Seth didn’t reply for long seconds. Then, he said, “Okay. If you don’t mind?”
Caleb couldn’t hold back the grin. “I’m happy to.”
The omega pushed himself upright, although he was clearly still very wobbly. Caleb rushed to close the gap between them before the kid tumbled over.
“There now, I’ve got you.” With his hands cupping the omega by his too-thin shoulders, a disturbing heat suffused his body.
He was really glad he’d kept his jeans on because his cock rose instantly. Or, at least it tried to within the confines of the fabric. Good thing, too, because he didn’t want his patient to think he was doing all of this for carnal reasons. The blowjob incident had been a wake-up call to what this wild omega thought Caleb expected from him. His dumb gamma dick couldn’t be allowed to perpetuate that belief.
A noticeable tremble ran through Seth’s body, and he raised wide eyes to stare briefly into Caleb’s. “I’m sorry, Gamma. I’m still pretty weak.”
“I’ll help you.” Caleb kept his voice low and his touch soft.
He carefully turned the omega and himself so that the boy could lean against Caleb’s chest, propping him within the V of his legs. The skin-to-skin contact was electrifying, at least on his end. The quick hitch of Seth’s breath likely was born out of fear, not the rampant attraction that Caleb felt.
“You’re safe.”
He reiterated the reassurance as he eased the boy back to what he hoped was a comfortable position. He was careful not to press against the kid’s wounds as well as to angle his crotch away from the small, tight ass. No way he wanted the omega to feel the bulge filling out his jeans. Nothing would make his words ring hollower than a hard-on.
Then he started combing the long, tangled strands using his fingers. He went as slowly and as carefully as he could, trying not to cause any pain and inwardly cursing his big, clumsy gamma hands. At first, Seth lay rigid in Caleb’s loose embrace. As the detangling went on, the boy slowly relaxed until his back was completely plastered against Caleb’s chest. It made the whole process more awkward until Caleb tugged all of the hair frontward and wrapped his arms fully around the frail body.
In this position, he could feel every breath the omega took and his steady, yet quick, heartbeat. From his higher vantage point, Caleb could stare at the pulse at the base of the boy’s slender throat. With the hair pulled away, the delicate slope of the back of the neck stirred all kinds of bad ideas—ones that involved biting the tender area while thrusting deep inside the tight ass already pressed too close to his aching dick.
Whoa! That train of thought took him by surprise, although given how he’d been reacting to Seth’s proximity, it shouldn’t have. He took in a deep breath to damp down his inappropriate thoughts, which of course the omega felt. The boy weighed so little, Caleb could have bounced him off with that small movement alone. Using his arm, he settled him back.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to send you flying.”
A small hand reached up to still Caleb’s fingers. “You must be tired from caring for me all day. Please don’t trouble yourself with my hair.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Caleb murmured in return. He flipped the wrist so that he could clasp and guide Seth’s hand back to his lap.
That’s when he felt what he’d failed to see over the omega’s shoulder. With the blanket pooled around the boy’s waist, the slight bulge of his dick was invisible. But, the edge of Caleb’s hand brushed against it enough to know that it was there. Not exactly a full on erection, yet no longer was it completely flaccid as it had been. Did that mean the omega was as affected by their touching as Caleb was? Did it even matter? There was no way Caleb would act on it even if he thought there was a mutual attraction. Given the omega’s dependency on him, it would be an unfair advantage regardless.
Caleb pretended he didn’t notice, nor did he remark on how Seth jerked at the brief contact. Instead, Caleb returned to methodically pulling strands apart and smoothing them down. It was a difficult and time-consuming task, especially as the hair could have used a good washing. Later, when he had the boy back at the pack’s compound, he’d see that he got a hot, sudsy shower.
The thought caused his movements to still a brief moment as the import of them sank through. But yes, he intended to take Seth to the Rogue Pack. It was the right thing to do, and Lorcan had already essentially given him permission to do so. Of course under the circumstances, he suspected he’d have to throw his figurative weight around. The idea of bullying the omega into doing what Caleb wanted didn’t sit well with him. Yet, he didn’t think the omega was thinking clearly about his own health and safety.
