Surreptitious

Chapter 24: Honesty

Josie felt like she was being enveloped by the sun in liquid form, the warmth spreading all over her and right through her entire body. Her extremities tingled as they started moving, stroking, as if swimming in a lake of balminess. A certain scent filled her nostrils and caused her to feel enraptured by its earthen sweetness. Her face sunk deeper into silken auburn as her hands travelled across smooth skin as if exploring, dragging her fingertips across the surface of this heat surrounding her so soothingly.

Hope, herself still drunk with sleep and struggling to distinguish between her dreams and reality, sighed deeply as the warmth of the late morning sun stroked her face. Then she smiled softly as the sun stroked up her side and down her stomach, down further…

Whoa wait – that’s not the sun. Hope suddenly blinked, eyes straining to open against the light hitting them.

After the long and painful night she and Josie had shared, they had both managed to sleep like the dead for a few hours. However, when they fell asleep Hope was still in her wolf form, and now waking up; she most definitely was not. The two were cuddled together on the couch, curled up under their fluffy blanket with a still snoozing Josie spooned up against Hope’s back.

And a still snoozing Josie’s hands were roaming dangerously.

“Jo…” Hope croaked out hoarsely as she felt Josie’s hand slide over her hip and down her thigh. She swallowed hard as her eyes blazed as heatedly as her aroused skin. Consciously, she knew this had to stop, but deep inside her chest her wolf was going mad.

“Josie.” Hope tried again, her own hand reaching down to rest on top of Josie’s in order to still it as it reached for her lower ribs, just in case it went somewhere it really shouldn’t.

“Mhmmm…” Josie moaned sleepily and it took her about 5 seconds of slowly blinking herself into a conscious state before she realized what was happening. She froze inside, but her skin flushed red-hot all over her body. Her eyes were lit up in tremendous luminosity as she withdrew her hand from Hope’s body.

“Oh my god you’re naked shit I’m sorry I didn’t…” She rambled faster than the speed of light while Hope gripped the blanket and rolled off of the couch, taking it with her to cover herself up with.

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay, don’t even worry about it…” Hope interrupted Josie’s strangled words, though she herself was a sharp scarlet color with a body that was undeniably on fire. She grinned bashfully as she tried to avert her blazing gaze away from Josie’s. “Yeah I’m just gonna… go…” She motioned to where she had left her clothes around the corner and quickly slinked off to get dressed.

By the time she got back a few minutes later, the small break away had done nothing to soothe Hope’s wolf. What had made it even worse was that the animal was agitated from not getting to spend a full moon running freely, seeing as how Hope stayed by Josie’s side.

Josie cleared her throat awkwardly as Hope approached where she still sat on the couch in the sun, her own arousal not quite having faded just yet, as could be evidenced by her still brightly glowing eyes. “I… uhh…” She cleared her throat again and took a deep, calming breath as Hope sat down next to her, but did not dare to look her in the eye. “I wanted to thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you last night. I’m sorry that I ran away from school. I don’t know what it was, but…”

“You couldn’t bare to be confined. You wanted to be out here, open and free. I know the feeling. I don’t blame you.” Hope responded gently as she reached for Josie’s hand, letting her know that everything was okay. “I’m so sorry for what you went through. I don’t understand what happened… I don’t know why you weren’t able to shift.”