by Cardeno C.
“If we don’t go after Larry now, he’ll get away. Dennis too.” It was probably too late already. The fact that they hadn’t attacked again, meant they realized they couldn’t beat Hugh so they’d retreated. But Johnnie had heard the determination in Larry’s voice and knew he wouldn’t stop. “They’ll come after you again. We need to catch them.”
“Don’t worry about them. They’re just a couple of greedy, selfish lions.” Hugh ghosted his fingers over the back of Johnnie’s head, where he had been wounded. “They attacked you, injured you, and planned to sell you. If they’re dumb enough to stay on my pride lands, I’ll find them and kill them. If they’re dumb enough to go near any other pride lands, including Larry’s pride, I’ll get word out and they’ll be held until I can get to them and kill them. And if they’re dumb enough to go rogue and live on their own, the lack of a pride and resources will kill them.” Hugh swiped his thumb over Johnnie’s lower lip. “Any way you slice it, same result. Dead men walking.”
Chapter 12
“I’ll go shower,” Johnnie said as soon as they walked into the bedroom.
He turned toward the doorway to his room when Hugh skated his palm down his back and then grasped his hip, stopping him.
“My shower’s bigger.” Hugh curled his arm around Johnnie’s waist and led him toward the bathroom.
Knowing Hugh was worried about him warmed Johnnie, but he was fine. And even if he wasn’t, he didn’t see how using Hugh’s shower instead of his own would help.
“I’m smaller than you. I don’t need all that space,” Johnnie pointed out. Hugh was seven feet tall and weighed three hundred pounds. Everyone was smaller than him. “Besides, you need to wash up too.” Hugh wasn’t covered in dried blood, but he’d been in the dirt with Johnnie and both of them had built up a sweat running and shifting.
“That’s why we need to use my shower.” Hugh continued walking as he spoke, leading them through the doorway into his spacious bathroom. “We’ll have enough room in here to clean up together.”
Stumbling over nothing, Johnnie almost fell to the white marble floor face first. Thankfully, Hugh still gripped his waist so he kept him upright.
“I knew losing all that blood impacted you.” Hugh rubbed his hands over Johnnie’s shoulders and looked in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have let you run home. I should have carried you.”
“You wanted to carry me?”
“You’re dizzy,” Hugh explained.
It sure felt like it at that moment. “You want me to shower with you?”
“The tile’s hard. You could fall in there. I need to—” Hugh swallowed. “Is that a problem?”
Fantasy was the word Johnnie would have used. “No. Not a problem,” he said, his heart racing and lungs working overtime.
“The hot water and steam aren’t a good idea if you’re light-headed.” Hugh’s forehead crinkled and he tightened his grip on Johnnie. “Maybe we should skip the shower.”
“I’m not light-headed,” Johnnie assured him, desperately wanting to step under the spray with Hugh.
“Are you sure? Because you sound like you’re having trouble breathing and your face looks pale.”
Torn between embarrassing himself by explaining his body’s reaction or destroying the opportunity to get wet and slippery with a naked Hugh, Johnnie chose the option most likely to get him access to Hugh’s hard cock.
“I’m aroused,” he confessed as he dropped his gaze to his own dick, which was fully erect and parallel to his stomach. “Really, really aroused.”
Following Johnnie’s line of sight, Hugh’s chest rumbled. “Johnnie?” Hugh slid one hand behind Johnnie’s neck and the other down his chest. “Tell me what it feels like.”
“What it feels like?” Johnnie repeated.
“Yes.” Hugh dipped his chin. “Arousal.” He looked at Johnnie’s erection and then back at his face. “Tell me what it feels like to be aroused.”
Was it a test? Did Hugh want to make sure Johnnie was telling the truth about not being damaged by Larry and Dennis’s attack?
“Um. Well, I get this feeling in my stomach”—he put his palm on his lower belly, next to the base of his cock—“right here. It’s like a pull or a rush, like heat.”
Hugh moved his fingertips around Johnnie’s hand. “Here?”
“Ungh… Uh-huh. And my heart beats faster, which then makes me breathe faster like you said.”
