13. Aurora and the morning coffee
Chapter thirteen
Aurora and the morning coffee
I woke to the sound of birds chirping and the bed creaking as Yuri got to his feet. I blinked slowly, my brain still sluggish to start. On my side, a distinct Yuri-sized dent in the mattress directly behind me, I stared at a cabin wall. His loud thump-thump of his feet and tail in unison stumbling to the main room of the cabin filled the room for only a moment before a hush fell over me. It took all my muscles and determination to roll over. Fuck, everything hurts.
Ah yes, seduce the giant gator man to hunt you through the woods at night—couldn’t have any consequences! I hissed at the sting between my thighs. And my shoulder. And my hips. And my fucking everything.
And I’d do it again too… but not tonight. Tonight, I ice my everything.
I flopped back against the mattress, eyes fluttering shut again. Sleep tickled the back of my skull and threatened to take my consciousness away from me. I felt my ability to sit up slipping through my fingers. Why fight it? I dozed off. In and out of blurry images, mostly of the hazy woods, I bobbed in the sea of dreams until the scent of coffee broke through to me. My eyes fluttered open in time to catch Yuri setting a mug of coffee down on the side table. He bent at the waist, kissing my brow.
“How do you feel?” he murmured.
“Mmm, like I got wrestled by a gator in the woods,” I croaked.
“You did.” He smirked, kissing my forehead again. “Feel free to doze a bit longer; breakfast isn’t ready yet.”
Despite having been stuffed with cock then steak and roasted carrots, my stomach growled at the idea. “Blessings upon you, my gator.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “You’ve earned a little pampering. Girl like you could use the extra sleep.”
“Oh?” I pushed up my elbows, trying and failing to sit up. “And what kind of girl is that?”
“Mine,” he breathed, pushing me flat against the mattress. A fluttering of butterflies filled the cavity of my chest as he kissed me. He tugged on my lower lip for only a moment before pulling away. “I’ll be back when it’s ready.”
I nodded, breathless and melted goo in his bed as he turned away. My heart ached as I looked at the bedside table. A steaming cup of coffee? Breakfast I didn’t have to make? Warm bed, cozy blankets, and someone who wanted me the same as I wanted them? What kind of fantasy was this? I snuggled into the Yuri dent in the bed and let myself doze off again until the tell-tale thump of his tail warned me he was on his way.
I barely sat up in time for him to come around the corner of the doorframe. He glanced at me sitting up before taking a t-shirt out of a drawer. I expected him to toss it to me or set it aside until he stood in front of me. “Arms up, doll.”
A sputtering laugh fell out of my sleepy mouth as I raised my arms. He dropped the massive fabric over my arms and helped it fall to my waist. I shook my head. “I can dress myself, you know.”
“It’s not dressing, it’s… wrapping paper.” He snickered, nodding to the mug of coffee. “Grab it.”
I squinted at him suspiciously before taking up the mug and clutching its warmth to my chest. He scooped an arm under my legs and behind my back, plucking me from the warmth of the bed. I wanted to tell him I can walk too , but the flutter in my stomach silenced me. He looked proud of himself as he carted me from the bedroom to the living room. A huge fire crackled, slowly warming up the chilly cabin. Yuri gently placed me on the couch before sinking down beside me, his tail wrapped around my waist and rested on my thigh.
Touch it. My intrusive thoughts won without contest as I spared a hand to stroking it. It was hard but smooth, like all his scales were made of glossy river stones. It was heavier than I imagined. When I peeked up at him, Yuri was taking a huge sip of his coffee. Could he feel it? I stroked down the underside of his tail, and his eyes flickered to me. “Careful what you play with. Don’t know where it’ll lead.”
I smirked as he grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over my lap and his tail. Plates of food sat on the coffee table in front of us. Yuri leaned forward, and with a single claw to the lip of the coffee table, slowly craned the table up and toward us. My eyes widened as I realized the top of the coffee table was more ribcage level with me. “What! No way! Where’d you get this?”
