The Duty of a Beta (9 page)

“Is this what you want?” the beta demanded, keeping his voice low, as if they might be overheard and dragged apart at any moment.

Talbot nodded.

Gunnar was reasonably sure Talbot would have offered up the same gesture if he’d asked the omega if he wanted to jump off a bridge with him. He was agreeing with
him
, not with what he said. Talbot was simply offering himself to Gunnar to do with as he wished.

It was all lupine submission, not human agreement. And, as Gunnar stared down at the other wolf, it was hard to believe Talbot could ever be any other way with a lover.

His reactions were too instinctive, too perfect to be anything other than the simple truth about who Talbot was. He was all
omega
, all desire to submit to a more dominant wolf. It would have been cruel to ask him to give a different answer, to ask him to pretend to be someone else on that night.

Gunnar lowered his head and brushed their mouths together very gently. Talbot instantly parted his lips in invitation and Gunnar tenderly licked his way into the omega’s mouth.

Gunnar guided Talbot’s hands, slowly and calmly, up towards the narrow headboard at the top of the bed. There were a series of wooden rails there. As Gunnar deepened the kiss, he carefully wrapped the smaller man’s hands around two of them.

“Keep your hands there,” he ordered, as he pulled back just the merest fraction of an inch, to whisper the words against the other man’s lips.

Talbot looked
up,
as if he’d been so lost in the kiss he really hadn’t noticed what was going on.

Gunnar slid his fingers into the omega’s hair and tugged at the strands, demanding that Talbot bring his attention back to him. “Do you understand the order?”

Talbot nodded.

“Tell me then.”

“I understand,” Talbot whispered back.

“And you’re going to keep your hands right there for me?” Gunnar prompted, keeping his voice as soft as he knew how.

Talbot nodded again. “I’m going to keep my hands there,” he echoed.

Gunnar pulled slowly away. True to his word, Talbot stayed exactly where he had put him.

When they’d landed on the bed, Talbot’s legs had been pushed conveniently apart by Gunnar’s. Kneeling between his spread thighs, the beta ran his eyes over the smaller wolf’s body. For several long seconds he just stared down at him, studying every line of him.

There were clothes in the way. That wasn’t right. Anything that kept them apart right then was no less than a crime.

Gunnar caught hold of the hem of Talbot’s thin, blue T-shirt. He yanked it up, exposing his torso. Quickly pushing the material further up, over the smaller wolf’s head, Gunnar’s gaze rose away from the pale skin and lean lines of muscle being put on display for him just in time to see Talbot’s hands leave the headboard.

“No!”

Talbot froze exactly where he was, his hands hovering aimlessly above his pillow.

“What did I tell you?” Gunnar growled.

Talbot looked up, following Gunnar’s gaze. His eyes opened very wide when he realised where his hands were. He immediately grabbed the rails. His fingers wrapped around them so tightly his knuckles turned white. He looked back to Gunnar. “I’m sorry, I…”

Gunnar put his hand over his mouth. No apologies. Maybe they were both doing something they should be apologising for, but right then, Gunnar couldn’t listen to those words.

Talbot fell silent, but his lips didn’t close. As he took a breath, he sucked against Gunnar’s fingers, as if he was desperate to have them in his mouth.

Gunnar couldn’t deny him. Pale pink lips soon stretched around two of his fingers as he settled them against Talbot’s tongue.

The omega murmured around the digits, tipping his head back slightly, seemingly to instinctively try to give Gunnar the best possible angle for deeper penetration.

Thrusting his fingers further past his lips, studying and analysing Talbot’s every
reaction,
Gunnar pulled another gorgeous groan of pleasure out of the younger man. Then, as if that wasn’t already enough to prove just how much Talbot needed to feel another wolf deep inside him—when Gunnar finally took his hand away, Talbot arched up off the bed, desperately trying to keep his fingers in his mouth for as long as possible.

