Love at Sea

by Preston Walker

  “I’m not done with you yet,” Linden said huskily. “I don’t want this to stop.”

  Ash slid his hands down from Linden’s hair to his shoulders, stroking and caressing. Something nagged at him and he gave voice to it—a quavering voice, but one nonetheless. “Isn’t there supposed to be something about how…how alphas only do certain things and omegas have to do the other stuff? Or something?”

  Linden gave a harsh chuckle. “Are you really asking if it’s okay by the laws of society for me to suck your dick?”

  Ash blushed and opened his mouth to confirm that was indeed what he wanted to know, when Linden jerked away from him in a lightning-fast motion. One moment he was fully dressed, and the next his pants were down and he had whipped out his dick and was holding it in his hand right in front of Ash’s open mouth.

  “You suck me, then,” the alpha growled. “If that’s what you’re comfortable with.”

  He wanted to take the question back, to finish what had been started with him before moving onto something else, but he also wanted more than anything to have Linden’s dick in his mouth. He hadn’t been aware of that desire until the opportunity was presented to him like this, but now he wanted it.

  He reached out and held onto Linden’s firm ass with one hand and slowly, shyly, curled his hand around his dick. The skin over the hard organ was soft as newborn skin, ridged with vein and a pleasing texture.

  “Do it. Suck me, baby.”

  Ash moved his head forward and, experimentally, flicked out his tongue. The sweet wetness beading at Linden’s red, engorged tip was the best thing he had ever tasted, slightly salty like the sea, and as musky as the scent of the man who made him feel so strange and captivated.

  Linden groaned and grabbed the back of Ash’s head with his hands, forcing the omega to take him. Ash obeyed, letting the alpha’s rigid member slide deep into his mouth until it hit the back of his throat. He slid his tongue down the length as it went, loving how it made the man shiver. He tightened his grip on the thick shaft and slid his hand up and down what wouldn’t fit in his mouth.

  “Suck me!” Linden commanded, his voice cracking.

  Ash grinned around Linden’s cock and did just that, sucking on him in great, deep pulls that immediately pushed him over the edge. A hot spurt of burning warmth filled his mouth and he swallowed it greedily, needing it suddenly to nourish him.

  He felt like a man, like something mature and desirable.

  Then, he felt like a skewered marshmallow, because he was suddenly pushed onto his back with his legs forced apart and hooked over Linden’s broad shoulders, and the alpha was entering him, pushing his way in deep.

  “Ah!” Ash grunted.

  Linden stopped for a moment and gazed down at him with something like worry shining in his eyes beneath the arousal. “You okay?” he growled.

  “How are you still so hard?” Ash gasped, breathless. He had been relaxing but now there was something inside him, going the opposite way of how he was used to, and while it wasn’t exactly painful, it was extremely uncomfortable and made him feel like there was a log shoved up his ass.

  “I just want you,” Linden murmured. He moved his hips as he spoke, backing out slightly. That felt better to Ash, and he wriggled his small ass around slightly to try and get used to the feel. “I’m going to take you over…and over…and over…”

  Ash shuddered, the words alone almost making him come all over the place. “Just don’t come inside,” he muttered.

  “Aren’t you taking your pills?”

  Ash huffed. The pills that helped control an omega’s heat cycle were also supposed to be a supplemental form of birth control…but he didn’t have anything for it to supplement. He didn’t know how to find the words to explain that in the heat of the moment however, especially when Linden took his silence as permission and started to move inside him again.

  Rocking his hips, he shoved gently in and out, and Ash shivered and took it, feeling the veins and ridges of that throbbing cock rubbing all over his inner walls. The discomfort faded away, and then he realized that it felt…good. But not good enough. There was something missing.

  “Go deeper,” he whimpered, and wriggled on the bed. Something sensitive deep inside him begged to be pressed against, and Linden gave him exactly what he needed. With one final thrust, the alpha slid fully inside; the tip of his cock slammed against that pleasurable spot inside him.