“Made it myself.” He shrugged nonchalantly, taking up his fork and shoveling roasted potatoes into his mouth. I happily put my coffee onto the table and scooped up some of the eggs—fluffy, salty, savory, with cheese and peppers mixed in. I moaned happily. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head when I broke open a biscuit and the divine aroma of buttery, flakey layers hit my nose.
“You make a lot,” I teased, popping a layer out of the middle of my biscuit into my mouth. Perfection; even better than the ones out of a can! “I’m kind of shocked to find someone as self-sufficient as you. I’m an adult, but you make me feel like a bumbling teenager. I mean, I haven’t found a pile of dirty clothes, a single surface you haven’t cleaned, and your food is gobsmackingly good? Is there anything you can’t do?”
The look of a well-stroked ego on someone who’d never been complimented filled his face—a distinct surge of pride, like a preening peacock, feathers gloriously stroked back. And yet his eyes darted to me, as if he wasn’t sure I meant it or if I was joking. My heart ached as I leaned toward him. I left a sloppy, happy kiss on his cheek. Lingering, my lips brushing a splattering of hard scales running up his cheekbones, I reveled in how he melted toward me. I smiled, kissing down his cheek toward his ears. “Yuri, you’re amazing. You know that, right?”
He snorted, shaking his head. Playfully, he shoved me back onto the couch, staring at me from over his shoulder. “I am incapable of social interaction.”
“You interacted with me just fine.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
He opened his mouth, a claw jabbing in my direction. Then, after a long moment of silence, he glared at me and returned to his breakfast. I snorted, taking my victory where I could. Sure, he was grumpy, a curmudgeon maybe, but he was kindhearted. I’d take a grumpy heart of gold over a social butterfly with narcissistic tendencies any day.
We ate in relative silence, the crackling of the fireplace and the birds singing outside the cabin as the background music. I leaned against his arm, sipping on my coffee lazily. After breakfast was gone and my stomach threatened to burst, he put the table back down. Remote in hand, he pressed something, and two wooden panels on the wall parted to reveal a flat screen behind it.
“You make that too?” I shot him a teasing look .
“No, that’s the rich Texan. Nuts and bolts and hinges? I can do that. Wiring a television hidey-hole? I’ll fry my brains first before I get it to work.” He planted a kiss to my forehead before slipping to his feet. He pulled out a DVD player from a cabinet on the wall.
“So, is this what you do? You make tables and wood stuff for work?” I spread out along the couch, putting my head on the arm of the couch.
“Sometimes. Tim takes orders for me when people in town want something rustic or something fixed, or even if the hotels need something replaced. Most of the time, I hunt and either sell the butchered parts or make jerky. I don’t need much, as I’m almost ninety percent off the grid.” He plugged in the device and pulled one of the DVDs I made him borrow from the cabinet.
“My mom put me on her payroll without so much as askin’ me, so I’m now the admin slash secretary for the vet farm.” I studied his bare back. Unlike me, Yuri didn’t necessarily have to wear clothes. His back was a dark camouflage green, covered in those smooth but hard as steel scales. Three stripes of spine-like scales ran down from his back to halfway down his tail. When he turned, I ran my gaze up from his clawed toes to his collar. Softer, yellowish green belly scales ran from his pelvis to his throat, where the thicker hide scales covered his hefty legs.
Where’s the… Where does his… I knew it came from inside him, but looking at him, I couldn’t see the slit. It was well hidden .
Yuri crossed the room, plucking my torso from his side of the couch. His tail tucked back under the blanket, curling around every curve of my body before he laid my head against his thigh, a small pillow propping it up from his firm hide.
“Your ma’s probably just trying to take care of you. Plus, where else would you work?”
“I don’t even know. The last job I had was a diner waitress. I don’t exactly have work experience. Maybe it’s best I work for her,” I sighed, snuggling against his thigh. I draped an arm over his knee and traced the shape of his scales with my fingers thoughtlessly, running along all their groves and the dips between them, following them up and down the inside of his thigh.
