Joshua seemed to have pity on him, though, and one of his hands inched closer and closer to Adrian’s shaft while the other pinned his hip down, and with reason. Once he felt Joshua’s hand on his erection coupled with the hard sucking on his nipple, his back tried to arch up again, but Joshua was holding him down. The fact that Joshua was so much stronger and could hold him down without problems was arousing as hell.
“Joshua, please...”
Joshua nipped Adrian’s nipple. “What do you want, angel?”
“You in me, right now! I can’t wait, not this time, please. We can take it as slow as you want later.”
“My angel is impatient to feel my cock in his ass?”
“Yes! Now fuck me into tomorrow!”
Joshua moved so fast Adrian almost didn’t see him. He grabbed the lube from his nightstand and squirted it on his fingers, so Adrian opened his legs as much as he could and tilted his hips to give his mate access to his most private part. He had already stretched himself in the shower because he knew there was no way he could be patient, and the look of surprise on his mate’s face when he easily slid one finger deep inside Adrian was a damn good reward.
“Someone was prepared for this,” Joshua said, arching a brow at Adrian.
“Uh huh, now would you please fuck me?” Adrian said, letting out a moan when Joshua withdrew his finger only to insert two of them.
“This is so hot, angel.”
The fingers became three and Adrian just couldn’t care to answer. He tried to move his hips, tried to impale himself, even if he knew there was no way he could get Joshua’s dick inside him without Joshua wanting it, but damn, the man was going too slow for Adrian’s taste! He growled again, and Joshua finally seemed to understand Adrian was so ready to go and primed that he really didn’t need to stretch him more or to add more foreplay.
Joshua moved his hands under Adrian’s thighs and pushed his legs up and open, exposing Adrian’s hole to his heated gaze as he knee-walked forward.
Adrian felt the head of Joshua’s cock nudging at him, then it finally breached him. Joshua didn’t stop to let him get used to him, and Adrian didn’t want him to. Joshua pushed in in one smooth movement, and while Adrian was already stretched, he did feel a twinge of pain deep inside. It seemed that next time he stretched himself for his mate, he would have to up it to four fingers.
It didn’t last long, though, and the feeling of fullness that followed was heaven. They fit together perfectly, but then they had been made for each other, so it made sense.
Joshua started a steady rhythm of pushing in and moving out, and Adrian couldn’t have stopped his teeth changing even if he had wanted to. His squirrel wanted to claim their mate again, to reaffirm that Joshua was theirs, and he was all for that plan. He clutched at Joshua’s shoulders, his eyes riveted on the biting mark he had on the neck. He felt proud at the thought that he was the one who’d put it there, and he couldn’t wait to bite him again. Why should he wait, anyway?
Adrian moved up and sank his teeth into Joshua’s neck, marking him as his. Joshua went wild above him, his hips snapping faster and harder as he hammered into Adrian. Adrian felt his orgasm looming, so he tilted his head without letting Joshua’s flesh go. He wanted to feel them connected in every possible way.
Joshua struck and Adrian felt his teeth sinking into his neck. It did hurt for a few seconds, but then he felt something snap between them and Joshua invaded his mind, his lust and contentment enough to make Adrian fall over the edge he’d been on. His orgasm exploded, white light filling his sight as warmth bathed his abdomen and chest. He couldn’t feel anything but pleasure for a while, but when he came down Joshua was still moving inside him, so it couldn’t have been for long.
Joshua pushed one last time inside Adrian’s channel, then went still, and Adrian felt his cock pulsing and wet heat bathing him inside. They stayed locked like that for a while, teeth in each other’s necks and Joshua’s cock inside Adrian’s channel. Only when Joshua started to go soft did he finally removed his teeth from Adrian’s flesh. He licked the wound, making Adrian shiver from the feeling of his rough tongue against the sensitive skin, and Adrian hurried to do the same.
Joshua sagged down on top of Adrian, then rolled to his side, taking Adrian with him and hugging him tightly to his side.
