Little Wolf (68 page)

Tim licked Nathaniel’s Adam’s apple, so pleased with that answer he licked as far down Nathaniel’s chest as he could while remaining in his lap. “I guess you should check my pocket, then.” Tim scraped his teeth over Nathaniel’s nipple to make him jump, then straightened. He got a starry yet suspicious stare, but a moment later Nathaniel ran both hands over Tim’s front pockets.

“I stopped to check on Robin’s Egg on my way here… maybe pick up a few things.” Tim hummed, anxious but trying to hide it as Nathaniel pulled out the tube of lubricant. “You should have seen Carl’s face.” That was easier to talk about than admitting Tim had known he wanted to stay with Nathaniel before he’d ever set foot in this office. Nathaniel met his gaze. Tim tightened his mouth. “What? I’m a were too, and I know what I want. And what I want is my mate making damn sure I’m staying and—”

“Fuck!” Tim finished when he found himself flat on his back with Nathaniel above him. “Yeah, this is good too.” He was loud, but Tim bit down hard on his lip and tried not to wriggle too much at the way Nathaniel was looking at him. “Oh, fuck yes.” A lesser wolf might be embarrassed or to give Nathaniel a hand. A lesser wolf wouldn’t have had Nathaniel Neri taking off his shoes and pulling his jeans away for him.

He licked his lips and nearly moaned when Nathaniel took his time stripping off his own pants. Tim wrapped himself, legs, arms, around Nathaniel when Nathaniel lowered himself down onto him and then sank his teeth into Nathaniel’s earlobe for good measure. He hit his head on the arm of the couch as he dropped it back to expose the line of his neck. Nathaniel’s breath ghosted over him, and then there was Nathaniel’s mouth, leaving loving, wild marks in Tim’s soft skin, replacing all traces of what Luca had done.

Tim arched up, tried to, and couldn’t stifle a groan. One of his feet hit the floor with a thump. Nathaniel pulled away, movements slow and heavy, and Tim curved a hand to the nape of Nathaniel’s neck to keep him there. He held his breath, and the next kiss came to the other side of his throat, where the red line from the torn-away necklace was thickest. Tim shut his eyes. His little cries didn’t ease the ache in him, so he turned his head toward the couch and held on to Nathaniel tighter. Nathaniel’s weight kept him down, held him, and it should have scared him. But Tim didn’t want to go anywhere else.

“Yeah,” he ordered, mouth below Nathaniel’s ear, “don’t let me go.” He wriggled to get their bodies together and shuddered in pleasure at how easy it was for Nathaniel to pin him down. He tasted need on Nathaniel’s skin, a need Nathaniel wasn’t voicing, although he was shaking with it. He wanted to make Tim stay. He wanted it more than he wanted anything, except maybe Tim himself. “Did you want to make me stay?” Tim realized out loud, then stilled.

Nathaniel froze as well, his muscles shivering under Tim’s palms.

“You did,” Tim exhaled, hot with the memory of them on the porch of the cabin and how Nathaniel had had to distance himself. “How close were you to claiming me? How many times?” Nathaniel could have done it. Tim was so fucked-up he probably wouldn’t have cared until later as long as he’d gotten laid. Tim was still fucked-up, but knowing that Nathaniel had come close to losing control for him, that Nathaniel had been desperate enough to entertain the idea, was incredible.

“Do it now. I know what it means now. Do it.” Tim’s heart was already racing. He bared his throat again, pointedly, barely able to keep from moving. Nathaniel’s hand slid down to Tim’s hip, pushed him to the couch. Tim caught his breath, but then Nathaniel’s mouth was at his throat, at the vein, tasting everything but fear. Nathaniel growled, short and surprised, and waited for Tim’s fingers to curl tensely into the skin over his shoulder blade before he bit down. He broke the skin. Tim tensed and pushed up, or tried to, but there was a firm weight keeping him right where he was. Sharp, sharp pain and then pounding heat, the pleasure so much sharper because Tim couldn’t fight it. That deep, the bite would linger, would scar. People would know.

Nathaniel licked over the sore, broken skin until Tim whimpered, then left another bite, gentler. Tim’s eyes burned, but he didn’t move except to moan and strain against him. The second bite hurt, bright and hot, but then Nathaniel slid a hand to Tim’s cock, and Tim realized he was shaking and trying not to come. He didn’t care if it was messed-up. It made his heart pound and it made Nathaniel lose control enough to bite down harder. Tim scrabbled at his shoulders and moaned for the scratches he was probably leaving. He couldn’t stop his hands and didn’t want to.