“Well then why not work for her for a bit, figure things out one step at a time?” he offered as a movie came on over the inky screen.
“I guess. I just feel bad imposing like that. It’s bad enough I flew down here with no money, no plan, nothing but the clothes I could stuff in a suitcase.” My fingers slowed to a stop as I stared at the screen, not really seeing anything but the sidewalk outside my old house.
He sighed, pausing the movie. “I’m gonna regret asking this… But Dollface…what exactly happened?”
I rolled back, looking up at him. He dropped an arm to my side. Stroking my arm, then down to my knee and back up along the side of my torso, he watched me with concern. I blurted out, “Why would you regret it?”
“Tell me first, and I’ll tell you if I do or not?” He cocked a brow.
I rolled my eyes, chuckling softly. “There’s nothing to tell. Anthony didn’t love me, hasn’t loved me. The whole time we were married, I was so in love with him, and I…I was just another accessory to him. Like everything else, he got what he wanted, and he wanted everyone to praise him for marrying the poor country bumpkin with no chance at college, no chance at moving out, and no chance with someone like him. It’s like he forgot he was the new guy in town, his big shot father moving down here for a year to work on one of his many properties. I was the person who spoke to him first, who asked him out out of pity when he got turned down by one of the prettiest girls in town. I was just trying to be nice. And once upon a time, he was really charming—so funny, witty, always this big dramatic kid. He used to stand on picnic tables and proclaim his affection for me like some grand gesture.”
My heart crumbled a bit as I thought back to the man I fell in love with. Maybe at one point, he did love me as I was. He used to call me the sweetest girl in all of Oklahoma. Then, something changed.
I looked away, staring at the ceiling. “He asked me to go with him, said I could live with him in his big city apartment, that I wouldn’t have to work while he went to school. So I packed a bag and left my mother in a new town all by herself. I was so in love with the fantasy of being the perfect girlfriend and getting out there that I never imagined how wrong it could go. I never imagined that, one day, he’d stop caring for my silly antics, that when the honeymoon haze started to fade and I stopped brushing off the snide quips or the insults or the belittling comments, he wouldn’t change. I changed for him; the least he could do was treat me right. And so, I started standing up for myself. Then, I came home, and he was fucking my best friend he introduced me to in our bed… and had the audacity to act like I was being ridiculous.”
Yuri’s hand stopped on my hip and carefully squeezed it. I felt him tense, but I couldn’t stop the words flowing out of my mouth. “Before I knew it, he was handing me divorce papers, telling me to sign. I didn’t have any money to fight him, and he wasn’t fighting for me. He was trying to force me out like I was the toxic one. I guess I was in shock; I didn’t try for any of it. I let him keep the house, the dog, the cars, everything. I thought once he had everything back, maybe he’d just send me home like a broken, used toy, but… he didn’t. He threw a suitcase at me and told me I had an hour to pack clothes. Said he didn’t want me in his place anymore, knowin’ I had nowhere to go. Knowin’ I was confused and lost and scared. I didn’t know anyone there or have a backup or a job. And when I stumbled out the front door, he tripped me. I sat on that concrete, crying as he screamed at me that I was just some dumb, backwards country girl who should have felt lucky. And when I begged him… Yuri, I begged him to just let me stay in the guest room until I could get home, but he looked me dead in the eyes and told me to eat shit and die like my bucktoothed father.”
The sound of nails digging trenches in the wood filled the space. “He what?”
“I told him how when I was young, my dad left us, left my mom for someone better. He wanted nothing to do with us and moved out to California. I found out before I got married to Anthony that my father had gotten sick and tried to reach out. I didn’t pick up, didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I still don’t…but he died a few weeks later. Mom went to the funeral, but I couldn’t. He knew it stung. Anthony knew that would hurt me, and he still said it.” I finally glanced up at Yuri and found him staring down at me. Pain radiated out of his glowing yellow eyes, his nostrils flared. I expected him to be angry, but he was hurt, just as I was. My lower lip wobbled. A croaking sound escaped my throat before I could speak again. “So I grabbed that suitcase and ran. I booked a flight and didn’t look back. That’s why I’m a mess, Yuri. It’s why I feel bad imposing on my mom…because I was no better than dad. I left her for someone better and then had the audacity to try and crawl back to her.”
