“I want Casey.”
Adam and Ben shared a look, before the Alpha reached out, stroking Duncan’s cheek gently.
“We know you must miss him. You’ll see him tomorrow when we get home to Glenoak.”
“Where’s Tobias?”
Noah whimpered at the name, cuddling closer to Adam.
“Tobias is far away. He can’t hurt you anymore. Or Casey. Or Noah.”
Adam wasn’t sure if Duncan was really listening to Ben’s words but when Noah continued to whimper and shift restlessly in his arms, Ben started to sing.
He didn’t sing much, usually only when the boys were sick or hurt, which wasn’t often thanks to them being shifters. Adam had asked him once about the songs he sang but Ben wouldn’t be drawn on them. He thought maybe they were from when his mate was a child, something his father or mother had sang him to sleep with.
His low, deep voice did the trick, Noah settling in his arms and Duncan closing his eyes. His own eyes grew heavy once more, and he fell asleep with Ben’s soothing words in his ear.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“There was a lot of crying.”
It was all Jay could think to say when they arrived back at the cottage after dinner with his family. His mother had cried again. His sister had cried. His brother had clapped him on the shoulder. Jay liked Kyle best, he didn’t say much at all. The smaller girls talked a lot, on and on until their mother had sent them upstairs. Then she’d brought out a photo album, sat down beside him on the couch and gone through picture after picture of things he couldn’t remember. He looked to Byron for help a dozen times, the Alpha speaking for him when Jay just couldn’t find his voice. Byron knew too when Jay had had enough and gently extracted them from the situation.
All Jay wanted to do now was shift into a wolf and hide in his woods. But that was the one thing he couldn’t do. He’d have to settle for burying his head under the bedclothes.
“Hey.”
Byron tugged him into his arms and Jay let himself relax in his embrace.
“You did great this evening. I know it was tough.”
He huffed against Byron’s chest.
“And tomorrow you have to do it all over again.”
He sighed at that. Could they put tomorrow off? Have it another day?
“But tonight, tonight can be just for us.”
Odin coughed. “I’ll give you two some space.”
Byron led him to their bedroom. “How are you feeling? You don’t seem too warm.” He laid a hand across Jay’s forehead as he spoke.
“Tired. Grumpy.”
“No change there then,” Byron joked. “You’re always grumpy when you’re tired.”
Jay let his head rest on Byron’s shoulder as the Alpha rubbed a hand along his back.
“I’m not their Jay.”
Byron’s hand stilled. “I think we can be fairly certain now that you are.”
“Their Jay has been gone a long time. I’m not him anymore.”
“Oh.” Byron’s hand started moving again. “I guess that’s true. Eight-year-old Jay left a long time ago and with everything that happened, you’re not the same person.”
“They don’t see that. They think I’ve come home. But I’m yours now.”
“Yeah.” Byron sighed against him. “You are.”
Jay left the ‘I can’t be theirs’ unspoken. As long as Byron knew who he belonged to, there was nothing to worry about.
They took turns showering and after he’d dried off, Jay sat on the bed, waiting for his Alpha. He didn’t feel ready to sleep, his thoughts too jumbled, his emotions too loud.
Byron stepped out of the bathroom rubbing a towel through his hair. There was a second towel slung low around his waist and Jay couldn’t take his eyes off Byron’s hips and the line of dark hair at Byron’s bellybutton that led downward.
Byron stepped closer until he was standing right in front of Jay. Jay rubbed a hand across his head as another wave of emotion crashed over him.
“What’s wrong?” Byron crouched next to him and Jay could have melted under the concern in his gaze.
“It’s too much. All the sadness and happiness. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know how to stop feeling. I…”
Byron urged him up and back to lie down in the bed. He dropped the towel from around his hips and climbed on after Jay.
“I think I can help make it so the emotions aren’t so loud.”
“I just want them to go away,” he said.
