by Sky Winters
“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Lance said, laughing. “People like me need their beauty sleep.”
“Ah, so that’s what does it,” Orion said, winking subtly at Lance as he walked deeper into the house.
“I figured we should probably get started with the wallpaper today. Since you guys spend so much time in the living room, it would be nice if you were able to have something that looks nice.”
“Sounds good,” Lance said, smiling at Orion. “I think that we can get a lot done today. My mom is doing physical therapy, and then she has a lunch date with her doctor. He’s actually pretty good looking for an older man.”
Orion crossed his arms over his head. “A good looking older man? Is there something that I should be worried about?”
“What?” Lance asked, his face reddening. “Nothing whatever compared to how I feel about you. Especially not Dr. Daniel. My mom can have him.”
Orion burst into laughter and shook his head. “No wonder you’re up early. You really can’t miss those doctor’s appointments.”
“No, my mother can’t afford to. I think once she has gone through some of the physical therapy, she’ll be back on her feet again, but she’ll be moving more slowly. It’s kind of sad, but I am really hopeful that she will be happier with the way things are moving along.”
“Your mom is a strong woman. She can take a lot of hits from life and get back up smiling. It takes a lot for people to be able to learn from everything that they’ve experienced and still come back for more, instead of shutting themselves off from new experiences altogether. I really admire that. I would like to be more like her.”
Lance raised his eyebrow. “You don’t seem like the type of guy who doesn’t face up to their experiences.”
“Honestly, I’m terrified of feelings,” Orion said, laughing. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed that by now. Although my spiky exterior is a way to help me ward off all the stuff on the inside. Now where were we?” He turned back to the wall, hands on his hips. “Help me to start peeling off this old wallpaper. It’s a perfect project to do while your mom isn’t here. We really wouldn’t want her breathing in any of this stuff. We could probably get it done and have the house airing out by the time she gets home. Maybe you guys can go to the park. At least until it’s finished drying.”
“Right,” Lance agreed.
They moved all the furniture away from the walls and the living room and slowly began tearing the wallpaper off. Lance and his mother had picked out a wallpaper that they both liked earlier that morning in the waiting room for the physical therapy appointment. Dr. Daniel had offered to drive his mother home, so it was all taken care of until probably about four o’clock that evening. Lance had already stopped by the hardware store to pick up the wallpaper that his mother had picked out. It was a gentle blue color that made Lance think of his childhood.
They started working in silence, and every once in a while Lance could feel Orion’s dark and penetrating eyes on him. Every time, it made his heart palpitate, and he would remember all of the ways that Orion had touched him the day before. It sent a deep thrill throughout his entire body, and every once in a while he would have to close his eyes so that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the feeling entirely. They wouldn’t get any work done if he allowed himself to become so wrapped up in his own fantasies. Even if they were rooted in truth.
“You missed a spot,” Orion’s deep voice suddenly said in his ear. It sent a tingle down his spine, and Lance closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to be able to control himself much longer, especially if Orion continued standing so close to him. He could feel the warmth of Orion’s body behind him, and it made him want nothing more than to repeat the experiences of the night before.
It almost seemed like a dream, especially when he had been agonizing over Orion for so long. But now, it seemed as if this flirtatious nest between them was the most natural thing in the world. Neither of them were ashamed of it, and even if Orion was setting him up for a giant joke, or some kind of horrible experience with the gang that he was in charge of, it didn’t matter. All he wanted was to make the moments between them last forever.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” Orion said, making Lance’s heart pound hard. Orion put his hands over Lance’s chest, as if in an effort to calm him down, and nuzzled his neck. A torrent of bliss surged through Lance, and his first thought was to push away from it. Something that felt so good couldn’t be healthy. There was no way he would be allowed to enjoy himself this much.
“But what does it mean?” Lance asked, pulling away from Orion’s touch. He looked him square in the eye, and although it felt like torture to stop him—after all, it was what he had wanted for so long—he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy it fully. Not without having a talk first about what the hell they were doing. He still didn’t even know if Orion was gay or not!
“What do you mean, ‘what does it mean?’” Orion asked, his face darkening. “Man, this was always so annoying about you. You always overthink everything and never trust yourself. Maybe you and I are too different for this.”
He started to turn away from Lance, heading out of the living room, but Lance gripped his arm firmly.
“That may be, but it’s hard not to overthink things when I have no idea what’s going on in the head of another person. At least I only get myself worked up about the things that actually matter to me.”
“Sure… Like getting the lead in a meaningless school play. And questioning my feelings for you when, for the first time in ten years, I’ve had the chance to be honest with you.”
Lance’s stomach knotted. “If you really felt that way for so long, why didn’t you even try to find me?”
“I did! It’s just that I had a lot of things going on. Not only was my dad insistent on me taking his place, but this town needed protection. There are things that happen here that you have no idea about. Things that have haunted me ever since I was a small child. And I had nowhere to turn. Not even to you. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody. And now that I’m an adult, I don’t need you to shame me for the things that you don’t understand. If you can’t take me at my word, then you don’t need me at all.”
