by Marcy Jacks
Or a wolf's mate.
Maxwell smiled, and then he pulled back and thrust forward again and again and again. He growled a low noise in his throat. So good. So perfect. There was no one else in the world who had ever fit him like this.
His mate. His soul mate. His soul.
Maxwell was home.
And then he fucked into Noah harder. He couldn't contain it. The wolf was in charge, and it wanted what it wanted.
Maxwell sent another warning to the dumb animal to watch itself, to make sure it wasn't too rough. The creature growled at him, as if it thought it was the sole owner of Noah instead of both of them equally.
Maxwell didn't like that, but he didn't push back too hard when he was actively inside his mate.
He'd fight with his wolf over this later. Right now, he wanted to get off.
Noah turned his head from side to side, his eyes clenched tight.
"Look at me."
Noah opened his eyes. Still golden. The man was sweating, and Maxwell kissed him, pleased when Noah kissed him back, but something was missing.
He pulled back quickly, freeing himself from Noah's body, turning him around so he was on his hands and knees again.
"This might be easier for you to handle."
Noah looked over his shoulder. "Yeah?"
Maxwell nodded. He barely felt in control of himself, but he needed this. "Yeah. You'll be able to move better."
"Move?"
Noah sounded confused.
Maxwell liked that. He wanted to be able to show him everything there was about lovemaking with an alpha.
"You’re so flustered that you forgot that you have to put a little work into this, too?"
That blush returned, and Maxwell swore it was his most favorite thing. It even calmed the wolf inside him.
Looking closely, Maxwell could see that blush extending to the back of Noah's neck. So sexy.
He fucked into the man a little harder. Then he went back to his previous pace, the wolf taking control again.
"Push back against me. Fuck yourself on me."
Noah did as he was told, but he still seemed to be a little on the shy side about it.
That was more than fine because when Noah finally started to move, Maxwell was in heaven. He growled low in his throat as Noah clenched his hole tighter around Maxwell's cock, as he rode him while Maxwell fucked into him.
Their rhythm was off, and somehow it still managed to be perfect. The fold-out couch creaked and moaned under their weight. Maxwell was going to have to replace this soon enough, but that was still okay. God, everything was okay. There was too much. Maxwell overflowed with energy. He overflowed with lust. He couldn't contain himself. The pleasure built up inside his belly, and it refused to be held back any longer.
Maxwell howled as he came. A wolf's howl. He and the animal howled in unison.
And then he was at peace.
He didn't stop fucking into the smaller man, however. Noah moaned, and Maxwell could see his arm moving rhythmically. Right. The little pest had decided to stroke his cock when Maxwell hadn't been paying attention to him.
Not cool. Maxwell grinned at him, but he decided to cut the man some slack.
His dick was still hard, and Noah was close. Maxwell could smell it on him, so he kept the motion of his hips going.
"Are you almost there?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Noah panted for breath, his eyes clenched shut again. He didn't so much as look back at Maxwell. He kept the motion of his hand going.
Maxwell fucked hard into him, thrusting forward and holding his position, knowing his cock was lingering against the man's prostate.
And Noah jumped and bucked against his cock, moaning and struggling to reach that sweet end that he wanted so badly.
Maxwell pulled back, and then did it again and again and again.
Until Noah was a blubbering mess, unable to maintain any sense of control over himself.
Which was all right by Maxwell because, when he finally came, his hole clenching tight around Maxwell's prick, the scent of his musk hitting the air hard around the both of them, Maxwell knew he had the man right where he wanted him.
Noah shuddered, the shouting stopped, and then he collapsed onto the sheets beneath his body, beneath Maxwell.
Maxwell slumped onto the side of the man, pulling his mate closer, spooning against him and relishing the sensation of his skin.
Everywhere Maxwell touched continued to tingle. As though Noah were some sort of drug designed specifically to keep Maxwell and no one else satisfied.
Maxwell sighed against the man's hair. His dick was still hard, but the relief given from the orgasm was enough to allow him to rest. At least for now.
"That…that was crazy."
Maxwell chuckled, pleased with the feedback. "You liked that, did you?"
Noah’s lazy smile was all Maxwell needed to know he’d done something right here.
“Yeah, that was great. Are we going to do that again?”
Maxwell thrust his cock against the crack of his ass, reminding Noah that they were far from finished. “Definitely. I suppose a mating doesn’t come to an end after just one fuck.”
“That’s good,” Noah said, his voice sounding a little too sleepy for Maxwell’s liking.
He looked over at the man. “You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?”
“No.”
Again, way hushed. Maxwell felt the little muscle beneath his eye twitch as he noted how Noah wasn’t opening his eyes.
Seriously? He was going to sleep after that? Wasn’t he a little too blown away for something like that?
Maxwell was sorely tempted to wake the man up right now. There was no time for napping when he wanted to fuck right now.
Maxwell might be able to hold off for another ten minutes if Noah needed time to recover. Humans tended to be slow about things like that, didn’t they?