“Oh, Doll,” he whispered, cupping the side of my head with his other hand. “That’s not even close to the same.”
I hiccupped. “It feels the same.”
“Sweet thing, you’re her daughter. You followed your heart and it got broken. Who else are you supposed to limp home to? Take it from the lonely orphan, parents are supposed to be your safe haven. They’re parents.” He stroked his thumb against my cheek, his eyes softly studying my face.
“What?” I popped my head up, shifting to be on my other side. “Yuri?”
He glanced at the cabin, letting out a heavy exhale before returning his gaze to me. “It’s not really a secret. My parents died in a fire when I was in middle school. Freddie Carter, the deputy who rolled up yesterday to accost us? About four months after my parents died, a bunch of us kids went to the lake out in the woods. My babysitter, Mellie Smith? She showed up with the biggest kids, including Freddie. She babysat me for years, and when she sat beside me at the lake, we talked. I was just a scared, scrawny little twerp then. I told her I missed them, actually started to cry, so she hugged me. Freddie didn’t like that.”
“Laying your hands on a girl who doesn’t belong to you,” I breathed, parroting the words Freddie used at the gas station.
“Precisely.” He shook his head. “Freddie told everyone to get out. Grabbed me by the back of the head and tossed me pizza style into the center of the lake. I started screaming for help. A bunch of teenagers watched from the edge of the lake as Freddie jumped in…and tried to drown me. Over and over, he dunked me under the water. I guess they were all scared, but they just watched. I couldn’t swim. I was scared and very concerned with death. I made a wish, and the woods granted it. I never meant to claw his eye out, but he didn’t stop trying to dunk me until my claws grew out, and I swiped at him. I broke for the edge of the lake, and Tim scrambled to get me into town. At some point, they put me in foster care, but I never stayed in anyone’s house long enough to remember their names. I just kept circling the town until I was old enough to hide out here in the woods.”
My heart sank. As I reached up to cup his face, his eyes closed. He leaned into my touch, sighing dreamily. I smiled warmly. “It’s hard imagining you small.”
He barked out a laugh. I could hear it from his stomach. “Ha!” He shook his head before nuzzling his cheek to my palm. A quivering breath brushed down the inside of my wrist. “I’m sorry if that story paints me in a bad light.”
“I would never judge you for that. If anyone ever does, you tell me, and I’ll kick in their teeth! Is that why people are scared of you? Freddie ought to be in jail! Not a cop! How fuckin-” A massive hand came over my mouth as he rumbled with laughter. I slowly calmed my rampage, fury pumping through my veins.
“No one has really ever gone to bat for me, Dollface, so don’t think I don’t wholly appreciate it. I do. In fact, it really… it’s really nice to know you’d defend me without even knowing the whole story. But that’s just the way things are sometimes. I’m okay. At eighteen, I walked into the woods, found this cabin with a note nailed to the door for me from some rich Texan.”
“What?” I squinted at him, my voice still muffled in his hand .
“I told you, the woods will grant your wishes, but it’s never what you expect. So, here I am, the gator of the woods. I’m not the only one out here. There’s a witch around the bend who pays for my saliva to make salve. I have some around here, works wonders. Oh.” He glanced down at me, eyes roaming my body. “Shit.”
I cocked a brow as he leaned over the side of the couch, rummaging through the drawer. Then, with a victorious ah-ha, he leaned back toward me with a glass jar. I eyed it. “Magic gator saliva salve?”
“I forgot I had it, or else I would have put it on your foot that night… but I know where it can go right now.”