“I know.” Byron stroked a hand across his cheek as he said the words then kissed Jay softly. Kissing. Jay liked kissing. When you kissed, it was hard to think of anything else but the kiss itself.
Byron pulled back, looking down at him. He whimpered at the loss of contact and tried to tug the Alpha back down. But when Byron lowered his head, his lips fell elsewhere, seeking out the warm pulse beating in Jay’s neck and kissing there instead. Jay moaned and let his head fall back, reaching up one hand to run fingers through Byron’s still-damp hair.
Byron’s next kiss fell at the base of his neck, just above his collar bone. The one after that landed below his collar bone on the other side, just above his heart. The next was right over his nipple and Byron playfully sucked at it, imitating Jay from the previous night. Jay arched his back off the bed at the touch, hand holding tight to Byron’s hair as the Alpha’s tongue lavished the small bud with attention. He was almost disappointed when the Alpha moved on, pressing light kisses in a diagonal across his stomach. When he reached Jay’s bellybutton, his hot tongue traced the edges, his hands holding on just above Jay’s hips.
Byron lifted his head, his eyes finding Jay’s. “Almost there.”
Almost where? Where was he… oh.
Byron moved so he was lying along Jay’s legs, his upper body pressed against Jay’s thighs as his hands slipped lower to grip his hips. Starting at Jay’s bellybutton, he kissed a slow line down, following the trail of dark hair that matched Byron’s own. He took his time, savoring each kiss. When he reached Jay’s groin, he didn’t stop, peppering the kisses all along the length of Jay’s shaft. He wasn’t hard, not yet, but with Byron’s lips on him, the Alpha’s hot breath bathing his skin, he couldn’t help it.
When Byron reached the tip, he stopped, looking up at Jay again.
“You’re mine,” Byron said. And Jay could see it in the Alpha’s eyes and feel it in the tips of his fingers that gripped him gently. Byron had claimed him with words a hundred times before. Now he’d claim Jay with his body.
Byron dipped his head, opened his mouth, and slowly took Jay inside. He was achingly hard within seconds, throwing his head back against the pillow as the sensations overwhelmed him. Byron swallowed him deeper and only his hands on Jay’s hips stopped him thrusting upward. It was indescribable, the wet heat on skin so sensitive, skin that had ached for months to feel the Alpha’s touch, the Alpha’s kiss.
He almost keened from the loss when Byron lifted his head but without pause, he sank down again, taking Jay deeper this time, his tongue playing along the underside of his shaft. Jay stretched his hand down and let his fingers just rest on Byron’s head. When that did nothing to disturb the Alpha’s rhythm, Byron taking him deeper before pulling back, then doing it all over again, Jay let his fingers tangle in the Alpha’s hair once more.
The sensation built, a growing pleasure that Jay could tell was fast reaching its peak with Byron’s skillful mouth surrounding him.
“Byron… Byron I…” There was barely a moment’s warning as he reached the point of no return, pleasure spilling over him in a wave as he came. Byron didn’t let go of his hips as he swallowed hard around Jay until every last ounce of pleasure had been wrung from him. He pulled back slowly, leaning back in to press a kiss to his softening flesh.
“Mine,” the Alpha said again, wiping a hand across his mouth as he climbed up the bed to lie beside Jay.
“Yours, always,” Jay said when he’d caught his breath. He laid his head agains
t Byron’s chest. There was nothing, no clamoring of thoughts or emotions fighting for space in his head. Just the one word thrumming through his mind and body as he bathed in the afterglow.
“Yours.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Of all of them, Jay’s reunion with his father was the one that stuck out in Byron’s mind.
Noel had watched in silence as they came into the house, then had turned his back, walking towards the fireplace.
“Could you give us a minute, please?”
Byron wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but Annie ushered the other kids into the kitchen. Odin followed her. Byron stepped back, giving them space, but there was no way he was leaving Jay alone.
