by Cooper Davis
He tucked in his shirt once more, cleared his throat, and with a mixed sense of anticipation and terrible anxiety, banged on Hayden’s door.
The seconds ticked off, Josh cleared his throat again, staring at the ground. And by the time a minute or so had passed, Kira’s words about Hayden not opening the door for him were ringing in his ears.
“Come on, Hay,” he whispered softly. “Open up, buddy. It’s me. Open up for me.”
Open up your heart to me—open up that brilliant mind of yours and just remember.
After more than five minutes had passed, Josh’s cop instincts started doing a spastic jig across his chest, whispering that somehow, someway, Keener and Rawlings had sent someone after Hayden. That they’d reached beyond the confines of prison, targeting the one person Josh had leveraged his very soul to protect against their particular brand of violence.
First Josh walked around the back of the property, looking for anything that might seem suspicious. A broken window, an open door, a discarded weapon. He did so by using his cop instincts, but his wolf instincts were right in there, too, nearly going berserk. His arms and legs tingled, the feeling that always signaled he was about to turn wolf. But as soon as he’d subdued that aspect of his transformation, soft fur began covering his chest and abdomen, itching horribly beneath his uniform. He was out of control, hardly able to prevent the strong wolf inside of him from emerging.
If anything had happened to Hayden—if Keener or Rawlings had sent someone to harm him—Josh would forget working on the side of law and order. He would hunt them and anyone they cared about down, and show them the true meaning of raw, cold power. Hayden was his, a part of him, and he hadn’t sacrificed so many years with the man for any enemy to snuff out his life.
The thought of losing Hayden finally did Josh in. He ripped off his clothes and bounded into the woods just behind Hayden’s house, his strong, heavily-muscled legs already transforming and realigning their shape, his posture changing, his entire nature becoming that of an Alpha mate, protector to his very marrow. That it was daylight and dangerous for such a transition, Josh never even counted the cost. His instincts catapulted him, drove him to ensure Hayden’s safety, and once his change was complete, he leaped up onto the small wooden deck along the back of his lover’s home. Sniffing, moving like the natural born predator he was, he released a rumbling, furious sound.
Then, bounding onto a rickety table on Hayden’s deck, he used his heightened vision to gaze through a small window. He studied the home’s interior, searching for anything that might indicate foul play. Neither his sense of smell, nor his vision, gave him cause for alarm, but he couldn’t seem to bring his own fears to heel. Nudging at the window, he realized it was unlocked and slightly open. Panicked to find it that way, Josh steeled himself against whatever pain he was about to experience, and leaped at the glass window with all the supernatural force in his body. Smashing through, he landed in the middle of the kitchen, ignoring the scent of his own blood, and began prowling farther into Hayden’s home.
A towel wrapped about his hips, Hayden walked into the kitchen, a man on a hunt. Not for elk or deer, as he would on a full moon, but for the coffee pot. His head felt like it was about to split in half, the headache that had begun earlier now beating at his temples like a jackhammer.
His long hair was too wet, rivulets of water rolling across his chest and down his pectorals, all the way to his abdomen. He loosened the towel from about his hips and brought it to his head. Bending over, he rubbed the towel back and forth in a rough motion, working the dampness out. Once done, he wrapped it about his neck and continued toward the coffee pot, not caring that he was naked. It was natural to him, being unclothed, as it was for all of their kind. It wasn’t like he’d take off to the resort in the buff, but he felt at ease moving about his home without even wearing his boxers.
Dumping out the day-old coffee, he scrunched his nose at the gross scent, then rubbed at his nostrils in an effort to clear them. What hit him next made him whip around with a growl. The strong odor of blood. Wolf’s blood.
“Who’s here?” he demanded, dropping into a crouch. A quiet whimper answered, followed by a rumbling wolf’s lament.
Lifting his nose into the air he knew instantaneously that Josh was in his house—in wolf form—and injured.
He was a first-class idiot, Josh decided of himself. He was sprawled back in Hayden’s bedroom, reeking of blood and unable to shift back to human form. Yeah, way to make a great impression on the man you love, he thought, whimpering out his frustration.
