Tank bristled. As if he wouldn’t kick anyone out who threatened Isaac. But then he realized what Xavier was really asking. The man was trying to understand this world he had invited into his club. Creatures in his space.
Tank nodded. “Yeah. We’re peers, same social rank. But I could easily have won a one-on-one fight. So he didn’t lose face when I ran him off. He also hasn’t any excuse for being a coward. No Alpha VOICE, no Beta calm, no enforcer muscle. He left because I made him. That’s hard to come back from. He won’t come hunting me, either. I got pack. But…” He let himself trail off.
“You’re worried about Isaac once he leaves the club.” Xavier followed Tank’s concern perfectly. “I’ll pay you time and a half to stay after closing and walk him home.”
Tank almost bristled. He’d do that for free. He’d have waited and tailed the man secretly anyway, to make certain he got to his place safely.
“Wait. He walks?” Tank hadn’t meant to shout it.
Xavier wasn’t at all perturbed. “Yep, the idiot. Through the Mission at three in the morning. Fucker thinks he’s immortal. Like he’s one of your lot.”
Oscar said, “I’d wait for him, if he’d let me. But I said I’d see Clara home and they’re not really in the same direction.”
Tank said, “I’d be happy to walk Isaac back to his place.”
Oscar gave him a look. “Thought you’d say that.”
Xavier nodded, still grim-faced. Seemed his natural expression. “Good. I’ll tell Isaac, that way he won’t protest as much.”
“He won’t like it.” Oscar looked like he slightly relished the drama. “He’ll see it as interfering.”
“Why is that?” Tank wondered.
Xavier shrugged. “Too used to taking care of himself. Doesn’t mind looking after others, but when someone tries to look after him? It’s interfering with his hard-won independence.”
Tank scrunched up his nose. “Foster kid?”
Xavier shrugged. “No idea. When Isaac wants to tell me about his past, he will. You watch yourself with him.” He gave Tank a look, no doubt sensing Tank’s more than platonic interest. Perceptive bastard.
Tank shook his head. “I’ve no plans to join his throng of admirers.” What can I offer? Big dumb lug like me?
Oscar snorted.
“No?” Xavier changed the subjected abruptly. “I’ll be talking to your pack about bringing you back on the regular for this thing, Mr Depeine. It seems popular enough for me to make it weekly and you seem to fit in well. You up for it?”
Tank blinked at him. “This ain’t my normal scene.” He was going to say that Judd or Kevin might be better suited long haul, but then it might be one of them walking Isaac home. So he held his tongue.
Xavier narrowed his gaze. “If you commit, I’ll consider offering Heavy Lifting a retainer for VIP work as well. You know I own the Minyas Hotel?”
Tank felt his eyes widen. “So this isn’t your first shifter rodeo.” The Minyas was a swanky waterfront establishment that catered almost exclusively to supernatural clientele. Everything from salt water on tap to a raw food kitchen. Any shifter with any kind of money tended to stay there. It’d be a great security contract for Heavy Lifting. Alec would be pleased. The pack would be elated. All because Xavier wanted Tank on Saucebox’s door once a week?
Tank said, “I’ll mention to my Alpha that you’ll be in touch.”
Xavier continued to stare at him, waiting.
Tank inclined his head. This man had negotiated with Alec before – he knew what the Alpha would ask first. “I’ll tell him I’m willing.”
Xavier slapped him on the back. “Good man. Now, I best get back to it.” He returned inside.
Oscar said, “Alec is your Alpha?”
“Yeah.”
“He a big tough guy, like you?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah, that’s what most people say.”
“How’s that work, then?”
“Ain’t always about size.”
Oscar laughed. “It’s more about how you use it?”
Tank thought of his Alpha’s slim elegance. Alec wore fancy wireless glasses (that he didn’t really need) over his kind hazel eyes. Alec left paperwork all over the dining table and got excited about color-coding microorganism charts. But Alec also emitted a quiet oppressive power, and he could freeze them all with a single barked word. Alec would never do it but for their own good, but the point was – he could.
