by Aiden Bates
He ducked his head and latched onto that scar, bringing the blood right back just underneath the surface as he ground against Doug's overheated body. Doug let out a low moan and clutched Ray's shoulders, digging into the meat there. Ray hadn't meant to leave the scar there, but he had. It was done, and he couldn't find it in his heart to regret it.
They decamped for the bedroom, eager to shed more clothing and get down to business. That was another change that the claim had brought with it, at least for Ray. He had always had a strong sexual appetite. He was an alpha, and a healthy one. He had always been in control of his desires, though. Now he had Doug, and some kind of critical barrier had been burst in his brain. He and Doug could barely keep their hands off of one another.
He should probably be concerned about that. He'd worked for a long time to try to get his urges under control. Then again, it felt so natural to reach out and to see Doug respond to his touch. They were able to hold it together in public, and it gave them both joy. What could possibly be the harm?
He watched with hungry eyes as his omega stripped the rest of his clothing from his body and put it off to the side. He could read Doug's history in his body, if he wanted to. He could see the strong lines of Doug's arms and shoulders, not bulky but well-defined from years of swimming and drumming. Here were the subtle tattoos, not too flashy, that drew attention to those sexy little muscles. Ray traced them with his tongue now and smiled at the heat of Doug's skin.
"I need you, Alpha." Doug looked up at him through his lashes, shy and demanding at the same time. "I swear, it's like I'm on fire."
"Let me see what I can do about that." Ray reached into his bedside table and pulled out a bottle of lube. He patted the bed, and Doug scrambled to get himself into position. He bent over, presenting himself face down and with his pretty, round ass on display. "Look at you. I guess you really are eager, hmm?"
Doug shook his ass, just a bit. "You're being mean!"
Ray laughed and caressed the pale, smooth flesh of his lover's backside. "Maybe a little. I mean I do love to look at you, any which way that I can. What other alpha in the world is this lucky?" He slicked up his fingers, because he did want to satisfy the beautiful man lying before him. "I mean not only do I get to make love to you, but you're mine."
"Always yours." Doug's voice took on a breathy note as Ray slipped two fingers into him, to stretch him out. Sometimes Doug liked to start out slower than that, but today was not one of those times. The bond allowed Ray to pick up on that.
Ray scissored his fingers inside Doug's body, steadying Doug's hips with his free hand. He tried not to think about anything else. He didn't want to rush the process too much. He wanted them both to enjoy this, after all.
Doug enjoyed the opening act almost as much as he enjoyed sex itself. He rocked back onto Ray's fingers, giving little sighs and moans to let Ray know that he was doing it right. Ray treasured all of the little sounds that Doug made. He needed to know when his mate was ready, of course, but he also took a lot of pride in knowing that he'd given Doug pleasure. That brought a smile to his face, and kept him diligent and patient where he might have had the urge to rush things.
Finally, he felt that he could enter Doug comfortably. He withdrew his fingers, earning him a disappointed little sound from Doug. Then he slicked himself up and pressed inside, pushing in with one slow, inexorable thrust.
"Oh God," Doug whispered, as he panted his way through it.
Ray stopped. "You okay?"
"Hell yeah." Doug turned his head. Ray could see the blissed out smile on his face. "Don't stop."
Ray kept going. He pressed on until he was fully seated, at which point he paused to give them both time to adjust. Doug had the most to adjust to, of course, because even though he'd been prepped and he wanted this, Ray was still intruding.
Ray needed to adjust too, even though everything in his body was screaming at him to just move. The tight heat of Doug's body wasn't just hot, or just tight. The pressure of Doug's insides around Ray's cock was intense, and there was always a moment when he was afraid of hurting or of being hurt. The heat, too, was enough to make him want to pass out. It was too perfect, like stepping out onto a beach after being in an overly air conditioned boardroom.
Then something relaxed, just enough. "Move," Doug told him. And Ray moved.
