“We do not change until tomorrow,” Grandfather said, “but we are poor company for humans, and sometimes even ourselves until this is past.”
Dan leaned against Paul as they sat on the couch. “We all get bitchy. Mama and Aunt Rita don’t like the bunch of us snarling at each other and the rest of the family.” He accepted a small glass of brandy. Paul waved one off. “So, we gather in here and plan the wolf time.”
It was about what Paul expected: boring as hell. He listened to the men talk about fence strength, whose turn it was to bring in the cows and horses and who had scratched the hole in the dog-door of the change-hut. He was very glad when he and Dan were finally allowed to make their escape to Dan’s bedroom.
Dan’s room at the farm was still a child’s room: cowboy curtains, double bed, a framed
autographed picture of Clayton Moore holding place of pride on the wall. Paul had no doubt there would be a child’s cowboy hat and toy six-shooters on a closet shelf.
“Yippie-kai-yay, git a long little doggie,” he snarked, swatting Dan lightly. Dan snarled as he shut and locked the door.
“And what would I find in the room at your grandmother’s? Rocket ships? Tinkertoys and Legos?” He grabbed Paul and kissed him hard, as if he was trying to avoid the fight they could both feel beginning.
Paul slammed him up against the wall, devouring him, his hands holding Dan’s face steady as he shoved against his lover. “Erector set,” he whispered. He licked Dan’s neck and let him feel how hard he was. “Ah, Furball. Need to fuck you now, or I’m going to go crazy.”
“Makes two of us.” Dan yanked at Paul’s shirt and didn’t flinch when he heard it tear. He scrabbled at the jeans. “No cock in my mouth for nine months, babe. I’m starving.”
Together, they got Paul’s jeans down around his thighs, and Dan dropped almost instantly to suck him. He moaned around Paul’s cock as if it was the best thing he’d tasted all evening, as if it was melting chocolate or fine wine. Paul thrust, knowing he shouldn’t but unable to help himself. Dan’s hand went around his shaft to keep from choking. His tongue was busy, and Paul came very quickly.
Dan smiled up, licking his lips. “Now that was dessert.” Paul grabbed his shirt and hauled him to his feet, kissing him again.
“An appetizer, pup.” He backed toward the bed, pulling Dan with him, working at his lover’s clothing.
Dan just laughed and stripped quickly as Paul removed his own. He turned, coyly, his arms covering his chest. Paul pulled them down and gawked at the small gold ring with a captive ivory bead of the Man in the Moon.
“Way to go, Furball. When’d you do that?”
“Couple months ago. You like?”
“Hell yeah. Why didn’t you tell me?” He reached out to toy with the ring.
Dan pounced, playful and hard. “It’s called a surprise.” He licked Paul’s neck. “So, I took care of you. Whatcha gonna do for me, BB?”
Paul’s hand was hot and hairy as he wrapped it around Dan’s cock. “Gonna let you fuck me,” he said softly, keeping time with his strokes. “Let you slam that pretty cock right up my ass. It’s lonely for you. Gonna suck you off, lick all over you.” He punctuated this by licking Dan’s face. “Suck your cock, eat your ass. Gonna lick your balls for you since you can’t reach them tonight.”
Dan moaned under the words, wanting all of it. Months of cyber-sex, phone-sex and
masturbation had perfected their patter, but left him missing the real thing more and more. He gasped when Paul made good on the words, licking his way down his chest, playing in his navel and then sucking him in for a long moment. Dan closed his eyes, seeing stars. He whined when Paul moved off. The whining only got louder when Paul pulled his cock up out of the way and licked at his balls with long swipes of his tongue across the darkly-furred sac.
When he took them into his mouth, careful, wet and sensual, Dan’s whines turned to something more feral in his throat. Paul let go and licked over the whole of Dan’s sac before taking a long stroke up the shaft of his cock to suck it again.
Dan came with a small whimper. “Paul. Lover.”
He moved up to kiss Dan gently. “My Danny boy.” He cuddled him close, stroking the wild black curls he’d missed. “We’ll go another round soon.”
Dan nipped at his collarbone. “How soon? Because if I don’t get fucked I’m going to do
something desperate.”
Paul chuckled. “How desperate are you, pup?”
Dan worried his earlobe with his tongue. “Desperate enough to quote poetry at you until you beg to fuck me and shut me up.”
“Very damn desperate. Found myself getting horny having sex fantasies about a T-square last week, babe.”
They lay quietly, listening to the storm rage around the house. The thunderclaps were getting farther apart.
“Maybe we’ll have nice weather for the festival this weekend. Nice weather for running too,” Dan sighed.
Paul kissed him. “I’m ready if you are, lover.” He’d recovered enough to get hard, the sweet boy in his arms aiding that process to no end.
