Jim Gem's Arc

Chapter 6 of 23

The second kiss pulled them down onto Lena's bed. She climbed into his lap. Jim's hands found her back. Her fingers dug into his hair. The waterfall hushed the loft, same as before, but nothing else stayed calm. Jim bit his lip. He tried to hold the man and not the wolf. The shapes lived under his skin now, always waiting. When his heart raced, they woke. He felt his own bones want to shift. He held them still by force. Lena kissed harder. She pressed close, and he felt her breath go fast against his mouth. Then she shook. Her whole body trembled in his lap, and it wasn't the cold. He pulled back an inch. "Hey." "Don't stop," she said. But her voice cracked. Her hands still gripped his jacket, white-knuckled, the way she'd grabbed him at the window. Jim looked at her. Ten years he'd wanted this. His pulse pounded and a heat crawled up his arms that had nothing to do with wanting her. It was the shift, rising. If he lost his grip now, he'd change under her. He didn't know into what. "Lena," he said. "We should stop." She went quiet. Her sentences always got short when things got real. She nodded. "Yeah." She climbed off his lap and sat beside him. They both breathed hard. She wrapped her arms around her own knees. Jim flexed his hands. The heat drained slow. His fingers stayed fingers. He'd held it. Barely. "You were shaking," he said. "So were you." She wouldn't look at him. "Different reason, though." He understood then what had frightened her. Not him. Not the wolf. When he'd kissed her hard, something in her had wanted to bolt, the same thing that made her run from the circus. The same thing that sent her off the tower for strangers. She could throw flips for a crowd. She couldn't sit still for one person who saw her. "You don't run when I change," Jim said. "You go quiet and you stay. Nobody else does that." She touches Jim’s face and looks into his eyes that want to change into a wolf’s eyes but she isn’t afraid. “Jim. I’ll never run again.”