring outside intently. I wanted to step forward and shout at him for scaring me so, but the glint of his Beretta made me stumble and shut my mouth before I made a peep. He had drawn back and he was watching the other side of the street, hidden by a flimsy, threadbare curtain and the simple darkness of the room.

Shivers crept up my back as my body went into instant alarm mode. All those new clothes would be drenched in fear sweat and I would once more need a new set of garments, and all because of...

I tried to finish that thought, but I couldn't. Usually, I found more than enough fuck-ups if I just thought hard enough, but this time, I was at a loss as to what I possibly could have done to justify this much danger and trouble. The stupid idea that maybe whatever Noom saw out there might hold the answer gripped my head and made me creep forward. I didn't stop, once I had started walking, even though Noom would hate me interfering. Was I getting braver, or just more stupid? I didn't care.

A smallish sink blocked the space left of the window, and Noom stood to the right side of it, so there was no space for me. I could have pressed against his side, but that would have pinned his weapon's arm against his side. If I was getting dumber, I hadn't yet reached the point where I risked both our safety for a small glance. Good to know.

Noom tensed when he felt my presence, tensed enough to make the gun handle creak a little bit, but he didn't take his eyes off whatever he was looking at. I carefully stuffed myself between his left shoulder and the wall behind him, peeking around him to search the back street below us.

It was a ratty street, as far as back streets go, but unusually void of garbage containers. The walls of the surrounding buildings were crumbling and wet, graffiti covered the few feet of intact plaster, and the concrete surface itself was full of holes that had filled up with dust, rotting leaves and old papers. A lone man stood down there, leaning against one of the corners, almost out of sight, but not quite. He was just a little taller than me, just a little shorter than Noom, and wore a thin trench coat that hid all other details of his body. It was a normal dress-up for the weather coming in, but he stood out somehow just by how mediocre he tried to appear. He didn't look up as he smoked his cigarette, pulling his flimsy hat down against the first drops of rain. It conveniently also hid his face from us. It may have been a coincidence, but Noom's behavior made me more nervous than usual. I kind of got why he was watching that guy like a hawk.

Still, I had to ask.

"What is wrong?" I whispered quietly.

Noom didn't react, but his cheek twitched with what I knew by now was annoyance. Instead of answering, he tilted his head forward just enough to get a better line of sight. I followed his lead and went back to watching the man.

The embers had almost reached the filter, and with a last drag and puff he threw down the stump, stepped on it and walked back towards the point where I knew the bar's back door was.

With a sigh, Noom put up the gun and shoved it back into the back waist band of his pants. "I so hope I'm wrong about that guy," he drawled, his street-slur creeping back into his voice for a moment. Then he turned around, gave me a strange look that was somewhere between anger and desire and lasted longer than I was perfectly comfortable with, and wrapped an arm around me.

"Come on, scrap. The day has been long enough," he huffed and pulled me to his side and towards the main room. His pulse was utterly calm and his divine smell held just a small trace of fear that could have been there all along, drenched by the much stronger scent of pain. He hadn't showered yet, so I couldn't trust my nose at this. If he was faking this unperturbed behavior, it was an act well done.

I was so busy burying my face in his neck to scent him, I only realized where he had dragged me when I bumped into the edge of the couch and suddenly was airborne. I fell onto the couch with a small eep sound I was not proud of, and Noom looked down at me for a heartbeat, then he fell too, forward, onto me, sighing and almost boneless. We both twitched when our bodies met and it wasn't for lust alone; he was wounded and I was just as hurt, and the hard contact reminded both of us that we'd better have a care.

I could feel the lines of his athletic body press into me, and I felt soft and wimpy by comparison. I was nowhere near flabby or even well fed, but I felt like skin and bones beneath him. There was a vitality to him that filled me with envy, even as he nudged my legs apart to wiggle between them and press his crotch against mine. No amount of blood, dirt or sweat could diminish Noom's presence; he was a force of nature, like a storm cloud ready to go off and rain thunder, lightning and hail down on anyone stupid enough to step into his path.

How could someone like him ever feel more than fleeting lust for a scrawny wimp like me?

Noom suddenly went still above me, his hard length still pressed against mine. It was more than distracting, but maybe distraction was exactly what I needed to come out of this self-hating gloom.

The tip of his Mohawk was starting to lose its cohesion and it tickled my forehead, drooping down like a decorative feather. In this artificial light, it looked very yellow, not as bleached as in broad daylight. His eyes hovered over mine, vibrant blue from this short a distance, but still hard, still sharp, like he was trying to scrape out my thoughts with a simple glare.

"What's wrong?" he asked with a voice so neutral, it held no emotion whatsoever.

It was a good question. "I don't know," I answered, although that was a lie. It made me uncomfortable how good he had gotten at reading me in such a short amount of time. Usually, I was the one impressing people with my empathy, but he beat me even at that.

"You're suddenly tense," he stated and pushed up onto his elbows to get a better look at my face.

