Park groaned. “A terrible I Know What You Did Last Summer porn parody.”
“Oliver,” Cooper insisted. “Did I—I hurt you?”
Park’s eyes shot open. “No. Of course not.”
“But you yelped,” Cooper said, and Park winced at the animalistic term. “Or shrieked, cried out, yodeled, I don’t know, but it sounded nothing like, Jeepers, that feels grand.”
“I shift into a wolf, Cooper, not a Hardy Boy.”
“You know what I mean.”
Park bit his lip. “I was just...startled.”
“That’s not just it. I need to know what I’m doing wrong so I can fix it. Please,” he added, almost whispering.
It hurts me to see you hurt, Cooper thought. He didn’t say it. He didn’t want to guilt Park further or make it about him. He didn’t even quite understand why it had hurt so badly. The visceral...something that had torn through him when Park had cried out.
“It’s not—there’s nothing wrong.” Park sighed in frustration and maneuvered himself so he was sitting straighter in the tub, knees up, and Cooper’s hand fell away. Park reached out to take it. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Cooper nodded. “Very helpful. How on earth will an evolved couple like us convincingly pretend to need counseling?”
Park squeezed his hand and he took a deep breath. “I really was just startled. I’m not used to being touched. Like that.” He coughed. “In fur. Petted like that.”
Cooper’s throat clenched. “You mean it was...demeaning?”
“No, no.” Park looked at the ceiling, and Cooper could see his jaw muscle pulsing as he clearly struggled to say something. “You saw how Muñoz reacted to me today. Her aversion. The story she told of...the Shepherd.”
“How she jumped you, you mean.”
“I had just cut off the head of her pack,” Park said, without any inflection at all. “I was a monster of her worst nightmares there to turn her world upside down.”
“Oliver, no—”
Park held up his hand. “Her attack was justified, if unbelievably reckless. The point is that when I’m in fur, no one really...touches me. Not like you did. Nicely. Gently.”
“What are you saying here, that no one’s ever touched you in fur unless it’s to attack you?” Cooper asked. He meant it jokingly, but Park blushed and looked down, rubbing his finger along the grout at the edge of the tub.
“I mean, no, of course people have touched me. Like, in February, when you saw me in fur for the first time, you touched me then, too.” Park’s speech was quiet, stilted, embarrassed. “That was...really nice.”
“Oliver, I was tugging shards of glass out of your flesh after we’d fought for our lives,” Cooper said bleakly. “Tell me that’s not your only positive touch story. What about your family? Your exes? You cannot look me in the eye and tell me Eli isn’t touchy.”
Park smiled with wry fondness, shifted, and the water sloshed. “Of course he is. But not when I’m...like that. Not while I’m hurt, angry, dangerous. No one, ah, dominant, has ever reached out to calm me down.”
Cooper’s brain flipped over at the word dominant—him dominant over Oliver? That just didn’t sound right—but Park was still talking.
“I promise, it just startled me,” he said, and pulled Cooper’s hand to his own cheek. “Though it shouldn’t have.” He twisted to press a lingering kiss to his palm. “I know what to expect next time.”
“Next time?” Cooper’s voice sounded a little shaky.
A strange expression flashed over Park’s face, too quickly to decipher. It had almost looked like fear, but when he spoke Park sounded calm and casual. “I think after a weekend at Camp Howl you’ll have more than your fill of wolves in all our forms, myself included.”
“Impossible,” Cooper said. “I can never be too full of you.”
Park softly nipped at the flesh between Cooper’s thumb and finger, then rubbed his mouth back and forth over the spot like an apology. “But I love it when you’re full of me.”
Cooper snorted. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but whatever it is, the answer is I’m too hot for it.”
Park gently guided Cooper’s hand into the water, grasp loose enough that Cooper could easily pull away. “It’s cool in here.”