He leant up as far as he could, but he didn’t let go of the rails again. His grip on them tightened instead. When it was obvious to them both he couldn’t rise any further without dislocating his own shoulders, he collapsed back onto the mattress, his breath coming in gasps.

Gunnar didn’t waste another second before he reached for the fly on Talbot’s jeans. His fingers were still damp as his knuckles brushed against the omega’s stomach. The younger man’s abs twitched. He squirmed against the bed, but he was also quick to lift his hips so Gunnar could pull his jeans down.

In mere seconds, Talbot was naked. Standing up, Gunnar left the bed. A whimper escaped from the omega in response, but Gunnar ignored it. Talbot would understand what his lover was doing soon enough.

He was just getting undressed. He wasn’t actually leaving.

Talbot closed his eyes as he took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. His senses were immediately filled with Gunnar’s scent. He held his breath, trapping the air inside him, relishing the connection it gave him with the other wolf.

Gunnar smelt like pleasure and desire, like dominance and sex, and Talbot wanted nothing more than to be surrounded and filled by that scent forever. He hadn’t realised quite how desperate he was for that until the beta had closed the door behind him, but having him walk back into his life so soon had confirmed it all to him.

He might never be Gunnar’s mate as far as the rest of the pack was concerned, maybe not even as far as Gunnar was concerned, but Talbot knew in that moment, inside his own head, that was what he’d be for the rest of his life.

A soft rustle of fabric pulled him back to the present. Talbot blinked his eyes open just in time to see Gunnar toss his shirt onto the floor at his feet. Forcing himself to keep his fists wrapped very tightly around the wooden rails at the top of his bed, he watched, mesmerised, as Gunnar’s body was slowly revealed to him.

He wasn’t allowed to reach out and touch him right then. He might never be allowed to reach out to him that way. The omega bit down on his bottom lip as he fought for control of his own body, for the ability to obey the other wolf when all he wanted to do was catch hold of Gunnar and never let him go.

He’d have closed his eyes against the rude interruption of a reality he’d have much preferred to ignore, but Gunnar was right there, and he was naked now. Not simply naked the way a wolf was when he’d just changed forms or merely couldn’t be bothered with inconvenient layers of fabric. Gunnar was naked because he wanted to have sex, and that was too glorious a sight to miss.

Pain shot through Talbot’s bottom lip as he bit down harder.
Naked because he wanted to have sex with
him
.
A whimper escaped from the back of his throat as his eyes feasted on the length of the larger wolf’s erection, from the
glans
all the way down to where the root nestled in short black curls.

The beta stepped forward. As he approached the edge of the bed, Gunnar reached out to him, bridging the gap between them that Talbot was forbidden from closing. Nothing could have pleased the omega more, but of all the things he had imagined Gunnar might do, catching hold of his bottom lip and pulling it away from his teeth wasn’t even on the list.

“I’m the only one in this room who’s allowed to do any biting,” Gunnar informed him. His tone was still low, but it was obvious that he was perfectly serious, and that he fully expected to be obeyed.

 
Talbot nodded, effectively tugging at his own bottom lip as Gunnar kept a tight hold on it.

The beta lowered his head as he released the sensitive bit of skin. Talbot parted his lips further for the expected kiss, but Gunnar’s mouth went to his chest instead. The other wolf’s teeth nipped sharply at his nipple.

One wolf who was allowed to bite…

Pleasure and pain shot through Talbot, braided so tightly together they were almost inseparable. Talbot’s hips rose off the bed, desperately thrusting forward as if begging the beta to move his mouth to his cock instead. Gunnar lifted his head a fraction. He smiled before he lowered it again, but there was little humour in his expression. The look in his eyes was pure…pure Gunnar. Talbot didn’t know any other way to explain it.

It was possession and dominance and a somewhat grumpy inclination to be pissed off with ninety-nine percent of the world all mixed together. It was that same look that always made Talbot desperately
want
to be the one percent of the universe that somehow managed to please him.

