In Heat (Sanctuary) Read online

  Cassie stopped and lifted her eyebrow. “You’re not serious,” she said. “Fuck me, you’re serious.”

  “Not a good choice of words right now.” Aisha sighed shakily. Across the office, she noticed more and more heads poking over the walls of their cubicles at her. People with were blood made up a quarter or so of the population at best, so Aisha must be making a spectacle of herself. She put her head in her hands. “I mean it. I’ve never gone into heat before.”

  “Are you secretly twelve?” Cassie sounded more concerned than mocking, though, and she took Aisha by the elbows to pull her to her feet. “Come on. You can’t stay here.” Aisha nodded dumbly, the determination she had felt upon leaving her apartment an hour before now nothing more than a dim memory. Even the faint swish of her skirt against her legs as she moved turned her on.

  “What is going on over here?” Aisha looked up to find Marge, the older, unfortunately box-shaped office manager standing before them.

  “Aisha’s not feeling well, ma’am,” Cassie said politely. “I’m taking her to a doctor.”

  Marge looked Aisha up and down, and her nostrils flared. She nodded. “Bring in a note next week,” she said.

  “Next week?” Aisha asked. “I’m coming back tomorrow.”

  Cassie laughed softly. “Oh, honey,” she said. “You have no idea.”

  Marge nodded again. “Next week,” she repeated. “Don’t worry, if you don’t have enough sick time, last year’s health care reform officially puts it under FMLA.” Cassie paused long enough to throw Aisha a triumphant look.

  “Yay, me,” Aisha said weakly. She let Cassie lead her out of the office to a chorus of stares and one man getting up from his desk and hurrying towards the bathroom. Aisha glanced over her shoulder as they went. “I never would have guessed that.”

  “Marge? Yeah, colored contacts.”

  “But she’s married.”

  “Don’t be narrow-minded, Aisha.” Cassie flagged down a cab and helped Aisha into the backseat, where she immediately started rubbing comforting circles between Aisha’s shoulders. Aisha took a few deep breaths, attempting to calm herself, and then groaned and twitched Cassie’s hand away when even that started the familiar heat to roll through her body again.

  “Sorry,” she said as Cassie snatched her hand back. “It’s not personal.”

  “Don’t worry about it, you’re not the first one who’s been there.” Aisha snuck a mortified peek at Cassie from behind her hair. Cassie had turned her head to look out the cab window, and the collar of her blouse pulled to reveal a purpling mark suckled into the skin of her collarbone. She caught Aisha looking and grinned. “See? It’s not the end of the world. Even on suppressants, you, too, can have an active and fulfilling sex life.”

  Aisha put her head into her hands. “Stop talking like a brochure.”

  At long last, the cab pulled to a stop in front of the urgent care clinic. Aisha didn’t know whether to be frustrated or relieved; the vibrations of the vehicle traveling across the road had been, well…Aisha suddenly had several ideas of what she could do perched on top of a Laundromat dryer, only a few which would not lead to her arrest. Cassie got her attention again by taking her hand and tugged her into the clinic, where the physician’s assistants all clucked over her sympathetically and then immediately put her in a room away from the other patients. Aisha stared at the walls and tried to do the deep-breathing exercises she had learned to curb test anxiety back in college until a nice phlebotomist came in to draw blood. She was one of the first people Aisha hadn’t wanted to jump at one point or another for several hours. Aisha thought about kissing her, but in her current state didn’t think the intent would come across well. At long last, the doctor, a patrician man with the requisite graying hair, silver glasses, and reassuring smile entered the room. Aisha felt only the slightest of stirrings towards him. She considered asking for a sleeping bag and permission to live in this room until the heat ran itself out.

  “Well, well,” the doctor said, looking at Aisha’s charts. “You’re definitely in heat, all right.”

  “But I’m twenty-six,” Aisha protested. “Are you sure it’s not something else? Cancer?”