“We should get up and clean up,” Adrian murmured.
“In a little while. Right now I want to bask in my mate.”
The film was still playing on the screen and they hadn’t touched the snacks Joshua had prepared, but who cared? Adrian was right where he belonged, and he had no intentions of moving from there.
* * * *
Joshua woke up with Adrian wrapped around him as if he never wanted to let go. It was incredible, and it would have been the perfect morning after if only he didn’t have dried cum all over his stomach and hip. It itched, but it was definitely worth watching Adrian scrunch his nose and hold on tighter when Joshua tried to move.
“Love, I need to get up. I have patrol duty this morning.”
“Mmm, call Dominic and tell him you’re newly mated,” Adrian grumbled before sinking deeper into Joshua’s side. Oh, it was so tempting to do just that, and Joshua knew that Dominic would give him the day off if he asked, but he couldn’t do it. His Alpha counted on him, and taking him off patrol would mean that someone who had already made plans would have to give them up, and he couldn’t do that.
“Come on, sleepy head. You can stay here and sleep as much as you want, but I have to get up.”
“Fine, fine, go if you really have to.” Adrian moved off Joshua and grabbed Joshua’s pillow instead, slipping it from under him and hugging it tight before instantly falling back asleep. It made Joshua smile and want to jump his mate, but he really didn’t have the time to do that right now. He had to get out of the mansion and into the woods to relieve Soren from patrol duty. Poor guy always got the night shifts, since he was the only non-mated guard in the house. That, and he really wanted to gloat a bit and let him know he had claimed Adrian as his.
After showering he only pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt since he was going to shift as soon as he got out of the house anyway. Pity he had had to wash Adrian’s scent away, especially since he was meeting Soren. Oh, yeah, he knew there was nothing between Soren and Adrian, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t smear it in his face at least a bit, right?
He waited on the patio for the white tiger to get there. Soren shifted and dressed while talking. “Nothing happened, no one tried to come in except a few rabbits, everything’s fine. Damn, I wish Dominic would rely more on the cameras, because I hate night patrol.”
Joshua handed him the coffee he’d brought with him. He knew his friend was always grumpy without coffee. “Okay then. Are you on shift tonight?”
Soren groaned. “Don’t remind me of it. How the hell am I supposed to have a sex life if I’m always on patrol duty on Friday and Saturday nights? That way I’m never going to find myself a man.”
Joshua snickered, but he got what Soren was saying. Maybe he could talk to Dominic and Adrian and see if he could do night duty next week.
“Okay, who are you and what have you done with Joshua?”
“Huh?”
“You smiled, dude! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile, not like that. Usually it’s more like a grimace or something like that, and it’s damn scary, but now you look almost nice.”
Joshua flipped him off. “I just had a good night.” Shit, he could feel himself smiling, and he knew Soren was going to tease him to death. Thank god Bryce wasn’t there too, because it would have been the death of him.
“Oooh, a good night? Does it have anything to do with a certain squirrel shifter? Did he let you finally claim him?”
Joshua snarled a bit and showed the other man his teeth, in total caveman fashion. “Yeah, so back off. He’s mine now.”
Soren held his hands up in surrender. “He’s always
been yours, man. I knew it, but if you hadn’t taken your head out of your ass I would have made him happy. I’m just glad the two of you are mated, even if it leaves me without a man once more.”
“Maybe your mate will just plop in your lap one day.”
“Yeah, right.”
Even with Soren’s happy tone, Joshua could tell the man was down. Maybe he could take him dancing some day or something like that? Shit, he wasn’t used taking care of people or trying to reassure them, so he wasn’t sure what he could do.
“Go on, go do your thing before Dominic asks for your hide because you didn’t patrol.” Soren waved him away, so Joshua undressed and quickly shifted, spending the next few hours in the woods.
He ran after a rabbit or two, but he didn’t eat them. He wanted to have breakfast with his mate. He quickly ran back to the mansion after his shift and headed to the Alpha’s office.