Lance was chilled by the anger that he saw on Orion’s face. He almost let it put him off enough to let him leave. But something in him was determined not to let this man go again. They had to fight through their differences instead of letting them divide them forever. It just wasn’t worth it to fight. Not when they finally had each other again.
Lance took a deep breath. “I’m just saying, couldn’t you have tried a little harder for me? Do you know how hard it was to try and imagine what you were going through because of what I did? Even after all these years, my biggest regret was kissing you. And if that wasn’t a problem for you, do you know how much anguish I could’ve avoided if I had known that? Even if it meant that we couldn’t be together right away, at least I would know that I hadn’t lost my best friend because of something rash and impulsive that I did.” Lance’s voice broke. “I haven’t been able to forgive myself for that. All I ever wanted was to have my friend back.”
“Well I guess that’s just too bad, because after that kiss things could never have gone back to the way they were,” Orion growled, though his face was softening. Lance was used to his temper, but he hadn’t been around it for a long time. It was still startling. But if he was still the same as he used to be, the anger would come in a short burst, followed by serious reflection.
“It wouldn’t have to be the same. If you didn’t like me anymore, I just thought maybe you would have ended our friendship and been honest with me. But I thought maybe your dad had something to do with it. I’ve always heard that really tough guys are homophobic…”
“My dad wouldn’t care who I mated with. The real issue was always whether or not I would be able to take care of the others.”
“What others?” Lance asked, suddenly confused.
Orion sighed heavily and sat down on the couch. He looked up at Lance with his dark eyes clear and brooding.
“I guess it’s time I told you a story,” Orion said. “But I don’t think that you’re going to love it.”
Chapter 16
“When I was a little boy,” Orion began, “my father was my idol. I looked up to him more than I looked up to anybody. He represented everything I wanted to be when I grew up. And that was just the way it was meant to be.”
His entire demeanor changed as he told his story, he seemed to fold in on himself, and Lance couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. It wasn’t that he had been angry at Orion after all this time. He had just been so angry at himself. He thought that being too forward had cost him his most precious friendship. And now, hearing the truth after all this time was harder than he’d thought it would be.
“My dad had a secret that he had to keep from most of the people in this town, and it cost him many friendships. Eventually, it also caused him great bitterness and he turned hard and angry toward everybody, even me.”
Lance frowned. He hadn’t considered Orion’s father as a normal person before, especially not someone who wanted to have any kind of relationships with people in the town of Winston. It must have been hard for Orion to see his father turned from someone warm and loving to somebody so bitter.
“Did you understand what was going on with him?” Lance asked.
“I heard how angry he was. How bitter he could be when people misunderstood his intentions. He was a fierce-looking man, with a fierce secret, and that can cause a lot of problems. He really wanted to find a mother for me, but there was nobody willing to mate with him. The women in this town avoided him like the plague and he turned out to be very lonely despite having the gang. They weren’t enough for him. He wasn’t emotionally fulfilled after my mother died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lance said. “It must have been hard for you as a child that young.”
“It was different,” Orion said with a grim smile. “I didn’t want a different mother. I sort of remember the one I had, and she was perfect enough for me. Every once in a while my father would bring home a woman and it would just turn out to be so strange and awkward. She was never really with him because she liked him. She was just so curious about what his life was like and drawn to whatever kind of darkness she saw in him. One woman we even overheard talking on the phone to a friend about how it was rumored that my father had killed my mother. That was the last time my father ever tried to date.”
“God, that’s messed up.”
“It was hard for him. Nobody could understand him, or his secret. He never felt comfortable telling anybody about it. None of the women he met would have understood the way my mother died.”
Orion still hadn’t come right out and said it yet, so Lance waited patiently for the truth. It had to come from Orion himself, and telling Lance something so incredible and personal would be hard for him. And so Lance remained quiet, silently encouraging Orion to continue the story.
“You probably won’t believe me when I tell you this the first time, maybe not even after I tell you a second. But when I was a kid, I saw some horrifying things. Things that only sound like stories to most of the people who live here.”
“Like what?” Lance dared to ask.
“It started out with a lot of death. People that I knew were always seeming to die. I probably went to twenty funerals before I was five years old. They were always beat up almost beyond recognition. It was disturbing to see it. My father told me that one day I would understand. But I didn’t until his best friend, a man I called my uncle, was killed.”
Orion paused for a moment, his dark eyes filled with pain. Lance put his hand on Orion’s shoulder and he seemed to soften under Lance’s touch. Finally, he began speaking again.
“The night my uncle died, my father was so angry that he woke me up out of bed and told me that I would have to keep a secret, and I was going to have to help him to get revenge. He was going to leave me alone for three weeks, and I would have to act as if he was at home and everything was well. Teachers and friends would have to believe that my father was at home and nothing was strange. But in reality, he was out there, he was going to be fighting.”
“How old were you?” Lance asked.
