Topping the Dom

by Lisa Oliver

  Pearson rubbed his head as he felt Dante stir beside him. Dante glanced over his shoulder, and seeing Pearson on the phone, slipped out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Hearing the shower running, Pearson flipped his legs over the side of the bed, determined to join his mate.

  “Give me thirty minutes,” he said to the patiently waiting Kyle on the phone. “Arrange to have breakfast for two served in my office plus coffee for you and anyone else you want in attendance. Let’s get this business with Grier sorted once and for all. I’ll deal with anything else that needs my attention at the same time, but I plan on being finished by dinner time.”

  “Dinner time, Alpha?”

  “Dinner time, Kyle. I have a new mate and I’m not letting the demands of the club, or the pack, interfere with our bonding process. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Alpha,” Kyle’s firm voice agreed. “Steel rang earlier - I told him you were unavailable, but can I schedule him in for an appointment after lunch?”

  “Invite him and Levi to join me and Dante for lunch, will you. Dante has met them and it won’t do any harm mixing with business with a meal.”

  “On it, Alpha. See you in thirty minutes?”

  Pearson looked up to see his very naked mate come out of the bedroom, hair still wet and droplets of water snaking down his bare torso. As Dante took off the towel he’d had slung around his hips, Pearson growled, “make it an hour,” and hung up the phone.

  “You going into the club today?” Dante asked, as he casually dried himself off.

  “We’re going into the club today,” Pearson corrected as he stood up and took the towel from Dante’s hands, rubbing it over Dante’s broad back. “But we’ve got an hour. Got any ideas on how we can spend that time, given how you’re already clean?”

  “I’ve got a few,” Dante said, his dark eyes flashing with promise as he captured Pearson’s face in his hands, and bringing their lips together.

  And fuck it all, thought Pearson as he sunk into his mate’s delicious kiss, if we’re late, well, that is one of the perks of being an Alpha.

  /~/~/~/~/

  Dante was the first to admit that his life was definitely better than it had been a few days ago. He was well fed, he had an amazing mate, a new home, and he was Alpha Mate of a new pack of gay wolves. If someone had ever asked him to design his perfect life, it would be a lot like the one he was in now. Despite being Alpha born he had never felt the urge to lead his own pack, so being Alpha Mate was as high as he could ever go in pack hierarchy.

  But Dante was edgy and felt off center. He just wasn’t sure why. Pearson was an amazing man, and the more Dante got to know him, the more he liked him. He knew they could have a love match and he was happy about that. His new home had everything in it he could possibly want and what was more important, he and Pearson fit, outside of the bedroom as well as in it.

  Part of Dante’s feelings came from the fact that he knew he wasn’t being fair to his mate. Despite coming together in a wide variety of ways over the past three days, Pearson never once asked to fuck Dante. Never even suggested it. Dante had even raised the conversation about their kinks in the hopes he could get Pearson to admit he wanted to plow Dante’s ass, but the man never mentioned it. Instead he told tales of silly subs that made Dante quiver with repressed jealousy, even though he knew it was stupid.

  Another reason Dante figured he felt off balance was because he didn’t really know his place - in the pack and in Pearson’s life. Oh sure, he knew the titles - Alpha Mate of the pack, half owner of the BDSM club, and mate to Pearson. But Dante hadn’t been in any of those positions before and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Like now, for instance. Pearson was hosting a meeting in his office with Kyle, Roger, and Phillip, and they were talking about Grier. Pearson had told Dante that he wanted him by his side, so Dante was exactly where he was supposed to be - sitting in a chair next to Pearson, watching and listening, but not really having anything to say. He didn’t even know if he was allowed to contribute. He didn’t want to do or say anything to make Pearson look weak or ineffective in front of his men, although in his opinion the way the men were dealing with Grier was all wrong.

  It seemed, from Dante could make out, that Kyle and the other enforcers had been ‘working on’ Grier for more than a week. But all Grier had done was retreat into a sniveling shell of a man, who absolutely refused to explain why he, a straight wolf, was trying to gain access to a gay pack. The man’s references were bullshit and the only information Roger had been able to dig up from other packs was that the man was a liar and couldn’t be trusted.

  To Dante it was obvious. Whoever Grier was working for, and the man had to be working for someone, was more powerful and scarier than any of the tactics that the enforcers were using to try and get him to talk. What Grier needed, at least from Dante’s perspective, was an ally - someone the slime-ball thought he could confide in.

  “What do you think, Dante?” Pearson asked him, snapping him out of his thoughts.

  Hmm, should he or shouldn’t he? Oh fuck, Dante thought, he might as well be honest. He wasn’t going to start lying to his mate, no matter who else was present.

  “I think you’re all going about this the wrong way,” he said calmly. Yep, okay the flash of hurt he saw on Pearson’s face didn’t make him feel very good, but his mate covered it up quickly and adopted, what Dante called, his ‘Alpha’ face.

  “I’m not disputing the guy needed the hiding your enforcers have obviously been giving him, but it seems to me that if the man still won’t talk, then whoever he is working for is a damn sight scarier than you lot are. If you want the man to talk, then someone should be put in the holding cell with him.”

