by Odessa Lynne
The wolf’s head tilted, his eyes flickering between Mason and the ropes before settling on Mason in a way that made Mason intensely aware of the fact that the only thing between him and that wolf was a towel and three feet of hallway.
Eyes fixed on that unknown wolf, Mason stuck his fingers into the recessed grip of the door and shoved it closed.
Chapter 12
The bathwater had cooled down considerably by the time Mason heard the door open again. He jerked upright in the hard chair—the only surface in the room for sitting unless he wanted to sit on the bed—no—or the floor—hell no—and uncrossed his arms quickly for balance.
As soon as he saw it was Five who’d entered, he exhaled a pent up breath and said, “About goddamn time. What the fuck took you so long?” And then, before Five had time to answer, “What did you find out? Is he alive?”
Five slid the door closed behind him. He tossed the bundle of ropes into the room and they landed with a dull thwap a few feet from the foot of the bed.
Anger burned in Mason’s chest at the sight of those goddamn ropes again. “You won’t need those.”
“You were supposed to be waiting in the tub.”
“Water’s cold and I didn’t fucking feel like—”
Five crossed the room in less time than it took Mason to get to his feet.
“Okay shit, goddammit, I submit!” Mason reared back but Five had him by the back of the neck before he could move more than a few inches.
Five pulled Mason forward with inexorable intent, his deadly eyeteeth glimmering under the light and his eyes deep, dark pools of blue. Mason held his breath.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t what he got.
Five turned Mason toward the bathroom door. “In the bath. Now.”
A sharp exhale escaped, and the tightness in his chest eased. “But—”
“He’s alive. Any more discussion of it can wait until after we fuck. If we don’t do it soon, the moment my heat strikes me in full, I’ll have you on your back and my cock buried deep inside you whether you’re ready for me or not. Your human body isn’t capable of taking me the way one of my own could. You won’t enjoy it, and I won’t enjoy knowing I caused you pain.”
Mason swallowed—hard. He started moving toward the bathroom.
A sudden tug at his waist made him stop, but Five’s hand landed heavy in the center of his back, pushing him forward. The towel dropped to the floor.
As soon as Mason reached the tub, he grabbed the rim and climbed into the chill water. Goosebumps raced across his skin.
Five reached around him and raised the lever that controlled the drain stopper. The water gurgled once, then started a silent, fast swirl down the drain. Five turned the hot water on and started refilling the tub.
“This is a total waste,” Mason said, pulling his knees up. “All this water.”
“We have a great deal of experience filtering and recycling water. Don’t concern yourself with it.”
Mason pressed his lips together and watched Five retrieve a washcloth and a bar of soap.
So this was really going to happen. Five was going to wash him. Just the thought of it made Mason’s face hot and his stomach clench. He felt…
He wasn’t sure how he felt. Not good, that was all.
Five turned the water off. Mason’s heart started a slow, heavy beat. Not that he was scared, because he wasn’t. He was uncertain. He didn’t know what Five expected to get out of this, didn’t know why it was necessary.
Five dipped the cloth into the water and started lathering the soap. A sharp, leafy scent wafted on the air.
Not unpleasant, just different. “What’s that made of?”
Five answered in the wolves’ language. “Kueilateei.”
It was a melodic word, and Mason liked the sound of it, even if he didn’t have any idea what it meant. “A plant?”
“A beetle-like creature. It mimics scent as camouflage. The smell is of our home world. It was a popular harvest before the end. We saved enough to keep the species alive on our ships but their numbers are dwindling. They haven’t thrived in captivity. They’ll be extinct soon enough.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t expected his question to lead to a reminder that the wolves’ world was gone and hadn’t thought much about what that really meant. Earth was their new home, whether the humans who shared it with them liked it or not.
Five set the soap aside, then took Mason’s arm and slowly dragged the cloth over his skin from his shoulder to his fingertips.
Mason watched bubbles slide down the underside of his arm. “I’m sorry you lost your world.”
“What is, is.”
Such a soft, quiet answer. “Do you miss it?”
“I hardly knew it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was born only a few heats before we set off on the ships. The ship I grew up on was my home. We had very little space for everyone and very little hope of finding a new world to settle on. And yet…” His quiet words trailed off and his touch slowed. “Some days I look at the trees and the sky and the open spaces, and I miss it.”
An inexplicable ache tightened Mason’s chest. “I miss the life I had before you all came.”
He would never have that life again, and he would never know what could have been.
Five’s eyes came up to meet Mason’s for the first time since he’d started washing him. “I want to mate you. I wish I could do it with an open heart.”
The intonation of “mate” had changed again, but Mason was beginning to sense the patterns in the words and this time he thought he understood. The wolves had a greater vocal range than humans. The adaptations probably weren’t even intentional, just something that was evolving naturally as the wolves spoke a language so much less nuanced than their own.
He curled his fingers around the rim of the tub. “You want to mate me, but you’re still angry.”
“The past is the past, and I shouldn’t cling to it. But I cannot seem to let it go, not with your scent memory tied so closely to the memory of Iaehekielle.”
Five was talking about the attack where he’d first caught Mason’s scent, Mason was sure of it.