“Yeah, that’s what it’s about.”
Oscar grimaced. “Not sure if I want to meet this Alpha of yours.”
Tank nodded. “Good, that’s how you should feel.”
“Man, you werewolves.”
Tank changed the subject. “How often does that kind of thing happen?”
“Boss man making unilateral decisions about our lives? All the time.”
“No, not Xavier. Isaac and the stalker.”
“Depends what you mean by that kind of thing. You see how he is? Shifters just love him. Hell, even humans seem to love him. He’s one of those dudes. Wears charisma instead of cologne. Might drive me crazy, except I like him too. He’s a good dude. And we ain’t competing for the ladies, if you see what I mean.”
Tank did see. He tried not to be too excited by the outright confirmation of Isaac’s gayness and by the fact that later that night they’d get to walk through the city together. His chest felt stretched and tight with anticipated pleasure and fear. To have the bulk of Isaac’s attention all on him might be more a burden than even a man his size could withstand.
* * *
Isaac was not pleased with Xavier’s interfering.
“I can take care of myself! I don’t need a fucking werewolf to walk me home. Isn’t that like throwing me to the wolves to protect me from the dogs?” They were out on the sidewalk. The club was closed and the patrons were gone, so Isaac could afford to be grumpy in public.
Xavier didn’t bother to humor him. “I’ve paid him overtime for it, and he said he’d be delighted. Stop fussing.”
“Great, now you’re paying someone to look after me. Like a goddamn babysitter.”
“Well, you are acting like a child. Look, here he comes. Now behave.”
Tank trundled up. He had a leather motorcycle jacket slung over his shoulder.
Isaac nodded at him, too angry to say anything, and brushed past him to begin walking downhill. His wolf perked up and inhaled in delight. He whined softly at the loveliness of Tank’s scent.
Tank lumbered after him.
Isaac forced himself to breathe in other things instead. The putrid odor of a city with too many people and not enough public restrooms, but also the damp newness of a fresh day, and the salty encroachment of a high tide. It was one of the many reasons Isaac loved his job. He was nocturnal by nature, and there was something about wandering home in the small hours when everyone was still asleep. Like the whole world belonged to him with no one else in it.
Except walking next to him, messing with his world, was Tank’s hulking presence, new and unsettling.
Tank kept messing with the smell, too. He smelled so good, Isaac’s wolf wanted to turn it into his own.
Charming, he thought, the wolf without a scent wants to steal someone else’s.
Even after a long night at the club, pressed against the sweat of others as he cleared out the crowd, Tank still smelled of himself – warm brandy and citrus spice cake, fresh meat and hunting fur. Isaac’s wolf felt safe and wild, intoxicated and comforted, and hopeful.
Run run runrunrun.
The wolf’s need for the man warmed Isaac’s blood even as his need to flee a fellow werewolf vibrated his human muscles.
Damn it, full moon must be soon. His wolf was always harder to control around full moon.
Tank made running feel less like escape and more like a test. His presence was a coil of seduction that spoke directly to Isaa
c’s wolf.
Run to me. Run with me. Run together.
Instead they walked together. As humans. One of them pretending. The silence between them surprisingly companionable.
Tank inhabited his human skin to perfect werewolf completion – solid and comforting, supernatural and other, and safe safe safe in a way Isaac’s head could not believe was real, but his wolf knew to be true. It was also coupled with want want want. Never before had those two things coexisted for Isaac – desire and surety.
Isaac lectured his wolf. Too much risk. Learned wariness. Isaac argued, until both of his selves were exhausted and he allowed Tank be there there there and simply enjoy it.
Tank kept darting little hopeful glances at him from under long dark lashes. As if he had no idea what to do or what he looked like or how much Isaac wanted to tip him over and jump his bones, almost literally. His wolf was eager to taste – cock or blood, it was hard to decide which.
They walked in silence because Isaac was confused. Because Isaac had never been pack or home or safe. Not ever. So he could do nothing more than wrestle with the perfection of those possibilities. They were just as real as Tank’s scent, alluring and terrifying.
