“Still shaky?” a deep voice said behind me.
I spun on my heel, keys between my fingers as I prepared to fight for my life. But instead my gaze came to rest on Keiran standing under the light of the streetlamps, his eyes throwing a green-ish reflection back at me. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a black tank top, his fur still damp from the pool.
“Sorry,” he said immediately, holding his hands up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I felt my panic recede. However, it was quickly replaced with a strange sort of excitement. “Were… were you waiting for me?”
Kieran reached up, scratching the fur between his ears. “I… yeah. Yeah I guess I was.”
He looked almost shy, which was bizarre given his massive frame and the dominant creature he'd been inside. The contrast was strangely endearing.
"Why?" I asked, genuinely curious. This wasn't how things worked at the bathhouse. You fucked, you left, you never saw each other again. That was the unspoken rule.
Kieran shifted his weight, his claws clicking softly against the pavement. "I don't usually do this," he admitted, his deep voice rumbling in the quiet parking lot. "But there was something about you... I couldn't just walk away. Not without trying at least.”
I leaned against my car, partly because my legs were still trembling from our encounter, partly to appear more casual than I felt. "You mean besides the fact that I could take your knot?"
His muzzle pulled back in what might have been a smile. "That was impressive, but no. It's more than that." He took a step closer, and I caught his scent again, musky, wild, intoxicating. "You smell…rightto me."
"I smell right?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow. "What does that even mean?"
Kieran ran a massive paw through the fur on his head, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. "It's a wolf thing. Hard to explain to humans. But when I scented you in that sauna... something clicked." He shrugged, his massive shoulders rising and falling. "I just wanted to see if maybe you'd like to get coffee sometime. Or dinner. Something that doesn't involve me fucking you senseless in a pool."
I couldn't help but laugh at his bluntness. "Though that was pretty fantastic."
"It was," he agreed, his amber eyes gleaming in the dim light. "But I'd like to know more about you than just how you sound when you cum. If you’d like.”
I should have said no. This went against everything the bathhouse represented, the anonymity, the no-strings-attached encounters, the clear separation between pleasure and real life. But something about Kieran made me hesitate.
"I don't usually do this either," I said slowly. "The whole... dating thing."
"Who said anything about dating?" Kieran replied, though his eyes betrayed his hope. "Maybe I just want to see if you're as interesting with clothes on as you are with them off."
I snorted. "Smooth."
"I try." He took another step forward, close enough now that I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. "So what do you say? Coffee? Tomorrow? Or is that too soon after I've been inside you twice?"
The crude reminder sent a shiver through me, my body remembering the exquisite fullness of him. "Coffee sounds good," I heard myself say before I could overthink it. "But you're buying. I think you owe me after what you did to my ass."
Kieran's laugh was deep and genuine, showing off his impressive fangs. "Fair enough." Then he paused for a moment, shifting nervously.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I uh… I was just wondering…” He took a deep breath. “Can… Can I kiss you?”
The question caught me off guard. After everything we'd done in the bathhouse, after he'd claimed me so thoroughly, a simple kiss felt strangely intimate. More personal somehow than the raw, primal fucking we'd shared.
"Yeah," I whispered, my voice barely audible in the quiet parking lot. "You can kiss me."
Kieran's massive paws came up to cup my face with surprising gentleness, his claws retracted so only the soft pads of his fingers touched my skin. He had to lean down considerably to reach me, his muzzle brushing against my lips in a tender exploration that was nothing like the dominant creature who'd knotted me twice.
His lips were softer than I'd expected, warm and careful as they moved against mine. There was no urgency, no desperate claiming, just a sweet connection that made my chest tighten in ways that had nothing to do with physical arousal. When his tongue swept across my lower lip, I opened for him willingly, tasting something wild and clean that was purely him.
The kiss deepened slowly, his tongue exploring my mouth with the same thoroughness he'd shown my body, but with infinite more patience. One of his paws slid down to rest against my chest, over my racing heart, while the other remained cradled against my cheek.
When we finally broke apart, I was breathless for entirely different reasons than I'd been in the bathhouse. Kieran rested his forehead against mine, his amber eyes searching my face.
"Definitely coffee," I said, my voice rough with emotion I wasn't ready to examine.
