Telepaths Don't Need Safewords, by Cecilia Tan Read Online Free Page A

seemed to touch
every part of my body then, the whole and the sore, warm and soft. I
felt his skin, the long smooth plane of his back under his shirt, and
the bony curve of his hip against mine. Come
inside me, heal me, I
said. He held me tightly, arms circling my ribcage completely. He
came into me gently, probing as I opened for him. I tucked my legs
behind his back, bonding us together, one animal. You
make me whole. I felt
the energy building in my womb. Our minds open, I shared it, felt the
waves of blood warm pleasure feeding back to me. Up and up we went,
until shuddering and shaking as one, we passed the peak and slipped
back down into oblivion. As I was drifting into sleep I heard him say Now I remember why we
stopped party-going.
    In his arms I smiled. I answered, But now I remember why
we started...
    Cat Scratch Fever

    There
is something erotic about the feeling of fur, admit it. Especially
when under the fur there is taut muscle, the warmth of blood beating
under it. I ran my hand over her back, smiling as her tail lifted
just a twitch as I reached the base of her spine. The fur was
thickest on her back, but thinned down her sides and her front, just
a downy covering on her stomach. I scratched her under the chin and
rolled her over gently, letting my hand slide down between her
breasts and over her stomach. She rubbed her head against my knee
while I beheld her. Such a gorgeous creature, she had all the
outlines of a woman but for the tail, her brown eyes bright against
the blackness of her fur.
    I
wondered if I looked as fine to her, in my canvas and boots and
gauntlets and shirt of cotton. She took my hand in her mouth
carefully. As I did every night when she awoke, I let her rake the
skin with her sharp teeth, drawing just a little blood, and then drew
back from her, trying to measure how much time had passed, trying to
guess how long I could continue to tarry in the woods, my Keep
possibly languishing without me. Well, they could wait a week or two,
perhaps even more if that is what it would take. Dara could hold
things together until I returned, or so I hoped. I rested my hand on
the lovely she-cat’s head and was amazed and gratified to hear
something unmistakably like a purr.
    Some
of my men had brought her out of the forest—it had been a
hectic time. I had ordered them on ahead with the hunt while I stayed
behind at the Keep to administrate some lordly matter. I never
dreamed they would succeed in snaring something before I arrived.
    When
I rode into the camp, I could already tell something had happened.
They were a dozen men altogether. Danton took my horse by the reins
as I dismounted and headed for the first trailer. But I did not have
to enter it to find them, for the rest were circled around something
on the ground. They were making a lot more noise than I would have
expected. Then someone shrieked in pain and I charged forward,
breaking their circle.
    Guilty-sounding
explanations of innocence barraged me as I surveyed the scene. One
man was on the ground bleeding from one eye. Another, Hillard, was
nursing a crudely bandaged arm. I held out my hands for silence,
opening my mouth to demand what had happened...
    ...
and I left it open as I saw her. She was crouched low, but I could
see her hands and feet were bound together and a chain hung from her
neck to a stake in the ground. She was growling low in her throat,
her eyes burning as she flexed her claws. We stared at one another
for an age and a half. And then I remembered to ask. “What the
hell is going on here!”
    Hillard
told me one thing, about how they’d hunted her down that
morning and were just trying to tame her before I got there. But
later Danton told me the truth, that they had kept her there for two
days.
    “Why
didn’t you radio me!” I was shouting, pacing in the dark,
cramped space of the trailer. But it wasn’t Danton I should be
angry with.
    He
did not explain. His eyes said what I knew, that Hillard had the