Dan stroked him a little and then rolled away to open the bedside table. The bottle of Astroglide and condoms kept company with a few little beige plastic cowboys and Indians, and a copy of Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks with the Circus. Paul just smiled.
“Grandfather never throws anything away,” Dan said, snagging the supplies. He ripped open the package and rolled the condom over Paul, before slicking him with a practiced motion. Too practiced, to Paul’s eyes.
“Been fucking every handsome were that crosses your path, pup? Been lifting that tail for everyone?” Paul snarled the accusations and pinned Dan to the bed to loom over him, the next kiss punishing.
“Been jacking a lot on weekends out here. Can’t mess the sheets,” Dan gasped.
“Mine,” Paul snapped. He flipped Dan onto his stomach.
“Yours, BB.” He didn’t add “Mark your territory.” He didn’t need to. Paul was already inside him, thrusting and biting at his shoulders. “Oh, yeah. Need this so bad.”
Paul was only urgent to claim his lover again. He knew no one else had had Dan. He could smell it. But he wanted to make sure. He had to mark his love. His. The wolf’s territorial instinct was all over him, drowning rational thought. He found presence of mind enough to stroke Dan as he thrust at him. Finally he came, shoving in deep with a shudder. “Mine,” he gasped.
“Yours,” Dan agreed, finally coming himself, all worries about the sheets clearly gone from his mind.
***
Friday was even more tense. Four adult male werewolves in the same house were three too many. Paul could smell the sickness in Grandfather, the cancer that was killing him. Uncle Zoltan’s restlessness, his ambition, stank and Paul knew the others could smell it. But no one would say anything. Paul had a very bad feeling about the weekend. He suspected his presence might be the last factor needed to tip this unstable dynamic into open war.
After breakfast, he went up to Furball’s room, staying out of the way. He couldn’t be in the same place with so much anger and so many feral killing urges. He found a Lone Ranger Big Little Book on the shelf and spread out, staring at it more than reading, until Dan could find him after teaching his last early morning class.
When his mate’s soft weight dropped on the mattress beside him, he rolled onto his back. “Babe, I’m not staying. I can catch a flight back tonight and be back in my basement before change.” Paul’s face was tight, regret bleeding through every word.
Dan was quiet for a long time, curled into his side. Finally, he asked, “You don’t love me?”
“I didn’t say that, pup. I do love you.” It was the first time he’d said it, and he was amazed how natural it felt in his mouth. “I just don’t want your Uncle Zoltan to tear my throat out tomorrow night.”
“He won’t,” Dan reassured him. “I won’t let him. Grandfather won’t let him.”
“Don’t want Grandfather getting hi
s torn out over me.” Paul rolled onto his stomach and looked down at his lover. “Look, Dan, come home with me. You know Uncle Zoltan’s going to take over and you’re not gonna be real welcome in the pack. I make money. I’m debt free. Even if you can’t find another teaching job, you can write those books you keep dreaming about.”
Dan kissed him. “We’ll see. Stay the weekend.” He added softly, “You’re right. When
Grandfather goes, the whole family--not just the pack--will want me gone. I criticized your folks for not loving you because you were a wolf, when I knew mine were no better.” He lay in Paul’s arms. “Sometimes, it takes an outsider to point out the flaws.”
Paul kissed his curls. “I’m sorry, pup. Sometimes, I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
“Never, lover.” Dan tipped his face up and let Paul kiss him, moaning and working his hand down his lover’s jeans.
“Can’t believe you’re hot for me, even like this.”
Dan laughed. “Always hot for you, my Big Bad Wolf.” He sat up, dragging Paul with him. “Let’s go to my place. We can come back before change tomorrow. It’s not much, but no tension either.”
Paul kissed him. “Knew I made a smart move seeing a professor.” He fastened his shirt and grabbed his overnight bag.
They made their goodbyes to Grandfather and Dan’s folks. Dan navigated his little Honda through the crazy traffic with highways that went nowhere and endless loops.
“Good lord, people, it’s 10 a.m. on a Friday. Why aren’t you at work?” Paul asked of the traffic.
Dan had a dingy apartment on the other side of where Cooper ran into Southern Avenue. He set the Club, locked his car and gave a sheepish grin. “In this neighborhood, they’d just get five of them and carry the whole thing away.”
Paul looked around the area. It depressed him. A little stop-and-rob on the corner, a faded daycare behind a cyclone fence. “Why do you have train tracks in the parking lot?”
“They have to park the trains somewhere,” Furball said with a shrug. He opened the door of the second floor efficiency. The first thing Paul saw was the bike hanging from the ceiling. “I only drive to the farm or the ‘burbs,” Dan shrugged. “Everything else is less than five miles.”
“Return with me now to the thrilling days of yesteryear: grad school!” Paul shut the door and swept Dan into a proper kiss. “I love it. Let’s be kids for the evening.”