  “What try and sex it out of him?” Kyle asked. Dante couldn’t help but think that man’s head stayed in the gutter, permanently.

  “No, man and ew, gross,” Dante snapped. “No one would want to touch him. Besides, you saw what he did when the Alpha pushed him into giving you a blow job. The man just collapsed into a blithering mess. He needs to be paired with someone he thinks has as much gripe about this pack as he and his boss obviously do.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, mate,” Pearson said calmly, “but we don’t have anyone in the pack that could be used like that. Most of our members are well established as pack, and if this Grier scents any deceit then he’s not going to confide in anyone.”

  “You could use me,” Dante offered.

  “NO! I’m not having you anywhere near that scum,” Pearson roared.

  “No disrespect, Alpha Mate,” Kyle said, “but it would be too dangerous. We don’t know enough about the man to put you at risk like that.”

  Dante fought to stay calm, even though he was fuming. This, this was what he was afraid would happen and here it was. He was being treated like some weakling because he was mated to Pearson. He could kind of understand where Pearson was coming from. It was natural for any wolf to be protective of his mate, but Pearson had told him they were equals in this relationship, and the first opportunity the man has to prove that fact, the man turns round and says a flat out negative.

  Projecting a sense of calm that he honestly didn’t feel Dante said carefully, “It makes the most logical sense. Grier will know me from the interview with the Alpha. He knows I’m new to the pack. He doesn’t know I’m Alpha Mate, and if he smells the Alpha on me, I can always say I was used as a fuck toy. I can tell him that the Alpha found out I had an unfair kill to my name, and wants me thrown out of the pack. But he can’t do it…” Dante was trying to come up with something that wouldn’t be a direct lie, but would be plausible to someone like Grier.

  “Because you might know something about the Alpha that’s incriminating,” Kyle spoke up, obviously seeing where Dante was going with this. Dante hid a smirk. Knowing something incriminating about the Alpha wouldn’t be a lie - no one in the pack knew the Alpha liked to take it up the ass and was known to beg for it if he was teased long enough.

  “Exac
tly,” Dante said firmly. “I can be careful enough with what I say to make sure that I don’t lie outright and if Grier thinks I’ve got a grudge about the Alpha, he might be inclined to talk to me about whatever is going on with him.”

  “What about you being gay? Grier seems to have a problem with that,” Pearson said. Dante could tell by the tightness in Pearson’s jaw, that the man wasn’t happy, but at least he appeared to have backed down from his out right ‘no’ status.

  “I hid being gay from my home pack for most of my life,” Dante said shortly. “I can do gay-for-pay as good as anyone and that should suffice for someone like Grier.”

  “It could work, Alpha,” Kyle said. “Face it, we don’t have anything else, unless you just want to kill Grier outright.”

  “I’d rather kill him, than let my mate anywhere near him,” Pearson said fiercely.

  “But you can’t do that, Pearson,” Dante said, putting a hand on Pearson’s knee. “If you kill him then you won’t know where the next threat’s coming from. At least give this idea a chance. Put me in there. I’ll keep in touch through our mind link and as soon as I have anything, you can come in and get me out. If anything bad happens, you can send the enforcers in.”

  “I’ll want at least four enforcers down there with you,” Pearson snarled.

  “That’s not going to help, Pearson,” Dante countered smoothly. “If anything changes like the number of guards or things like that, then Grier will get suspicious. In fact, the fewer guards the better. You want the guy to talk, don’t you?”

  Dante could see that Pearson was angry. The man’s leg was so tense under his hand it felt rock hard. What Dante was counting on, was Pearson’s duty to the pack. He was sure he was right in his assessment of the situation with Grier. If Pearson killed the man, or ordered him dead, then that would solve the problem in the short term. But Grier was as stupid as fuck and someone else had to be behind his attempts at integrating with the pack. To find out who that person was, Grier needed to talk.

  “Okay,” Pearson said, his displeasure evident in that one word. “I’m not happy about this, obviously. But,” he said drawing in a deep breath and looking Dante straight in the eye, “I have to trust that my mate can handle himself. I’ll get you put in the holding cell. You have 24 hours and that’s it. Whether you have the information or not at that time, I’m pulling you out and if Grier hasn’t talked, then he’s dead.”

  Dante nodded in agreement. He didn’t really want to spend his time in a holding cell anyway, but he wanted to do something positive for Pearson and the pack - something to prove his worth.

  Looking at the other men in the room, Pearson said sternly, “No one else outside of this room is to know what’s going on. I will inform Steel and Levi of the situation when they come for lunch, but absolutely no one else must know. I don’t want the Alpha Mate’s position undermined in this pack before he’s had a chance to get to know the others. So you three will be solely responsible for guard duty for the next 24 hours. Understood?”

  “Yes Alpha,” the three men chorused although Dante could see Phillip was looking a little nervous about it. Not surprising really. If anything happened to him while he was in the holding cell, Pearson would probably kill all three of them without a second thought.

