Free Immortal Becoming by Wendy S. Hales

penetration, to truly appreciate the gift he had just been given by this exceptional creature.
    “You dropped your shields, Beauty,” Shane confided. “That in and of itself was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.” She sucked in her breath. He felt her shield rise immediately. Expected though it was, he felt some disappointment at the expulsion. “Did you expect it to be so painful?”
    She shifted, placing her arms crisscrossed on his chest with her chin on her wrists, and looked into his eyes. Her hair fanned out across his abdomen. She took his breath away.
    “I thought it would hurt worse.” She released a long sigh, and then went silently contemplative. “Remember when I mentioned that I killed the last man I saw naked?” He nodded, instinctively knowing she needed to reveal this secret in her own way and time. He held a lock of her hair between his fingers, rubbing its softness between his thumb and forefinger, waiting for her to continue.
    “Well,” she began, but her voice cracked and she softly cleared her throat before continuing. “I was ten years old when my mom … when she died.” Her expression reflected some of the horror she’d witnessed. His empathic nature was partially blocked by her shields. He wanted to ask how her mother had died and a million other questions to help him solve the puzzle of Jess, yet he knew she needed to do this her own way. He smothered his curiosity, relaxed, and let her unfold for him.
    “Ok, I need to just say this so … shit … here goes.” She sat up, holding the sheet to her breasts, with her back to him so he was unable to see her face. He reached out to rub her back. His heart leapt with the small distance she’d put between them. He needed to touch her, to feel connected to her even if she felt she couldn’t face him while she confided her secrets.
    She took a deep, bracing breath. “My father killed my mother. I walked in right after he had done it. He still had the knife in his hand, her blood dripping off the tip. They say he snapped somehow. When they took him away, he went willingly, moved when directed. They say he has never spoken again. When I became an adult I thought about going to see him in the mental hospital, but I never did. I changed my name instead and distanced myself from him even further. I was grateful they put him in a hospital.”
    Her voice shook but she continued on. “I was just a little girl. I was supposed to testify at his hearing. When they declared him incompetent, I was off the hook.” She paused, her guilt so powerful he could feel it through the shields.
    A few more moments of silence passed before she spoke again. “I went into the foster system after that. The first home they placed me into was a few blocks away from the Ryu.” She glanced over her shoulder at him to add. “That is the name of my martial arts school.” Wondering how alone she must have felt then, he nodded. The officers had announced her credentials prior to her arrival. They had stated she was the sensei and owner of one of the most premier martial-arts studios in the state.
    Jess gave him a small smile that did not reach her eyes before turning away again. “Every day after school I would stop and watch the classes being taught by Sensei Yamamoto, Jirou is his name. His brother was Shihan, and Aymee’s father. Anyway, I would watch. Then I would go home and practice what I saw until I could do it just like they did. I wanted to mimic the teachers, not the students.”
    He could hear some pride in her voice, and he grinned at the mental image of her as a little girl making karate chops in her yard. “The Yamamotos must have noticed my attention. One day they invited me into the class for a free lesson.” Her love of these instructors seeped into her tone. “The first time they asked I ran away, but eventually I found the courage to go in. They ohhh’d and ahhh’d at all I had learned from them without ever taking a class. They