That was a problem he could put off, however. The boy wasn’t in any condition to travel in either human or wolf form. When he’d finished with the last knot of hair, he smoothed it down over Seth’s shoulder and simply held him for a few seconds longer.
“I’m sorry I don’t know how to braid hair to help keep it detangled.”
“It’s okay,” Seth answered in a sleepy voice. “I can do it.” When he reached up, though, he hissed slightly before dropping his hands again.
“You’re still hurting, huh?” Caleb didn’t wait for a reply. The answer was obvious.
Tilting the omega forward slightly, he peeled back the corner of the bandage on the boy’s shoulder. The pink puckered skin underneath looked better than it had even that morning. The ointment and plaster Andrea had given him coupled with shifters’ excellent healing abilities had closed the puncture wounds and tears well. The process could use some help, though, if he was going to get Seth out of this dank, dirty cave any time soon.
The idea of what to do came to him in a flash, and he put it into action without taking time to ponder the wisdom of it. Thinking could get gammas into trouble. At least, that’s what he’d always been told. His long arms made it easy for him to reach over and grab a half-empty bottle of water and some cloth. Using one to wet the other, he began to wipe off the remnants of the medicinals covering Seth’s skin.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”
“It’s fine.” The omega paused. “It kind of feels nice, actually.”
That observation pleased him. He hoped Seth would feel the same way about the next phase of the treatment.
Once the wounded area was clear, he draped the cloth over the bottle and eased Seth forward. Caleb hesitated just an instant before leaning over and running his tongue along the top crescent of the punctures. Seth shuddered at the first lick, but otherwise stayed where he was. The sound of his breathing speeding up told Caleb that the boy was not unaffected by the touch.
Using saliva to seal the bite closed was the last act of mating. Everyone knew that, although by the time he’d been old enough to ask his sire such intimate questions, the guy’d checked out of life due to grief. Caleb had never stopped to wonder if the healing worked only because the bite was being treated by the very male who had inflicted it. Obviously not because he could see his efforts making a difference already. He’d also never had the slightest inclination to try it on another shifter. He couldn’t say why he did now with this particular omega. It somehow instinctively felt like the right thing to do.
The partially treated skin closed up even more as he licked and laved with long strokes of his tongue. Likely the salve had made enough progress to give the saliva a leg up. If lapping at the wounds would have been sufficient from the start, surely the healer would have told him that. And, if it were that simple, the healer’s work would be less important. He supposed it fell into the same biological bucket as shifting helping small injuries. It was a boon to the species, but hardly a cure-all.
He felt rather proud of having come up with this idea himself. The fact that it gave him a legitimate reason to hold and touch Seth more, hardly signified. At all. He told both his big and his little head that. One of them was not listening, of course. He could manage it, though, by keeping it locked in tight and out of the line of Seth’s sight.
Eventually, logistics required that he lay the omega down on the pallet. The boy remained docile in his touch, letting Caleb turn him this way and that. Once the shoulder and arm areas were taken care of, Caleb started to repeat the process on the hip and leg. That’s when the omega came back to himself. He held the blanket tightly in place, quietly fighting Caleb’s efforts to pull it away.
“What’s wrong? I know this is, um, unusual, but it’s working. The wounds I’ve licked are better than they were only a few minutes ago.” He tugged on the edge of the blanket and shot the boy a smile. “Come on, let it go.”
Seth said nothing, merely stared at him with eyes like saucers. Perplexed at the surprising stubbornness, he sat back and saw the reason why. Oh yeah, that semi-roused dick was now a full on hard rod. Small as Seth was, it didn’t make too much of a tent in the blanket, but it was there if you looked. No wonder the kid was clinging to the cover.
Caleb raised his gaze to Seth and saw that the dusky cheeks were flaming red now. Even in the gloom of the cave, the embarrassment was clear to see. Knowing that his efforts had created a difficult situation for his charge made Caleb determined to rectify it. Pronto.
