Denying the Alpha: Manlove Edition

by 5 Author Anthology

  The stubble he could do nothing about. He tried to persuade his hair with his fingers into some sort of normal shape. Then he splashed his face one more time and slowly washed his hands, letting the cool water run over his fingers.

  When he finally left the bathroom, he saw that Ari had dragged one of the dining chairs over to his desk and was reading. He only acknowledged Sorrel with a flick of his eyes.

  The ache inside grew raw again at the lack of sly humor or even disdain. Everything about Ari looked shuttered off.

  Maybe he’d said the wrong thing—it wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe in the mess of unsaid things, he’d picked the wrong one, and there was still something to fix this, to undo it and get Ari back.

  How quickly their careful, unspoken stalemate had changed.

  They didn’t speak for the rest of the evening. Ari stayed occupied as always, messing with the potted plants in the little kitchen or scratching down notes, the pantomime of his normal, solitary life.

  Sorrel watched all of it, but Ari didn’t comment.

  Chapter Five

  Bedtime rolled around.

  Ari came shuffling out of the bathroom, sweatpants on and no shirt. The smooth dark tones of his skin stretched all the way down, uninterrupted, flawless, supple. He glanced uncomfortably at Sorrel but seemed to firmly pretend to not notice or care how much skin he was showing, or the effect it may have.

  Looking down his nose at Sorrel while Sorrel tried not to devour all of him with his eyes, Ari asked, “You need pajamas?”

  Sorrel blinked, shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  “Blanket? I don’t have an air mattress or anything.”

  Peeking around at the wooden floor under them, he mumbled, “Yeah, please.”

  Ari opened his mouth as if about to say something, then shut it. He dug through a narrow closet and tossed a heavy blanket to Sorrel that smelled of dust and cedar.

  Another awkward moment, both men hesitating as the blanket slithered down Sorrel’s arms. Then Ari nodded and undid his loose ponytail, letting all of his dark hair frame his face, changing the shape of it and making him look partially wild himself. “I’m turning off the lights now.”

  “Good night,” Sorrel murmured, earning yet another funny look. As Ari touched the runeplate on the wall and the room fell into darkness, Sorrel realized Ari might have caught on to him, and how all of his politeness was an attempt at an apology.

  Ari’s bed, slender and built for one, nestled in an alcove along the wall. He disappeared into its shadows with a rustle of blankets without another word, becoming a vague lump of sheets.

  Sorrel dropped the blanket to the ground and stripped off his shirt as well. His fingers hooked into the pants, ready to strip them off too before he remembered he wasn’t wearing underwear.

  Sighing through his nose, he shuffled to the nearby wall and sank down. He didn’t lie down yet, propped up against the wall as he tried to arrange the blanket comfortably around him.

  Sleep felt a long way off.

  A cool draft skated along the floor. He shivered, pulling the blanket closer around his shoulders and missing his fur. Somewhere outside, an owl screeched as if trying to get inside. Ari shifted, that rustle sending a sharp stab of awareness through him.

  Sorrel kicked out his legs and rearranged everything, only to find the blankets tangling around his legs like they always did whenever he got restless. Sighing sharply again, he flapped it out, and all of the cold rushed in, gleefully tickling goosebumps from his naked skin.

  Shivering, he bunched them all up over him again, hugged his arms to himself, and bowed his head, hoping that pretending to sleep would make it happen.

  When he finally drifted off, some part of him remained tethered to the waking world, never letting him fully go under. His dreams were fitful, full of Ari—Ari buried in red-wine leaves, Ari bound by tattooed fingers making charms as if he were another leaf, them standing in the kitchen while Ari cried and screamed and said things that made no sense, cursing Sorrel.

  He jolted awake, frustrated and exhausted.

  Ari’s bed was empty.

  Sorrel blinked, squinting through the darkness and trying to rub the drowse from his eyes. But no—the moonlight found a sliver of an opening through the window, and through the soft glint of its light against the sheets, he could not see Ari’s shape anymore.

  Ignoring the cold that sprang up from his skin, Sorrel went over and touched the tousled sheets. There was only the faintest memory of Ari’s warmth.

  “Ari?” he called, his voice ringing in the silence.

  Nothing.