“So it is,” Cooper said, mock-surprised. He rubbed his hand lightly over Park’s chest, brushing almost imperceptibly at his nipples, letting the movement of the water do most of the work. Park’s dick twitched lazily, but Cooper didn’t reach for it. Instead, he thought about what Park had said about touch. The different ways we touch people: to arouse, appease, calm, excite, hurt, warn, beg. How impossible it was to fully understand how our touch feels to another. How it means different things to different people. Cooper may not see Park as submissive to him, but obviously after a lifetime being viewed only as a threat, a leader or both, Park felt Cooper’s touch was different. And that was fine.
Until the day Park realized he’d been wrong about Cooper all along and thrown away a ton of money and bought a whole-ass house for someone who couldn’t be the person he thought he was. Cooper wasn’t special. Just clueless.
“I’m getting all wrinkly,” Park said, startling Cooper out of his thoughts. He gently batted Cooper’s hand away. “Grab me a towel.”
“Yes, sir,” Cooper said sarcastically.
“Chop, chop, there’s a good boy.” Park winked and heaved himself to standing, water pouring off him. Cooper fetched a fresh towel, then perched on the sink counter to watch Park soap himself thoroughly in the shower and rinse off. He was tempted to jump in there with him, clothes and all, but resisted, enjoying the view too much.
When Park stepped out onto the bath mat and reached for the towel, Cooper resisted. “Should I dry you now, sir?” he asked, winking.
Park raised an eyebrow, but dropped his hand willingly and seemed bemused. “Yes, I think you’d better.”
Cooper slid off the counter and carefully scrubbed the towel over Park’s hair and then down over his skin. He kept his eyes lowered, focused on collecting all the stray water droplets. When he’d finished drying Park’s torso, Cooper eased to his knees and began to make his way up his legs, but could sense Park watching him, breathing slightly more audibly than before.
While working the towel in slow, circular movements on Park’s inner thigh, the back of Cooper’s hand brushed accidentally, then intentionally, against his balls. Park’s muscles flexed and clenched beneath his hands, but Cooper stayed “focused” on his task, moving his face close enough that he could feel his own breath bouncing back to him off Park’s skin.
When Park was mostly dry—and definitely hard—Cooper sat back on his heels, with the wet towel clenched in his own lap, and looked up at him from under his lashes, faux-shyly. “Will that be all? Or is there anything else I can do for you?”
Park reached down and grabbed Cooper’s chin, forcing his face up. He dragged his thumb across Cooper’s lips roughly, parting them, then easing off, studying Cooper’s face. Cooper stared back up at him and tried not to shift on the hard, uneven floor. He was too old for this. Actually, fuck that, at what age was kneeling on tiny tiles not painful?
Abruptly Park let go of his face. “Go into the bedroom,” he said.
Cooper gave him a look that meant he knew Park had noticed his discomfort and chosen knee health over what was shaping up to be a sexy bathroom blowjob and he did not approve, but Park just crossed his arms. “Don’t make me say it again,” he said.
Cooper stood awkwardly, hard in his shorts, and opened the door to leave. Park’s hand shot over his shoulder and shoved it closed again. Holding it like that, his arm blocked Cooper in, preventing him from turning to face Park in the cramped space.
“Your clothes are wet,” Park said evenly. “Leave them here.”
Hands trembling, Cooper carefully s
tripped, the movement occasionally bumping his body against Park’s. When he bent to pull his shorts down, Park’s other hand gripped his hip for a moment, steadying him, then pulled him back against his crotch twice in rapid succession. Cooper barely had time to choke back a groan before Park released him and patted his ass cheek.
“Go wait for me on the bed,” he said, taking his hand off the door.
Cooper stumbled into the bedroom and considered what to do. Behind him, he could hear Park tidying up the bathroom, cleaning spilled water on the floor and hanging the towel to dry right in the middle of kinky sex because he was ridiculous, fastidious and filthy, and Cooper never thought he could adore anyone as much he did this fucking man.
Quickly he yanked the comforter off, set some pillows up by the headboard to look as welcoming as possible and kneeled right by them at the top of the bed just as Park came in.