He cupped the boy’s chin with a light hold. “Hey now. No need to be bothered by all that. It’s perfectly normal given how, ah, I’ve been, you know, touching you.”
As reassurances went, he knew his fell squarely in the lame category. He had zero experience taking complete care of someone else and like any gamma, he wasn’t exactly smooth with his words. Gods, at this moment, he’d give anything to have the intelligence and persuasive skills of a beta or even the quiet competency of a plain old sigma.
Seth dropped his gaze to stare at his tented lap. “It’s not for me,” he said in a hushed tone. “Normal, I mean.”
Frowning, Caleb pondered that pronouncement. He ran his thumb along the omega’s jawline without realizing it until a small shiver ran through the boy’s body. Caleb dropped his hand even though he missed the contact immediately.
“What do you mean not for you? You’ve played with other pups, haven’t you?” By the time any shifter reached an age for mating, they’d typically spent years since puberty exploring with others, mostly of their own sex.
Seth shook his head, still not looking at him. “Not with other pups, no.”
Although the omega stopped there with his answer, there was a subtext to it that made Caleb stiffen. He didn’t like the slight emphasis he heard on the word “pup”. Knowing as he did now what Will had endured, his stomach knotted sickeningly over the implications of Seth’s simple reply. That plus the memory of the early-morning blowjob sent his limited imagination down a path he really didn’t want to follow. Plus, Seth had already asked if they could stop talking about his past. The most important thing at the moment was making the boy well.
He scratched the back of his head and dug deep for the right way to handle the problem. “Okay, so it’s normal. I’m, you know, older than you and I guess way more experienced about things like this. It’s important that you believe me about that.”
While he still didn’t look up, Seth widened his eyes once more and nodded. “Of course, Gamma.”
“Aw, not because I’m higher in pack order. I just mean that I want to help you, and I can’t do that as well if you don’t let me lick your lower wounds. The saliva is helping, and you don’t want to stay cooped up in this dank cave longer than necessary anyway. Do you?”
Seth shook his head in mute answer to the question. He still didn’t let go of the blanket, but when Caleb tried again to lower it, the omega uncurled his fingers enough to let the fabric slip from his grasp. The uncovering revealed a sight that made Caleb’s breath catch even though he’d already known what he was going to see. Nothing he pictured inside his head, however, prepared him for how fetching and arousing Seth’s hard cock was.
He’d known already that it was slender, yet fully engorged, it lengthened and thickened to make a good mouthful. Just the notion of sucking it down sent saliva flooding Caleb’s cheeks. He’d have plenty to use for the healing, he noted absently. If he could keep his hands to himself. And, he’d better. No way he’d take advantage of this physically and clearly psychologically wounded omega.
“There you go.” He tried to keep his words light and easy. Inside though, his body raged. Heated blood shot straight to his dick, increasing the pressure and its need to spring free. He ignored it with gritted teeth.
Too late, he realized that given their positions, he needed to turn Seth on his uninjured side. That led to easier access of the wounded thigh, but it also meant that Seth faced him. Which meant that the lovely aroused omega cock now brushed up against Caleb’s knee.
“This is going to be fine.” He made the promise with the intention of keeping it. As he bent over the slightly trembling body, he only hoped he had the strength to resist the temptation laid out beside him.
Chapter Six
Seth couldn’t keep himself still. Try as he might, fine tremors ran up and down his body with each touch by the gamma. And, that was only from the guy’s hands. When Caleb leaned over him and started running his tongue along the jagged edge of the hip wound, Seth practically jumped out of his skin. The gamma stopped licking briefly then murmured reassuringly before settling back to his task.
Seth didn’t know how to handle this kind of attention. He had nothing to compare it to, not even his dam or sire had ever treated him with such tender care for the short time that he’d lived with them. Certainly no higher male in his old pack had done so. They had treated him like they had all the other pups—with careless disregard until they’d reached a point of more intimate service. There had been no kindness then, either. It had always been a quick slaking of a need before going on with their day or night. Certainly none had cared if Seth received any pleasure from it.