But no. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted because Noah’s heartbeat slowed down, his breathing evened out, and then it was too late. Maxwell could tell the other man was going to be out of it for a while.
Maxwell blew out a hard breath. He debated shaking Noah awake.
He was so close to doing it. The wolf definitely wanted him to do it.
But he couldn’t. Maxwell sighed. He couldn’t even pull himself away from the other man to grab a cold shower because Noah’s skin was too much of a temptation.
It soothed him when he otherwise would have been going crazy, but the desire was still there. Touch wasn’t enough, but it would have to be for now.
So Maxwell settled himself down for a couple of hours of torture.
It was going to feel like an eternity before Noah woke up, and then Maxwell could introduce him to the rest of the pack.
Chapter Six
Sam drank down the last of his soup broth. It felt good against the back of his throat. He was still feeling like he was about to be sick, but at least the food was good.
Except that one alpha over there wouldn't stop looking at him. It was making Sam feel a little on edge.
The man walked over to him, handing him a mug of something steaming.
"Drink this."
Sam swallowed, looking at it, and at the man who offered. "What is it?"
He felt weird for asking, considering this was one of the guys who had saved him from that stinking hellhole in the middle of the ground, but he couldn't be too careful.
Especially after what had happened, getting picked up by a bunch of strangers who had sniffed him out, who wanted to kill him because they worried some alpha might want to mate with him.
And now an alpha was looking at him with that strange expression, offering him food and drinks. He didn't know what to think about any of this.
"It's not poisoned," he said. "It's for your throat. You're getting sick."
"I know."
Sam looked down at his hands. "Thanks for the food by the way. I'm just…I'm not trying to be an asshole—
"
"I know. You don't have to explain a thing. You went through a lot."
Why did he have to sound so nice? Was this a trick or something?
Sam swallowed hard. Really. His throat was killing him again. He reached for the mug, sniffed at the contents, and then drank.
Some sort of lemon tea, sweetened. It felt nice on his throat.
"You're going to be sick for the next week or so. You're a human, right?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah."
"Pity. If you'd been a shifter, it wouldn't last so long." He sat down at the small table. Sam assumed this was his house. He'd been brought here, not against his will but because he didn't want to leave Noah or Gus alone after they were brought here.
They'd come to be his friends in the few days they'd spent in that damp basement.
To go from that to sitting next to a guy like this, a man who was so goddamn good looking that it made Sam wonder if there was something wrong with his brain…
Or maybe it was the adrenaline of it. He'd escaped a terrible situation, and now he was sitting next to a handsome man, trying to contain an oddly powerful lust.
Totally normal. Of course he'd want to partake in something as simple as physical pleasure with a powerful male who had helped to save his life.
Normal. Completely understandable.
But that didn't mean he was going to act on it.
"Can I ask your name?"
"Collin. Gilmore."
Why did that name make Sam feel even warmer? He tried to hide his face in his tea. "And are you the alpha here?"
Collin shook his head. "No. I am an alpha, but I'm only second in command."
Sam frowned. "I thought there could only be one alpha per pack. How do you make that work?"
Collin smiled at him. "That's a common misconception. Alphas have a hard time taking commands from anyone else, that's true, but only if they don't respect the people they're taking orders from. I respect the man in charge around here, and so do the others."
"Oh, so it's like a job for you?"
"Something like that. I work in construction when I'm not hunting down dickhead hunters trying to get their hands on the wolf souls. Maxwell also owns a couple of properties he rents out, so that keeps the money in the pack itself flowing for emergencies."
"Oh." Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, thanks for letting me stay here. If only to make sure Noah is all right."
Noah had gone to bed not too long ago, and then Sam had been brought here. Collin had left him alone for a little while so he could go and check on his friend, but then he came back, sort of flustered.
Sam was pretty sure he didn't want to know what Collin had seen. With the way Noah had been sucking on that other man's chest, it was clear what was going on between them.
A mating. Sam didn't know much about shifters, but he could look at something as overtly obvious as that and tell what Noah was doing right about now.
"You can stay here as long as you need to."
Sam nodded. "Thanks, but I should probably head home."
"You don't have to."
"I missed too many days of work."
"You're going to end up missing more no matter where you are. You're sick. What do you do?"
"Art teacher. I teach high school kids though."
Which meant Collin was right. Even if he hadn't been fired just yet, there was no way he could go back into school when he thought he was on the verge of coughing up a lung like this.
"Do you have anyone you want to call?"
Sam nodded, and for a minute he felt so stupid that he hadn't put more thought into this, that his mind hadn't gone there yet. "My dad. I want to call my dad."
"Would he know you've been missing?"
"Probably. He's my emergency contact. If the school contacted him to ask where I've been, then he would wonder."
Collin came to sit next to him at the table. "How long have you known you're a wolf's soul?"
Sam drank another mouthful of that burning lemon tea. "Since I was twelve. So many people wanted to come up and sniff at me. My dad thought we were living around too many pedos when he heard about that, but even when he found out, he still told me not to let anyone get close."