He hefted Doug's legs and lifted them up, so they rested on his hips, and held them there. This changed Ray's angle, and the depth he could reach. The first time he pulled his hips back and snapped them for a thrust, the results were clear. Doug let out a happy moan. Ray smiled, adjusted his grip on Doug's legs, and set up a rhythm.
He built up to a fast, intense pace that had him covered in sweat before a minute had passed. He liked vigorous sex. He liked gentle, tender sex too, but right now they both needed to be distracted and their bodies were the best way to go about it. He thrust as deep as he could, wallowing in the feel of Doug's body around him.
Doug came first. He couldn't move much, and definitely couldn't get a hand around himself, but he didn't seem to need that today. He cried out and then Ray felt him clenching around his cock. If there was a heaven, and Ray was lucky enough to go there, it would consist entirely of that sensation. Ray managed to get a few more thrusts in before he finished too. He gave a strangled cry and emptied himself deep inside his mate, collapsing on top of him.
He lowered Doug's legs back to the mattress and pulled gently out of him. Then he staggered off to the bathroom to get a washcloth so they could clean up. "That was intense," he said, wiping the traces of their releases away from Doug's pale flesh.
Doug hummed. His eyes were glittering emerald slits in his face, and he wore a sated grin. He looked thoroughly debauched. It was a good look for him. "It was," he said. He moved over so that Ray could slide into bed beside him. "I liked it."
Ray wrapped his arms around his omega. "Me too. I'm pretty sure that the fire department is going to show up at some point soon, though. The neighbors can probably see the smoke from across the street."
Doug snorted. "They're just jealous that their own sex life isn't that awesome." He yawned and pressed his body against Ray's, throwing an arm over his belly. "Why is it that sex makes everything better?"
"I have no idea. Biology. Endorphins." Ray kissed the top of his omega's head. "I'm not going to complain."
"No. Me neither." Doug fell silent for a moment. "Alpha?"
"Yeah?" Ray smiled at the use of the honorific. He probably always would.
"I wasn't looking for a claim. But I'm very glad that I'm yours." Doug nuzzled him for a moment.
Ray carded his hands through Doug's blond curls. "I'm glad you're mine too. And you always will be."
Chapter Seven
Halloween loomed closer, and Doug was no closer to getting his father out of prison. It wasn't for lack of trying, but Judge Murphy was adamant. A "dangerous felon" such as Lawrence Morrison would stay locked behind bars until such time as a jury was convinced of his innocence, and that was final.
It didn't help that neither Chris nor Ray was sold on Larry's innocence. They accepted that they hadn't caught the right crook for all of the killings. They were working with Doug, just as hard as could be, to find the holes in the case that they'd already brought before a jury once before. They just still believed that they had the right guy for at least some of the murders, even though Doug had already presented them with no less than fourteen victims for whom Larry was not the killer.
He sat on the chaise part of the sectional at his place and chewed on his pen. He could prove that his father had been someplace else for each and every one of the murders and Murphy probably still wouldn't let Larry out. He needed to come up with a viable alternative theory. The only problem was that there really wasn't one. "We need to come up with some other suspects," he told Ray.
Ray came out of the kitchen with two cups of tea. Since when did Doug keep tea at his place? Whatever. Ray had brought some supplies over to the house l
ast night, because "you haven't been to the grocery store in weeks, Doug." He'd probably brought it over.
"I thought that we weren't supposed to be focusing on the case during weekend couple time." Ray's words chided, but his little smile was sweet. He sat down on the end of the chaise, put the mugs down on the coffee table, and turned to face Doug.
Doug leaned back and thumped his head against the back rest. "Okay, first of all, you claimed a lawyer. We don't have an off mode. We just have a… a maintenance mode, I guess. It's really hard to get us to stop thinking about work. It's doable, especially when we have a big handsome and strongly scented alpha around to distract us." He licked his lips and lifted his eyebrows in invitation, and found himself disappointed when Ray didn't rise to the bait. Well, it couldn't be sex and fun all the time, he guessed.
