by N. J. Lysk
The second time was sweeter, Gabriel didn’t push as much as prod, guiding Ray where he wanted him on his back. But now that he had a clearer head, he had also remembered Ray’s tits. His hands moved slowly from Ray’s back to his chest, doubling down to brush against Ray’s dick and then coming up back up again. It was just a detour, ultimately Ray knew their destination very well. He closed his eyes, the slow burn of Gabriel’s arousal getting to him, but he opened them again as his alpha’s hands once again cupped his pecs, caressing the flesh with his fingertips even as his palms lifted it a little, as if assessing their weight.
Ray scrunched his eyes shut, the sensation so alien it felt like a foreign touch, and then he felt the wetness of breath. He startled. His back was against the wall behind the bed—there was nowhere to go.
“Gab—Gabi,” he managed to rasp out.
Gabriel straightened, meeting his eyes with open concern. But Ray couldn’t seem to find any more words. Not until Gabriel said, “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
“It doesn’t… I don’t, it’s too weird.”
His face fell. “Ray, I know it’s new for you, but there’s no reason for you to feel ashamed. I told you: you are beautiful.”
“Why do you even like it?” Ray blurted out. “You don’t like women. You don’t like breasts.”
The words doused the alpha’s arousal noticeably enough that Ray felt his own body tense up. He was still a slick, wet mess, but he no longer felt empty.
Gabriel pulled away the hand he still had on Ray’s hip and shifted until they weren’t touching at all. “I like you, Ray.”
“And this is me?”
His cousin hesitated, but then he nodded. “Yes. This is you.”
“It’s not,” Ray bit back. Savagely furious, he yanked the blankets up to cover himself. “And you didn’t want me,” he added. An accusation, even though it was a ridiculous thing to accuse anybody of. Desire wasn’t to be commanded, not by anything short of a natural force like the moon.
He knew at once that it was unfair, and looked up to apologize just in time to catch a flinch break through Gabriel’s confusion. He closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Did you want me? Before I was an omega?”
He hadn’t really thought about Gabriel’s confession that he was gay when it’d happened because he’d been too busy freaking out about the five alphas he’d been assigned. But if he was… His cousin was uncharacteristically silent, gaze averted. Was his heart beating faster than before? Ray couldn’t tell, he’d been too upset to pay attention. “Gabriel?” he pressed.
Gabriel exhaled, still not looking at Ray. “Okay, I suppose it does no harm to tell you now.”
Ray waited, but nothing else seemed to be coming. “You did?”
“Yes,” Gabriel bit out, looking sullen.
“I don’t get it. What’s the problem? I… I’m glad,” Ray said. The admission didn’t even feel like such a big deal in the face of Gabriel’s obvious consternation.
“Ray, how old were you when you presented?”
“Eighteen.”
Gabriel met his eyes, the intense, expectant gaze he’d used when Ray hadn’t got the answer to his Maths problems. And then Ray saw what he meant: he had presented barely two months after his birthday, so if Gabriel had been interested in him before… Except that didn’t sound like his rebellious cousin at all: worrying because he had a crush on someone a few months short of majority.
“So you liked me before I could buy a pint, what’s the big deal?”
“Raymond, I’m nine years older than you. It might not seem like a big deal now—”
“It was longer,” Ray said. He met Gabriel’s startled eyes. “How much longer?”
Gabriel gapped at him for a couple beats, then closed his mouth and looked away again. But then, once the question was asked, it was obvious. Gabriel had been a steady presence in his life until one day he’d informed his parents—who lived around the corner from Ray’s own home—that he was moving into a flat at the very edge of town. It wasn’t like alphas never left their pack, either to join another or to live in the human world for a while. Alec had been away at university for at least four years, maybe longer, and Nicholas and his friends had just up and left to find their fortune. But Gabriel hadn’t really gone anywhere. He’d kept the same job, the same hours. He’d just exchanged his room at his parents for a flat of his own a few miles away. Close enough to the pack to visit but out of pack territory all the same. And he hadn’t really visited, Ray knew that for certain because he’d asked Gabriel about it the next time he’d caught him in pack land. Gabriel had put him off with some line about being an adult and wanting to live like one.