"Smart. Too many shifters out there would still be willing to take advantage of a kid."
Sam liked the note of respect he heard in Collin's voice. He and his dad were close. Sam loved and looked up to his dad.
His dad who put all of his dreams on hold to raise his son when he became a father at twenty after Sam's mother took off.
Sam liked people who spoke well of his dad, and he had little to no forgiveness to those who didn't.
Collin sharply looked up, catching Sam off guard, and when he turned to have a look, it was just in time to see several curious faces in the window scatter.
Collin growled, getting to his feet and dragging the curtain shut.
Sam shivered. "Do I have to worry about something? None of the people here are going to try jumping me, are they?"
Collin shook his head. "No. They're smarter than that." He came back to sit next to Sam. "We're not the sort of backwoods hicks who think that assaulting wolf souls makes us stronger. We make sure our pups know that's not how it works. Not that we think they would grow up to do that," he said with a smile.
Sam didn't feel like smiling back.
He'd spent his whole life wondering if he was being paranoid, ignoring warning signals, telling himself that it wasn't true that wolf souls were targeted the way he'd heard they were.
Then he goes and gets himself kidnapped.
Sam wasn't sure if he could ever live this down.
"Were those people…the ones who took me and the others…were they going to kill us?"
Collin's green eyes turned a scary shade of gold.
"I don't know. Try not to think about it."
But Sam did want to think about it. He had so many questions, but he was also a guest in this house, and he didn't want to be rude to the man who’d helped to save his life.
So he didn't demand answers, even though it was clear this man was hiding something.
"Could I call my dad now?"
He'd felt bad that he'd been here for hours and hadn't done that, and Sam was pleased when Collin immediately reached into his pocket and produced a phone. "There you go."
Sam stared at the phone, almost not knowing what to do with it. "Do I…tell him where I am? I mean people died last night."
Only hunters, as far as he could tell, but the law didn't look too favorably on wolf shifters who took the law into their own hands.
"You can tell him." Collin even gave him the address. "Just do me a favor, go a little light on the details. As far as anyone needs to know, we picked you and your friends up after we found you walking on the side of the road after you got away. We're not the same wolves who attacked that factory. Understand?"
Sam nodded. That was one request he could definitely keep to.
He made the call.
* * * *
When Noah opened his eyes, he did so with a strange kind of energy.
He felt great. As if he could jump up and conquer the world.
Instead, he stretched luxuriously beneath the sheets, turned over, and found himself in the arms of…
Oh yeah, that happened.
Noah looked up, wondering if he’d gotten lucky and hadn’t woken the man after rolling into his chest like that.
Nope. A quick glance up into the man's face and he could see for certain that he'd been found out. Those red-brown eyes looked right at him, and he was smiling, as if he'd been waiting for this.
Noah smiled up at him, realizing he was naked beneath the sheets, and he felt suddenly kind of shy. "Uh, hi?"
"Hi. You have a good nap?"
"I think so. How long was I out for?"
"About four hours."
"That long?"
Though maybe it hadn't been long enough. Noah yawned. Unable to stop himself.
&nb
sp; "Oh no, you're staying awake," Maxwell said, rolling on top of him, staring down at Noah like a cat might look at a mouse. Or a bowl of cream. Something it knew would soon be his.
Noah's heart raced. His dick immediately stood at attention, and that same aching desire that hit him before he'd orgasmed and fallen asleep got him right now.
He needed to be touched again. He needed to be kissed and sucked on.
"What's happening?"
"Mating heat." Maxwell thrust their cocks together. “We're going to be at this for a little while. Hope you don't mind."
No, he sure as hell didn't because then that same brainless, animal drive to fuck hit him, and Noah wrapped his arms around Maxwell's neck and shoulders, holding the man close just in case he decided to go anywhere.
Right. It was going to be a while before Noah had any sense of control over himself anymore. And he was fine with that.
Chapter Seven
They really didn't finish for a couple of hours. Luckily, Noah didn't fall asleep again, but by the fourth time, his body ached, and he had enough control that he was able to stop himself from partaking in another round.
His ass needed a time-out.
And he had to use the bathroom.
And he was starving.
Maxwell wanted to follow him into the bathroom, but while Noah was hot and heavy for the man, he didn't want him in there while he was pissing.
Thankfully, Maxwell didn't require much convincing to stay outside while Noah showered and got himself cleaned up.
He needed a minute to think. He was still shocked he'd had so much sex with a man he didn't know. That he wanted more of it.
Noah always knew it was a possibility. He was a wolf soul, after all. Wolves were drawn to him like moths to fire. One of them was bound to mate with him, to want him, and if it was a proper mating, then he was going to want that person back.
But for it to be a man, for Noah to want him like that, to want to be taken again and again…he always thought he would have more control than that.
When he finished with his shower, he wrapped himself up in a towel and left the bathroom, shocked that there were clean clothes waiting for him on the bed.