Park made an approving sound and lay down, back up against the pillows. “Mmm. Isn’t this more comfortable?” Park asked, stroking lazily up Cooper’s side that was just about even with his shoulder. “Now I get to use your pretty mouth and watch that ass bobbing in my face. Would you like that?” Park checked that Cooper was down with this plan.
“Yes,” Cooper said, a little breathlessly. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” In one fluid motion, Park wound his fingers through Cooper’s hair, tight to the scalp so it didn’t hurt, and dragged his head down between his legs. “Suck me,” he ordered.
Cooper gripped Park’s dick and greedily guided it into his mouth, working his tongue. Park’s hand remained on the back of his head and gently urged him up and down even as he resisted thrusting into Cooper’s throat. Balancing on his knees and one hand, Cooper took Park deeper, up and down, and arched his back toward Park in the same rhythm. He felt Park’s other hand grip his ass cheek, massage it, then tug him open and exposed.
Cooper groaned when Park spit on his hole a couple times and then began to rub his thumb firmly over the quivering flesh, relaxing the muscle there, getting him slick.
“Slacking on the job already?” Park asked, and Cooper realized he’d been doing nothing but breathe heavily with Park’s dick resting against his tongue for several moments. Too lost to the trickling electricity lighting the nerve ends along his taint to his balls to do anything but drool.
Dazedly he started blowing him again, and Park rewarded him dipping his thumb inside Cooper’s hole. “That’s it,” he murmured. “Greedy little thing. Sucking me right in, aren’t you?”
Cooper didn’t know whether he was referring to his mouth or ass, but hummed agreement and worked himself up to an almost frantic pace, stroking and sucking sloppily. Park let him—occasionally grunting and twitching his hips, his feet arching as he fought to stay still—before easing Cooper’s head off gently.
Cooper whimpered and Park shushed him soothingly. “It’s okay, come up here for me now so I can taste you.” He urged Cooper to straddle his chest backward, spread him open, and licked into him.
“Oliv—Oliver,” Cooper gasped against the crease of Park’s thigh, and squirmed away, curving his back in a vain attempt to hide himself. The sensation too much, too intense, too intimate. Park growled and tugged him back, one large hand pressing down on Cooper’s back, forcing him to arch and open.
“Can’t—I can’t—” What precisely he couldn’t do was unclear, even to Cooper. He couldn’t lasso his thoughts into working order? Couldn’t continue any semblance of a semi-decent blowjob while Park ate his ass out? Couldn’t remain fully grounded on this planet? The possibilities were endless.
Without thinking, Cooper began to rock backward against Park’s tongue desperately, dragging his own open mouth back and forth over the coarse hairs of Park’s thigh. When he felt two thick fingers press unrelentingly inside him, Cooper keened and bit down on Park’s flesh there.
Park’s whole body bucked, and if Cooper had been a smaller person, he might have been thrown off. As it was, he was disoriented and barely cognizant of being flipped onto his back in the bed, until he found himself there looking up at Park kneeling by his side. “That wasn’t nice,” Park scolded. “I ought to muzzle you.”
Cooper groaned and nodded. “Yes. Do it.”
Park carefully covered Cooper’s mouth with his palm and pushed down so that Cooper’s head felt pinned to the bed and he had to breathe through his nose. Park studied him for discomfort and Cooper gave him a quick thumbs-up.
“That’s better,” Park said, satisfied. “Now we won’t have any more accidents if I do this, will we?” His other hand reached down and started jacking Cooper off.
Cooper squirmed, crying out into Park’s palm. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open, but he also couldn’t bear to look away from Park’s gaze, focusing on him intently. A pleased, possessive expression on his face.
“You know what I want,” Park murmured. “Come on. Give it to me. Let me see you make a pretty mess all over yourself.”
Cooper thrust a couple more times into Park’s grip and tipped over the edge into orgasm. Feeling, not as if he himself had moved, but as if the world had dropped—hurtling suddenly and violently away from him, leaving him behind, untethered and weightless. The only awareness that he still had a body at all, the warm, glowing epicenter of him, seated deep and powerful between his hips.