  The door to the shop, however, hung open, nothing but inky black beyond its frame.

  He frowned and grabbed his shirt from the floor, tugging it on against the cold as he drifted out the doorway. “Ari?” he called again, more softly, into the thick bramble of herbs. In the darkness, it looked like a forest lived in the shop, its leaves dripping close to the ground.

  A light leaked through from the greenhouse door, spilling light across the floor.

  As he made his way over, he trailed his fingers through the herbs dangling on the ceiling, setting them and their lines swinging. When he touched the charms, their magic fizzled against his fingers, and he could almost hear tinkling like chimes. The world felt asleep and far away.

  The door creaked loudly at his touch, hinges squealing.

  Ari’s head shot up out of his hands, and he stared at Sorrel across the distance, almost angry.

  Nearly every light in the greenhouse was off, except for a tiny cluster over potted plants in the back, and a single orb suspended over Ari, leaving him in a pool of light in the middle of the darkness. The table in front of him was a jumble of jars and droppers and tools, a notebook pinned underneath his bony elbows.

  He’d perched himself in front of the plant that haunted Sorrel’s dreams, that dogged his heels with every tangled waking thought—allum.

  The allum was a snarled, thin-looking bush, looking as if it had been beaten for years by howling winds. Its branches were almost barren, just a few leaves and hopeful buds clinging to them. They looked as if the faintest breath would detach them—and even as he stared, one fluttered down to the soil.

  Dying.

  The same fear that clutched his chest when Ari first told him came crawling back now, freezing his veins, his limbs. Maybe Ari’s predictions weren’t so wrong after all, that one day soon he would go feral, maybe even forget about all of this.

  The sleeping world may have felt far away, but Ari was as real as ever, his eyes flashing. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbled, still clutching the doorknob.

  The light from the orb overhead had a pale, draining quality to it, leeching the color and the vitality from Ari. He looked exhausted, a man at the end of his rope. Ari sighed, dropping his head onto a hand, and his loose hair swung across his face. “Go back and try harder.”

  He hesitated, swaying a little, wanting to pry the pen out of Ari’s fingers and work the tension out of his shoulders.

  “I can stay,” Sorrel said, taking a half step into the greenhouse’s thick air.

  Ari’s voice grew hard. “For what?”

  His bare foot scuffed uneven slate and mulch as he took another half step in. “Company.” At the sudden stiffness in Ari’s shoulders, he added, “Just … friendly.”

  Silence stretched in the small space. Then Ari tipped his head back, eyes shut. “I’m not in the mood for this right now.”

  A few raindrops, thick and heavy, struck the glass panels as sharp as knocks. Sorrel frowned at the windows, trying to make out any sense of rain or storm, only able to see inky black beyond his own shadowy reflection. When his attention slid back to Ari in his pool of light, Ari watched him, face unreadable.

  Sorrel nodded. “Okay.” Chest hollow, he finally backed away into the shop’s shadows, feeling the cool whisper of night at his back. “Good night.”

  �
�Sorrel, wait—” Ari shot up and hurried over, grabbing the door before he could close it. “I want you to know,” he murmured, tone low and urgent, “the last dose of allum. It’s not ready, but … it’s yours. I was going to hold on to it for you anyway, before you showed up.”

  His poor heart skipped a beat, twisting and thudding and doing everything except what a heart should do. Staring at Ari’s face, so obscured in the shadows, he slowly licked his lips and kept himself under control. Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

  A frown appeared on Ari’s brow.

  Then his hand was in Sorrel’s hair, clutching it tightly enough to hurt, and he mashed his face against him.

  It could barely be called a kiss. It was a punch with his mouth against Sorrel’s, a punch that lingered and stretched, that opened wide and turned into tangled fingers and fencing tongues. When Sorrel grabbed him, Ari groaned into his open mouth and pulled harder at Sorrel’s hair until he felt his eyes prickle from the pain.

  Every tangled sense, every confused piece inside of him, all of the pain and fear, all came roaring up in sudden, single-minded desire. A desire that lanced through him like the worst kind of insatiable hunger as they devoured each other, pushing and pulling.

  “Fuck,” Ari gasped, ripping their mouths apart though they still clutched pieces of each other in tight fists. He shook his head, again and again, fury and helplessness radiating from his clenched teeth.