Hugh brushed his hand across Johnnie’s chest, making his nipples pebble.
“And my skin’s more sensitive everywhere, but especially there.”
“Here?” Hugh traced Johnnie’s nipple.
Whimpering, Johnnie nodded.
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” Johnnie said breathlessly as he squirmed under Hugh’s attention. “Aches a little, but in a good way.”
Taking Johnnie’s nipple between his thumb and forefinger, Hugh pinched and rolled the wrinkled nub. “Do you know that I never felt that?”
“What…what do you mean?”
“All these years, getting off hasn’t been like that for me.”
“What was it like?”
Tilting his head to the side and letting out a deep breath, Hugh seemed to consider the question.
“You know how when you’re so hungry your stomach hurts and then you eat and it feels better? It’s a relief, but it isn’t pleasurable.” While still playing with Johnnie’s nipples, Hugh moved him closer to the wall, leaned him against it, and then, once Johnnie was stable, dropped his free hand to Johnnie’s cock. “That’s what sex was like.”
“Oh Lord,” Johnnie moaned. Drops of liquid slid from his slit down his shaft and Hugh rubbed his palm over them. “I can’t…can’t think when you do that.”
“You don’t need to think.”
“I want—” He moaned. “Want to understand what you’re saying.”
“With you, it isn’t that type of hunger.”
“It’s not?” Johnnie squeaked.
“No.” Hugh shook his head. “With you it’s like eating a perfect piece of steak.” He leaned down and breathed across Johnnie’s jaw over to his ear. “You smell it and your mouth waters with desire.” He circled his fingers around Johnnie’s shaft. “You close your eyes because it’s all you want to focus on.” He moved his hand up and down slowly. “You bite into it, the juices seep out, and it tastes like nothing else.” He suckled Johnnie’s earlobe. “You don’t want the experience to end.” He played with each of his nipples in turn. “Doesn’t matter if your stomach’s empty or not because you’re ravenous for the flavor. And when you’re so full that you have to stop, you regret it because you want more.” He rubbed his thumb over Johnnie’s crown, flicked his tongue across his ear, and pinched his nipple. “You always want more.”
“Hugh!” Johnnie cried out. He clutched Hugh’s chest, arched his back, and went on tiptoe. “Oh, Lord, Hugh!” One more moan and then Johnnie stopped breathing, stopped seeing, and did nothing but feel white-hot joy course through him as his balls emptied and he pulsed ejaculate over Hugh’s fingers and across his torso.
When he could finally open his eyes, he saw Hugh raise his slick hand to his own mouth. With his dark gaze glued to Johnnie’s, he licked his palm and then moaned. “That’s what I mean.” Hugh licked again. “Delicious.”
His body boneless and his brain hazy with satisfaction, Johnnie walked into the shower in a fog. He went through the steps of bathing by rote, unaware of anything other than the man with him. The water glistened on Hugh’s massive frame, highlighting it, and Johnnie wanted to lick him all over. He settled for dropping to his knees and burying his face in Hugh’s balls.
“You smell so good.” He inhaled again, smelling Hugh beneath the soap, and groaned. “So good.” He turned his head from side to side, rubbing Hugh’s scent over his face. “I hated smelling them on you.”
After a pause, Hugh said, “I scent the pride everywhere, but I didn’t know my body smelled like them after we fucked.”
“It did,” Johnnie croaked, the memory of other lions’ odors on Hugh sickening him. He parted his lips and sucked one large nut into his mouth, moaning at the rightness of Hugh’s flavor and letting it wash away the tainted memories. “They’re gone now.”
“You’re so sensitive.” Hugh slid one finger around the perimeter of Johnnie’s ear. “All of your senses.” He moved his fingertip down Johnnie’s nose. “You can smell things even when the scent’s too old for me to track.” He traced Johnnie’s eyebrow. “It’s why the seams on your clothes bother you, why you get so cold.”
Unsure how to respond, Johnnie shrugged. “I only know I smelled them before and now I don’t.” He licked a swipe up Hugh’s testicles. “Now you just smell like you.”
“And you,” Hugh rumbled.