  His nails raked down Linden’s back, and a howl rose up in his throat.

  Linden’s mouth crashed down on his, swallowing his cry. The alpha’s cock twitched hard inside him, and he felt a surge of burning warmth seared him from inside.

  Part of him wanted to protest that his mate had come inside him when he asked him not to, but he was hardly thinking anything at all. His whole body shook and jerked, spilling his own seed across his and Linden’s stomachs; his back arched and his breath came in shuddering gasps. His chest heaved, and every muscle in his body went tight, including his ass muscles, gripping Linden’s cock, before everything in him went slack.

  After a moment, Linden’s heavy weight pressed down on Ash. They simply lay there for a moment, breathing together until Linden curled himself around Ash and threw one arm across his thin chest.

  “Not bad,” he murmured, pressing his lips against Ash’s neck.

  Ash giggled and snuggled himself closer to Linden. “Is that all I get?”

  “For now,” Linden said. “Go to sleep.”

  “Oh…but…what about the sleep rotation thing? How long have we been doing stuff?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Linden murmured. “You’re my mate and I’m the Captain. We can do anything we want, and no one can say anything about it.”

  “Are you sure?” Ash muttered, a little worried. A yawn split his sentence in half, and he nestled his head closer to Linden’s shoulder.

  Linden let out a low growl. “Of course I’m sure.”

  Large, but gentle, fingers, slid through his hair, soothing away the tension there. “But…you don’t have to be out there with all of them.”

  “True, but my crew really likes you. You’re part of us now, Ash.”

  Part of you, too?

  But he didn’t say that out loud.

  “If anyone gives you too hard of a time, come to the bridge and let me know. I’ll take care of it. I hand out the paychecks, after all.”

  Ash giggled softly and closed his eyes, relaxing deeply against his mate. He felt completely satisfied, and content, right there in the man’s arms. Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

  Chapter 10

  When he woke again, Ash reached out in front of him before he had even opened his eyes and encountered empty air. “Linden?” he groaned, opening his eyes now to look around.

  Darkness greeted him until his eyes fully adjusted, and he saw that he was in his bunk. Linden must have placed him there sometime while he was sleeping, which filled him with a nagging sensation of extreme disappointment.

  A soft grunt reached his ears from a nearby bunk. Hank. “Can’t you shut up?” the alpha muttered. “Not all of us get to sleep for five hours.”

  Five hours!

  Ash leapt out of his bunk, knocking his head on the frame above him. Grabbing at the throb of pain with his hand, he searched for his clothes and quickly pulled them on. Only when he stumbled out through the door and turned back to shut it behind him, did he realize he was being watched. Hank’s eyes glinted that iridescent neon green of all nocturnal animals that can see in dark.

  He swallowed hard, wondering if the alpha had been watching him dressing and just how much of his naked body he had seen, but a cry of greeting from behind him made him aware that he had been seen. He turned around to see Matteo heading towards him with his arms out.

  “Look at you!” the Italian wolf cried out, gesturing flamboyantly. “No longer such a virgin, eh?”

  Ash blushed hard and turned his head away slightly, but was startled when a hand lightly tapp
ed on his cheek to turn his eyes back.

  “Don’t be ashamed of what you are,” Matteo murmured softly, suddenly serious. Then, he backed away and motioned to Skip, who was standing a bit away. “Skip, can you smell this?”

  Oh, god, smell what?

  Skip gave a fond smile and nodded sagely, folding his arms. “Aye, that’s the scent of a newly-mated omega. You never mistake it. It’s refreshing, almost. I don’t often hang out with such youngsters, but you never forget it. And look at that mark.”

  While Matteo followed along behind him and fawned over the bite mark standing out on Ash’s neck, Ash started to apologize. “I’m sorry that I slept so long. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Skip said, waving one hand dismissively. “It’s rough the first time.”

