by Aria Grace
“This is really cute,” I said, imagining myself painting the little house.
“Thank you,” he chuckled.
“I like the wolf,” I laughed.
“What?!” he asked in alarm, sounding as if he thought I'd seen a real wolf.
“There.” I pointed.
He leaned around me to look and his eyes landed on a very realistic statue of a white wolf, complete with a scarf and a Santa hat.
Ryker shook his head and laughed. “I guess they left me a present.”
He unlocked the door and we stepped inside. Ryker flipped on a light and I couldn’t hold back a gasp. It seemed that Ryker had a hoarding problem; I couldn’t see anything beyond stacks and stacks of boxes and furniture. I thought we were in a kitchen, but couldn’t even be sure.
“What the hell?!” Ryker demanded.
He pushed his way through a narrow path and I followed, nearly crashing into him as he stopped short, then peered around him. As jam-packed as the kitchen was, the next room was totally empty. It was like someone had everything, everything, and piled it in the kitchen.
Ryker pulled out his phone, muttering under his breath. I heard his voice mail options menu and then, clear as day, a voice filled the room.
“Ryker, answer your damn phone! I didn’t want to do this on a machine… ugh. Well, I hope you get this before you actually get home. Don’t panic, but there was some pretty good flooding a couple of weeks ago and your floors got pretty warped – don’t worry, everything else is fine! Brooks and I figured we’d get them redone as a surprise, but no, you had to come home in the middle of it all.”
Ryker groaned.
“Anyway, it’s done and you can walk on them – no shoes! But you can’t put furniture back for two more days. We fixed your bedroom for you, figured we’d just get the whole house done so everything matched, and if you like we’ll help you put everything back. Anyway, welcome home, Merry Christmas.”
“Just like Carrick,” Ryker snorted, shoving his phone in his pocket. He gestured around the room with a sweep of his arm. “I can’t even be upset because it’s so damn kind of him, but horribly inconvenient.” He chuckled dryly. “Although I was supposed to be gone another couple of weeks.” He looked at me and his eyes widened, then he kicked off his shoes and hurried into the empty room.
I did the same and followed him up the stairs. It seemed that his bedroom was carpeted, but clearly not every upstairs room was. There was a neatly made bed shoved up into a corner, surrounded by towering piles of everything else.
“I can find a hotel,” I said, realizing that there wouldn’t be anywhere for me to sleep. Even if we could dig out an alternate bed – assuming he had anything suitable – there wasn’t even room for it in the bedroom.
“No,” Ryker said, “Anything that didn’t close for the off-season is booked solid for the holidays. Besides, you blew all your money, right? I said you could stay, you can stay. We can just share the bed.”
3. Ryker
“Share the bed?” Cody echoed incredulously.
I winced; I forgot humans didn’t seem to be as flexible about that sort of thing.
“Not if you aren’t comfortable,” I said quickly. “I wasn’t thinking.” I really hadn’t been thinking, sure another shifter wouldn’t have cared, but even then it was odd for me to just offer it to a stranger. “I guess I just feel bad I offered you a place to stay and you get this mess.”
“At least it doesn’t smell like new flooring,” he pointed out. “You caught me off guard is all. I wouldn’t… I don’t think I’d mind sharing… I’m pretty tired…”
“Me too.”
That was that, then. My bathroom, thankfully, was useable and it seemed that Carrick had turned my water back on for me, so I took a quick shower. Cody did the same and by the time I was done trying to extricate some clean clothes for both of us, he was ready.
“There’s a change of clothes out here,” I called, knocking on the bathroom door.
“Oh, thank you!”
I gave him a couple of options and when he came into the room I could see he chose just a nightshirt and boxers. My clothes looked like they fit him perfectly.
With a shy smile and another grateful thanks, he climbed into bed with me. I realized, belatedly, that I was trapped between him and the wall, but I was too tired to bother getting up and moving. Hoping I wouldn’t need to get up to pee, I told him goodnight.
I woke up with my face against a wall. I blinked at it in confusion and soon realized I was resting on a somewhat stiff, sore shoulder. Probably the plane, I thought, as I recalled my long weekend of travel. I yawned and rolled over to relieve the discomfort and found myself face to face with a man in my bed. I cried out in alarm before remembering I was back in my own bedroom with some unusual sleeping arrangements.
Cody blinked sleepily and as his eyes slowly widened, I realized there was a very prominent morning wood driving incessantly into my thigh.
“Uh…” I said, clearing my throat.
His eyes flicked down and his cheeks grew red. I felt his entire body stiffen, as if holding still would keep me from noticing the erection. Instead, it made it even more obvious.
“I um…” Cody started to say. He sucked in a surprised breath and I realized my own dick was answering without me. “Sorry!” he yelped. “Let me…”
He moved a little and his dick slid off my thigh, right onto mine. I gasped at the contact and involuntarily moved away. The motion only served to brush our dicks against each other. Cody gasped and the sound made me even harder.
“Here, I can…” I started to sit up but realized I couldn’t go anywhere except over him. “Oh uh… shit.”
“Sorry! God, I… I’ll just…” Cody tried to get out of the bed, obviously mortified, but he was tangled in the sheet.