“I can’t change the past,” Mason said. “You think I’d be here if I could?”
Water splashed as he straightened his legs. The strain on his muscles eased. Hiding was pointless anyway. Five had seen it all. He would see it again. Soon he would even touch it.
Mason repeated Five’s words back to him. “What is, is.”
“An impasse.”
Mason rested his hand on the opposite rim of the tub and stared at the mirror across the room. Something in his own expression made him feel edgy.
“It’s a goddamned star-crossed romance,” he said.
Five palmed Mason’s cheek and turned his head, then stared so solemnly at Mason that he found it hard to take a deep breath.
Something was wrong here, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
“I’m not gay,” Mason said, ignoring the warmth of that palm against his skin and the way Five’s thumb scraped at the shadow of his beard. “You don’t even like me. It doesn’t take a genius to know why you want me right now, but why in the hell are you so sure you want me for a mate?”
Five picked up the soap again. “Your sexuality isn’t a stagnant lake, abandoned by the waters that created it. It’s a river, and even rivers can change the direction of their flow given the right circumstances.”
Mason laughed, a short, sharp sound that echoed off the bathroom walls. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch, you know that? It would take an earthquake of the size we haven’t seen since the Great Quake to send a river running backward. I’ve never been interested in guys. I really don’t think you’re going to be the one that changes all that.”
Five paused his effort to add more soap to the cloth in his hand. His gaze dropped to Mason’s groin and suddenly there was fire in those eyes that started a tremble in Mason’s
belly. “I’m going to enjoy proving to you how wrong you are.”
Mason let his frustration out in a noisy exhale that stirred the hair at Five’s temple. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You wouldn’t understand my answer.”
Mason gripped the rim tightly and propped his leg on the side of the tub. “Wash then. The water’s getting cold again.”
It wasn’t, not yet, but Five didn’t call Mason on it.
He started at Mason’s ankle, washing with slow, soothing strokes. When the cloth dipped into the water and started up the inside of his knee, Mason clenched his teeth against the way his breath wanted to come faster. He almost lost his nerve when the cloth brushed the side of his cock and then—
He grabbed for Five’s hand just as Five pushed the cloth under his scrotum.
Five’s nostrils flared, his eyes tightening at the corners, but contrary to what Mason expected, Five eased his hand back, away from Mason’s genitals.
Unnerved by his own actions, Mason released Five’s hand, his own hand trembling with adrenaline. What he’d done was dangerous. Much too dangerous to repeat. He couldn’t let himself forget that.
Five washed along the underside of Mason’s thigh, then soaped the cloth again, saying, “Lean forward.”
Mason rested his elbows on his thighs and lowered his head, arching his back at the same time. The slick cloth slid over his taut muscles and down his spine.
“We do this to calm the heat,” Five said, his voice low and his touch gentle. His hand was only a few inches from Mason’s tailbone.
“Does it?” Mason’s voice cracked. He didn’t repeat the question.
And then the cloth slid into the crease of his ass and Mason closed his eyes and took a deep breath and let it happen this time, because he’d told Five he would submit and he was going to keep his word if it fucking killed him.
It was the right move. After that, it got easier to raise his other leg and let Five wash away the last of the faint streaks of dirt his muddy pants had left behind, and then Five washed his chest and his other arm, and before he was ready for it, his freshly washed hair was dripping into his eyes and Five was using a clean cloth to wash Mason’s face, rubbing the cloth over each eye with careful strokes.
“Stand up for me.”
The command came in a deep, dark tone that brought Mason’s head up. The light reflected off Five’s eyes and the irises seemed brighter, hotter than before.
Mason had been quiet while Five washed him, no longer interested in distracting himself from the feel of the cloth rubbing across the sensitive areas of his skin. His nipples had peaked as the water cooled, and his cock had shown only minor interest in the proceedings—still, he wasn’t completely soft and his face heated when he pushed himself to his feet and stood in front of Five.
“Submission has rewards,” Five said. “And it has obligations. Taking care of those who submit is my obligation as alpha—and as a mate.”
Taking care of Mason obviously meant more than just washing him, because Five leaned forward and pressed his lips to the soft, uncut skin of Mason’s cock.
Mason’s muscles jumped at the first touch, and he sucked in his breath in a startled rush, but he didn’t step away from the warm lips—or the hot tongue that came out and licked away the droplets of water that clung to his skin.
His cock reacted by growing thicker and harder, and he reached out, gripping Five’s shoulder for balance. He didn’t close his eyes or try to hide from what was happening, and seeing those high, strong cheekbones and sharp nose dragging through his pubic hair was different enough from all his prior experience that he almost felt as if he were standing outside his own body, watching and waiting for what was to come.
But then Five pressed more kisses to the darkening flesh of Mason’s cock, and something stirred in Mason’s groin that was more than just acceptance. He swallowed and dug his fingers into the strong shoulder under his hand.
Five mouthed his way down to Mason’s scrotum, and then over his balls. Each time Five sucked on Mason’s skin, Mason’s breath stuttered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the way Five’s eyelashes fluttered every time Five’s warm lips came into contact with Mason’s skin.