  Ash nodded agreeably. Although he had been trying to hide the way he felt, he was even more tired than he had been before Linden stole him away from the sleeping quarters to have his way. His neck ached in a sorely sweet way, and his hips felt as though they had been shoved apart in a way that wasn’t supposed to be. Yet, the feeling that he had been changed somehow hadn’t faded at all. He felt more like himself than he ever had.

  “I’m okay, though. Really. Let’s just get to work, okay?”

  Skip shrugged. “Alright.”

  There wasn’t much else to do except get back to the normal routine of life on the crab fishing boat. Ash wouldn’t have known if no one had told him, but it seemed that they were having fantastic luck for having been pushed to an area that wasn’t really seen as prime fishing grounds. A few days later, they hit the capacity of what their ship could hold and headed to shore to offload it, where Linden allowed them all a five-hour break period to do nothing but sleep while the boat was moored.

  Ash didn’t get much sleeping done, as Linden came to him again in the night and stole him away to his private chambers.

  As they sat on the bed, undressing each other in a hurried manner that was at once more focused and yet more relaxed than last time, he couldn’t help but peek hopefully at his mate out of the corner of his eye. “So,” he said, pressing slightly towards Linden and looking up into his eyes, “when are we going to get into the actual relationship part of our relationship?”

  Linden grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him onto his back on the bed, hoisting up his legs. By now, Ash had gotten over his aches from the last time and he readily exposed his small, tight opening for his alpha. Even though they had only done this once together before, he felt such a connection with Linden that they might have been doing it all their lives.

  “Quiet,” the alpha commanded. “Save the pillow talk for later, dammit. I want inside you!”

  Ash gripped his shoulders and bit his lip to strangle his cry, shuddering as the other slid into him. Rough hands held him still, and powerful hips slammed against his ass. This time, Linden didn’t hold back. He didn’t need to. Their bodies had already adapted to each other, and Ash took him in readily. To make things even better this time, Ash grabbed his own dick and stroked it as he moved with the other’s furious pounding.

  Linden finished quickly, and the rush of heat spilling inside Ash was enough to knock him over the edge, too. It was even better this time, fire bursting behind his eyelids as they slid shut of their own accord.

  When it was over and he lay there in a panting heap, Linden pulled away and then lay down beside him. The cuddling afterwards was much the same as it had been before, almost aloof, with that powerful arm thrown carelessly across Ash’s chest.

  “Linden,” Ash whispered.

  Linden made a soft sound of protest and flopped his other arm across his face. “What do you want, Ash?”

  His insides quivered with tentative joy at his name on Linden’s lips. “You said we would talk when we were done.”

  “We will. Soon. But not now. I’m tired.”

  Disappointment threatened to steal away his joy. “But, Linden…I deserve to know about you, don’t I?”

  “And I deserve some damn sleep,” Linden snapped, but exhaustion took the edge off his anger. He rolled over abruptly, taking his warmth and comfort away. “I have a few hours of sleep ahead of me, and then I have to go up to the town hall and the Fishing Legislation Hall to let them know our progress. I have to be the Captain, while you get to be the omega everyone loves and dotes on. Enjoy your role and let me focus on mine.”

  “But why don’t you get to enjoy anything?” Ash whispered.

  Linden didn’t reply, feigning sleep. Ash could feel in his chest that he was only faking it, but he knew better than to try to force a talk between them any further. His grandmother might have thought that he had to chase Linden, to be the one to work at their relationship—such as it was, anyway—but he was a wolf. Wolves were not sprinters. They were long-distance runners who learned to bide their time and run down their prey.

  Ash could wait. He had waited this long. What was a little more time, surely? And if the ache in his heart was partly his, but also partly Linden’s pain, then he knew he was doing the right thing. It hurt him to do it, to stay quiet when they should have been eagerly discussing their lives so far, and their future together, but Linden would gradually weaken himself until he had no choice but to turn to his omega.

  That was the omega’s place in the world, after all. Male or female, they were the domestics, the cooks and the cleaners to their dominant partners, the brains and the stability.