Ray didn’t remember if it had been a lie. He did remember why he’d asked, how betrayed he’d felt, how hurt despite knowing that Gabriel didn’t owe him anything—definitely not anything as extreme as giving up his freedom to be close enough to hang out with him. “Could you tell?” he asked quietly. He was naked in bed with a man who’d just fucked him. It didn’t make him feel half as exposed as the memory of his teenage self demanding to know why he was being left behind.
Gabriel sighed, muscles glistening in the falling light as he shrugged. “That’s why I had to move.”
“But—”
“No,” Gabriel him off. “You were a child. Don’t even think…”
“You could have just told me. You didn’t need to do anything about it.”
Gabriel met his eyes. “It was the best I could do. I had to stay away from you, from… You wouldn’t have done anything about it, not with all the homophobic bullshit they get into our heads. But I…”
“You wouldn’t have,” Ray said immediately. “You didn’t.”
Gabriel didn’t seem comforted. “I still wanted to. And now…” He gestured between them. “I still want the wrong thing.”
Ray’s throat was closed up. He could think of words he wanted to say, but not a sentence. He leaned forward and took hold of Gabriel’s wrist. He didn’t know what he meant by the touch, but he wanted to give something back. “I thought it was because I was an omega.”
Gabriel frowned at him, the same look that said ‘You’re lucky I like you because you’re an idiot’. It’d worked to make Ray rethink his answers when tested, and it worked now. “How was I supposed to know? You never even told us you were gay.”
“I didn’t tell you,” Gabriel explained in a low voice.
“Me?” Ray repeated. “Who did you tell?”
“Josh knew. And Alec knew, too. We… Well, there’s a bar, not in town. In the city.” Ray’s hold on his arm slackened and he looked up. Josh knew, and even Alec—who Ray had never met before he’d become his omega—had been trusted to know. “I know you probably…” Gabriel continued. “I know it was probably hard for you, growing up without anybody to talk to about it. But I made Josh give me his word that he’d keep my secret, even from you.”
“It doesn’t sound like you liked me much.” Ray let go of him and crossed his arms over his own knees over the tangled bedding. “It sounds like you wanted to fuck me.”
“No!” Gabriel snapped. He reached for Ray, then forcefully closed his first and pulled back. His come was drying across Ray’s skin, but it was like speaking of this had brought him back to a point when touching Ray was not allowed. “I liked you, a lot. Enough that it scared the shit out of me. I didn’t understand how I could feel that way for a kid. I just… I needed some space. And if I had told you… Come on, Ray. The way you were… You were fifteen and clearly interested, how could I tell you I was gay without it being a come on?”
He thought back to Gabriel leaving from one day to the next, remembered dragging his eyes away from the naked skin of low riding trousers and not lingering when he patted well-formed arms. Toeing the line like he’d fall into a pit if he made one wrong move, only to wake up one day to discover it had all been for nothing. He hadn’t hidden well enough; the moon had seen through him. “Do you think you knew? Th
“An omega?” Gabriel guessed. “You weren’t, though. You were a beta. That was the problem.”
“That you had not excuse?”
“That you weren’t old enough, Ray.”
“And when I was, you didn’t ask.”
“Oh, give me a break!” Gabriel huffed. “It was two months, and I’d hardly talked to you for the last three years. Not to mention that the pack would have crucified me for it, if not both of us.”
“I didn’t think you cared about that,” Ray accused. He knew he sounded childish, but maybe it couldn’t be helped. After all, he was still nine years younger than Gabriel.
“I cared about you. I never stopped.” It was the first time he’d talked about his feelings without sounding ashamed. Ray didn’t know if he believed him. Could you really care for someone and not give them a choice?
“But you never…” He stopped, unsure.
“Never what?” Gabriel asked. He sounded tired, but eager too.
He wanted to know, Ray told the wolf. He made himself speak. “Ask.”
“Ask what?”
Ray glared at the blankets under his clenched hands. “In bed.”
Gabriel’s breath audibly stuttered. “Ray—” His voice broke. “You… you like it. I…”
“I like to be asked,” Ray said quietly.
“Fuck, I… Okay, I’ll ask. Please stop me any time I’m doing something you don’t like.” He hesitated, then his voice hardened. “That is an order. You must tell me.”