He hadn’t expected any. No one he knew had. It had been a way of life for a year or two until being mated. Then, it would have been a duty to perform for only one shifter. And, for an omega, it would have meant being at the beck and call of someone with dominion over him. Someone like this gamma, except that Caleb didn’t act like other powerful shifters. He seemed to be truly only concerned with helping him.
Maybe that was why Seth’s untried dick had reacted when it had always before been smart enough to stay hidden. Something about the soothing, velvety lapping aroused him instead of calming him. His blood thrummed in his ears, like an echo of his too-rapid heartbeat. His balls had tightened up against his body and his cock jerked in time with every lick.
A whimper passed his lips before he could swallow it back. Unlike every other time he’d uttered that noise, this one sounded more like a plea to continue, not stop. It had an undertone of sultry need, not fear, that even his untrained ears could detect. Did the gamma hear it?
Caleb stopped and placed a warm hand on Seth’s hip bone. “I’m sorry, am I hurting you?”
Apparently not, thank the Gods. He didn’t trust his voice, so he simply shook his head once and almost violently. His fingers clenched the edge of the blanket that he now lay on. He didn’t dare try to cover his groin with it, not wanting to attract the gamma’s attention to that blush-inducing situation. Why couldn’t his dumb dick settle down?
He shuddered again and gasped as the gamma shifted his massive body in a way that caused his knee to brush across Seth’s cockhead.
Caleb froze, then pulled his leg back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, um…”
Wow, the gamma sounded as embarrassed and uncomfortable as Seth felt. Of course, the guy didn’t like seeing Seth’s response to what was intended to be medicinal. No one cared about an omega’s sexual needs. Did omegas even have sexual needs? Up until a few minutes ago, he probably would have said no. Now, he felt very needy indeed. Like the ache in his dick was going to make him go crazy if something didn’t happen soon to make it go away.
The question was what, except he knew the answer. It was the same one as for all the shifte
rs he’d serviced before running away. He’d done it that morning for this gamma even. He knew what he wanted, craved. He also knew that he risked an angry response by this shifter, who’d shown him nothing but kindness, if he dared to come all over the guy’s only pair of jeans.
Fearing that he would do that from the lapping sensation alone, he tried to angle his lower half away from Caleb. The gamma wasn’t having any of that. His grip tightened on Seth’s hip to keep him in place.
“You have to stay put, sweetheart. I mean, Seth.”
He whined in frustration. “Sorry. I have to…I’m afraid I’m going to…” Words failed him, and he plucked at the edge of the blanket with increasing agitation. This was not going to end well.
Caleb sat back on his haunches. “Oh. I get it.” He said nothing more for a few agonizing seconds. “I can help with that, too, you know,” he added in a quiet voice. “If you want me to.”
Seth hadn’t quite processed the meaning of the offer before the gamma slid one hand down past Seth’s hip to brush up against Seth’s tight balls and the base of his cock.
He gasped more loudly this time and jerked. Then his breath froze as large, warm fingers curled around his rigid shaft. The touch was light at first, but when Seth made no objections, it became more firm.
“Is this all right?” Caleb asked, and while his voice was still low, it sounded ridiculously normal given the outrageously extraordinary thing that was happening.
Because once again, words failed him, Seth answered by nodding once. He slammed his eyes shut in order to concentrate all of his attention on the amazing sensations springing from his cock. Caleb didn’t merely hold it, he began to stroke it with sure flicks of his hand that slowly increased in speed.
“Oh. Oh.” Seth chanted that one paltry word over and over as the pleasure built.
He instinctively bucked his hips after the first few jerks of Caleb’s hand, silently urging the guy to go faster and harder. His balls tingled, the only warning he got before he erupted with an intensity that caused him to cry out.
Taming the Omega (The Rogue Pack Book 4) Page 5