“It was the week of my sixth birthday; he left before it. He gave me a few one-liners to say to make it sound as if he was still at home so that teachers wouldn’t get suspicious. There was nobody to babysit me either, so he told me I was going to have to take a bath by myself every day and showed me how to prepare some meals so that I wouldn’t go hungry. He promised that he would be home soon, but I didn’t know if that was true. I had seen so many people die that I was terrified. I asked him why he had to do it and finally he showed me.”
The tension between them was so high that they could’ve heard a pin drop. Lance wanted desperately to ask Orion what his father had shown him. But Orion seemed lost in his own world, and Lance worried that if he interrupted his thoughts, the story might end for good. If that happened, he would never know.
“The night he woke me up, he took me outside into the woods. It was the same spot I showed you. The same spot that he abandoned me for my rite of passage ceremony, when I was initiated into the life of a bear shifter. In a way, I already knew what was going to happen. Sometimes when I looked at him, I was able to see the truth. The bear seemed to be within him, even when he wasn’t shifting into it.”
Lance’s heart began to pound rapidly in his chest. He knew exactly what Orion meant. In fact, he had seen the bear within Orion several times before. Not only when he was losing his temper, but also when he had been with Lance in the woods.
“That night, my father shape shifted in front of me and let out the most bloodcurdling roar that I had ever heard. I haven’t heard anything that haunting since then.”
Orion grew quiet and Lance instinctively knew that that was the end of the story. If he hadn’t already suspected it, he might not have believed Orion. He might have though Orion was lying just to score points with him and make it easier to make up for all the time they had lost together.
“Whether you think I’m crazy or not, it doesn’t matter. Because you mean enough to me that I can prove to you that I’m telling the truth. Do you want to see?”
Orion was looking hard at Lance now, and Lance knew that it was his time to prove himself to Orion.
“I do believe you,” Lance said softly. “I’ve always kind of suspected that about you. But if you still want to show me, I would like to see. Not because I don’t believe you, but because I want to know everything I can about you.”
Orion smiled, sincerely and fully, for the first time since they had seen each other. It was a mesmerizing sight, and Lance never wanted it to end.
“Well alright. Follow me,” Orion said, and headed out the door.
Chapter 17
Lance was surprised to see Orion’s motorcycle parked outside the house. Orion walked toward it nonchalantly, obviously expecting Lance to follow. He did, with a nervous flutter in his chest, pausing beside the motorcycle. He had never been on one before, and it made him a little bit uncomfortable just to invite himself onto Orion’s bike.
“Just get on,” Orion said, mounting the bike and rummaging in the trunk area of the motorcycle. He produced a helmet and tossed it toward Lance. “We don’t have much time.”
Lance swallowed hard, and put the helmet on his head. He tentatively climbed on top of the motorcycle and settled down behind Orion, surprised by how intimate it felt to have his body pressed so close into the back of Orion’s. The feeling of Orion’s firm ass vibrating against him when the motor was running instantly sent waves of heat through Lance’s loins, and he had to close his eyes and try to think of the least sexual things possible to try and avoid getting hard. Unfortunately, he failed.
“Hold on,” Orion called behind his shoulder, and soon they were speeding off through the rural roads
of Winston. Lance was scared at first, but soon began to really enjoy the feeling of the air flowing over his body. There was nothing between him and the earth around him, and he wondered how it was that he had ever been able to settle for life cooped up inside a car. Orion really knew how to live.
They sped down country roads, and Lance was able to catch Orion’s eye in the side-view mirror of the motorcycle. Orion winked, a sexy smile curling his lips, and Lance found himself overwhelmed by the man’s incredible energy. He wondered if Orion could feel how hard he was sitting behind him on the motorcycle, and surprised himself by reaching around Orion’s waist to check if the feeling was mutual.
Apparently, the move surprised Orion as well, because the motorcycle swerved briefly as Lance clasped his hand around Orion’s groin. Lance felt another surge of arousal as he felt how hard Orion was. Lance began to gently rub Orion’s shaft through the thin fabric of his pants, and he snuck a glance at Orion in the side-view mirror. Orion had his jaw set firmly, and was focusing intently on the road in front of them. He was going to continue driving until they got where they were going safely. But there was no reason why he wouldn’t also be able to enjoy the feeling of Lance’s warm hands against his cock.
A sharp longing overwhelmed Lance, and he couldn’t help but take it a step further. He had wanted Orion for so long, and the more he thought about the time they shared in the woods together, the more aroused he became. He wished they could pull over and replicate the experience, but more than anything, he just wanted to touch Orion and give him a taste of the pleasure that he had shared with Lance.
He could feel Orion tense up when his hand suddenly snuck inside the confines of Orion’s jeans through the zipper opening. Orion was massive, and Lance almost couldn’t fit his whole hand around his shaft. Feeling Orion’s skin, silky and hot in his palm, was almost enough to make Lance cum, but he was able to restrain himself. Instead, he focused all of his energy on pleasing Orion, who was still focused on the road ahead of them. But his cock seemed to have other ideas.
