Attraction

by JC Holly

  Jerry’s hand finally roused Mica, and the man let out a long breath as he woke. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned.

  “That had better be you, Jerry.”

  Jerry pushed his own cock up against Mica’s ass. “I think that should answer that.”

  Mica nodded, his hair tickling Jerry’s chin. “It’s either you or a porn star. Both are a win in my book.”

  Jerry chuckled and sped his strokes a little, and Mica moaned softly.

  “I didn’t take you for the type,” he muttered.

  “What type? The type who likes seeing his partner happy?”

  “Partner.” Mica let out a slow breath. “I like the sound of that.”

  That made two of them. Jerry pushed the thought aside for the time being. As much as he wanted to slip inside Mica’s ass, he held back and instead focused on making Mica squirm using only his hand. It wasn’t difficult. The man began to writhe in Jerry’s grip, which made it all the more hard not to climb on top of him. He fought the urge again, though, and stroked faster, increasing his grip a little alongside. Within a few minutes Mica was panting hard, and moments later his cock pulsed as he came onto the sheets of Jerry’s bed.

  “Shit, that was good.” Mica rolled over to face Jerry and kissed him on the lips. “Thanks.”

  “Any time.” Jerry took his hand away, then jumped as he felt a warm hand grip his own cock.

  “Your turn,” Mica said, grinning.

  Unfortunately for Jerry, his phone decided to ring. From the custom tone, he knew it wasn’t a call centre. With a sigh and an apology, he answered the call. Instead of stopping, though, Mica slipped under the covers and used his mouth instead.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Snow. You got a minute?”

  Jerry bit his lip as Mica flicked his tongue over Jerry’s cockhead. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I have a lead on our friends,” Snow said. “Someone spotted them near an apartment block. Got time to come sniff ‘em out with me?”

  Damn it. He’d hoped to spend more time with Mica. If the call had been about anything else, Jerry would have blown it off—no pun intended.

  “Yeah. What time?”

  “Two hours. I’ll text the address.”

  Jerry hung up the call and the phone buzzed a moment later as he received the address. He knew the area. It was near the outskirts to the south. Trees on one side, city on the other. Snow was better at being stealthy than Jerry was, so they’d probably split up. Snow would stay human and scout out the building, and Jerry would shift and stick to the tree line while he scented the area. On the bright side it would mean he’d get to spend some time shifted.

  Mica’s hands slipped up Jerry’s sides and ran over his abs, reminding him that he wasn’t alone. Had he heard the phone call? Damn, the man’s mouth was almost as good as his ass. Jerry put a hand on the back of Mica’s neck and guided his movements, adding a little pressure now and again. Never enough pressure to force the man to gag, but just enough to show him what Jerry liked. Mica caught on fast, and Jerry soon felt the beginnings of an orgasm.

  “I’m coming,” he hissed, his voice low.

  He took his hand away so that Mica could move if he wanted to, but the man stayed put, redoubling his efforts until Jerry came hard, pumping his load into Mica’s willing mouth. When he emerged from the covers he smiled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “That was so you don’t forget me when you’re busy later.”

  “So you did hear.”

  Mica nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Stuff comes up.” He waggled his eyebrows. “As we’ve just proven.”

  “I’ll probably be busy until the evening at the earliest. You’re welcome to hang around here if you want, or I can drop you off at your friend’s place on my way out.”

  Mica chewed his bottom lip. “As much as I’d love to mess around with your fancy computer stuff, I should probably check in with Molly. I don’t want her worrying.”

  Jerry smiled. “Sure.”

  Mica moved to get up, but Jerry stopped him, pulling him back down into the bed. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  Jerry pulled the man close and kissed him softly on the lips, questing with his tongue. Mica’s mouth opened and his tongue did the same, Jerry’s own taste still strong. He broke the kiss and ran a hand through Mica’s dark hair.

  “I’ve got time yet.”

  * * * *

  Molly was waiting in the door as Jerry dropped Mica off at the end of her drive. He leaned in and kissed Jerry on the cheek, then told him to call later. Jerry agreed and pulled away, leaving Mica standing on the street of the quiet suburb, dressed in a T-shirt and pants that were several sizes too large for him.

  “I take it the evening went well?” Molly asked, her eyebrow arched.

  “You could say that.” Mica walked to the house, a hand clamped to his waistband. “He ripped my clothes.”

  “I thought it would be something like that. My second guess was that they were covered in cum and lube, and thus unwearable.”

  Mica snorted a laugh and jogged upstairs to his room. As much as he’d always loved wearing the clothes of his boyfriends, he needed something that actually fit him. Once he was dressed he joined Molly down in the kitchen. She’d made two cups of coffee, and Mica downed half of his in one gulp. Usually it was the other guy who felt drained, but Jerry had really taken it out of him. He ached all over. In a good way.

  “You know the drill.” Molly sat opposite him at the table. “Details.”

  “We went for coffee, he took me to his place and fucked my brains out.” Mica sipped at his coffee. “And I’m pretty sure he’s a werewolf.”