Dropping his nose onto his paws, he hoped like hell that Hayden wouldn’t decide he was the most possessive, smothering Alpha mate ever to exist. Hayden needed time and space, so what did he do? Behaved like a moron and did the most half-cocked, stupid thing any werecop had ever contemplated. At least he could take solace in the fact that he was possibly the only werecop currently employed by any law enforcement division on planet earth, so at least there wasn’t a lot of competition for the title.
A gentle, strong hand touched the top of his head, and Josh jolted. Hayden knelt beside him, and stroked his face, his ears. “You nutcase,” he said gently, continuing to pet him with soothing strokes. “You broke through my kitchen window, didn’t you?”
Josh nuzzled against Hayden’s side, panting from the exertion and the painful cuts and bruises that abraded his right side and flank. Hoping Hayden would hear the apology in his tone, he released a whining sound, begging forgiveness for being such an ass.
Hayden bent his face low, nuzzling him back, tickling and rubbing his ears. “Okay, well, you asked me to trust you last night,” he said. “Now you gotta trust me, buddy. Let me take care of these cuts.”
Josh watched as Hayden stood and walked away, and definitely appreciated the gratis view he got of that naked, lean and outrageously beautiful body of Hayden’s. Except, curse the dumb luck, he’d gotten the peep show while unable to transform into human form. If he had been able to, then the entire going slow and wooing plan would have been shot to hell.
He wouldn’t have been able to hold back, not after the stunning view Hayden had given him of abdomen muscles that rippled with strength, narrow hips, and much broader shoulders. Josh had seen a lot of his fellow male wolves before and after they made their change, but he’d never glimpsed a man more gorgeously sculpted than the one who’d just left him in this fit of sexual frustration. Even the stingy cuts along his fur-covered body didn’t do much to dampen his longing. With a growl, he managed to rise onto all fours and leap into the center of Hayden’s big bed. Might as well send the guy a message when he returned to tend to his wounded ego—and body. At the moment, he didn’t know which one felt more banged up.
“Well, this was an interesting beginning to day number two.” Hayden never looked up from the laptop where he worked, his fingers still poised over the keyboard.
Josh felt off-kilter and a little woozy. Probably because he’d knocked his head pretty hard when he’d gone smashing through the window. Now he stood in Hayden’s living room, rubbing his temples, glad he’d been able to assume human form again. He couldn’t afford to waste a moment, not with all he wanted to make Hayden understand.
He padded along the rug, Hayden’s sweatpants dragging with each step. Nothing like putting on a much bigger guy’s clothes to make you feel like a total wuss. Like you weren’t nearly large enough to compete Alpha to Alpha. Then again, the T-shirt Hayden had left on the bed was almost too tight across his chest. Their bodies were just different, plain and simple, and it was part of what turned him on so much about Hayden.
“Day two, huh?” he asked groggily, still rubbing his throbbing temples. “You keeping count now?”
“The council gave us thirty days to decide,” Hayden said, never looking up from his work. “I’m just clocking time, man.”
Hayden had seemed so open when Josh was wounded and panting at his feet, downright tender in his ministrations. Now? Well, the barriers
were clearly back in place, as was his requisite cynicism.
“I already told you,” Josh said firmly, “I’m not on the council’s timetable. Besides, I know what I want, and I’ll wait long as it takes.”
Hayden’s entire posture stiffened, as if he’d just caught an unknown scent on the wind. He even tilted his chin upward. Then he leaned back over his keyboard. “What you want?” he asked, a hint of flirtation in his tone, even if he wouldn’t look up and meet Josh’s hungry gaze.
“Who I want. Is that precise enough for you, Garrett?” Josh was shocked by how husky and lust-filled his own voice sound.
Hayden clearly noticed the sensual tone because he turned in his chair, finally meeting Josh’s own fevered gaze with a sexy smile. The only real smile that he’d seen on Hayden’s face in years. Then Hayden noticed Josh’s mis-sized clothing, his eyes widening in amusement as he took in the sight. “Oh, man,” he snorted. “Now that’s just hysterical.”