Jay was staring at the man’s back and Byron could just about the read the emotions that played across his face. Confusion. Disappointment. Anger. And behind them, the expression of a lost little boy, watching as his parents walked away.
The man’s shoulders shook slightly, and it was then Byron realized he was crying. Jay noticed too, and it was hard to watch him so torn, taking a half-step forward before pulling back, as if afraid of rejection.
“Dad?” Jay finally said and Byron applauded his bravery to reach out with words.
The man didn’t turn, but he did speak.
“I was convinced you couldn’t be Jay. That you were tricking Annie and the kids somehow.”
He spun around slowly. “But I knew from the moment I set eyes on you. I’m sorry, Jay. We tried to protect you, but we failed.”
And Byron knew he was looking at a man broken by the choice he’d made. A man bent double under the guilt of what he’d done.
“And it’s no excuse, I know. But we were young and scared and it was a struggle just keeping a roof over our heads. We thought we were keeping you safe from harm.”
And wasn’t that the rub. Given everything Byron now knew about Tobias, what they did had protected Jay from him. He’d suffered in other ways, both from the isolation, then in the hands of the traffickers but he hadn’t gone through a childhood of torment at Tobias’ behest.
“I was safe, in the forest. But it was lonely. Then the men came and took me and hurt me. But Byron rescued me and now I’m safe and I’m not lonely anymore.”
It was a lot of words for Jay, especially with someone he didn’t know. Though Byron had the sense he remembered his father. Something in the way he’d said Dad.
Noel opened his arms. Jay hesitated, almost turning to Byron as if to ask permission but then seemed to make up his mind, stepping into his father’s embrace.
The pulled apart after a minute, his father tipping Jay’s chin up to see his face.
“I always knew you’d be a handsome one. You took after my grandfather. He was Omega-born, so we knew it was in the family, we knew to watch out for it.”
He let Jay go and turned his attention to Byron.
“You’re Jay’s Alpha.”
“That’s right.”
“And you take good care of him?”
“I do my best.”
Noel held his gaze, as if trying to see the truth in Byron’s words. After a moment, he nodded, satisfied.
Jay turned towards him, giving him a shy smile, clearly pleased with his father’s approval.
“Annie’s made breakfast. Why don’t we go and eat?”
It was late afternoon before they got back to the cottage. They promised to call into Jay’s family one more time before they left for home but Byron was already making plans to bring them to Raventree to visit. He’d need to talk to Jay about that. Get a sense of how much contact his Omega wanted. A decision better left until they’d been home a while and he’d settled back down.
“They seem like nice folks,” Odin said.
“They do.”
The more they’d talked about the past, the better a picture Byron had painted. Of a couple who’d mated young, whose families had never been very caring but had rejected them out of hand because of an old feud between two relatives. Then three kids in four years, Noel struggling to find enough work to keep a roof over their heads and Annie with three babies and no support. Byron couldn’t imagine how tough that had been. Once they knew Tobias suspected what Jay was, after years of managing to keep it quiet, they’d had nowhere to turn. Noel’s family wouldn’t have taken him in and Annie’s would have handed him over to Tobias themselves.
“Do you think he remembers them at all?” Odin wondered aloud.
Nothing Jay had said had indicated so but that didn’t always mean much.
“I think, on a subconscious level, he does. He buried all those memories pretty far down. And what he did remember, he stripped of any emotional connection. Which is why he talked about his parents like they were strangers, just a man and a woman who left him in the woods. I guess it was too hard to accept that his own parents abandoned him.”
“I’ll call the woman who owns the cottage and extend our stay.”
Byron blinked at that. “I was hoping we’d leave tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you want to take that risk? I don’t think Jay’s ever had anything easy, why do you think his heat will be different? Unless you want to run the risk of having to have sex in the car or any random cockroach-ridden motel we find.”
Byron shook his head to rid himself of the image.
“Why don’t we see how he is overnight and make the decision in the morning? I’m not sure he’s that close.”
