Page 34 of A Brighter Yellow
“I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You make wolf faces at me. I’m glad you understand, but can you use your words?”
He pursed his lips, reconsidering the previous times that she’d yelled at him for speaking wolf. “I don’t think I’m talking wolf.”
“Yes, I swear you are.”
“I think I’m just…” He paused, uncertain how this was going to go over. “I think I’m just talking directly to your brain, and it comes across as wolf because that’s your native language.”
“What? Really? Like you’re thinking thoughts to my head?”
“They’re not words, though, are they? That’s probably also why it reads as wolf. Like you said, wolf isn’t really a language.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did I,” he said. “I’m sorry you thought I was second-guessing you. I was trying to be helpful.”
“I thought you believed I was stupid,” she said in a small voice.
Her pain hurt him. Ochre pulled her into him, trying to squish all his heart into her at once. Anna giggled. “I like that you think hugging is the answer to me feeling bad.”
“I can stop,” he said. Although, again, he really wasn’t sure he could.
“I don’t want you to,” said Anna. She relaxed into him with a happy little sigh. “You feel really good. And you smell good.” She turned her head, burying her face into the crook of his neck, and inhaled. “And you taste good.” She licked his neck slowly, like he’d licked hers, and he shivered.
“Do I?” he murmured, trying not to grin. “What about this? Does this feel good?” He pushed her tank-top up with one hand while he kissed her and then ran his thumb over her nipple. She made a little growl and nipped at his earlobe, and then she did something no one else had ever done—she licked the pointed tip of his ear. He froze as her tongue sent a sizzling arc of fire down his spine.
“No?” she asked, sounding nervous.
He pushed upwards, but only so he could get her back on the ground. He grabbed the edge of her shorts and yanked them down or up or whatever the hell he needed to do to get them off of her.
“Yay!” she squeaked with a delighted giggle as her shorts disappeared into the dark.
He stripped out of his boxers and dropped down on top of her with a laugh. He loved her joy. She wrapped her long legs around him, pulling him in tight with a happy growl. She felt so perfect. It felt so damn right to be making out in the woods with her that he couldn’t help but laugh again. Which turned out to be a mistake as she rolled him and held him down, running her tongue over his chest before sinking down onto his cock. He groaned with a delirious sense of satisfaction as she settled her weight on top of him.
“Ochre,” she moaned, making a little howl out of his name. He grabbed her hips, feeling her rhythm and letting it take over. She felt so tight and wet and perfect that he had to hold himself back from rutting into her like a crazed beast. She pushed on his chest, arching back as she rode him. Moonlight smoothed the planes of her body, outlining her breasts and thighs. He wanted to capture the moment and live in it for eternity.
She pushed harder, and her rhythm faltered, but when she looked down at him, her eyes seemed to glow with a blue fire.
“Ochre,” she moaned, her head tossing back, her voice a guttural growl. It was now his turn to keep the time. He pushed her knee out and pulled her down, rocking his hips in as they came down, and she let out a sharp gasp. “Oh, God, yes!”
He grinned in the dark. He knew exactly what she needed. He felt their connection like an electric current: hot gold, red, and yellow. Ochre drove into her, and he knew when she was going to come, so he held himself back, waiting for the moment. They both teetered there on the brink, and then he gave in, and they came together, clinging to each other, lost and together in each other’s arms.
Episode 17
People for the Trees
Ochre
Ochre wanted to wrap his arms around Anna. He wanted to forget Charlie and the rest of the world, go back to the stupid trailer, crawl back into bed, and follow through on his original instinct—lick her all over. He knew that wasn’t the correct answer. He had dutifully gotten up, performed the cleansing rituals that kept him from getting migraines from all the human technology, and allowed Anna to drag him off to the People for the Trees office on the ridiculous motorcycle that made Anna smile and drive fast. But now that he was here, he was having difficulty focusing on anything with Anna standing next to him. Ochre took a deep breath and concentrated on what Steve was saying. Despite or maybe because of his obvious crush on Anna, Steve was helpful, and Ochre didn’t want to take that for granted.
“OK,” said Steve, “so basically what we’ve got is a World War II-era military bunker that was decommissioned and sold during the eighties and then privately owned by some yahoo who wanted to turn it into an atomic bomb theme park. Eventually, he died, and his heirs put the property on the market. It bounced around a couple of times with developers but never made it past the planning stage. Finally, about a year and a half ago, it got sold to someone new. We pulled the title on the property. The owner is a guy named Brett Hubbard. Apparently, he used to be some sort of financial bigshot on Wallstreet, but two years ago, he left New York and came out here.”
Ochre looked at the picture on Steve’s laptop screen. Brett Hubbard’s picture looked like standard-issue Wallstreet bro—expensive suit, sandy blond hair, veneers, tan, and fake smile. Steve flashed to the following image, probably stolen from social media, and Ochre blinked. The hair had grown out, and both the tan and smile had faded. He was clutching a Pabst Blue Ribbon and glared at the camera with a dissatisfied expression.
“He hasn’t paid taxes, though,” continued Steve. “He’s been filing as a religious organization. Something called…” he checked his notes, “the Temple of the Unified Vision.”
Anna growled.