He tumbled right out of the bed and the sheet pulled me down on top of him. We landed on the floor in a heap and I tried to push myself up, but only succeeded in getting caught in the blanket, with my nose an inch from his.
My breath caught as we looked at each other. For a moment, we froze and held perfectly still. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by the urge to kiss the human sprawled beneath me. I leaned forward hesitantly, barely having to lean at all, his lips met mine and pressed curiously against them in a light kiss. We broke apart, eyes wide, and stared at each other for a beat, then we crashed back together.
Cody threw his arms around me, dragging me to the ground. I let myself collapse on top of him as we began to kiss almost desperately, as if any moment we'd come to our senses and realize what we were doing. The sheets that had tangled us together seemed to loosen, giving me the chance to easily straddle him. His dick had come free from my borrowed boxers and brushed against my thigh, hot and firm. I gasped and arched up at the contact. I didn't stop to think, I just reached down and wrapped my hand around it, giving him several quick tugs.
“God!” Cody gasped, bucking up against me.
An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but before I could tell him I honestly hadn't intended for this to happen when I invite him and ask if he was all right doing this, he reached up and grasped my cock in a firm grip and began to stroke.
The one arm I was using to hold me up almost gave out as he touched me. How long had it even been now since I was with someone? I could remember it being this amazing. We were barely even starting!
I groaned and bowed my head, trying to find a balance between smooshing him and supporting myself. He put a hand on the back of my neck and pulled me down for another kiss and I melted against him in response. I rolled onto my side and our legs entwined as we jerked each other off, matching our pace with our hands.
As our tongues dueled and our free hand explored every inch of skin and hair that it could find, his nails raked down my back and I tangled his hair in one fist. Cody moaned into my mouth and his hips jerked. I broke the kiss and sniffed my way down his neck, inhaling his incredible earthy, slightly spicy scent. I pressed my nose against his collar
bone, took a deep breath, and shuddered. He arched against me with a cry and it was enough to send me over the edge.
I gasped as pleasure washed over me and the two of us flopped all the way down onto the pile of sheets on the floor of my room, breathless and trembling.
“I'm sorry,” Cody said with a weak chuckle after a few minutes. “I don't normally do that with complete strangers.”
“Believe me,” I said, still feeling slightly breathless. “I did not have that in mind when I offered to share a bed with you. It just sort of… happened.”
“I'll say,” he laughed. He sat up and began to roll his left shoulder as if it was uncomfortable.
I propped myself up on one elbow and felt a discomfort in my own shoulder. I sat all the way up, rubbing at it, trying to relieve it and then froze. An uncharacteristic gesture to a human, such as inviting a complete stranger to my home and sharing a bed with him?
Check.
An unexpected burst of passion?
Check.
Pain in both of our shoulders, right in the spot where true mates would bite when they claimed each other?
Check…
Holy shit.
“Oh my gods,” I said, staring at him, eyes wide.
Cody furrowed his brow at me. I thought the human was cute the first time I saw him, but looking at him now I could see he was everything I had never known I wanted.
“What?” he finally asked, staring at me.
“Cody…” His name felt so right on my tongue. “You're my true mate.” The words sounded strange and ridiculous out loud, but as I spoke them I knew it was true.
“What?”
“You’re my true mate!”
4. Cody
“Are we in a boat?” I demanded, reaching for my blindfold.
Ryker laughed and swatted my hand away. “Just trust me. And don't stand up.”
I fumbled until I felt the edge and clenched it with one hand, then reached down to hold on tightly to my seat with the other.
“I trust you,” I answered. My chuckle turned into a gasp as what I thought was a boat rocked suddenly. Thanks to my newly enhanced ears, I could hear the slap of water against the hull, confirming that I was indeed in some sort of a small boat.
“I trust you,” I repeated, tightening my grip nevertheless.
And I did trust Ryker. After all, that was what led me to climbing into a complete stranger’s car in the first place. Trust was the reason I listened to him explain that a true mate was like a soul mate for what he called shifters; the one person you're meant to be with and that true mates are destined to share an eternal life together, never fighting, never straying, never falling out of love. It sounded too good to be true. And that was without the part about being able to turn into wolves and being immortal. Even though it sounded pretty far-fetched, for some reason I had trusted Ryker enough to stick around until sunset so that he could prove his tale by turning into a wolf.
Trust was why I hadn't run screaming from him when he actually did. That same trust, I supposed, and what I quickly realized was love, was why I agreed to be changed into a shifter too and start my life with him.
It quickly became clear that my trust was well placed. Not long after he explained things to me, two massive guys showed up on our doorstep. One of them had a little wolf pup in his arms, which he protectively shielded from me when I opened the door. Ryker quickly introduced me as his true mate and the pair broke into wide smiles.
Soon Carrick, lifelong shifter friends with Ryker, and his true mate Brooks – who until recently had been human like me – were hauling furniture all over the house while the wolf pup ran and played. To my shock, the little puppy abruptly turned into a human toddler and went right on playing.