  Having reassured himself, Ash fell quickly to sleep and this time woke up again when he heard the others moving about the boat. Not wanting to give Hank anymore reason to dislike him, he went out to help with preparing the boat for the last part of their journey.

  As the fall season deepened through the next several days, the Bering Sea became far more temperamental. The erratic mood swings for which the area was famous for became even more varied and swift, the storms coming to a point that they began to experience the real danger of the season. Equipment began to wash overboard, the waves stealing their prizes down to the depths. The hydraulic system began to falter, rendered useless and slippery by a constant barrage of rain and sea water dampening the gears. They had to cut free a crab pot that was stuck suspended above, swinging around wildly and crashing against the side of the boat; the truly disheartening thing was that it was full nearly to brimming. Even Skip was rendered distraught by that one, lashing out at the rest of the crew for the remainder of the trip. However, there was nothing to be done for it but to wait out that part of the storm until they could safely tie a tarp over the lift to keep away the worst of the water.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

  They lifted up the last pot from the string that had been most recently laid, and Ash noticed that no one was preparing bait to start over. He headed for the door that would lead down to the storage, but was stopped by Degasi’s coffee-brown arm flung across his path.

  “No need. It’s done.”

  “Done?” Ash repeated, not quite understanding.

  Degasi nodded, looking out to shore with something like wistfulness in his eyes. “Yes. Done. The season ends tonight. There’s no reason to lay down our pots again. Skip is conferring with Linden right now, as they always do, but I can tell you the outcome right now. We’ll be going home within the hour.”

  Home.

  The very thought of home, living with his parents again, being a part of the chaos where he never really felt he belonged, was almost enough to knock him to his knees. Home? How could he go home? He had his sea legs now! How could he ever walk on dry land? How would he ever be able to sleep without the sound of the water singing him a lullaby? How would he deal with not being here with his real family, the ones who actually felt affection for him? Sure, his parents loved him, and the rest of the family mostly tolerated him, but aside from his grandmother and a few others like Trisha, who really felt anything for him? Who really thought he was funny, or loved to tease him just for the sake of it?

/>   He felt as though a huge wave had smacked into him and was dragging him off the deck, like it had nearly done to Hank that one time. The alpha had been standing in the middle of the deck, counting crabs as he was taught to by Skip, and a rogue wave had risen high up over the entire ship. It struck him directly and tossed him, dragging him in a rolling heap to the very edge of the boat, where he only managed to hang on by fastening his wolf fangs around the metal lip of the wall. It cost him two teeth and a great deal of pain, but he had been as good as new after sleeping for the rest of the night.

  Ash had winced, feeling real sympathy for the alpha even though he didn’t like him. Now, he imagined that he felt the same as Hank must have, tumbling out of control and incapable of stopping himself.

  Degasi must have seen the look on his face, because his expression changed to one of sweet kindness. “You mustn’t fret. Have you and Linden not grown closer this whole journey? He won’t let you wash ashore and abandon you. You have to trust in that.”

  I have to trust in that.

  Once they reached the shore, they offloaded the crab and then were allowed to sleep for a total of ten hours. The others had no problem with collapsing right away, but Ash stayed awake for a few minutes because he knew Linden would come to him. He felt the closeness of him in his chest and knew they were connected, knew that this time he would reach a breakthrough in the conversation.

  But it never came.

  Linden never came.

  Ash stared worriedly at the digital clock, which was taped to a table surface with a massive amount of silvery duct tape. A few more minutes passed, and then ten. Ten minutes became an hour, and an hour turned into three. Before he knew it, he was waking up utterly exhausted and out of sorts, his rest having been filled with strange, melancholy dreams.

  He went to stand on the deck with the others, and found Linden standing before their small group with a proud glimmer in his eyes. He didn’t acknowledge Ash as a person, but rather nodded slightly at him as though he was simply any other greenhorn who meant nothing to him other than labor.