Ray jerked in place. The wolf might not understand human language, but it knew that voice. “I don’t like orders,” he said at once. Then glanced up at Gabriel in surprise. But it was his cousin’s damn fault if he didn’t like it.
Gabriel sighed. “I keep fucking up, don’t I? I take it back. It’s not an order. But I would really like it if you told me. It would… It would help me take care of you if you told me.”
“I don’t know if I can, not when…”
“Heat?”
Ray nodded.
“You can tell me after, though. Right? And before?”
“Yeah,” Ray agreed, reluctant not because he didn’t want to, but because Gabriel’s attitude seemed to have shifted so suddenly he didn’t quite know how to take it. But if his cousin had been telling the truth, if he’d really left pack territory to get away from Ray… Maybe he’d been angry. It wasn’t fair. Just like Ray’s own resentment at being abandoned wasn’t fair. But he could understand how lonely Gabriel must have felt with a secret like that. Not just that he was attracted to men, which a lot of pack members could have sympathized with, but that he wanted to sleep with someone so much younger than him.
“Good,” Gabriel said. He licked his lips. “Would it feel good if I fucked you now?”
Ray straightened, staring. Gabriel wasn’t hard, his cock was pink and pliant against the thigh. For once, he wasn’t taking Ray’s arousal for granted. Even though it was. He could make Ray react any time he liked. But he was asking instead. “I… Have you heard of foreplay?” he asked, trying for teasing. His voice was a mess, too nervous, too awkward, but Gabriel smiled.
“Here and there.” He extended a hand to Ray, palm up. “What about kissing? Can I kiss you, Ray?” he asked, not once looking away.
Ray couldn’t look away, either, trapped in the blue of his eyes, hooked on the softness of his smile. He took the hand offered and pulled, forcing Gabriel to scramble to balance on his knees in front of Ray. And then he kissed him, raised his face and licked at his lips. Asking. Gabriel opened up at once, let Ray lick into his mouth. It was a kiss as different as any they’d shared so far as the same act could possibly be. Even when Gabriel’s tongue dipped into Ray’s mouth to explore, he was giving, not taking.
Ray put his hands on his shoulders, let his fingers curve over the strength of them. Gabriel’s breath caught in their kiss, and, encouraged, Ray squeezed. A shudder ran through his lover. He cupped Ray’s face with his hands, tilting his face slightly for the kiss as Ray’s hands explored first his back, then the dip of his waist. It was no wonder Ray hadn’t been able to look past his body when he’d been a kid—he was like something carved out of a dream.
Gabriel turned his face aside, breathing heavily. Ray could smell his arousal. He was hard. So was Ray. He didn’t need to wonder why, though. He slid his hands further down, to the curve of Gabriel’s magnificent arse—and then he pulled him forward against his own body. Gabriel made a sound surprisingly close to a whimper when his cock met Ray’s half-blanketed body.
Ray cursed, low and annoyed. Then pushed Gabriel back. Gabriel stiffened for half an instant—probably feeling Ray was jerking him around—and then leaned back far enough to let Ray push the covers down. His eyes flickered down Ray’s chest at once, but they didn’t stop until they reached Ray’s lap. He glanced up, a question on his face.
“Enough foreplay,” Ray told him, beckoning.
Gabriel still hesitated. “Do you want…?”
To get fucked. Even though his alpha had not said the words, he must have been thinking about it because Ray felt himself grow wet. Gabriel inhaled and shivered, but didn’t move.
“We should,” Ray said. It was the truth. “To be safe.”
Gabriel’s posture was tense, but he nodded. He knew he was right. It didn’t matter that they’d talked things over; there were things that were still beyond their control. But even though they were headed the same way they had been so many times, when he reached for Ray this time, it was different. Maybe it was the shared knowledge. Ray didn’t know, but the same hands that had held him down were now barely touching him. Ray leaned back of his own accord and Gabriel followed, kissing his throat as his hands ran down Ray’s body. His sides and his hips, but not his upper chest. Ray felt his eyes close as he shivered. And then the touch stopped. He opened them, found Gabriel looking at him. Waiting. “I want…”
Ray made an inquiring noise. It was true that the wolf would probably make him want to do it, but that didn’t matter: he wanted to do it already. Gabriel licked his lips. “Could you touch me? So I know—”
Ray smiled, then pulled him back down so that his body covered Ray’s completely. Their hips jerked when their dicks brushed together and Ray let out a strangled laugh, half pleasure, half surprise. “I know I did this to myself, asking for foreplay. But I didn’t mean we should go from supersonic to snail-paced.”