Isaac found himself inching closer as they moved, inhaling deeper. He brushed against Tank, let the backs of their hands touch, pretended not to notice when Tank looked at him more directly, startled and eager.
They reached Isaac’s rundown old apartment building, with the garbage blown up against the gate. Walking stopped, and tension vibrated between them like the pack tether Isaac had never had. Running wasn’t possible – either away or together. Isaac was so troubled by that fact that when Tank gave him one more shy look full of hope, Isaac reached and pulled safety to him.
It was as if, by grabbing Tank’s massive shoulders, Isaac was stealing a little of Tank’s scent for himself. Isaac’s wolf chuffed in pleasure. Isaac felt foolish just stand there, inhaling Tank and holding on to his shoulders, so he leaned against him. Huge arms came around his waist, not gripping tight, just cradling him in warmth.
He let out a hopeless little sigh and raised his head to kiss. Tank waited for it.
So Isaac licked the seam of Tank’s mouth, wondering if he tasted of brandy and citrus and spices. He nibbled, questing. Tank yielded with the smallest of sighs, opening to his query. It was a sweet benediction colored with spikes of light and want.
Isaac wanted so fiercely. He wanted everything all at once, his hands on Tank, and Tank’s on him. Flesh sinking into flesh. Skin under his lips and tongue and teeth.
Or was it his wolf that wanted?
Isaac found himself pushing Tank to lean back against the warped old gate. So Isaac could press against Tank from chest to thigh. Isaac was hard. So was Tank. Big there too, it turned out.
Tank let him, of course. Part of the safety in this werewolf was that Tank would let Isaac do anything. To him. With him. Isaac sensed it – his human and his wolf were certain in Tank’s nature.
Isaac couldn’t stop himself. He ate at Tank’s mouth using lips and teeth and little murmurs of encouragement to keep the big man still. He ground against him, hips undulating without any intent, just need. So much need.
Under him Tank panted and yielded, not passive but welcoming and eager. Taking it all, letting Isaac run his hands over stupid clothing. Why is there clothing?
Isaac tugged and shoved and ripped the annoying fabric aside until his hands were smoothing over Tank’s skin, glorious and warm. The breadth of the big man’s back was all muscle under Isaac’s eager palms. Isaac dug his fingers and short blunt nails into that tempting expanse. Tank trembled and arched against him.
The werewolf’s mouth opened under his. Tank opened, exposing himself and his needs. Ready for anything Isaac might want. Isaac had never thought he would find such a man. Large in his giving and submissive in his desires. Isaac had never thought he would find such a wolf, one who shivered under his touch and yielded as if it were not against his nature – not against everything that werewolves stood for.
As if Tank didn’t want to turn the tables and dominate.
As if Tank liked it.
As if Tank would let Isaac take and take, and would never stop giving because there was so much of him. With so much to give.
Isaac’s wolf gloried in it all. Isaac’s human body was flushed and fierce with animalistic desire. A sense of profound ownership crashed over him. Was this what Hayden felt for him? Danger then. Wanting too easily corrupted. Was this some taste of a shifter’s need? Danger there too. In depending on anyone else for sanity or happiness. Was this what it meant to have pack? Danger in connection and the pull that would become loss of self.
Runrunrun run, said Isaac’s human side while the wolf within panted with desire. Stupid wolf.
Isaac pulled back, and moth-like, Tank followed, pushing away from the gate. The big man’s eyes were closed, his head lowered, his lips kiss-swollen and glistening, slightly parted. So perfect. Isaac thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And the most dangerous.
He reached around the mass of muscles and brandy-scented temptation, fumbled his key into the lock. A big hand steadied his, thumb caressing his knuckles. The lock clicked open and Isaac was through, slamming the gate in Tank’s face. The werewolf didn’t flinch. It was almost as if he expected rejection.
Tank stood there, on the other side of the gate, and watched as Isaac unlocked the front door.
Tank stood there, huge and patient and raw and breathing a little too quickly, until Isaac was safely inside.
Tank stood there still, when Isaac closed the door against him.