“Okay, have your fun.” Josh folded arms over his chest, nodding his head. “Go on. I’m the short guy, the stocky little Alpha. Have your laugh at my expense.”
Hayden began laughing even harder. “I’m sorry…seriously, you are…”
“Short.” Josh’s face burned and he grinned at the floor. “Like I said, have your fun. I deserve it after that stunt with your window.”
Hayden waved him to silence. “No, I was going to say that ‘short’ is like the last thing I’d ever say about you.” Hayden turned all the way around in his chair, a disbelieving expression on his face. “You really are kidding, right? ‘Stocky little Alpha’?”
“You’ve got at least five inches on me.”
“I doubt it.”
“By the way, used to be four. I calculated.” Josh walked closer and sat on the other side of the table from Hayden. “But damn if you didn’t keep growing, you sneaky bastard. Even more than I did. You must be a solid six-feet-six now.”
“Which makes you six-feet-one, Peterson. Only an Alpha would ever consider that height ‘stocky.’”
Josh laughed. “Well, compared to a big Alpha like you, Hay, I do feel short.”
Hayden averted his eyes, his face flushing visibly. “Are you saying…you like my size?”
“You have a body that’s just made to be worshipped,” Josh murmured reverently, unable to keep his feelings on the matter to himself.
“Funny,” Hayden replied slowly, as if considering the matter. “That’s exactly what I always thought about your body. Hotness incarnate, I remember that’s how I used to think of it.” Hayden drew circles on the table with his fingertip, keeping his gaze down. “Well, how I used to think of you, actually. Every time I got around you, just one look and I was like, I don’t know, in heat or something.”
Josh cleared his throat, desperate to know if he had any hope of reclaiming that affection and desire. “And…now?” he asked, his voice husky as it ever got. “What do you think now, Hayden?”
Without any warning, Hayden’s rich blue gaze lifted, locking with Josh’s. Then, Hayden’s black lashes lowered slightly, so that he stared up at Josh through them, an absolutely sensual expression on his face. “Isn’t it obvious?” Hayden’s lashes lowered a little more, creating the most utterly fuckable expression that Josh had ever seen on any person’s face—male or female. “Wasn’t it always obvious, that sexed-up reaction you got out of me?”
An absurd case of shyness swamped Josh in all of a second. He just sat there like some sort of mute, rubbing his neck and grinning like a fool. Well, and feeling his balls draw tight like they were winding up for a very fast pitch, with his hard-on offering itself as the required bat.
Finally, a semblance of Josh’s mind returned, and he cleared his throat. “So, uh, let’s talk about this elders’ thing.”
Hayden frowned back in silent reply; it was absolutely the most dumbass topic Josh could’ve possibly raised. But, despite his desire to drag Hayden back to his big ole bed, it was too soon to try something so blatant, and the truth was, Josh had to keep their process moving forward.
“Was it your idea?” Hayden asked him, point-blank.
When Josh didn’t answer at first, Hayden scowled. “’Cause, I already told you, buddy, it wasn’t mine.”
“I’m well aware you didn’t come up with the plan,” Josh said, shifting his chair so he was facing Hayden better.
“So it was yours?” Hayden persisted.
Josh smiled sadly. “No, it really was all theirs,” he admitted. “But I would have come for you in the next few months anyway.”
Hayden cocked his head, clearly taken aback. “Why? I mean, after all this time, you were planning to look me up…or something?”
“Yes, in another eight months. That actually was my timetable.” Josh flinched, thinking of the two men who had wanted to hurt his lover.
“I don’t understand,” Hayden answered, brushing long fingers through his hair with an absent gesture. “Eight months? It would have been almost six years since…I mean, what would have been the point, all this time later? We never even had much, Josh.” Hayden leaned back in his chair, intelligent gaze trained on him, and Josh could practically see the man’s keen mind shifting puzzle pieces, trying to see where this conversation was leading.
