The cold touch she felt on her cheek traveled to the side of Kat’s head, gliding over her bump in soothing circles. “There, there, dear. No sense in hurting yourself over a bit of a misunderstanding.”
She wasn’t going to question the presence of the “being” or woman or whatever. It probably was a ghost for all she knew. Heart’s Haven sure did put the “para” in paranormal, didn’t they?
Kat closed her eyes and the calming scent of lavender filled the air. She sighed. “It’s a bit more than a misunderstanding. She didn’t tell me about the water.”
The ghost clucked her tongue… or something. “You’re not going to let a bit of water get the best of you, are you? I’m sure your parents—”
“I don’t have parents. Not the kind you’re talking about anyway.” The ghost was heading into dangerous waters if she expected Kat to discuss her younger years.
“I see. Well, I’m sure whatever mother you had, she taught you to be brave—”
“Look, ma’am, ghost, person. My adopted parents taught me I was a freak, nothing more, nothing less, and being abandoned by my real parents taught me that life disappoints. While I appreciate you trying to help me make the passing without scratching the other passengers’ eyes out, I’d appreciate a little bit of time to myself.” The cold touch remained, sliding from her head to cup her cheek and Kat swore the ghost feathered a kiss across her brow. “Please,” Kat managed to choke out. She just wanted to be left alone.
“Very well, Katerina Antonia Pawslowski. But know that if your mother had lived, she would have loved you, deeply.”
Tears burned Kat’s eyes and she blinked them back.
Stupid ghost and its ability to read my mind. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Will clutched the vial, squeezing it just short of its breaking point as the need to throw the offending piece of glass across the room built. Again! Again, he’d failed.
Months and months had passed, yet he and Monty still hadn’t perfected their formula. Hell, this incarnation of their experiment was better suited to acting as a lubricant than a Felidae aphrodisiac.
Really, lover?
It figured Monty would only pick up on that aspect of Will’s day. The man hadn’t bothered checking to see how the experiments were going. No. Monty popped by to make a mess of the lab, steal a few kisses, and then flit away like a bird, off to do God only knew what.
Monty had been an attentive scientist and lover when they’d arrived. The two of them worked side-by-side long into the night, working toward their goal. Sexnip. Well, at least that’s what Monty wanted to call their eventual creation, but how could
they
create it when Will was the only one working?
Then again, when Monty did bother to show up, he only managed to practically demolish the lab with his bags of chips, soft drink cans and just general mess.
Easing his grip on the vial, he replaced it on the rack. He shook his head at one failed experiment after another lined up before him. And this was only today’s experiments. Will wasn’t sure how much longer Heart’s Haven Toys would allow such obvious failure to continue.
He and Monty had been hired for a purpose and still the two of them couldn’t fulfill their promise. They seemed to be only good for one thing nowadays and that act had absolutely nothing to do with supercharged catnip.
I don’t know, lover, maybe it does.
Monty again. Sometimes Will hated the link that kept them tethered to one another. Maybe hated was too strong a word, but sometimes he wanted to be the only one in his head.
No you don’t, Monty.
Maybe I do. Maybe you don’t know me…
Eyes closed and concentrating on projecting his thoughts to his gallivanting lover, Will didn’t hear the door open or Monty enter the lab, but the rumble of his voice so near to his ear was unmistakable. “I know you just as well as you know me, Will. Intimately and without any superficial walls that others erect. Why are you taking out your frustration in the lab on us? On me?”
Will didn’t open his eyes, too ashamed at Monty’s words. He had been taking his frustrations in the lab out on their relationship, but if Monty would just… Shaking his head, he cut the thought off before it could finish forming. “We came here together, Monty, to create the ultimate catnip and all I’ve… we’ve created is some glorified lubricant.” He ran a finger over vial after vial of today’s failures.
“Why don’t you say what you really think, Will?” Monty fitted his front to Will’s back, hands braced on either side of him. Will was trapped by Monty’s body. He could feel Monty’s breath, the heat of his mouth along his neck. He jerked when his lover nibbled his ear. “Why don’t you say those thoughts out loud?”