I blinked up at him and touched his cheek without thinking. With all his scars and bruises and rough edges, he still filled me with envy of his success. Okay, so he was a criminal, there was that, but he was good at it. Really good. He seemed so in control of his life, so free and self-sufficient, and still he had thrown all of that away for me. What did I have to offer in return, except for my body? Compensating with sex had been well and fine until now, but suddenly, it just didn't seem fair.

I had to know what he saw in me that I didn't.

"Why are you helping me?"

The little scar on his brow twitched as Noom threw me a hard glance. "Because I want to," he replied impatiently and went up to his knees between my legs, obviously not that interested in sharing my moment of doubt.

I, on the other hand, wasn't that quick to let go of my train of thought. "Why do you want to help me?" I pressed, grabbing his wrist as he started to fiddle with the cord holding up my sweatpants.

Noom stared at my fingers around his wrist with an expression that should have melted steel, but I didn't let go. Something had changed between us in that underground station, and it had finally rid me of that gnawing helplessness and fear. Yes, Noom was still the same intentionally cruel and short-tempered mercenary he had been before, but we were a team now. Partners, for better or for worse.

He ground his teeth and the sound went right into my bones, making me shudder. "That's a stupid question," he snarled, then tore his arm out of my grip and pulled down my pants with a swift motion. I suddenly lay there with a bare lower body and the beginnings of a glorious boner.

Noom grabbed my hard flesh triumphantly.

I shuddered as a wave of lust rushed through my body. His deft fingers always felt so perfect, no matter where he touched me, but this was getting right to the point, no scenic routes necessary. One touch of his could wipe all rational thought from my mind, even when I didn't want to be distracted.

"Don't distract me, I really want to know," I mumbled with a voice gone breathy in a heartbeat. My body was already betraying me, writhing and twitching with over-excitement, trying to rub my hard length through his tight fingers as every hair on my body stood on end.

Noom grinned evilly and swept his thumb over my swollen, damp tip, making me gasp and groan as my hips snapped upward to follow his finger. "And I say, I don't have a reason. I want you for myself to have fun with, so I kept you," he growled with a low, heated voice. "There's nothin' more to this than that, so stop askin'."

Still, there was a twitch in his eyes, very small and almost unnoticeable, that told me he was lying just as much as I had been before. His drawl had come back too, a sure sign he was getting annoyed with me, and just then, as his fingers tightened and stroked my cock from root to tip, I decided my doubts could wait until later. Much later, if I interpreted the look in Noom's eyes correctly. Fine with me.

"Fuck me," I husked, relishing the expression of surprise and glee on Noom's face. His grin broadened until he looked like Alice's Cheshire Cat, complete with crinkles around his eyes.

And then he let go of me, stood up and walked away, just like that, without a word.

For a few seconds, I just lay there and stared after him, stunned. What the fuck? Was he actually going to just let me lie there half-finished and fully aroused? I sat up with a jerk, grabbed the first thing I could— my pants— and threw them after him just as he vanished into the bathroom. "Come back here right now or I'll make you wish you'd never met me!" I barked after him, not caring how indignant I sounded.

All I got for my troubles was a dirty snicker echoing from the bathroom. I fell back onto the couch and puffed up my cheeks. My cock was weeping, fully erect like a sad flag pole in a desert of need, and Noom was tinkering around in the bathroom. Sniffing, I looked down at my protesting manhood and weighed my options. I knew if I touched myself, Noom would probably view it as a challenge and do something torturous to me. On the other hand, Noom was taking too freaking long and I had never been good at patience.

My traitorous hand grabbed my cock before I could finish my pondering, and it felt so damn good, every other thought was blown out of my mind. I'm not big, never have been, but I'm adequate. My fingertips easily touched as I tightened my grip and slowly tugged towards the crown, forcing out a drop of clear pre-come. I liked that edge of pain, that point of pleasure that was almost too much, almost too intense to endure, although I'd never manage to pass it and keep on going, like Noom could make me do. When my fingers reached the crown of my cock, I rubbed my thumb over my weeping tip just like Noom had done before, then I let go to grab it at the root again, shuddering and hissing through the mixture of conflicting emotions I brought myself.

I only used three fingers as I kept on stroking and milking my cock, just to prolong each stroke and the pleasure it brought me, and somewhere along the line I closed my eyes and forgot all about Noom. I had years of experience all by myself, and not much of anything to show in the sex-with-someone-else-department. Oh, I had fucked. Quickies, one-night-stands, sometimes trysts over a few days or weeks, but nothing that demanded more than carnal lust from both of us. With Noom, it was different. Totally different, even though he fought tooth and nail against me. I shivered and my cock twitched, getting ready to shoot. I bowed up my rump with just the shoulders touching the couch, trying to drag out the moment before I came just a little bit more, just a few more seconds,—

A strange hand wrapped around the root of my cock, a rough pinky finger brushed my sac, and a thumb and forefinger tightened around my quivering length like a clamp. What had started as an unstoppable rush with a soon-to-come happy end, suddenly was held back by pitiless strength, and it hurt in the most luscious way imaginable.