The world returned to him in pieces. When he licked his lips, he realized Park’s hand was no longer on his mouth. When he opened his eyes, he saw Park was kneeling up, stroking himself jerkily over Cooper’s body. Cooper just watched him for moment, feeling treacle-slow and detached. On Park’s thigh he saw the spot he’d bitten him, nowhere near hard enough to break skin, but it was blotchy and might bruise for a day. Cooper reached out to brush his fingers over it and Park looked at him, startled.
“Come here,” Cooper croaked, touching his own lips, fine with however that was interpreted. Park shuffled over to Cooper’s head, and guided his dick to his mouth.
Cooper kissed and licked at it, holding eye contact, before tentatively suckling the head. It wasn’t long before he felt Park stiffen and jerk. He pulled back to come over Cooper’s chest and neck, then collapsed with a groan.
They lay like that, not touching in a T-shape by the bottom of the bed, Park lying on his side and facing away, perpendicular above Cooper’s head. After a while, when they’d caught their breaths, Cooper began to laugh. “Well, we’ve certainly got the fucking part of our relationship cover story down, anyway.”
Park chuckled. “I’m all for practice, but you don’t think they’ll be watching us in our private room, I hope.”
“You never know,” Cooper said, sobering a bit. He tilted his head up slightly to look at Park, noticing the now familiar, faint scars that littered his back.
“You’ve never mentioned it before,” Park said hesitantly, still facing away from him. “That you worked undercover.”
Cooper didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Not much to tell. I did a couple assignments in my FBI days. Nothing too intense.”
He traced one silvery scar shaped like a wishbone with his eyes. It was a startling reminder that there were still things they didn’t know about each other. Or, hell, maybe there weren’t. Not very important things, at least. In real life, not every scar had a story. Not every silence hid a dark secret. Maybe that’s what a long-term relationship was. After the heady rush of discovery had passed, it was time to learn when to reopen a healed wound and when to just let the scar fade. He supposed he had plenty of opportunity to ask at couples’ camp.
“Any tips?” Park asked, and Cooper frowned, confused. “Any tips on being undercover?” he clarified.
“Hmm.” Cooper thought about that. “I find the key is not to lie.”
He could feel Park’s skepticism. “That seems...counterintuitive.”
“Even if you’re a good liar. Especially if you’re
a good liar. The first lie is easy. The second one isn’t that hard, either. But then there’s the third. Three lies is the beginning of a character sketch. And if there’s something off about your character, if the lies don’t add up to the same believable person, you get found out. Trust me, everyone’s a wannabe psychoanalyst, ready to get on the couch and dissect your inconsistencies.”
“So to be undercover, we tell the truth?”
“We tell a bunch of truths. As many truths as you can. Overwhelm them with true things until they know so much about you they won’t even notice that they don’t know anything important at all.”
Park sighed mock tragically. “And people think I’m the scary one.”
Cooper studied his back. “I hope you know I don’t think you’re scary. Not ever,” he said quietly.
Park didn’t react, but his body was very still, like he didn’t quite know what to do with that information. Then, abruptly his hand reached back behind him, seeking, and Cooper grabbed it.
“See? I told you,” Park said, holding on to his hand like it was something precious. “You’re just different.”
Chapter Three
“Why does it feel like all our cases send us to the gloomiest places off the map?” Cooper asked as they drove the endless, winding road into the mountains. There were hardly any turnoffs, though occasionally they passed a few cars parked to the side, clustered by short wooden fences and rickety stairs—scenic pull-offs that overlooked some waterfall or natural swimming hole.
“High altitudes, high crime rates?” Park offered from the driver’s seat of the airport rental car. It wasn’t their usual big, dark, intimidating SUV, but a vain little sports car about seven years past its heyday. Precisely the sort of thing a fairly well-off couple in the midst of a crisis might drive. Santiago had set it up for them and it wasn’t exactly suited for navigating these North Carolina mountains. Cooper half-feared the aforementioned crisis would be them not making it there in one piece.
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf) Page 5