Despite never having looked at another man with sexual interest, Mason’s cock hardened under Five’s kisses until he had a full erection.
He could have predicted this outcome if he’d suspected for even a moment that Five was going to go to his knees and put his mouth on Mason’s cock. But Mason hadn’t suspected this would happen—he’d been too worked up in the belief that Five thought Mason was just someone to fuck, and he felt like a fool for not seeing the clues in everything Five had been saying to him about mating from the moment they’d met.
And then Five took Mason’s cock into his mouth, sucking him in deep, and the pleasure of the slick, wet heat of that mouth wound through every muscle in Mason’s body. He took hold of Five’s other shoulder, sure his legs were going to give out on him before Five was done.
Five sucked Mason’s cock until Mason started having trouble keeping his hips still, until he couldn’t stop the sounds that wanted to spill out of his throat, until he finally gave in and gripped a handful of hair and just held on.
He groaned, once, twice, then too many times to count as his body’s reaction escaped the last of his control and he realized with startling abruptness that Five was giving him the best blowjob he’d ever had.
And then Five pulled off—well before Mason was ready to let him go.
Mason forced his fingers to unclench in Five’s hair.
“Turn around,” Five said, and the words came out hoarse and raw, nearly a growl.
“But I was close.”
Five gripped Mason’s hips, indicating with a push the direction he wanted Mason to move.
Mason turned, his heart thudding, his blood pulsing hot in his veins.
“Bend over.”
Mason bit his bottom lip and breathed in quickly through his nose. But he leaned forward, gripping tight to the rim of the tub in front of him. Hands brushed up the insides of his thighs, encouraging him to spread his legs and take a sturdier stance.
Mason did, finding it impossible to think about anything except how exposed he felt, how sure he was that his balls were mere inches away from the back of Five’s hand, how his asshole had to be right there in Five’s face.
Then a heavy hand landed on his ass, drawing down his flank. Mason shivered, not sure if it was the chill from the rapidly cooling water that did it or something else.
Something else, that goddamn voice whispered in his head. Definitely something else.
Five leaned closer and his lips became a sudden warmth on the tight curve of Mason’s ass while hands pulled Mason’s cheeks apart. Mason’s face burned with embarrassment and his knuckles went white but he kept his mouth shut and just breathed, trying not to sound like he was going to hyperventilate at any moment.
He wasn’t scared. That wasn’t his problem.
Hot breath grazed the pucker of his anus. His whole body shuddered in reaction.
He wanted to rear up and pull back. He wanted to climb out of the tub, to scramble away from that hot breath as quickly as he could, to turn and ask Five what the fuck he thought he was doing.
He wanted to know why every inch of skin on his body had flushed hot and tight and why he was quivering in nervous anticipation.
And then Five stopped teasing him and started teaching him what the hell he should’ve known years ago.
Chapter 13
Mason didn’t like to think he was naïve when it came to sex. He was nearly twenty-six years old; he’d had sex and enough of it to feel like he knew what it was all about. But he’d never actually thought about what a gay man might get up to in bed with another gay man. Sure, he’d assumed the basics. Blowjobs and hand jobs and anal sex and all that, but it had never in his life occurred to him that there might be pleasure to be had from the feel of a hot, wet tongue
on his asshole.
Or in it.
“Oh God,” he said, so weak and so breathless he would’ve been embarrassed if it weren’t already too late for that. His face was on fire. So was his body.
He felt as much as heard the rumble in Five’s chest and he jumped at the tingle it created against the rim of his anus. Five’s hands moved from Mason’s ass to his thighs and he wrapped his arms around each, jerking Mason back into the position he wanted Mason in.
That was okay, because if Five hadn’t been holding him up, Mason was convinced he would have been on his knees in the tub already. As it was, his white-knuckled grip on the tub was the only thing keeping him from diving face first into the water sloshing at his knees. He was surprised he didn’t feel the sharp points of claws biting into his skin, but Five hadn’t let that happen.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed. “Oh fuck.”
Five had swiped his tongue over Mason’s balls and up the crack of his ass, then darted heavy and quick through the tight ring of Mason’s asshole. And then he did it again and again, until Mason’s cock was so hard all Mason wanted to do was reach down and take his cock in hand and jerk himself off with fast, furious strokes.
The urge was so strong he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself.
He wasn’t ready when Five took one last swipe with his tongue and sat back, leaving Mason weak and shaking and uncertain what the hell he was supposed to do now.
Five rose behind him and wound his arms around Mason, pulling Mason’s back tight to his chest. Mason’s legs held him up, but he didn’t know how.
When Five hauled him up into his arms, Mason grabbed at Five’s neck with the crook of his arm.
“Whoa, whoa! Whoa the fuck down. I can walk.”
“And so can I.”
Mason couldn’t believe how strong Five’s arms felt under him, holding his weight as if he weren’t a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight.
Five carried Mason into the bedroom and tossed him onto the middle of the bed.
Mason’s breath whooshed out of him. He scrambled up on his elbows, but Five pushed him flat and climbed over him, a predatory light in his eyes.