Monty pushed and prodded, it’s what he did. He never would let Will wallow in his own thoughts for long without forcing him to say the words out loud. His excuse had always been that he cared and didn’t want things to fester and grow too big for them to handle. Will worried that things had already grown too far.
Monty leaned more of his weight on Will, his hardened cock fitting easily between the cheeks of Will’s khaki-covered ass. Oh, to have him now would be heaven. They hadn’t made love…
“Not yet, not until you say the words. Get it out, Will. Now.” His lover ended on a growl and firm bite to Will’s neck.
“You’re never here.” He began slowly, not sure of how Monty would react. They’d often played and exchanged power, but Monty’s teeth were on his neck and he felt so exposed… vulnerable.
“Uh huh. What else?” His lover released his hold and laved the tender spot. Will relaxed a little.
“You don’t help me. Haven’t helped with the experiments for at least a month.” Will swallowed hard. “When you do show up, you destroy the lab with your garbage and then I have more work to do each morning or night, just cleaning up after you.” He paused, taking a breath, drawing a bit of courage and strength from his wolf who resolutely told him he was on his own. “I feel like I’m completely alone here except when you want to fuck. I feel like that’s all I’m good for to you.” It was done. He’d spoken his heart and revealed the piece he’d kept hidden from his lover for months.
Monty’s teasing licks halted. While he still remained as a constant pressure against Will’s backside, his body had gone rigid. Will could feel the rise and fall of his lover’s chest, deep even breaths.
“That’s all you’re good for?” His lover’s voice had turned from slightly teasing to a growling baritone. Menacing, taunting, frightening.
Monty’s tanned hands left the counter to grip Will’s shoulders and his lover spun him around. Their heated gazes met. Monty looked ready to strike and Will was ready to defend. He’d been left. Left to muddle through the lab on his own while his lover worked on deepening his tan and working out in the company’s gym.
“That’s not all you’re good for!” Monty pushed against his chest and Will’s ass struck the edge of the counter. “That’s all
I’m
good for, you asshole. I can’t get you to leave this damned lab, and every time I come in you gripe about the mess I make. The only thing I seem to do right with you is fuck. So, I leave you alone to your lab and come begging for attention like a pup.” Monty crowded him, not giving Will anywhere to run and hide from the partial truth. Hell, the whole truth.
Monty closed the distance between them, his lips hovering a hair’s breadth from Will’s, and Will ached to capture his lover’s lips. He wouldn’t though. The constant return to sex was slowly undoing them and the last thing Will would ever do was end what they shared.
Monty took the choice away from him, capturing Will’s lips in a heated kiss, and Will responded immediately. He opened for his lover, letting Monty plunge his tongue deep into his mouth to explore everything. Monty sucked and licked Will’s lips.
Will grabbed his lover’s hips, pulling him closer, pressing their pelvises together, and he moaned at the hardness he felt there. Monty, hard for him and only him, his Monty. He moaned when Monty sucked hard at his tongue before wrenching his lips away. And then Will did something he’d never done—he whimpered.
Monty cupped his cheek, a thumb sliding over Will’s lower lip. “Seems we haven’t been communicating, yeah?”
Will nodded. For all their ability to read each other’s thoughts, they hadn’t been talking. Neither really knew what the other was thinking regardless of their powers. A passing thought and deep-seated feelings were two entirely different things. “Yeah. Seems not.”
Monty rocked his hips against him, their erections grinding against each other, straining for contact.
“Don’t, Mont.” Will dropped his head back with a low moan. They needed to
talk,
not fuck. Talk. Will had been hard the moment his lover’s voice entered his mind. It had always been that way with them. Lust had never been the problem. Sexually, they were compatible in so
many
ways. It’s just… they were both
men.
Men who didn’t share and expected everything to work out.
“Want to, Wills.” Monty reached for his belt and Will didn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop him now. His cock ached and balls were drawn up tight. Whatever Monty had planned, Will was game.
In a flash Will’s pants were unbuckled, zipper down, and his khakis were pooled at his feet. Will expected to bottom to his lover as he often did, but Monty surprised him by sinking to his knees, bare skin making contact with the hard tile.