“Joshua.” Ani was there too, perched on Dominic’s lap. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier that you had mated? I could have asked someone else to take your shift.”
“There was no need, really. It was only four hours, and nothing happened.” How the hell did Dominic know about Joshua’s mating? If he didn’t know Dominic was an honorable man, he would have thought the Alpha spied on them or something.
Ani chuckled. “Sorry, I happened to pass in front of your room last night, and you weren’t exactly, uh, quiet.” That explained it.
“I was wondering if I could get night shift the next weekend. That way Soren can take a breather. I don’t think it’s right to always give him that shift, even if he’s the only non-mated guard.”
“I know, I was thinking the same thing, but he’s always the first to volunteer for those.”
“Did he already volunteer for next week?”
“Nope. The shifts are all yours if you want them.” Dominic smiled when Joshua nodded. “Okay then. I’ll let him know when he asks.”
Shit, Soren really was a nice guy.
“I’ve been thinking about building a new extension to the house. I want some of the enforcers we hired for the council to come and live here, and we could use more guards now that the pride is expanding.”
Joshua nodded, even if he didn’t understand why Dominic was telling him this.
“I want you and Denver to talk with the enforcers who volunteered to live here and decide which ones would be the safest. I know we handpicked them already, but I can never be too cautious with my family.”
“Sure. I, uh, I wanted to ask a favor.”
Dominic arched a brow.
“I want to talk with John later today. I know you said I could, but I wanted to be sure it was still okay. Isaiah reduced the possible labs in which we could find Gabriel to three, so I’m almost positive we can find him.”
“You can talk with John, but I’m already giving you the authorization to raid the three labs and see if you can find Gabriel. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I’ve had so much on my mind that I didn’t have the time.”
That was good. Now Joshua just had to plan the whole thing. “I’ll talk with Denver and Isaiah and we’ll start to plan.”
“Involve whatever group of shifters we are sure live near the labs. The hospital isn’t ready yet, so we can use the help with the survivors.”
Joshua nodded then decided to just bite the bullet. “There was something else, too. I know John kidnapped Jamie and did so for money, but he’s been here for almost a year and he’s a good man. Everyone does things we are not proud of when someone we care for is in trouble, so I think we should let him go.”
Ani whispered something into Dominic’s ear. The lion thought about whatever it was for a while before nodding at Joshua. “We’ll let him out soon. I want him to spend some time with the pride before letting him loose, and we can’t do that while we have so many things on our plates, so I’m planning this for...September. You’ll be the one in charge of looking after him and make sure he doesn’t endanger the pride.”
It wasn’t exactly what Joshua had been looking for, but still, John would be relatively free in only a few months’ time, so it was a good result.
“You’re a good man, Joshua.”
Joshua chuckled. “Yeah, who would have thought, huh?”
“I always knew that,” Ani answered, and Joshua just couldn’t stand looking into the Nix’s eyes. It just seemed that Ani has the same eerie way of looking right at his soul like Dominic did, and he wasn’t comfortable with that.
“Now go back to your mate. My mate and I have things to do.”
From his tone Joshua could take a very good guess about what exactly they had to do, and he definitely didn’t want to be there to assist, so he quickly exited the office and headed to his room. Time for a little loving on his mate of his own.
Chapter Six
Adrian needed a break. He was trying, really, but he just couldn’t seem to find out what Troy had been coupled with. Well, he had found something, but it was so weird that he wasn’t sure he’d actually got the readings right—except that he had done the test three times, and the results were always the same.
So first he was going to go and talk with Jayden, then go to his mate and have a little fun with him. Joshua wasn’t working today, but even if it was Saturday, Adrian had wanted to work at least a little, and Joshua had had night patrol shift, so he had needed to sleep a bit. Adrian felt like the answer was right there in front of his eyes, but it still escaped him, and it was damn frustrating.