  Another spray of rain rippled across the greenhouse, rattling through Sorrel’s already shaken nerves.

  His heart couldn’t calm down, pounding against his chest. He could feel his veins throbbing, his length hardening against Ari’s hip—and Ari didn’t turn away.

  Instead, Ari’s breath hissed against his, his thumbs seeking out the crests of Sorrel’s ears. “I shouldn’t’ve done that.” He squeezed his eyes shut, teeth gritting. “This is a mistake.”

  Moving slowly, carefully, Sorrel leaned his forehead against Ari’s, eyes shut, and inhaled deeply.

  Everything hurt in new, unexpected ways. The pain in his chest rippled all the way down his arms, and his heart would not stop squeezing. Ari’s fingers pressed holes into him. All of it was a burden he was willing to carry. But he said nothing, unable to ask Ari to carry his own burdens.

  Ari’s fingers whisked across his cheek, feather light. “Oh, Sorrel, don’t do that,” he breathed, lips so close he could feel the little puff of air.

  “Don’t do what?” he breathed back, only half paying attention.

  Sorrel’s hands slid up his spine, hugged Ari’s neck. Outside, the rain continued to roll against the greenhouse in increasing waves.

  “Promise me,” he whispered into Sorrel’s lips, almost drowned out by the rain, “that you won’t come back after I give you the allum.”

  His lungs forgot how to breathe. Head bent against Ari, he shook his head and choked out, “I can’t.”

  He expected a punch, a shove, for curses to spill from Ari’s angry mouth, but instead it was all of those at once in the form of a furious kiss that knocked both of them back against the thin door. It creaked in protest, but neither noticed, nor did they notice the pounding rain and howling winds that rattled the greenhouse’s frame.

  Sorrel wrapped his arms so tightly around Ari, never wanting to let him go again as their mouths pushed against each other. There was nothing of the longing here, nothing of the sweet ache, the feelings without words.

  This was months of pent-up frustration, it was desperation, fury, and Ari’s tongue tasted like the salt of grief.

  They kissed until his jaw ached, until their lips were swollen and his skin chafed from the fine bristle on Ari’s chin. They stumbled back into the dark recesses of the shop without once breaking the lock on their mouths.

  It wasn’t clear if Ari pulled him down to the floor or if Sorrel knocked them both down, but they sprawled in between aisles, Sorrel kneeling over Ari as his hand plundered inside Ari’s shirt. Leaves bumped against his head.

  His head spun with desire and confusion and need. And even though Ari had gripped his wrists in a moment of silent panic, the next moment he began yanking at Sorrel’s shirt. His entire body writhed under Sorrel, a constant sensual motion as if he would die if he stopped.

  Ari’s hands in his hair, Sorrel kissed the firmness of his naked chest, the subtle bump of his ribcage and where his belly flexed and fluttered in anticipation under his lips. He kissed down his entire length until he found the seam of his sweatpants, already strained from containing Ari’s erection.

  Though Ari’s fingers tensed and a ragged gasp shook through all of Ari, he didn’t stop Sorrel as he tugged his pants down, freeing Ari’s erection. Sorrel kissed the tip, lapped the slit, and Ari’s dick bumped against his mouth as he shuddered and rolled his hips with need.

  Sorrel grabbed Ari’s hips, practically pinning him to himself, and wrapped his mouth around him. As he eased his mouth down his length, he felt Ari’s legs tensing around him, a groan slithering up from Ari.

  Sorrel began bobbing in earnest. Soft moans pushed out of Ari with each motion, more breath than voice. His fingers passed through Sorrel’s hair, slapped onto the floor, and brushed across his forehead.

  Thinking was a thing of the distant past. He was a being of feeling, of doing, no room for thoughts or words that made things worse.

  He slid Ari out of his mouth, paused to shift his weight and bend the man’s hips back just enough, and he spat onto Ari’s entrance and his fingers.

  At his touch, he felt Ari’s entrance under him jump. Kissing his inner thigh, half-hugging it to him still, he eased his finger in to the first knuckle, then the second. He felt Ari’s insides clench around him, his moans grow strained. Soon his finger was buried all the way inside him and Sorrel paused, letting the ripples and little twitches that rocked through Ari die down as he got used to him inside, all while kissing his soft inner thigh over and over.

