Page 120 of Caution to the Wind

So it fit wrong, thinkin’ of Mei as bein’ too young, now.

But she was still dangerous in all the ways she’d always been. Too tempestuous, too reckless and stubborn, too willin’ to fall on someone else’s sword ’cause she’d never really felt peace, but she wanted that for everyone around her.

And she was dangerous in new ways too.

I watched her as she sucked the congee from the spoon, pink tongue flashin’ out to catch the dregs. All that finely honed beauty contrasted by the near-vicious level of lust I now knew she was capable of made my heart pound like the door knocker on a haunted mansion. Urgin’ me to revisit old ghosts and exorcise them so I might be able to stay a while, explore this old-new girl with the pretty tits and loyal heart and big brain in ways I’d never dared to before.

Her eyes were fixed on the mark her little teeth had made in my left pec, the pink lines raised and angry even though she’d bitten me through a shirt. Watchin’ her expression go soft and dark made me want to storm those few feet between us, force her thighs wide to make space for my body between them, tunnel my hands in all that sleek black hair, andplunderher.

“Axe-Man?” she breathed. I had the sense she’d wanted to call me Henning, but hadn’t.

For one brief, mad moment, I wanted her to speak my given name. Imagined the breathy catch in her voice over the “H” and the moan over the “i-n-g” like she was gettin’ off just on the sound of me between her lips.

Fuck.

I shook my protein shake in my water bottle and turned slightly so the observant minx wouldn’t see how my traitorous cock was hardenin’ in my grey sweats.

“Holler when you’re finished, and I’ll help you upstairs,” I muttered as I made my way to my bedroom to take averycold fuckin’ shower.

AXE-MAN

The next tendays were painful, mostly ’cause havin’ Mei in the house again felt good. Even though it’d been years, there was a time when havin’ Cleo and Mei underfoot all the time was my life. The sound of their giggles as they both recuperated on the leather couch in the livin’ room while they watched anime shows and superhero movies, the sight of them tangled together in silence readin’ the same copy of one of Cleo’s favourite graphic novels, the small smile on Cleo’s face that seemed like a miracle every time Mei brought it to life.

The Fallen family seemed to take Mei’s introduction to the household in better stride than I did. Bea was there most days, and even though it surprised me at first, Cleo’s two wildly different best friends seemed to get along well enough. I thought it was ’cause Mei was softer than she wanted to seem and Bea was darker than she appeared.

She’d bonded most surprisingly with Curtains and Boner. She and Curtains could geek out like Mei and I used to over comic books and strange biological facts but also about topics I’d never thought Mei’d have a mind to, like how to launder money through online sports gamblin’ and old age pensions.

Boner was easier to understand, and somethin’ about watchin’ them together made my chest ache. ’Cause Mei might’ve been the baddest girl I’d ever known, but she fuckin’ loved to make her people laugh. When she and Boner got goin’ teasin’ each other, it pulled the rest of us into their orbit ’til we were all clutchin’ our sides laughin’ up a lung. That first hot pot dinner with Lin had ended up with nearly half the club around our huge, scarred wood table, and Mei and Boner’d made Cleo laugh so hard, she sprayed broth out her nose. It reminded me of so many dinners with Kate, Lin, Cleo, Mei, and me back in the day that I almost felt my ex-wife was a ghost at the table with us, remindin’ me I’d never figured out exactly what happened to her.

The restless dissatisfaction I’d felt since Cleo was attacked and The Prophet was killed by someone other than me had been exacerbated by Mei’s reintroduction into our lives. It brought the unjustness of Kate’s end into fresh focus and empowered me to search out the last of the answers I needed to lay her memory properly to rest.

Not just for me, but for Cleo, and even Mei.

But havin’ Mei inmyspace wasn’t just about old memories.

It was also about new ones.

No matter how hard I worked out with Wrath in the gym or how late I stayed up tryin’ to drop into a dreamless sleep of exhaustion, thoughts and dreams of Mei Zhen plagued me every single fuckin’ day.

In fact, on the fourth night, the same one I moved back into my bedroom after Ransom and Carson’d finished clearin’ out the guest bedroom and Cress and Lila had bought some nicer things for it so Mei’d be comfortable, the worse had happened.

I’d given in to the hauntin’ temptation to take out those red lace panties I’d stolen from her and wrap them around my cock. It was late, deep in the early mornin’ hours, and the house was quiet around me, so I figured I had room to give into my ragin’ need to jack off into that sweet-as-hell lace. They still smelled like her, and the idea of my cum mingled with hers had me hard as fuckin’ steel.

I was noisy when I jerked myself, but it’d never matter before ’cause Cleo’s bedroom was on the main floor at the back of the house. Only, in my lustful delirium, I’d forgotten Mei was just down the hall.

I’d discounted the first creak in the hall as the wind whistlin’ with a spring storm outside the window, tossin’ leaves and blossoms against the pane, but the second creak got my notice.

I tried to stop, but I was so close to comin’ imaginin’ Mei ridin’ my big cock with that lace thong pushed to the side, the bunch of fabric rubbin’ hard against her clit, enough to make her come hard all over me.

Seconds away from comin’ myself, gruntin’ like a beast, I lurched into a half crunch when my bedroom door creaked up slightly, and Mei appeared in the crack. The night light in the hall was enough to cast her in a yellow glow, my own body naked on the bed and clearly outlined by moonlight. For a second, I thought she’d retreat.

I should’ve known better.

Instead, she leaned comfortably against the doorframe and watched me come hard into the cloth. My eyes shut as the climax thundered through me, but she’d still been there when I finished. I collapsed to the pillows, chest heavin’ and sweaty, waitin’ for what she would do.

After a moment, she pushed off the frame and moved across the room on silent feet to my side. I tensed as she slid a finger in the coolin’ spunk on my abs and brought it to her mouth, suckin’ on it with an audiblepopand a little kittenish moan.

Then she grabbed her cum-soaked panties, where they lay loosely in my curled palm, and backed away to the door.