Hayden continued, voice intense. “Why were you even still thinking about me after all this time? Why would you have a plan—an actual timeframe—for coming to see me? We didn’t have a real relationship, nothing.”
Without meaning to, Josh balled his hands into fists right there on the table. “No choice…before,” he managed to half-growl in reply. Slowly, Josh forced himself to relax his hands, to release the coiled fury that often overcame him when he remembered what had been done to Hayden.
“What were you thinking of just then?” Hayden asked, watching as Josh’s fists flexed and relaxed and flexed again. “Why’d you get so upset? How did it relate to this timetable of yours?”
Josh’s entire body grew taut, with him as on edge as he ever got in the thick of the hunt. Lowering his head in wolfish intent, he growled like the natural born predator he was. Hayden jerked back in his own chair, instinctively responding to the challenge of another Alpha.
Hayden’s eyes flashed and then narrowed, his shoulders hunched forward, and he looked about ready to lunge when Josh released an anguished, soulful cry. “They wanted to hurt you. I couldn’t let them do that. I-I didn’t…couldn’t.” Josh felt the tears he’d kept inside for so many years tighten his throat, but he refused to cry in front of Hayden—especially when he considered how much more his lover had endured. “I did everything in my power, Hayden,” he said finally, not daring to look into the other man’s eyes. “To keep them from hurting you. From killing you, like they wanted to do.”
Hayden was out of his chair and squatting beside Josh faster than any natural motion should have catapulted him. He reached for Josh’s hand, seizing it with preternatural strength. He clutched it, staring up into Josh’s anguished eyes. The ruined, broken look in them struck a chord, something familiar that Hayden couldn’t recall, but which intensified the headache pounding behind his eyes.
“Joshua,” he said, keeping his voice as steady as he could, “tell me who wanted to hurt me. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
Josh shook his head slightly, staring glassy-eyed across the room. “It kills me that you don’t remember.” Then he glanced down at Hayden. “Would you believe that all these years, some part of me really thought you knew. That you understood why I stayed away.” Josh’s voice broke and he scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “I hoped that at least you might have remembered what happened between us.”
Hayden felt the floor beneath him nearly sway. “Tell me what I don’t remember.”
Josh buried his face in trembling hands. “There’s just too much,” he argued. “Too much fucked up shit that came right after. I don’t want you to know all of it.”
Hayden stood and, moving behind Josh’s chair, bent low
, wrapping his arms about the other man like a healing web of protection. “I’m here now, and I need to know.” When Josh remained quiet, Hayden could hardly bear the silence. “At least tell me what happened between us, then,” he urged.
Josh slid warm fingers up the length of Hayden’s forearms, stroking him with more tenderness than Hayden had ever imagined Josh felt for him. “Hasn’t the timeline of the accident seemed off to you? Wrong somehow?”
“It’s…” Hayden felt like he was trying to pierce a dark, murky haze. He’d been in a coma for six weeks after the wreck, and the time in the courtroom, all of it had been a fog for him, his mind not fully recovered—it never had healed like it should, or he wouldn’t have a giant blank canvas staring him in the eyes.
Josh squeezed his arms, turning his strong jaw against Hayden’s shoulder. “We went out for beers on the twenty-ninth of December, right? By the time we took our run, then shared that—” Josh hesitated, then continued in a quieter voice,”—that sweet kiss, it was the early hours of December thirtieth. When we climbed in the truck, it was already the middle of the night.”
Hayden didn’t understand. What was Josh trying to make him figure out? “What are you getting at, Joshua?”
Josh slipped out of his grasp and stood, facing him. “Think, Hayden. Your mind has blocked out the details, and because of my testimony at the trial, you’re not seeing the truth here.”
Hayden couldn’t piece the fractured parts of his memory together into whatever puzzle Josh wanted him to see. If it were possible, he’d have figured out the dark, vacant bits years before.
Josh’s expression became fierce. “We weren’t drunk. We’d been on a run! When would we have had time to drink?”
Hayden turned, began pacing. “I’d always assumed…those beers were still in our systems.”