"Look," Doug sighed. "It's really not such a bad thing. I mean if we get the case done sooner rather than later, then we can go ahead and start with the house hunting. And we can move in together, for real. No more of this weekends and Wednesdays stuff. We'll be able to come home to each other, and just be with one another. Can you imagine that?" He sat up and cupped Ray's cheek with his hand.
A shadow passed over Ray's face. "Doug…"
Doug pulled back. "Am I not attractive to you anymore?"
Ray grabbed his wrist. "Hey. You're beautiful. You're always going to be beautiful to me. You will be beautiful to me when you're old and shrunken, and you'll be beautiful to me when you're middle-aged and out there wearing golf pants in public." Ray swallowed and looked away. "I, ah, I noticed you didn't eat much at dinner tonight."
Doug rubbed at his belly. "Yeah, something in the sauce didn't agree with me. I usually love it, but the past couple of weeks it's been bugging me. I wonder if they changed the supplier for one of the ingredients."
Ray pressed his lips together. "Doug, listen to me. I think you should take a pregnancy test."
Doug's chest hurt. When Ray grabbed his shoulders and gave a little shake, Doug realized that his chest hurt because he'd stopped breathing. "That's not possible," he said. He looked down, and then he looked up at his alpha. "I can't be pregnant. We can't be pregnant. We haven't finished the case yet. I haven't made partner yet. My dad's still in jail. This is no time to be having a baby. We still live in separate houses! We can't have a baby!"
Ray cleared his throat. His skin had paled. "Well, sweetie, I do have some advantages when it comes to detection, you know? And I'm pretty sure that you're going to have a baby." He swallowed. "I get that the timing isn't exactly the best, but I mean it's a good thing. Babies are good. Right?"
Doug looked at the expression on his alpha's face and snapped himself out of it. "You're my alpha," he said, forcing himself to use a firm tone. "I love you. But I'm afraid of this, of being pregnant. Having a baby and everything that goes with it." He took a deep breath and plastered a big smile onto his face, and he didn't lie. "There's no one in the world that I would be willing to have a baby for, except for you. And if I am pregnant, I will love our child more than any other omega has ever loved their child." He sighed. "I just—this might be the literal worst time for a baby."
That was putting it mildly. He was in the middle of fighting for his father's freedom. He wasn't going to be able to pause in the middle of a trial to go and give birth. There was no way that Judge Murphy, who would have been a literal hanging judge if Massachusetts still allowed such things, would adjourn the retrial long enough for him to go and give birth, and if the trial wasn't scheduled to start until February, there was a very real possibility that he might not be able to finish this one out. The last trial had dragged on for months and given Jared, the partner on the case, a stint in rehab.
Doug wouldn't get that luxury.
Ray put a hand on Doug's thigh. "Well, babies aren't known for their timing, I'm afraid." He pulled back. "Er, do you know… you know, anything… about babies?"
Doug gave a hysterical laugh. "I know how they're made. I know they're loud and that they kind of smell bad. Beyond that I'm going to be a little bit clueless." His lungs screamed for air again as another wave of panic gripped him. "Oh God. Oh, God, Ray, I'm going to have to find time to get a degree in child development in the middle of getting a new house and trying to free my father from prison, and God alone knows what else. That spousal abuse case is getting uglier by the day and they just gave me a new one that involves a washed-up glam rocker and—"
Ray laid a finger on Doug's lips. "You'll figure out what to do, Doug. You're a smart guy. You're resourceful. And since you had no idea that you were pregnant, I'm guessing that it's not going to slow you down much." He sighed. "But you are going to have to tell them."
Doug flopped back onto the couch. "Which means telling them about us. Which could be cause for Murphy to deny my father the new trial."