Without any warning, Gunnar’s lips sealed around Talbot’s nipple and sucked around the little peak of nerve endings, introducing Talbot to another new possibility. He couldn’t help but whimper his bliss as he wondered what other things he had never considered.

His hips rocked forwards again. His cock was already so hard it curved back towards his stomach. As he squirmed, it bobbed above him, desperate for stimulation but unable to achieve even the tiniest amount of friction against anything. Pre cum dripped onto Talbot’s stomach as Gunnar lapped over and over again at the tender bud of nerve endings trapped in his mouth.

Closing his eyes, Talbot tossed his head against his pillow. His feet kicked at the bed. A sudden sharp pain in his other nipple made him open his eyes. Gunnar’s thumb and forefinger had it in an unyielding grip, his nails pinching into the skin.

Sensations that Talbot had never experienced before flooded through his body, addling his mind, making it impossible to think. All he was capable of doing was wanting, needing—and he didn’t even have the words to tell Gunnar that, to beg for his sanity before the last of it faded away.

Suddenly, the beta looked up as if sensing there was something Talbot wanted to say to him. Their eyes met. Gunnar’s teeth caught hold of Talbot’s nipple again. The older man’s lips pulled back to allow Talbot to see the sensitive skin stretched by his teeth at his lover’s demand as Gunnar lifted his head slowly away from his chest.

Talbot tried to breathe, but the air lodged in his throat. His head spun. Not one single word left his lips.

Gunnar smiled as he parted his teeth and released Talbot’s nipple. He seemed amused when Talbot finally managed to draw a panting breath into his lungs. But his eyes quickly turned serious again as he dropped his attention to Talbot’s cock.

The beta ran his thumb against the underside of his shaft. “Do you have anything we can use?” His voice was lower, rougher than Talbot ever remembered it being. The words were growled out, each syllable harsh and demanding, but there was no anger in the sound, only lust.

Talbot managed to tear his gaze away from the other wolf for just long enough to glance at his bedside drawer. Gunnar yanked it open so hard it slid off its rails. The beta made a pissed off sound in the back of his throat as half the contents spilled and clattered across the floor next to the bed.

For several long seconds, they both remained perfectly still, frozen in a statue that stared helplessly at the door. No footsteps sounded. No one burst in to see what all the noise was about. When Gunnar leant forward and placed the half empty draw soundlessly on the floor, Talbot remembered how to breathe. Everything was going to be fine.

Rifling through the jumble on the bedside rug, Gunnar quickly found the unopened tube of lube that Talbot had blushingly bought when he’d been told he’d be joining a pack full of unmated wolves, just in case it would be needed.

Gunnar wasted no time yanking the cap off and smearing the lube over his fingers.

Swallowing down a sudden rush of nerves, Talbot shuffled his feet a little further apart on the mattress before pulling his knees back towards his chest in offering. The beta’s fingers disappeared from his line of sight. A moment later, they brushed against his hole.

Talbot gasped at the first caress. The beta looked up and held his gaze as his fingers slowly circled Talbot’s hole again and again, teasing him with the prospect of entering him until the omega was sure the tiny bit of his sanity that he still had left was going to vanish into the ether.

Unable to look away, not even in order to lower his eyes in respect for the other wolf’s rank, all Talbot could do was wait and pray that Gunnar would have a little mercy on him and not tease him too much.

Finally, one of his fingers slid inside Talbot. Tightening his hold on the bed frame rails once more, Talbot did his best to use the leverage it offered him and thrust his whole body down onto the digit.

Suddenly, Gunnar’s other hand connected firmly with his right buttock. It wasn’t hard enough to really hurt, but the sharp stinging sensation burst through Talbot’s senses so unexpectedly it made him gasp and clench down around Gunnar’s finger in surprise as he lowered his legs.

“When I want you to ride any part of me, I’ll order you to. Understand?”

Talbot nodded. “I…”

Gunnar smiled slightly, his lips twisting a little with the expression. “Enthusiasm isn’t a bad thing—unless it ends up hurting you. That’s not acceptable.”