  The doctor laughed, a little patronizingly, and Aisha’s previously favorable opinion of him cooled by several degrees. “I know it may feel this way now, but heat is perfectly natural and vastly preferable to cancer.” From someone who had a dick and thus had no basis for comparison. Aisha narrowed her eyes at him and considered asking for the phlebotomist back. The doctor remained engrossed in her chart and didn’t notice. He made a few notations. “I’m going to write you out a prescription for an emergency suppressant regimen to get you through the next few days, and then we’ll move on to something a little more standard. It may take eighteen hours or so to full take effect—“

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Aisha interrupted. “I’m not sure I can do eighteen more minutes like this.”

  The doctor glanced over the top of the chart at her. Aisha crossed her legs at the ankles and cursed herself for having worn sensible, non-sexy shoes that day, meaning a good kick wouldn’t mean much. “I’m sure it won’t seem that way after the suppressants have a chance to take effect. In the meantime, go home, try to get some rest, and avoid contact with the public for a few days, just until you feel better. If you have someone you don’t feel any sexual attraction towards—“ The doctor made a pretty good candidate at the moment. “You might ask them to stay with you. In the meantime, don’t worry. Even with suppressants, you can still have an active and fulfilling sex life.” Aisha stared at him.

  ***

  As she readied to check out, a nurse handed Aisha a paper cup containing three small tan pills that tasted faintly bitter as Aisha swallowed them. “Make sure you fill your prescription for a regular suppressant regimen by the end of the month,” the nurse said, pressing the small square of paper into Aisha’s hand. And, just like that, she was turned loose upon the world again.

  “I could have just gone home,” Aisha protested as she met Cassie in the lobby.

  “No, you couldn’t have,” Cassie corrected as she led them to the door. She took special care not to touch Aisha directly after the episode in the cab, but her grin remained bright and easy. “It would have been worse next month, and the month after that, and the month after that. Best to just nip it in the bud—sorry—now.”

  Aisha eyed her. “You are getting much too much enjoyment out of this.”

  Cassie shrugged, but at least made an attempt to control her expression. “Sorry, I don’t mean to. I’m a liar if I say that a part of me doesn’t kind of like the idea of having someone to talk to about these things now.”

  “A mean part. A nasty, evil part that I should not be friends with.”

  “You want to pal around with a saint, move to Rome.” Cassie flagged down another cab and gave directions to Aisha’s address, ignoring Aisha’s protest that she could make her own way home without being babysat. She promptly cut the legs out from under her point by staring at a well-built construction worker so intently that Cassie grabbed for her wrist. Aisha grit her teeth throughout the entire ride back to her building, silently promising her entire bank account for access to any other kind of transportation. Walking would take too long, though, and a bike…best not to think about that. Aisha would be able to crush a man’s head with her thighs by the time this was over. And best not to think about that, either.

  Cassie glanced over at Aisha sharply. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Am I ever glad I got hit at fourteen. It must get worse with age.” Aisha put her head into her hands as the cab driver took the gentleman’s route and pretended to go deaf. They finally arrived at her apartment building, and Aisha leapt from the cab so quickly she nearly turned her ankle on the curb. She held out her hand, palm facing up, when Cassie moved to follow.

  “No,” Aisha said. “Thank you, I will be incredibly apologetic for my bitchiness when these meds start working, but this is where you
stop.”

  Cassie ducked Aisha’s hand and climbed from the cab as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m at least seeing you to the door,” she said. “The first time I went into heat, if my grandmother hadn’t been there I probably would have fallen on at least three dicks between the doctor’s office and my house.” Aisha groaned but allowed Cassie to follow her through the entryway and up the stairs to her door. The scent of the male from the night before still lingered in the hallway, strong enough to make Aisha’s knees buckle before she managed to catch herself. She prayed the suppressants knocked Cassie’s sense of smell down a notch, too, or there was no way she was going to leave Aisha alone.

  Aisha caught her first piece of luck in the past two days. Cassie cast her a curious look, and then a downright suspicious one when Aisha plastered on her best innocent expression. “I’m fine,” Aisha insisted.

  Cassie lifted her eyebrow, clearly believing none of it, but only said, “If you have to order in, try not to jump the pizza guy. Or at least take his cell phone away.”