Dan waggled his eyebrow. “Pizza, bad movies and Nintendo?” He kissed Paul. “And by Nintendo, I mean sex because I don’t own a game system.”
Paul cracked up and sat hard on the wood-framed futon. “Come on, then. I’m up for a game of Pac-man, pup.”
Dan’s grin was goofy. “Gobble, gobble, gobble” he said, sounding eerily like the sound-effects of the game.
“Oh hush.” Paul undid his jeans and pulled him down into his lap. “Just get on the joystick.”
***
Dan lapped eagerly at his lover’s cock, then swallowed it down. It felt good to be away from the family, away from the tension. Just him and his alpha wolf, on his territory, mating. He loved Paul’s taste, the smooth skin, the nicely cut cock. He teased, drawing a little way off and only sucking half until Paul moaned. Then he took it all, working tongue and suction, encouraging his lover to come.
“Change for me, pup,” Paul whispered. Paul’s groan turned to a yelp as Dan did, into the sexy half-shift Paul loved and had been trying to master himself. The clever canine tongue in the human mouth drove Paul right over the edge with something almost like a howl. Dan looked up at him, smiling, and licked his lips then the bridge of his nose before changing back and coming up to kiss Paul.
“We’re going for lunch, then I’m going to screw you through the futon, BB,” Dan promised.
Paul grinned. “Oh yeah. The weekend won’t be a total loss.”
Dan punched him in the shoulder. ”I would hope not. Let’s go.”
***
Cian Saw the wolves before he saw the young men. The loup-garou stalked each man’s aura, the shape of a wolf--especially now on the full moon--drowning out their usual human auras. They stood close on the sidewalk, and Cian saw the taller one brush his fingers over the back of the little dark one’s hand, a gesture that said, even here in the gayest part of the city, they still had to be discreet. They ducked into the shop, laughing.
The laughter stopped abruptly, with a small yelp from the little one finishing it. Both of them sniffed audibly and the little one sneezed. The big one practically bristled, snarling.
“May I help you?” Cian flipped the sign to “Closed” and locked the door. He hung the ‘Out to lunch, back in 20’ sign.
“Paul,” said the big man. He gestured at his lover. “Dan. Where’s the other were? And who are you?”
Cian puttered. “Rude!” he snapped. “You have no manners, Wolf.” After he finished pulling the front shade he said, “I am Cian O’Brian. My mate, Corin Faw, and I run the shop.”
Dan smiled sweetly. It looked as if it surprised Paul He knew it was a territory thing. “Mr. O’Brian, sir, your scent is unusual for a human. That was why my Paul asked.”
Cian shook his head. He knew when he was being soothed and charmed. Dan did it well. “I am one of Danu’s People,“ he said, more gently. “Are there many wolves in the city?”
“Just the family. Grandfather, Uncle Zoltan, me.” Dan tucked a hand into Paul’s arm. “My great rude lover is just visiting.”
Cian smiled a little at the look of mock-consternation on Paul’s face. “Corin is at the cottage. The city is unsafe for him during this time.”
Paul nodded. “We’ll be out at the farm before sunset ourselves.” He rummaged in his billfold and took out a business card. “Furball, what’s the farm number again?” He scrawled the numbers as Dan gave them, then circled a number on the front as well. “My cell.”
Dan looked over the shop. “I’m sorry your mate missed the opening. If he would like to come meet my family, we would welcome him, and you, for lunch tomorrow.”
Cian took the card. “Thank you, boys. Do come again.” He raised the shades and flipped the signs. When he unlocked the door, Paul and Dan slipped back into the Cooper-Young Festival crowd. Nice pups, but naive, he decided. Corin had been a lone wolf too long to deal in a pack.
***
Paul stayed close to Dan. The last thing he wanted was to get separated in this mob of people. The Memphis Area Gay Youth booth was cheerful and most of the kids looked happy and well-loved. Paul found it a pleasant surprise for this area.
They were selling bowls made of old vinyl records. Furball found one by Starship. He held it up for Paul’s approval.
“Not Knee-deep in the Hoopla!” he moaned. “Oh man, how could they? I had that one.”
Furball grinned. “I thought We Built This City would be appropriate for my handsome architect.”
“I danced to it in high school and you think it’s a Golden Oldie.”
The willowy blonde girl behind the counter laughed. They watched her Adam’s apple bob, thinking between that and her height she might be transgender, but a quick glance at the curves that tented her ‘Kermit isn’t the only one with a Rainbow Connection’ t-shirt only confused them. “My mom likes it too.” She leaned over to them both as if telling a secret. “So do I.”
“Good taste.” Dan bought the bowl. “The money all goes to help you kids?”
She nodded as she wrapped the bowl. Her long, graceful hands were tipped with natural dragon-lady nails painted in silver glitter. “It’s our main fundraiser. Buys us cookies and fruit punch for the rest of the year.”
Shifting Again Page 24