  Chapter Ten

  Molly choked on her drink. Mica handed her a napkin and tried not to laugh at the spectacle as she wiped coffee from her nose.

  “A werewolf? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Come on, Molly. You know they’re real. They hide well, but we’ve all seen the weird news articles about wolf sightings.”

  “Wolves are one thing, Mica.” She tossed the napkin down and cleared her throat. “Werewolves are another entirely. And what makes you think Jerry is one?”

  Mica shrugged. “It’s a feeling I get sometimes. Some people just seem…different, somehow. This morning, when my mind wasn’t quite so clouded by horniness and beer, I got a sense that something wasn’t quite normal about him. On top of that, he said something about a ‘pack’, so I made a joke about werewolves, and his reaction was off. He made it seem like he didn’t believe in them, but I can read people well.”

  “A feeling and a joke.” Molly shook her head. “I’m not saying I believe in the supernatural, but you need something more to go on than that.”

  She was right, of course. It was why he hadn’t mentioned it to Jerry or even allowed himself to think about it much. He tended to trust his instincts, though. His experience with the supernatural was nonexistent, but he knew there was more to the world than met the eye. There had to be. There were days when he thought there was something different about himself, even.

  Molly stood and went to make another coffee. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest. I mean I like the guy. A lot, in fact. But if I’m right about this it adds a whole other layer to the relationship.”

  “And if you ask him and you’re wrong, he’ll think you’re a crazy person.”

  “That too,” Mica said with a shrug. “Though most people think that about me anyway.”

  Molly leaned against the kitchen counter, her elbows on the top. “How do you even start a conversation about that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure it’s worse when you’re the werewolf. Imagine having this dark secret you eventually had to share with every guy you dated, not knowing whether they’d accept it, or freak the hell out.”

  She nodded, then screwed up her face. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. There’s no such thing as werewolves
!”

  Mica smirked and finished his coffee. “There’s an easy way to find out. To the Internet!”

  “Oh sure, because everything online is one hundred percent truthful.”

  Mica ignored the comment and headed into the lounge, where Molly’s laptop sat on the coffee table, open to her e-mails. He resisted the strong urge to browse and instead started a search for “werewolves real?”

  Molly joined him on the couch. “And how do you intend to separate supposed fact from fiction?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Now be quiet while I read.”

  Far more websites came up in the search than he had expected. Not really knowing where to start, he picked a few sites that looked at least half-respectable and started to read. After a few minutes Molly got up and headed back into the kitchen, leaving him alone to concentrate.

  After a dozen or so articles on very different sites, a few key pieces of information stood out amid the wild speculation. While that didn’t mean that any of it was true, at least it meant that those pieces were more likely to be accurate.

  From what he could gather, werewolves preferred to be called shapeshifters, or “shifters” as some took on forms other than wolves. They could only take on one form, though. They gained the ability through a bite, like the stories, but unlike the stories silver was only as effective as any other metal. They healed fast, aged slow, and had exceptional senses.

  “Unless of course that’s all utter crap,” he muttered as he leaned back from the computer.

  Whether it was the truth or not, though, he still had to confront Jerry with it and see what happened. If he really was a werewolf, or shifter, would he be glad that he didn’t have to reveal it himself? Or perhaps he’d be upset that Mica came to him with a bunch of fiction he’d read on the Internet. Or maybe he was completely human and would think Mica was crazy, like Molly suggested.

  The last thought worried him more than any other. Despite them only really having been on one date, Mica was starting to feel like he could happily spend his life with Jerry.

  “I’m going to have to ask him, and soon.”

  * * * *

  Jerry and Snow parked a few blocks away from the suspected home of their targets. While the man and woman weren’t shifters, if the woman dabbled with witchcraft she wouldn’t need heightened senses to tell when someone unsavory was near her home.

  “So what’s the plan?” Jerry asked, as he turned the engine off.

  Snow shrugged. “What makes you think I have a plan?”

  “You always have a plan. You’re renowned for it.”

  The white-haired man grinned. “Yeah, I sort of am, aren’t I?”

  “Well?”

  “Nothing too fancy, really. I had a human mate of mine scope the place out, and he reckons he saw the woman. If we’re going against a witch, I want to make sure so I can prepare.”

  “Which means you want to break in and look around,” Jerry said with a nod.

  “Yup. My mate’ll call when he sees her leave, and then I’ll be a sneaky bastard while you watch the area in case she or the other guy returns before I’m done. If they do, try and chase or lead them away.”

  “I see.” Jerry folded his arms. “So while you’re snooping around looking for incense, I’ll be dodging fireballs.”

  “Something like that, yeah.” Snow slouched down into his seat. “Gotta wait for the call first, though. Have fun last night?”

  There was no point trying to hide anything from a shifter. The second Jerry had picked up Snow, the man would have known he’d spent the night in the company of another, having sex. A multitude of scents would have laid out the evening for him, even after Jerry’s shower.

  “It was good, yeah. New guy in town. Think he might be an incubus.”

  “Oh. I hear they’re great shags.”