Gabriel raised his head to give him an unimpressed look, then got a hand between their bodies and took hold of Ray’s cock. Hard and sure, a man’s expert grip. Ray swallowed, fighting to keep his eyes from closing as he trembled. Gabriel slid his hand down to the head, spreading the wetness there along the length of Ray’s erection torturously slowly before he started jerking him off in earnest. Ray’s hips followed the touch, thrusting hard into the warm grip even as he buried his hand in Gabriel’s hair and smashed their mouths together in a kiss that was more spit than tenderness. Gabriel gave as good as he got, his own erection dragging against Ray’s hip.
Ray’s left hand tightened on Gabriel’s side. “I… Stop, I’ll come!”
Gabriel laughed, a pleased rumble Ray felt reverberating through his own chest. “That was the idea, darling.”
“Ray,” he corrected, emboldened by their confessions or the joy in Gabriel’s face. They were lying on their sides. His cousin was propped on his elbow, watching his face as he touched him.
“Ray,” he echoed, and twisted his grip, thumb pressing against the swollen head of Ray’s dick. “Come for me.”
And Ray did. Helplessly and dizzyingly hard. He clutched at Gabriel as he tensed, hard enough that when his vision cleared he could smell blood.
He tensed, but Gabriel shushed him. “Love bite,” he said. “It’ll heal as soon as you let go.”
Ray snatched his hands away. His fingers felt stiff with how hard he’d been holding on. He tilted his head to check on Gabriel’s upper arm. The marks of his nails were already red lines, but he’d smeared a little blood as he’d pulled away. It looked strangely beautiful against Gabriel’s skin, he thought, maybe a little dazed still by the force of his orgasm. “You can, you know,” his cousin said, and Ray glanced up at his face. Gabriel didn’t clarify, but he licked his reddened lips. Slowly. And Ray realised he was doing the same. He wanted… “Maybe there’s some things we can’t choose. But this is yours, if you want it.”
Ray glanced away, feeling suddenly exposed. This was nothing to his naked body under Gabriel’s, cock softening and come splattered all over both their bellies. But it didn’t feel like nothing. He hadn’t even known he wanted something like that, and he didn’t… He swallowed, shook his head. “Let’s…”
Gabriel paused, and Ray thought that he might be disappointed. But he didn’t look at his face to find out. He placed a gentle kiss on the corner of Ray’s jaw. “Do you want to turn around?” he offered. His fingers already sliding down slowly from Ray’s hip to the curve of his arse.
Ray didn’t say anything, just rolled away onto his other side. Gabriel understood, curling up behind him, close but without the overwhelming intimacy of looking each other in the eye. And then he stopped. “I need you to tell me. I don’t want…”
And he was right, of course. Ray had told him to ask. He was asking. It was hard to answer, though. It was hard to talk about it. He bent his elbow and reached back for Gabriel’s closest hand, placed it between his own legs where he was wet and still a little tender from their first round. Gabriel pushed a finger in. Just the one, and Ray clenched around it. He wanted more. Or maybe he needed it. It was hard to tell anymore. He thought Gabriel must have known, but maybe he just assumed it was his own desire and not Ray’s because he was slowly sliding his thumb against Ray’s rim, making shiver. Ray breathed through it, not trying to rush him as he pushed a second finger in slowly when none were really needed. Gabriel scissored his fingers and Ray shifted his hips, unable to stand the exposure for long. Gabriel’s thumb pushed into the mess of slick and come behind his balls. He arched into it, feeling empty despite the slight soreness, and Gabriel made a pleased sound before pushing his fingers deeper into Ray. Ray tensed, clenching around them. Gabriel kissed his neck, he was tense behind Ray, straining with the effort to stay still. He asked.
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