  Then he slowly began teasing him with that finger, sliding in and out, stretching him, feeling those insides grow hotter and Ari’s voice change in pitch. Pre-cum oozed out of Ari’s dick on his belly, which Sorrel lapped up greedily.

  Soon, Ari’s hips matched his motions, slowly rocking with him as he added a second finger, stretching him. One spot made Ari’s moans grow thin like a hiss and his dick twitched in pleasure. Sorrel bent his finger every time he passed that spot until Ari was panting hard, tense, clutching his hair, and falling back on the hard shop floor.

  Sorrel leaned forward, added a third finger, and took Ari into his mouth again.

  That sent Ari right over the edge.

  Ari’s dick tensed in his mouth and his groans rose in a pitch to rival the storm raging outside. He shoved Sorrel’s head out of the way, gripping the base of his own dick and pumped furiously, grinding against Sorrel’s fingers in his ass as hot streams of cum sprayed onto his belly and his insides pulsed around Sorrel’s fingers.

  Ari fell back against the floor, spent, panting, legs splayed on either side of Sorrel.

  Sorrel gently pulled his fingers out, wiped the slickness off, and crawled up Ari’s body.

  Ari shook his head, his panting laced with a sad sort of laugh, but he kissed Sorrel back with a languid fervor, mouth hot from orgasm.

  Sorrel’s ears roared with desire.

  They were in a full, silent, unison now, both given up entirely to their bodies’ greed. When Sorrel began tugging his own pants down, Ari squirmed upright a little, wriggling closer, and Ari’s hand slithered down his own naked body to fondle his well-stretched entrance.

  Sorrel felt fit to burst already before he even got his pants off. He spat again, rubbing it all over himself and Ari’s entrance for good measure, grabbed Ari’s leg, and pressed the tip of himself to Ari.

  And he paused, heart aching, crying out, feeling that cliff’s edge Ari feared, that point of no return. But they had crossed it long before he sucked Ari off, long before they had kissed. He feared, and knew, they had crossed it
the moment they clapped eyes on each other.

  He slid inside Ari, stretching him, filling him, feeling Ari’s heat swallow him entirely whole as Ari clutched his arm and let out one long, singular moan like a musical note. As soon as he hilted, Sorrel didn’t wait, immediately driving into Ari, again and again, fucking him hard. Their bodies rocked in unison, Ari’s face in the dim light all clenched teeth and furrowed brow, but gasps sprang from him, and every time they slid across the wood floor, Ari braced himself back, wriggling all the closer.

  They fucked urgently, suddenly eager to get Sorrel to his finish. Sorrel’s lips bumped down Ari’s chest and his hands slid up Ari’s side, gripped Ari’s thighs, as the most painful pleasure sang through him, building.

  “Oh, God, fuck, Sorrel,” Ari moaned, grabbing his own dick and massaging it as he curled in on himself. For one moment, he sent a flashing look Sorrel’s way, bewilderment, arousal, and then his eyes snapped shut and he came a second time. It was a weaker orgasm than the first, but his belly gleamed with cum, sweat clung to his brow, and his head rolled as if he could barely support it anymore.

  “Inside?” Sorrel rasped, bliss beginning its slow explosion behind his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Thrusting and fucking and groaning, Sorrel came heavily inside, seed pumping out as he kept humping forward until every last drop was spent.

  Only Ari existed in his world, a world filled with their ragged breaths and soft sounds. He pressed kisses all over Ari’s sweaty body, Ari’s hand at his neck. When Sorrel bit him on his shoulder, Ari gave a little chuckle and a squirm, entire body sensitive to every motion Sorrel made.

  His grip on Sorrel’s neck tightened, pulling Sorrel up for more sloppy kisses. Then he fell back one last time, arm tossed over his face.

  Sorrel eased his limp member out, heart thudding painfully from more than the sex. The post-orgasm fuzz that coiled through his muscles left a sour taste of dread behind.

  Moving blindly in the deep darkness, lit only from the greenhouse door, he felt around for a shirt—whose, he wasn’t sure—and mopped up as much of the mess from Ari as possible. Ari lay there, face hidden still.