Once everything was set back up, Brooks took me aside to talk with while Carrick helped Ryker put books and knick-knacks back on shelves. Even though I was already pretty convinced that I was going to go ahead and let Ryker change me, my conversation with Brooks sealed the deal.
The night after I was changed they left their kid with Carrick’s mother and the four of us traveled to the nature preserve on neighboring Eclipse Island to run. The first time Ryker changed in front of me I was surprised to see he was white. Amused, he had explained that he was an arctic wolf and I was likely imagining gray wolves. I suppose that was why I was just as surprised to see Carrick and Brooks were gray wolves. It seemed that our human sizes and animal sizes didn’t correspond; despite their considerable size as humans, Brooks and Carrick were both smaller than Ryker and I.
And boy could we all run! We loped through the snow and the leaves and in the sand, and I had never imagined something so incredible.
I wasn't sure why Ryker had thought he would be lonely during the holidays on the island. There seemed to be shifters everywhere we went; one served us coffee, one gave us Christmas cookies, another came to check on us during our dinner at a nice restaurant. They were everywhere! And all of them seemed to love Ryker and welcomed him home happily. Without fail, each one would look at me, their nostrils would flare, and they would break into a wide grin and congratulate Ryker, leaving little doubt that true mates really were as special as he claimed.
We joined the entire Silvanus clan, as Ryker called his distant cousins, for the Christmas parade, standing on the sidelines as cars and horses and small decorated floats rolled down Main Street. The local high school brought their marching band and their color guard, and there were a couple of scout troops, and a few assorted clubs. A light snow was falling and as much as I wished I had been able to go to Frostbourg, I couldn't deny that there was really nowhere I would rather be than holding hands with the man I barely knew, yet loved with all my heart, watching the fun island Christmas parade.
After the parade we went home and shared some hot drinks before getting into bed. Even though most of the house was put back together, we hadn't bothered to move Ryker’s bed from its position against the wall. I rather liked being able to roll into him, leaving him with nowhere to run. The corner also made a good place to brace myself during sex, which we had often. Hard and soft, lazy and chaotic, and wonderful every single time, although I was still getting used to his alpha knot.
The morning after the Christmas parade, he bundled me up, put a blindfold on me, and told him to told me to trust him…
And now here I was in a boat.
“I don't really like boats,” I said.
“Don't worry, it's a short ride.”
Ryker was right. It was only a couple of minutes before the motion of the boat changed a little. There was some odd sounds and a clang of metal. I felt his warm hand on mine.
“Ready?”
“I think so.”
He pulled my blindfold off and I blinked in the light, then looked around. We were… I frowned. “Where are we?”
“Come and see,” he laughed.
The boat was tied up to a small metal platform and I climbed out, stumbling a bit, as I realized the platform itself was floating. It led to a small set of stairs and a sturdier wooden dock. We climbed up it and I found myself staring at an extremely small building that looked like it was entirely surrounded by water. It had a wrap-around deck that looked almost as big as the building itself; I curiously circled it.
“What is this?” I asked again.
“It used to be for oystermen to watch their beds at night. Back when oyster piracy was a thing,” he chuckled, “now it's a little rental.”
“People rent this?” I asked, turning away from him to look at the tiny building again. I leaned over the railing and could see that it was up on large pilings in the water.
“As a matter of fact,” he laughed. “I rented it for the night. I know a guy.”
I smirked at him. “Let me guess, a shifter?”
“Carrick's brother,” he confirmed with a laugh. “He had to shuffle around a couple of reservations, but it's Christmas and I've met my true mate.”
“So, I'm still not sure…” I admitted
carefully, wondering what we were doing here.
“Look around.”
I turned back to the building.
“No,” Ryker laughed. “Look around! At the view.”
As I slowly rounded the deck, I found myself staring in awe. There was something incredible in every direction. One side was a view of the towering pines of the nature preserve, all dusted with snow and ice. All around us were ice crusted cattails and reeds and rippling water. From another side I could see a good deal of Half Moon Island, including the town Christmas tree. On yet another side there were sand dunes that gave way to a distant, dark rolling water.
“Is that the ocean?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Ryker joined me at the railing.
“This is beautiful,” I said, slowly walking around the small building again.
“Go inside,” he teased.
The room inside was tiny. There was a single cabinet and countertop with a one-burner gas camp stove sitting on it. A small curtain was open enough that I could see a small toilet beyond it. Other than that, there was nothing but a bed that took up most of the room and a pair of small chairs and a table.
In the middle of it all was a very familiar pile of painting equipment – my easel, a whole pile of canvases, and all of my paints and brushes.
“What…” I murmured, going over to them.
Ryker broke into a wide smile. “You haven't gotten much painting done and I don't want to get in the way of your project. I'm hoping there's a lot of inspiration here for you. We're here through tomorrow, so you can see sunset and sunrise, as well as night and day... Whatever.”
I threw my arms around him. Ryker. “Thank you! Really, this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“Really?” he grinned. “Get used to it. You're my true mate. It's my job to spoil you.”
I kissed him and he wrapped his arms around me. I shivered a little as a cold breeze blew in from the ocean and he tightened his grip and kissed me harder.
“I should probably set up,” I said, pulling back a little, “before I forget why we're here.”