  Jerry smirked. “That’s why I like you, Snow. Hard to flap.”

  Snow smiled in return. “I’ve never met one, but I hear the scent is quite unmistakable.”

  “It is. In this case, though, I think Mica is half-incubus. That’s why it took me a while to place the scent. It was clouded by human.”

  “But he still has the draining thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he doesn’t know he’s different?”

  Jerry shook his head. “Not unless he’s a great liar.” Excellent, in fact, since shifters were hard to lie to thanks to their acute senses. “The draining is noticeable, but I thought it would be stronger. I guess because he’s only partway.”

  Snow shrugged. “Or because you’re a shifter. You’ve got a lot more energy than a human, or most other beings. Are you going to talk to him about it?”

  “I guess so, yeah. I mean, he’s in no danger of harming me, but if he got hot and heavy with someone with a heart problem or something he could kill them.”

  “Fair point.” He winked. “Guess you’ll have to keep him, for the safety of others.”

  “So not because he’s gorgeous, funny, and finds my interesting, then?”

  “Eh, whatever gets you going, big guy.”

  The phone chirped five minutes later and Snow answered immediately, spoke quickly, then hung up and turned to face Jerry.

  “She’s left, and she’s headed into town.”

  “This way?”

  “Opposite way.”

  “Good.” Jerry climbed out of the car. “I’ll head to the trees and loop round to the building. Shout if you need me.”

  Snow nodded. “Howl if you need me.”

  The pair separated, Snow heading down the street and Jerry down an alleyway that lead to a small housing area. At the end, between two houses, lay a narrow dirt track that led between the houses’ gardens and then straight into the trees. He made a mental note that if he ever felt the urge to move house, he’d have to check if anything in the street came up for sale.

  Once between the trees, he jogged for a minute or so, then stopped and took in his surroundings. There were no people in sight, and a deep breath through his nose told him there was nobody out of sight, either. He pulled out his phone, switched it off, then began to undress. Once naked he scented the air again to make sure, then dropped to all fours and began the change.

  The shift from human to wolf wasn’t a difficult task. There were no fancy incantations, or hours of focused concentration. The wolf was close enough to the surface that all it took was for a shifter to want to shift. After that the process was both automatic and excruciatingly painful.

  Fire coursed through every fiber of Jerry’s body as it changed from human to wolf. Bones broke and reformed, organs shifted, claws grew. Fur pushed through his skin and his senses began to sharpen. He gritted his growing teeth and fought against the urge to scream, then against the urge to howl.

  The whole process was over in seconds, but as always it felt like hours. He shook his head to clear the fuzz from his brain and sneezed as the scents of nature overwhelmed his newly improved sense of smell. It was always the same directly after a shift, though not as bad as it had been in the first few months. Within a minute, though, he had adjusted to his new senses once more, and could take his first look around.

  Apart from everything looking taller, thanks to his new lower point of view, everything was also clearer. The leaves that covered the ground were in sharp focus, as were the various bugs that scurried around, unseen to a human eye. A noise made him jump, snarling, until he realized it was a car on a street a few blocks away. He chuffed a laugh. It had been too long since his last shift.

  The apartment block Snow was headed to wasn’t far away, but Jerry’s roundabout route meant that he had further to travel. Fortunately in his wolf form that wasn’t an issue. He made a quick note of where he’d left his clothes then bounded off between the trees.

  As he ran, his mind wandered back to Mica and the man’s own hidden nature. How would he react when Jerry questioned him about it? And what about when he also mentioned that he wasn’t the only one with a secret? It was goi
ng to be a fun conversation, that was for sure. And one I should have sooner rather than later. There was no point leaving it too long. All that meant was that he’d have more to lose. Right then, if Mica walked away from the relationship, all Jerry would have lost would have been a good fuck and a nice guy. Any longer and he’d be risking losing a boyfriend, too.

  The apartment building loomed into view and all other thoughts left Jerry’s head. He had to be on the ball in case the witch came back. While he was confident he could take her on if he saw her coming, his chances were considerably reduced if she found him when he was distracted thinking about Mica.

  Amidst the trees and bushes he found a spot that shielded him from the road, but was close enough that he should be able to spot or smell anyone coming. He settled in and waited, his ears perked.

  Cars passed, as did human pedestrians, but nothing out of the ordinary grabbed at Jerry’s senses. The only supernatural scent he could detect was Snow’s, who was now on the third floor of the building. A flash of white made Jerry glance upward, to find Snow looking down at him. The man winked then disappeared again. At least someone’s having fun.

  Five minutes passed, then ten, and still there was nothing. Jerry remained rigidly alert, though, even glanced behind him every now and again, just in case. After another five, Snow reappeared in the window above and gave him a thumbs up. Whatever he’d been looking for, he’d found it. Jerry relaxed a little and let out a short breath.

  The attack came with no warning, and only his wolf instincts saved him. Before he even realized he was doing it, he’d dodged to the side just in time to see a thin streak of metal fly past where his head had been a second earlier. He spun quickly to find a man bearing down on him, a throwing knife in his hand and a grin on his lips.