  “Is that how that cliché got started?” Cassie left with a waggled middle finger, and Aisha let herself into her apartment. She detoured into the kitchen to gulp several palms full of water from the kitchen sink without bothering to retrieve a glass before tilting a few more down the back of her neck. The droplets did little to soothe Aisha’s superheated, ultrasensitive skin, but it didn’t sound as though anything would have an effect on that save for her heat running its course or the emergency suppressants taking effect. Aisha groaned and dropped her head down between her shoulders, resting her forearms against the edge of the sink.

  “Let’s approach this logically,” she said out loud. “You have were blood, you’re going to go into heat. So do almost a quarter of the other women on the planet, and none of them have died of it yet.” Aisha made a mental note not to check YouTube or Wikipedia until the suppressants successfully took effect. “So you can sulk and cry, or you can look at it as a three-day vacation with permission to destroy every battery in the house.” The words came out sounding as though they belonged to a much braver woman than the one Aisha felt like inside. She remained bent over, eyes closed, until the metal warmed beneath her arms. Fuck, even that felt good. Aisha wondered if she even had enough batteries to cover the next few days. She clenched her thighs together with a small whimper before straightening and heading for her bedroom. Aisha shed clothing in a path down the hallway, glad that she had at least closed her blinds before leaving the apartment that morning. Shoes, skirt, blouse, those ridiculous stockings Aisha had been so sure were a good plan upon pulling them out of the drawer that morning. She took off her bra last and let out a small groan of pleasure as her breasts were released from their restrictions. Aisha eased herself down onto her bed and barely stifled back a laugh as she realized that she hadn’t been this nervous before losing her actual virginity, let alone the first time she had masturbated.

  “Where millions of women have gone before you,” Aisha said into the stillness. The sound of her own voice settled her somewhat. She dug about in the bedside drawer for her vibrator and spread her thighs. Unlike the frenzy of the night before, she placed it on its lowest setting and began circling her clitoris lightly, drawing away every few minutes as a pulse of pure pleasure shot through her cunt. With her free hand, Aisha began playing with her nipples until they stood up in points and her breath started coming quicker in her throat. Yes, she had obviously been looking at the situation all wrong. Aisha was only taking a vacation during which she had nothing better to do than bring herself off again and again, and maybe even bring that pizza guy Cassie had warned her about into the equation if she got bored. The doctor had ordered her to go home and get some rest, hadn’t he? And this was one of the quickest routes to relaxation Aisha had discovered since she developed hormones in the first place.

  Her decision made, some of the anxiety brought about by the morning left Aisha’s body, replaced by a tension of an entirely different kind. She touched the vibrator to her clit with a firmer hand and held it there until her hips started to jerk up from the bed without her consent and a small cry built in the back of her throat. Aisha abandoned her nipples and pushed three fingers of her other hand into her cunt as she continued circling her clitoris with the vibrator. Her own slick coated her fingers, and Aisha’s breath began to come out as a harsh, almost reedy whine. She bucked her hips up from the bed and clenched hard around her fingers, her entire body coiling in preparation for release.

  A knock sounded at her apartment door.

  “Fuck!” Aisha all but screamed. She dropped her hips back down to the bed. The irritable woman next door who watched soap operas at an obnoxious volume during the day and never failed to beat on Aisha’s wall for the slightest noise infraction remained conspicuously silent. Good for her; Aisha didn’t relish trying to explain to Marge that she now violated the company’s policy on hiring felons after assaulting someone with a sex toy.

  Aisha threw her bathrobe around herself hurriedly and stomped to her door, lust already giving way to a towering rage. It didn’t really help to try and lock herself away from society until she got these…urges….worked out if society insisted on coming and finding her. She hurled her door open hard enough to make it rebound against the wall and realized too late that she recognized the scent of another were. The man from the night before stood with his hand poised to knock again, his eyes slightly wide before they abruptly went dark with lust. He wore jeans and a dark pullover that clung to the muscles of his chest and arms, and he smelled like the greatest thing Aisha had ever encountered in her life. She curled her hand around the doorframe to keep herself from leaping at him right there in the hallway and inhaled deeply.