His tail brushed between my calves, stroking up the inside of my thigh. My breath hitched in my throat as Yuri carefully rotated me, roasted chicken on a spike style, until I was facing the television again. He flipped the blanket off me, reaching down to his own tail. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but the slick sounds of him stroking something between my knees was oddly… erotic? I couldn’t tell if my curiosity was making my stomach flip or if it was the feeling of his palm brushing up the seam of my leg. Yuri placed the jar down on the table, still open. The soft scent of shea butter and coconut filled the air as his salve-covered fingers brushed along my skin.
One of his hands stroked up and down my leg in a sweet motion while the other brushed along my cheek then dove under my head and down the front of the shirt. My eyes rolled back in my head at the tender touch of his fingers around my nipples. I hadn’t realized they ached until the salve soothed them. They’d taken a small beating—being fucked into the ground wasn’t easy on my anything.
He started with my knees, which I knew were bruised. His palm stroked around them, circling them both tenderly. A hearty groan came from my mouth as I sank back against him. Yuri slowly brought my left knee back until it was resting against the back of the couch. His fingers brushed up my thigh, applying soft touches to the scratches and bruises I’d gotten from being chased in the dark. Inch by inch, with the delicious feeling of his fingers teasing my nipples, his other hand trailed up to my aching cunt.
Swollen wasn’t even a good descriptor—I was needy, desperate, and yet bruised, stinging from not being stretched properly. His knuckles brushed against my slit, and waves of cool, soft bliss rolled over me as he stroked my lips. Tentatively, he spread my lips apart. I hissed lightly. Yuri said nothing as he dipped a salve-coated finger between my curls. At first, he ran it along the inside of my slit, soothing everywhere he went. Then, I moaned at the feeling of him slipping his finger deep inside me with a retracted claw. He curled it, pressing into my walls. He repeated the motion, moving out, circling my entrance, slipping in, curling his finger to another side of me. I arched my back, only to have the hand teasing my nipples press me back.
“How comfortable are you…with me?” His breathy question filled the air as I felt the tip of his tail lick across my slit .
My mouth cracked open as I twisted to look up at him. He stroked the inside of my thigh as his tail teased me. He would slip through my wet lips and test the depths of my cunt without diving in all the way, waiting for me, expectant eyes watching me as I slowly nodded. “Very.”
Inch by inch, his slick tail slid into me, coated heavily in the salve, and I descended into an ocean of soothing bliss. I closed my eyes, letting him take his time, a steady build as his tail sank in further before slipping back out. Mewls of delight trickled from my throat. He pinched my nipple before soothing it with gentle circles. I was floating, my soul having already left my corpse behind. Endorphins, lazy and sleepy, filled my skull, and I was gone. The hand stroking my thigh slipped down to my curls after a while, and I hardly noticed until he picked up the pace circling my clit.
It felt like ages, glorious, agonizing ages before my orgasm was upon me. We stayed there, tangled together, with the soft murmur of some movie in the background. His name fell from my mouth with heavy puffs of air. Goosebumps covered every inch of my skin. I peeled my eyes open to catch him mesmerized by his tail disappearing inside me before lazily slipping out. My insides clenched up at the sight, and I whimpered his name again as his gaze fell to me. His hidden smile graced his features, showing me just a hint of razor-sharp teeth. “Close?”
I nodded weakly, toes curling into tight balls .
“Come for me, Aurora,” he purred, pinching my other nipple. I whimpered, making noise but not words as my world spiraled. Everything inside me fluttered, and Yuri groaned as I gripped his tail over and over, like I could wring every drop from it. “Fuck yes, Aurora. That’s my girl.”
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, I was comfortably draped in his arms, catching the last five minutes of some movie. Yuri was muttering to himself about how it didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t aimed at me. Instead, he continued to subconsciously stroke my side. Coffee mixed with the scent of the salve, covering up the metallic notes of a fire long since gone out.
This isn’t what I expected, but fuck, if it isn’t better than anything I could have wished for…