He found Jayden in the library just as he’d thought he would. The little guy was always in there when he wasn’t doing chores around the house or talking with the twins. “Jayden? Can I talk to you for a moment?”
Pale blue eyes looked up at Adrian. “Sure. Why did you choose a squirrel?”
Adrian was momentarily stunned at the unexpected question. Where had that come from? “Uh, I thought that that way if someone tried to use it to create a shifter, it wouldn’t be a dangerous animal.”
“Oh, okay. Do you wish you had chosen something else now that you injected yourself with it? Sometimes I wish I could be a bigger animal, you know. I’m not the smallest one, since the twins are sugar gliders, but it would be cool to be big every once in a while.”
Okaaay. “I’m smaller than you in shifter form,” Adrian pointed out. The animal part of a shifter didn’t usually reflect the human one, but there were exceptions, and Jayden was one of those. He was small and pale, his hair nearly white just like his weasel’s coat. “Anyway, I don’t regret it. I think I might have freaked out the first time I shifted if I’d been something bigger. Besides, being small has its perks. I can slip in a room without anyone noticing me, for example.”
“I guess I never thought about it that way.”
As much as Adrian liked the guy and wanted to give him all the time he wanted to think about that, he wanted answers way more. “If I tell you metallic colored wings, claws, talons, black and female, what do you think about?”
Jayden looked at the ceiling, his mouth a bit open and looking adorable. What was it with the man that made Adrian want to cuddle him like a pet?
“We’re talking about mythology, paranormals or both?”
“It’s about the DNA that has been spliced with Troy’s.”
“Okay, so some type of paranormal creature. It sounds like an angel, but you talked about claws, so I’d eliminate that possibility. I don’t even know if it would be possible. Do you know if angels really exist? I mean, I didn’t know about Nix before, so everything is possible, right? But I guess that even if they do exist they wouldn’t let the labs capture them.”
“Umm, Jayden, can we go back to our problem?”
“Oh, sure. Has Troy tried to shift?”
“I don’t actually know if he can. I know from the DNA that they didn’t use shifter on him, but he told me he hadn’t tried yet. He’s scared he could hurt someone.”
“Why are you asking about women i
f it concerns Troy, though?”
Adrian had told no one about this yet, but since Jayden was trying to help him...he needed to know everything. “Just like I found out that the extra DNA is not shifter, I found out that it’s a woman’s DNA.”
Jayden’s eyes went wide. “You mean not only is Troy half paranormal now, but he’s also half woman? Does it mean he’s going to grow a vagina? Oh god, is his dick going to fall off or something? Is he going to be able to have babies?”
As funny as Jayden’s questions were, they also raised more problems. Adrian wasn’t sure of anything right now, except for the fact that he was pretty sure Troy’s cock was going to stay right where it was. The mood swings could possibly happen because of the feminine hormones, if Troy was actually producing them. Damn, Adrian was going to have to do another complete check-up and search specifically for that.
He wasn’t sure what feminine hormones could do to a man, but he might have to find out. In addition, if he was indeed producing those hormones, what was he producing them with? Weren’t those produced by the ovaries? Still, this was only a secondary problem—for now, even if it did open a whole world of other problems. “Jayden. Women with wings and claws?”
“Right, right,” the weasel shifter muttered before reaching out and grabbing a book from the pile on his left. Of course it was one of the ones at the base of the pile, but Jayden didn’t even notice it. He just pulled it out and let Adrian deal with the falling pile. Adrian heard the sound of paper being flipped as he righted the books. “I knew it!”
Adrian twirled around to face Jayden. The little man’s cheeks were flushed with excitement. “Did you find something?”
“Well, I already had a pretty good idea. I’ve read a lot about mythology and how it’s related to some of the paranormals we know really exist, and there aren’t that many winged women in mythology that are also real paranormal creatures. Add to it the color black and the claws, and I knew what it was. I really just wanted to check to be sure, because I wouldn’t want to—”
Adrian [Whitedell Pride: 8] Page 9