"Bad, bad scrap," Noom growled, and his face was so close to my ear, I felt his breath wafting against my temple. He knelt next to the couch, one hand blocking my orgasm as the other one clutched a pack of lube. I had a short moment to think, 'oh, that's what he was looking for,' then he put the lube onto my chest and slapped my hand away from my cock.

"You started without me, and you planned to finish without me?" he hissed with a rough purr in his voice that sounded both aggressive and aroused. And just to drive his words home, he lowered his head that last inch and first bit, then sucked my earlobe. It felt incredible, almost like his mouth was rewiring my body to connect my dick to my ear, and I gasped harshly.

Still holding my dick tight enough to keep me from coming, he crawled between my already spread legs, leaned over my prone body and whispered, "use your hands for something I approve of and get my cock out."

I did what he asked, but just like last time my fingers shook with excitement, and it took me longer than it should have. Before Noom, I would have called myself suave in the sexual department, but he proved me wrong every damn time.

I touched his hard flesh, bathing in its heat and the small twitches that told me he secretly had liked my display way more than he let on. Then I showed him, let him feel what I had done to myself, working his length just like I had worked my own just moments before. The soft gasp, the slight waver in his breathing was gratifying to hear.

After a few moments of pleasure, he finally let go of my cock, but my own excitement had simmered down just enough so I wouldn't shoot the second his fingers loosened. "That's better," he whispered and grabbed the pack of lube, unperturbed by my constant and concentrated work on his throbbing dick. With reversed roles, I wouldn't have been able to even stay on my knees, but his self-control was iron. Or at least strong enough to endure a few more moments of sticky petting, if it meant getting inside me. It had to be the thing most important to him, considering he didn't bother to undress more than he needed.

For a few seconds, I had the urge to ask why he didn't get naked with me, but his fingers were already leaving a sticky, wet trail between my cheeks, searching and finding the sensitive skin around my entrance. One touch, one finger was enough to leave me breathless and tingling with excitement. Lust swept my questions away, and with them any need for talking I might have had left.

"Don't tighten up," he mumbled, and his voice sounded deeper, rougher than before, more intimate somehow.

Although I couldn't not react to the increasing pressure against my entrance, when his finger finally breached me, I shivered with the sensation of it delving into the heat that was me. He found all those little spots that made me twitch, gasp, and finally loosen up to the building pleasure in my lower body.

I didn't notice my eyes rolling into the back of my head, until Noom kissed me. He kissed me like he was trying to drink down the sounds I made, like he was trying to do with his tongue what he did with his fingers. This time I shoved my fingers into his hair, feeling the brittleness of hair spray and gel crumble beneath my grip and leave nothing but soft, silky strands behind.

I held him to my mouth, forced him to keep kissing me, even as he added a second finger to get a better angle, to stretch me more. Only when I almost came, making a keening, muffled sound against his forceful lips, did he pull out his fingers to replace them with his hard, hot length.

He said something as he sank into me, burrowing himself inside me to his pubes, and I think it was "I won't last." I couldn't be sure, though, because after that my mind went on a blank. There were hands, tongues, skin against skin in mankind's oldest dance, but there was no thought, no plan, no space to analyze, nothing but him and me.

Where the last few times had been rough, quick and angry, this time his slow, luxurious movements were almost lazy. I could feel his length, his girth stroke against all those small and big spots inside me, that made my body tingle with arousal and whenever he found that one spot, I shivered, clinging to him like a drowning man.

As the stimulus built like a deep, hot weight inside me, I heard him hiss and then groan with the effort to keep his rythm, to keep moving slowly and in a controlled fashion. Muscles in his body twitched where I hadn't known they could, like a horse trying to shake off flies. I didn't think he would last much longer, but he did. Three, four of those careful thrusts he managed, then the twitching turned into a full-body shudder.

When he came, I had a short moment, a split second, to watch his pupils blow out to such an extent, it turned his irises almost black. He gave a low, almost pained shout of ecstasy and finally lost his control. Three more times he thrust into me hard, then I came too, screaming my orgasm against his shoulder as I flailed and clung to him at the same time. My vision went, I think, for a few heartbeats. I just lay there, sticky and fighting for breath, with him as an exhausted weight above me.

I heard his voice almost through a haze as he leaned down, kissed me breathless and then muttered: "I wish I could hate you." He would have said more, I was sure of it, but he couldn't seem to keep himself upright any longer. With a soft burst of laughter, he sagged to the side, slipped out of me and wrapped me in his arms.

We fell asleep then, sticky and too tired to bother pulling out the couch, a jumble of limbs and clothes and exhausted satisfaction. My last thought was, so, what does he see in me?, but this time I couldn't get myself to worry about it. Whatever made him stay with me, love me, care for me, it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. It would be stupid to poke at something so good.