While still worshiping Hugh’s testicles, Johnnie looked up questioningly.
“I do.” Hugh stroked his big hand over Johnnie’s hair. “I’ve noticed it.” He met Johnnie’s gaze, his expression serious. “The pride and its members are background for me, constantly there but not something I distinguish or notice. You—” He shuddered. “I can smell you on me all the time.”
Was that a bad thing? Johnnie tried to read Hugh’s expression.
“It makes me hard,” Hugh said reassuringly.
The reminder had Johnnie sliding his cheek back and forth over Hugh’s rigid cock. “You’re so hot and smooth.” He traced a prominent vein with his lips. “Is this really because of me?”
“Yes.” Hugh gripped his cock with one hand and Johnnie’s chin with the other, and then, holding Johnnie’s face in place, he painted his lips with his glans. “It’s different with you, the way I feel.”
“Why?” Johnnie asked, unable to finish his actual questions: Why didn’t you notice me before? What’s different now?
As if he could hear Johnnie’s thoughts, or maybe he’d been wondering the same thing, Hugh answered the unspoken questions. “When we met, I had my own pride to take care of plus the new members from Westgate to integrate. Some of them were sick and weak. They didn’t all get along, especially the males. We needed to build more homes, find them jobs.” Hugh sighed. “You were the Siphon. You could carry my power, finally lift that burden, so I didn’t have that to think about, and I…” He swallowed hard and tilted his head back, letting the shower spray trickle over his face. “I never looked for more.” He blinked the water out of his eyes, peered down at Johnnie, and cupped both his cheeks. “I never looked at you.”
As beautiful as Hugh’s eyes were, as intelligent and insightful, for years, they’d chilled Johnnie to his core because they’d never landed on him.
“But now?” Johnnie asked.
Turning his lips up, Hugh said, “Now that I know you, I see you.” He chuckled and shook his head, not tearing his gaze away. “Now I have trouble seeing anything but you.”
Though a part of him wanted to ask more questions just so Hugh would keep saying kind things to him, more of him was overwhelmed by a need to join with Hugh in as many ways as possible. With Hugh’s erection directly in front of his face, Johnnie knew where to start. He darted his tongue out for a small taste and, immediately needing more, opened his mouth and dropped it over the rigid length.
“Johnnie,” Hugh said breathlessly, reverently. “Yes.”
Praise about making Hugh feel good fulfilled Johnnie as much as his compliments. He moaned happily and stayed on task, licking, sucking, and bobbing on Hugh’s cock while he fondled his balls. Remembering Hugh saying blow jobs weren’t normally enough to bring him to satisfaction, Johnnie felt proud when precum dripped steadily onto his tongue. He could give Hugh something the others couldn’t, which made him important to the person who had been the center of his world for a decade.
From the first moment Hugh’s power had entered Johnnie’s body, bringing Hugh inside him at the most fundamental level and giving him unique insight into the Premier’s protective, generous, intelligent spirit, Johnnie had lived in awe of him, constantly longing for more ties, more connections, more forms of closeness. And now he had all those things and more. Hugh sought his opinions about matters important to the pride and chatted with him about even the most trivial things that occupied his mind. Hugh slept with him every night and didn’t merely share his bed; he held him close, his arms and sometimes even a leg wrapped around Johnnie. And Hugh kissed him, stroked him, and caressed him, making him soar. Johnnie wanted—needed—to matter to Hugh in the same way Hugh mattered to him, to be someone Hugh enjoyed instead of tolerated, maybe even someone Hugh longed for, the way he longed for Hugh.
“Do you want it in your mouth?” Hugh wiped his thumb across Johnnie’s spit-slick chin.
His dick throbbing, his nuts tightening, and his mouth watering, Johnnie could only whimper and suck harder. The day’s earlier stresses and worries faded away to nothing until Johnnie’s only focus was Hugh’s scent, Hugh’s flavor, Hugh’s pleasure.
“Don’t know how you do this to me, but I’m almost there. Damn, you’re so good.” Hugh tenderly brushed his fingers through Johnnie’s hair, the softness of the gesture at odds with the size and strength of the man.