“Whatever you think is best,” Odin replied. “I’m going out to pick up some supplies.”
He found Jay pacing back and forth in the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?”
Jay shook his head.
Byron took a seat at the end of the bed and watched him.
“Are we going home?” the Omega asked, eventually.
“That depends on you.”
Jay slowed to a stop.
“Can you manage two days in a car?”
Jay resumed pacing.
“Jay?”
The Omega stopped again, turning back to him. “I’m trying to keep it in but I can’t anymore.”
“Keep what in?”
Jay was visible distressed, opening and closing his hands and rocking on the balls of his feet.
“Come here,” Byron insisted and as soon as Jay was within reach he pulled him to stand between his legs.
Cupping Jay’s face in his hands, he waited for the Omega to meet his eyes.
“Talk to me, Jay. What are you holding in?”
“I need to touch you.”
“Okay. Well, that’s normal. Especially this close to your heat—”
Jay shook his head once, the words tumbling from his lips. “No, it’s bigger. I need to touch you and taste you and feel you inside me. But if I let it out, if it starts, I don’t think it will ever stop.”
“Jay are… are you holding in your heat?” Byron didn’t know it was possible to do that. It must have been taking a phenomenal amount of effort and restraint.
The Omega shuddered against him.
“Jay, let go. Let it out. I’m right here, I can handle it.”
“I don’t want to scare you away.” The words were whispered and Byron knew they’d got to the root of his Omega’s fear.
“Never going to happen. I don’t scare easily. Besides,” he tugged Jay’s head down to whisper in his ear, “I want to touch every inch of you, feel what it’s like to be inside you, and give you so much pleasure that that is all you can think about.”
Jay went limp in his arms and Byron stood, lifting him and settling him onto the bed.
“Rest for a bit. I’ll be right back.”
He stuck his head out the door, knowing Odin hadn’t left yet.
“Change of plan. Can you call—”
“Already did. Told her we’d be staying until the end of the week.”
“Thanks, Odin. Um…”
“I’ll get some supplies and drop them back. There’s a place nearby that’s good for fishing. I hav
e my cell, call if you need me.”
Byron nodded his thanks before stepping back into the bedroom and closing the door.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jay seemed better after he’d had a chance to rest, though when Byron had lain down beside him, Jay had rolled over to lie practically on top of him. Byron didn’t mind, whatever helped him feel secure.
The Omega was getting warmer as they lay there and he didn’t protest when Byron pulled off his t-shirt and pants.
“How about a nice cool shower?” Byron said in his ear a few minutes later.
“With you,” Jay said with quiet insistence.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied.
Hand in hand, they stepped into the bathroom. Byron started the shower and shed his own clothes, urging Jay to step under the spray. Following after him, Byron rested his hands on Jay’s shoulders and started a gentle massage. Jay groaned as the Alpha worked the tense muscles.
Jay took a half step backward, putting his back to Byron’s chest. “I’m not holding back,” he said, as Byron slid an arm around his waist to hold him in place.
“Is that right?” Byron murmured, letting his other hand knead the base of Jay’s neck. Jay gasped and stood on his tiptoes as if to give Byron better access. The Alpha gently eased off, knowing how sensitive that spot was. He rubbed the spot lightly with his thumb and Jay shivered and let out a low moan.
“Let’s see just how ready you are,” Byron whispered, letting his fingers trail down between their bodies, following the path of Jay’s spine. When he reached Jay’s ass, he let one finger dip between to press against him. Jay moaned again, leaning heavily on the arm Byron had wrapped around him. Byron’s finger slipped inside easily, the Omega wet and ready for him.
“I want you,” Jay whispered. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
Byron slipped a second finger in, angling them carefully and was rewarded with another long gasp from his Omega.
“Again?” Jay asked, glancing back at Byron over his shoulder, his eyes wide, lips flushed.
The Alpha's Kiss: Lost Omegas Book Six: A M/M Shifter Romance Page 14