He saw, felt, red, like heat and fire, like blood throbbing through him to Nathaniel’s mouth, but despite the pain Tim had never been so aroused. He clenched his jaw, but it didn’t stop him from whining, moaning, pleading for another. Nathaniel kept him down and gave it to him until Tim opened his legs wider and dug grooves into Nathaniel’s back. Then Nathaniel pulled away, his face warm over Tim’s sore, feverish skin, his breathing rough and wonderful. He pressed his closed lips over the bruises he’d left, the single, permanent bite mark, and Tim felt his tense muscles relax.

“So this is mated,” he remarked thickly, quietly, while Nathaniel kissed the fresh marks over and over again. It felt like running through a grassy field on all fours, the air wild and Big Wolf rumbling alongside him. They’d been mated then too. Tim just hadn’t known.

Nathaniel headed down, exhaling carefully over Tim’s stomach, the scabbed-over claw wounds, the dried blood. He darted out his tongue as if it was the only thing he could think to do to make it better, and Tim traced the lines between Nathaniel’s shoulder blades from his claws. He traced his marks, surprised to see he’d drawn blood too, left scars of his own, and shivered violently as he touched his throat.

Tim let his head loll to the side and panted for the strong hands on his thighs, panted harder for those hands on his cock, at his ass. But when he whined and bit his lip and tried to get his hips up, Nathaniel held him firmly, one hand splayed over his chest.

Tim looked up and met that intense stare again. He was too small for that stare and let his eyes fall closed. Almost immediately, Nathaniel crawled up to lick at his mouth until Tim’s eyes were open again and Tim was straining up. Nathaniel kissed his mouth wide open, kissed him until Tim’s thoughts were starting to blur and his lips were buzzing and then hovered over Tim’s waiting mouth. He tasted like Tim, blood and flesh and spit. They were both breathing hard. Nathaniel was flushed, his hair a mess, and his eyes were glowing. Tim had a feeling he was about the same, if less attractive. But not to Nathaniel. To Nathaniel Tim looked amazing. It was in his scent and his gaze and the whisper that left him when Tim displayed himself.

If Tim could have sat up, it would only have been to watch Nathaniel open the lube or to see him press slippery, slick fingers against Tim’s hole, and that, it turned out, wasn’t nearly as hot as watching Nathaniel’s face when Tim reacted. Tim opened his mouth, shocked into silence at the circling, teasing, light pressure, and the echoing pleasure of Nathaniel kissing the corner of his mouth. Their faces were so close. He could see flecks of brown amid the wolfen gold in Nathaniel’s eyes, count his thick lashes if he wanted, if he could focus. He angled his head up, wanting tongue, wanting fingers, and gasped for the deeper kiss, for two fingers easing inside before dipping away.

He clenched, sort of panicked, sort of awed, and dragged his hands up Nathaniel’s back, up, and then down, because he could. All of that was his—he was going to touch it. The heat and scarring felt exactly like magic against his hands but without the itch in his nose. After a moment he let out a breath and hitched his knee up, pressing it to the back cushion. Nathaniel let out a sound that shook down Tim’s spine. Tim stared at him without blinking, ready this time, and let his pleasure be known when Nathaniel pushed those fingers in. He leaned in and panted under Nathaniel’s parted lips as Nathaniel worked him open. “Oh, fuck, oh God.” He could already feel an orgasm building and tried not to react, but Nathaniel’s fingers were agony.

Tim arched from the couch and the hand on Tim’s chest slipped, landing on his hip.

Nathaniel’s fingers were pressing deeper, until Tim was biting his lip and twisting up, until the gentle kisses at his neck hurt because they weren’t more, but he didn’t want them to stop. The harsh drag of his breathing brought him into more contact with Nathaniel. He took three fingers with a hungry cry, and Nathaniel’s growl echoed through him, heightening what his fingers were doing.

Being held down meant building pleasure and lightning at the base of his spine, Nathaniel a beautiful beast growling over his sensitive skin until Tim was murmuring his name mindlessly. He shut his eyes and let out a hoarse breath and came, came hard for just
fingers
, just
breath
, his toes curled, his back tense.

He was vaguely aware of Nathaniel watching, Nathaniel kissing his skin. His kisses were so light they could have been fairy glitter. Tim would never have thought to ask for that. Now it was on his skin like the come splashed up his stomach. Mated meant Nathaniel loved him and got to show it, and Tim had to feel every precious second of it.