When Hugh continued petting his hair and also began grunting and thrusting his hips, Johnnie clutched his thighs but otherwise completely let go. He followed Hugh’s pace and flowed with his every motion.
“Here it comes, Johnnie,” Hugh said. “All for you.” His grip tightened in Johnnie’s hair, his breath hitched, his legs went stick-straight, and then warm, tangy ejaculate pulsed onto Johnnie’s tongue and down his throat, bringing yet another part of Hugh into him and raising his arousal to an almost pained fever pitch. “Only for you.”
With those words, pleasure tingled from the top of Johnnie’s head down to his toes and satisfaction washed over him, equal in its intensity to any orgasm he’d had with Hugh, but instead of heating his groin, it burned into his heart, warming him from the inside out. He rested his forehead against Hugh’s hip, his heart racing, his lungs heaving, and his cock dripping.
“Let’s get you in bed.”
Johnnie opened his eyes and realized he was out of the shower, being held in Hugh’s muscular arms, a towel draped around him.
“You’re exhausted.” Hugh kissed his forehead and began walking out of the bathroom. “Your body needs rest to heal.”
“I’m fine,” Johnnie insisted, because he truly was. He felt no aftereffects from Larry’s attack, and he wasn’t tired, at least not in the way Hugh meant.
“You were so zoned out in the shower, you didn’t know I was lifting you, and you can barely keep your eyes open now.”
“I’m relaxed.” Johnnie sighed contentedly and rested his cheek against Hugh’s shoulder. “Really relaxed.”
“Are you hungry?” Hugh tugged the blanket back, lay Johnnie on the bed, and then covered him up to his neck. “We missed dinner.”
The reminder caused some of Johnnie’s earlier worries to resurface. “I’m okay.” Johnnie reached for Hugh’s hand, not wanting him to leave. “But we need to talk about earlier.”
“Everything’s going to be fine.”
Apparently, Johnnie looked as convinced as he felt, because Hugh sighed, dropped the towel he held, and then climbed into bed.
“They’re two not particularly strong, not particularly big, not particularly fast, and, it’s now clear, not particularly smart lions. Even when I was their age, I could have easily defeated the two of them in a fight. Now I’ve got seventy years on them.” He shook his head and snorted. “Labeling what I’m going to do to them a fight is a mockery to fights everywhere. You have nothing to worry about.”
That was true if Hugh went head-to-head with Larry and Dennis. “But what if they don’t fight with you?” Johnnie pointed out. “They must realize that’s not a winning strategy, which is why they didn’t take that approach today.” He looked away regretfully. “They know I’m your vulnerability so they caught me and ran. They tried to break our
connection to destroy you.”
“They tried and they failed.”
“That’s just it.” Johnnie sat up, too worked-up to stay still. “They didn’t fail.”
Hugh looked down at himself, and then back at Johnnie, and arched his eyebrows.
“They didn’t destroy you,” Johnnie agreed. “But they took me far enough that our connection should have snapped.” Johnnie knit his eyebrows together and chewed his bottom lip. “I still don’t understand why it didn’t.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
He would? Did Hugh know something he didn’t? “How? Do you know why we were able to get so far apart?”
“No, but you’re the smart one in this operation.” Hugh winked and got up. “I’m sure you’ll come up with an explanation.”
Worried that Hugh took their ability to separate as permission to free himself from Johnnie’s constant presence, Johnnie barely registered the compliment. “Where’re you going?” he asked breathlessly.
“You went from drowsy to jittery in less than a minute.” Hugh walked to the closet and came back with a sweatshirt and socks, which he handed to Johnnie. “Your blood sugar’s low. We need to get food into you.”
“My blood sugar’s fine.”
Hugh curled his palm around the side of Johnnie’s face. “Put those on and we’ll go downstairs.”
Unable to resist anything in the wake of Hugh’s touch, Johnnie slipped the clothes on. “I know you’re worried but I’m completely healed,” he said.
“Humor me,” Hugh said as he reached his hand out.
Immediately, Johnnie took his hand, as usual, warming at any offer to connect with his powerful Premier.