"It could be, I guess." Ray bit his nails for a moment. "I don't think that it will, though. I mean Murphy wants your dad to stay in jail, and the conflict of interest would be entirely on the side of the prosecution. If, that is, if there were a conflict of interest. As it happens, we're all trying to do the right thing here."
"We are." Doug nodded. His alpha's voice grounded him, brought him out of his panic and back to where he needed to be. He'd faced down terrible life events before. He'd faced his mother's rejection. He'd faced her murder, too. Years later, he'd watched as his father stood accused of crimes so horrible that his mind still shuddered away from them.
Doug had viewed each and every one of these terrors not as an obstacle, but as a challenge. This would be no different. He bowed his head and rolled his shoulders. "We are trying to do the right thing here," he said. "And while they might be upset by the whole 'sleeping with the enemy' thing, they won't cut me loose. I've got a lot of wins under my belt. I'm damn valuable to the firm, and they know it." He took Ray's hand in his. "This is a challenge, but not insurmountable. And having a baby with my alpha, a little person that's the best of both of us, just can't possibly be a bad thing, right? It gives us some challenges, but we've had challenges before. We can do this."
"That's the spirit." Ray's smile was wider and a little bit more genuine this time. He hugged Doug. Doug wasn't above taking advantage of his alpha's strength and hiding in his arms right now. He hadn't been lying when he said that he was afraid of everything that went along with the news of a pregnancy. But it was happening, and he and Ray would work together to make this work for them.
"In the meantime," Doug said, when he was ready to pull back, "we need to find some alternate suspects for the killer."
"Or other killer." Ray sat back and grabbed their mugs of tea. He passed one to Doug. "There are still a lot of open questions. I know you don't like to hear that, but there are."
Doug closed his eyes. He'd rather be doing this with a martini in his hand, but he guessed herbal tea was going to be his jam for a few months. He could live with that. "We'll have to agree to see where the evidence takes us, Alpha." He chased the little stab of hurt away and let his lips curl into a smile. "So far, I've gotten fifteen of the charges against my father dropped, and I'm not about to stop, dust my hands off and say, 'good enough.'" He opened his eyes and met his alpha's.
Ray sighed. "I know you're not. Believe me, I know. And believe it or not, we are working to find that alternate suspect. It's just a lot like looking for a completely random man. We have no way of narrowing the person down." He rubbed at his face. "I know we'll get there eventually. We always do. And yeah, sometimes we do start with a canvas as blank as this one, but most of the time we do have a suspect at least kind of in mind."
"It's different when the case isn't technically cold anymore." Doug leaned forward and rested his head against Ray's back, lending his mate his sympathy. "Here's the thing. You're not starting with a blank slate."
Ray stiffened. "You're right. We're not. We have half of a description already, don't we?"
Doug sat back up and rescued his notepad and pen. He could panic a
bout the baby later. "We have a guy who can pass for my dad in dim light. And who's been able to pass for my dad, consistently, since 2000." He held up a hand when Ray opened his mouth. "You can disagree with that timeline all you want, but the fact remains that we've got an active killer whose resemblance to my father hasn't changed over a long period of time."
Ray huffed out a little laugh. "Excellent point, counselor." He got up and changed seats, so he could lean back and cuddle up next to Doug. "Our kid's not going to get away with a damn thing with you, is he? He's going to try for fifteen extra minutes of bedtime and wind up going to bed early."
"He'll be grateful for the trip, too." Doug flashed Ray a smug little smile and leaned into his embrace. "I think that if we can figure out what it is that the victims have in common, we can probably manage to generate a list of candidates."
Ray bit his lip. "Yeah. Yeah, we'd have to do that. We'll get on that. On Monday."
"Sunday night." Doug looked up into his alpha's eyes.
"Monday." Ray didn't give Doug any leeway on this. "You're my omega, and we're having a baby. I'm allowed to celebrate that, damn it. And you—you're supposed to rest, and keep your feet up or something. You're not supposed to stress your body."