Nathaniel watched, and Tim opened his eyes, flushed and aching so much he couldn’t be still despite the heaviness in his limbs. Tim was an idiot, an idiot with stinging skin and probably hearts in his eyes. He hauled Nathaniel down to him and spoke, for Nathaniel’s ear only. “All of you is mine now.” All of him, the flex of Nathaniel’s muscles under his hands, the grace when Nathaniel moved, the breathless way he whispered Tim’s name as he lifted Tim’s hips. Tim curled his fingers into Nathaniel’s shoulders, loose and impatient, and pushed down as Nathaniel finally entered him. He gasped despite himself, motionless until Nathaniel bottomed out.

Nathaniel brought both of Tim’s legs up against his chest, and then placed his hands heavily onto Tim’s shoulders. Everything was pressure, inside and out. Tim couldn’t look away. Nathaniel fucked into him deep and slow, content to wait, Tim knew, until Tim was hard again. He was evil, and Tim told him so, as nonverbally as possible, that he loved him for it, even if he was taking in small gasps of air, even if his skin felt so tight he thought he might burst.

He pushed a hand down between them, leaving one clenched over Nathaniel’s back, and started to stroke himself. He wanted to be hard, he wanted to come with Nathaniel still inside him, he wanted Nathaniel to take him rough after that, come inside him, make it official. Mates. Mates for fucking life.

“Kiss me,” he begged, knew it was begging, that any weres listening in would also know it. But Nathaniel made a soft, grateful sound and did it. Tim sighed into him. That was his too. Power and gentle kisses and Nathaniel groaning over him, lifting him to press in at a different angle. Tim jolted but then closed his eyes, letting the ache build. Nathaniel’s hands would leave bruises too. Good, satisfying bruises to appease the town, filthy fuck marks to remind everyone he was Tim’s. Tim stretched up to feel Nathaniel’s hands clamp down on him, how his hands went to Tim’s hips and then to his shoulders.

Tim gave up on jacking himself. He was aroused again but not enough, not close, and he wanted this instead, wanted his hands grabbing Nathaniel’s ass and pulling him in. Each thrust seemed to knock the wind from him, and he whimpered. He turned his head to one side and caught Nathaniel’s hot breath against his throat and the wet, sensitized skin. He clasped Nathaniel to him tighter and searched blindly until he found something, anything, to bite. He didn’t think he was being held down, but it didn’t matter, he wasn’t going anywhere. Nathaniel’s fingertips pushed into him, and his cock was deep in Tim, and the air was stuttering from him, punched from him, and his essence was against Tim’s mouth. Blood and salt and saliva, everything but the come Tim wanted inside him too. Nathaniel Neri bearing down hard with a tortured growl would make anyone cry out and want more.

That was worth moaning over. Tim dragged Nathaniel’s head down. Nathaniel’s bite was slow, as distracted as the drag of his tongue and the rasping desperation in his voice. Tim clenched around him, clenched tight, and sank his teeth into the meat of Nathaniel’s shoulder right as Nathaniel groaned and shuddered.

He came buried in Tim, and Tim wriggled in a satisfied, but also unsatisfied, way as Nathaniel fell on top of him and slowly eased into stillness. He wasn’t deliberately holding Tim down anymore, but Tim was okay with that. In a second maybe Tim would arch up to rub his cock against Nathaniel’s stomach, but for now it was enough to listen to the strained breathing from the outer room and too-loud stacking of papers, and run his hands up and down the curve of Nathaniel’s spine.

He’d finally gotten Nathaniel to come first, sort of. Not that Tim had any intention of crowing about it with an audience. King Neri had appearances to maintain.

Tim poked him. In response Nathaniel licked him, lazily, on a spot on Tim’s shoulder that had so far managed to go unlicked. Tim turned his head to inhale him for a while, blushing, although no one, not even the people outside, would ever know how much he was enjoying lying there trapped under Nathaniel’s weight. He wondered what he smelled like, what they smelled like. He could detect obvious things, but interpreting them was mostly beyond him. It must have been great, because Nathaniel wasn’t moving.

Or possibly he was keeping Tim in one place as long as he could get away with it because he still worried Tim was going to run. Tim surprised himself with how shitty that made him feel, although he couldn’t blame Nathaniel for it. He realized his hands were clenched.

“So,” Tim began, and resolutely ignored how Nathaniel tensed. “I put you through a lot, didn’t I?” Remembering any of their encounters now was like counting times he’d sliced Nathaniel open. Nathaniel didn’t have to be such a badass. He could have struck back. But hurting Tim hurt him, like the knowledge that he’d hurt Nathaniel was upsetting Tim now. Nathaniel had been kind of epically fucked, and Tim hadn’t helped.