“What?” Will didn’t have a chance to utter more than the quick question.
Monty opened his mouth wide, enveloping Will in his moist heat and sucking hard on the tip of his cock. Unbidden, Will rose up onto his toes, unwilling to lose the utter heaven of having Monty’s mouth on his cock when his lover tried to retreat.
Eyes rolling into the back of his head, he sighed when Monty took the not-so-subtle hint and swallowed more of his shaft. “Mmm… Perfect. So good, Mont.”
His lover moaned his agreement and the vibrations traveled through Will’s cock, sliding and dancing along every nerve ending straight to his balls. Oh, fuck yeah.
This was heaven on earth. More than heaven on earth really. Normally, Monty topped Will, which he was fine with. He enjoyed a nice hard cock in his ass, but sometimes, it felt nice to be savored and catered to, like now.
Monty cupped Will’s balls, tugging and squeezing the heavy globes between his legs. The oncoming orgasm surged forward and he almost spilled his seed down his lover’s throat. Almost.
It was another near spill when Monty brought both of his hands into play. He continued to knead and squeeze Will’s sac while he stroked his cock in time with the sliding of his mouth over Will’s shaft.
“Close, Mont.” Gripping the counter for support, Will rocked his hips forward and back, making love to his man’s mouth. The suction increased, and Will felt the telltale tingles of release dance along his spine. He jerked his hips when Monty pressed his tongue into the slit at the tip of his cock.
New. All of this was new and old at the same time. They hadn’t loved like this in… Damn, forever.
Monty crooned low in his throat as he took him deep, deeper than before. The tip of Will’s cock nudged the back of Monty’s throat and Monty swallowed around him, the muscles massaging his near bursting erection.
Will’s knees nearly gave way when Monty stroked his perineum. The tender skin just behind his balls was so, so sensitive and his lover knew just where to stroke. He held fast to the counter, not wanting a sudden fall to ruin this exquisite moment.
Monty sucked harder, stroked and teased, seeming to beg for Will’s release, and he was glad to give it to him. Letting go of the tenuous hold on his control, Will allowed the orgasm that had been threatening surge forth. With a jerk of his hips, Will came, roaring his release and pleasure to the entire building. His seed burst from his cock and his lover swallowed every drop, throat convulsing around the end of his shaft with every spurt of semen.
Their link, open as always, showered Will with the pleasure Monty felt at swallowing his release. Since they hadn’t shared many moments like this, Will had tensed just before coming down his lover’s throat, but had done it anyway. How many times had Will been submissive to Monty? How many times had he swallowed his lover’s come?
Many times, lover. Many times.
With a long, lingering lick, Monty cleaned Will’s now flaccid cock and released him before rolling to his feet, tugging Will’s pants up as he rose. Still blown over by his climax, Will didn’t move as his lover tucked him back into his pants and zipped him up.
Monty pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his lips before pulling back and meeting Will’s gaze, a look of serious intent in his eyes. “That’s what we’re missing.”
“Missing? We’re not missing anything.”
Will tried to push past Monty, but he wouldn’t have it and held him fast. “Yes, we are. Other than communication, we’re missing a balance in dominance. I’m an alpha wolf as are you. You’re slightly weaker and my wolf recognizes that and
has
to dominate our sexual relationship. It
has
to, Wills.”
Will nodded. They hadn’t ever spoken openly about their positions in their relationship, but Will knew he spoke the truth. While they were both alphas, Will was the weaker of the two. “You’re right. Can’t we take turns—”
Monty shook his head. “No. You know that’s a temporary fix. You know it and I know it.”
Will looked away, no longer able to meet the scrutinizing gaze of his lover, his link mate. Monty wouldn’t allow him to avoid the truth. He gripped Will’s chin and turned his head forcibly to look at him. “You know what we need. You know what we have to do if our mating is to survive.”
He knew, of course he knew. Will’s own fathers had eventually come to the conclusion Monty had already drawn. They needed a third. Man or woman, it didn’t matter; their wolves would sense the third. Their third mate would bond the three of them together in harmony. While a wolf didn’t consciously seek out another link mate, it would if the survival of its current bond depended on bringing in another partner.