Up the many stairs (because the elevator was broken) and inside his shabby little apartment, Isaac found his stomach hurt, and his lips tingled, and his own skin smelled like warm brandy, citrus spice cake, fresh meat, and hunting.
He should have showered. But he didn’t.
He should have packed his measly belongings and run away into the dawn. But he didn’t.
He stripped and curled in the center of his bed. Wanting to be his wolf so badly, needing the comfort of his own lost fur, but forcing himself to stay a human. His wolf was not to be trusted.
Eventually Isaac slept, as he had when he was a child and he wasn’t allowed to run, dreaming of a freedom he didn’t have and a scent that wasn’t his, and wondering if the two were the same.
* * *
Tank couldn’t stop thinking about Isaac. He walked back to the club, now dark and empty, retrieved his motorcycle, and thought about the smoothness of the bartender’s skin and the warmth of the man’s eager mouth. Tank thought too much about that hard and eager cock pressed against his own. He thought about how Isaac had pushed him, demanded he yield, and how glorious it was to do so. How unlike a human. How unlike most men who found Tank attractive.
When men looked at Tank, big and hulking and bumbling, they didn’t ordinarily think… bottom. Mostly Tank drew in the pretty ones (not that there was anything wrong with that, just that Tank wasn’t interested in being anyone’s Daddy, least of all a lover’s). So far as Tank was concerned, nothing beat being taken. He’d rather be lonely than in charge.
The roads belonged to Tank on the ride home, too late for returning night owls and too early for morning traffic. He thought of Isaac’s counseling sessions, everyone so eager for that soft calm voice and sweet kind face. They call him the shifter whisperer. Tank amused himself. Isaac of the tight t-shirt and pert ass. Isaac with his firm touch and frightened body language. Isaac, who’d closed off and gone from Tank before he even shut the door.
The pack house too was quiet, everyone else home before him and already in bed or out running the nearby parklands. Tank paused at the front door, sniffing the air. Kevin’s large cream and rust wolf-form ghosted out from behind a bush, checking to see who’d entered their territory.
The enforcer emitted a whine of greeting. No challenge, just hello pack mate.
Tank waved.
Kevin chuffed a query.
Tank shook his head and mimed going to sleep.
A snort of disapproval from the enforcer met that. Why not run? It’s a beautiful night.
But Tank wanted to dream of soft skin and gray eyes, and a man whom the world was telling him might one day smell like his.
CHAPTER FOUR
Trickle on Trappers
Tank was in wolf form running sunset patrol the next evening. It was Friday and he imagined Isaac already setting up his bar in preparation for the weekend crowd. He hoped Isaac was safe and that Hayden didn’t come back.
The pack was mostly home, anticipating a communal dinner before they went off about their various nighttime social engagements. Tank was feeling restless and antisocial, so he volunteered to run the perimeter while the others prepared for exciting evenings out with friends, lovers, or bacon. According to taste. His own plans included a game night with Max, Bryan, and Colin. The others had dates, or in the case of Alec and Marvin, a date night. Tank’s plans did, in fact, include bacon. All game nights should have bacon.
He smelled her before he saw her – sun-dried hay and mossy riverbanks – and veered toward the front of the property in response. She was being respectful, had done nothing more than exit her car, letting her scent ride the wind and alert the pack. The scent was familiar. The big SUV was familiar too once it came into sight. The large brash female who stood, impatient but knowing, was a friend.
She was alone for a change. Trickle usually came to visit with her wife, Pepper. She’d started out as Max’s boss, but upon becoming his ex-boss, had graduated to being Max’s friend. And then, of course, she became everyone else’s friend, because anyone who could put up with Max could handle a wolf pack easy. Pepper was absorbed shortly thereafter, as the obligatory human appendage. Except everyone quickly realized that Pepper was brilliant and vibrant and lovely in all ways, not to mention an amazing chef. The San Andreas pack wasn’t stupid enough to ignore such gifts. In fact, Pepper and Lovejoy were already talking about a food truck venture together. Do it raw! Sometimes we wiggle, sometimes the food does.
The Omega Objection Page 4