  “Hi,” Aisha said stupidly, counting herself lucky that she had at least remembered to leave the vibrator behind in the bedroom before stomping out in a tizzy. Or would that have been a good thing? Aisha didn’t know if she had enough non-occupied brain cells left to flirt right at the moment; she was mostly torn between grabbing the man by the front of his shirt and bodily dragging him back to her bedroom with her, or maybe dropping her robe and pulling his pants off right there in the hallway. Would that still count as a felony if someone walked down the hallway and discovered them? Damn it, this was probably exactly why Cassie had been concerned about leaving her alone.

  “I’m Aisha,” Aisha continued after several seconds went by in which she and the man only stared at her. His nostrils flared further, his eyes dilated until the iris remained only the slimmest ring of silver-blue around the pupil, and he looked Aisha’s body up and down in a way her frumpy, over-sized bathrobe definitely did not encourage.

  “Tyler,” the man finally said, slowly and as if he had to pause and think for a moment before he remembered. “I just moved in a few weeks ago, I heard you shout and…” Another man would have colored, probably. Hell, Aisha herself would be blushing hard enough to set her face on fire on any other day. She dragged her tongue across her lower lip without realizing it until Tyler’s eyes shot down to her mouth. "I thought I'd make sure you were all right."

  “And you’re part were,” Aisha said matter-of-factly. A human could not have heard from all the way across the hall.

  “Yes.” Tyler’s gaze flicked back up to her eyes for only a moment before settling on her mouth again. "So are you."

  Aisha cocked her hip against the doorframe. She should shut the door, she knew, she should wish Tyler a good day and go back to a method of release that wouldn't get her in too much trouble. “Sure am." She crossed her arms over her chest and felt her nipples tighten as the robe brushed against them. Hell with it. "I have two questions for you. Are you a serial killer, and do you have condoms?”

  Tyler actually laughed, startled, and flashed Aisha a smile that would have loosened her knees even if she hadn’t been right in the middle of her first heat. “No to the first and yes to the second,” he said. “And more than that, I’ve been told I cook an excellent breakfast.�
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  Aisha nodded and gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “Then get in here.” She turned and marched back into her apartment without bothering to see if Tyler would follow. She knew he would; the way he looked at her held too much heat to do anything else. Aisha made it halfway across her living room before undoing the sash on her robe and lowering it down her shoulders. Footsteps tread behind her; Aisha turned just in time to watch Tyler kick the door shut behind him with a tremendous bang. Finally, the irritable old woman next door roused herself enough to pound on the wall. Tyler turned his head towards the sound and snarled, actually snarled, sending a thrill all the way through Aisha's body. Tyler looked back towards her, eyes moving slowly up and down her body. Aisha realized that her robe still lay draped about her shoulders to expose the upper swell of her breasts. Tyler remained by the door, seemingly waiting for her signal. Aisha considered for less than a second before deliberately dropping her robe to the floor. Tyler made a sound from low in his throat, not quite the growl he had thrown out moments before but certainly close enough to send a thrill through Aisha all the same, and covered the space between them in three long strides. He grabbed Aisha about the waist and bodily lifted her from the floor. Aisha threw her legs about his hips and ground her cunt down against the erection she could feel pressing into her through his jeans, biting back a yip as the seam rode up against her clit. Tyler tossed her onto the couch with enough force to make her bounce and then landed on top of her. He took her face with one hand and kissed her hard enough to make her head spin and until she ground her sex up against his thigh. Tyler kissed hard enough to bruise, but his free hand, cradling the back of her neck and intertwined with her hair, remained gentle. Aisha was afraid that her own grip wasn’t nearly so kind as she grabbed his denim-clad ass with both hands and yanked him down against her. He smelled, oh, he smelled so good, and the only thing better than his dick nudging against her through his jeans would be when he filled her up with it, and Aisha couldn’t imagine why anyone ever thought going into heat was a bad thing. Why waste all that time doing medical research into suppressants when they had perfectly good condoms right there?