  “Right.” Pearson’s mind was made up, so it was time for business. Dante wondered if he was the only one who could see the tightness in Pearson’s jaw. But when his mate issued his orders, his voice was firm and clear.

  “Phillip, you and Roger can go home for a rest. You will each take an eight hour shift on this. Kyle, you go down and release whoever is watching Grier now, and then come back for Dante. You will be taking the first shift. I don’t want Dante taken through the club, use the back entrance. I will bring you food and anything else needed while this is going on. No one. I repeat no one, is to go down to the holding cells while the Alpha Mate is there. I don’t think Grier is working with anyone here in the club, but I’m not going to take that risk. Not with my mate involved. Anyone caught trying to sneak down there is to be held until I get there.”

  When all of the men nodded their agreement, Pearson said in a quieter voice. “Okay, let’s do this. Give me five minutes with my mate and then take him away.”

  Dante sat back with a sigh of relief. No, he didn’t want to be in a holding cell for 24 hours, and he definitely didn’t want to be parted from Pearson. But he had to prove he was worth something in this pack as an individual, and the fact that Pearson agreed, albeit unwillingly, had to mean the man trusted him in some way, didn’t it?

  Chapter Eight

  As Dante stared at the barred ceiling in the holding cell, he wondered for the one hundredth time if his whole idea was a bust. Kyle had bought him down to the cell just after ten o’clock in the morning and the shift changed at six that night, with Roger taking over enforcer duties. In that whole time Grier had kept to his side of the cell, huddled in a sitting position on his cot. He hadn’t taken his eyes of Dante since the man had got there. He also hadn’t said a word.

  Dante had already decided that being chatty would be immediately suspicious for someone who looked like him. His big and powerful look was intimidating to a lot of shifters, so to start talking to someone who was clearly a lower ranked wolf, would be a dumb move. As soon as he had been put in the cell he had glared at Grier and then plonked himself down on the other cot, laying down and turning to the wall as though he was trying to get to sleep. He’d even managed to get a bit of a nap in before Kyle brought in food for both of them, although he had been edgy the whole time. That had been roughly three hours before and Dante had spent his time since, lying on his back, glaring at the ceiling.

  The cell had got dark. The room itself wasn’t that bad. Bars built within the walls, ceiling and floor, because of course wolves can shift and dig their way out given half the chance. It wasn’t too dirty, although the toilet bucket in the corner wasn’t pleasant. But after his months on the road, Dante had seen and used worse. The only window was tiny and covered in steel mesh, and through it, Dante could see that night had fallen. He wouldn’t mind getting some more sleep, but there was something about Grier that really made his skin crawl and while he was well aware that Roger was outside of the door somewhere, he didn’t feel safe enough to risk sleeping through the night.

  Through their mind link Dante could tell that Pearson was getting edgier as the evening drew on. His mate was still at the club, and categorically refused to go home for some rest when Dante had suggested it telepathically. As he thought about Pearson and what the two of them could be doing in that huge bed of theirs, he let out a deep sigh. If Grier didn’t start talking soon, he would beat him up himself just to relieve some tension.

  “Who did you piss off to be in here?” Fuck, Dante thought, he actually speaks, although Grier’s voice grated on him. The man’s voice was slimy with a hint of cringe.

  “What do you care?” Dante snapped back.

  “Hey man, not trying to cause any trouble. Just wondered. The brutes out there aren’t talking to me either now, and you look pissed off at something.”

  “I am pissed off,” Dante snarled, “’cos I’m in here, right? I’ve got other places to be.”

  That wasn’t a lie, but the truth was probably a lot different to whatever Grier was thinking. Dante hadn’t thought it would happen, but he was missing Pearson’s presence. Desperately. He wanted to hold his strong mate in his arms. Fuck it, he wanted to bend over and let the man…nope, not a good idea thinking about that. Dante could feel his cock start to harden in his jeans, and there was no way he wanted the smell of arousal to fill this cell. Grier would totally get the wrong idea. Dante frantically thought about the toilet bucket and focused on the faint smell that came from it. Having never been into water sports or scat play, the smell of pee and shit was enough to put him off. Yep, that worked.

  “Hey, man, we all got somewhere we would rather be,” Grier said, as though he was trying to ingratiate
himself.

  Dante snorted. “Yeah, well, from what I saw, you bought this on yourself. Can’t think why you’d want to be in a gay pack anyway. You’re clearly not bent that way.”

  “So what, you’re a faggot? Like all those other wolves here.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve had a lifetime of hiding what I am,” Dante said cryptically. He knew he had to be careful. Anything he said had to be the truth otherwise Grier would smell the deception. He only hoped his answer encouraged Grier to think he wasn’t gay, but was just pretending to be.

  The two men sat in silence again for a while, the darkness getting deeper as the night wore on.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Even Favo said so. Just didn’t reckon on having to give someone a blow job at my interview,” Grier said quietly.

  “Gay men suck dick. Shouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it,” Dante said flatly, trying to work out who the hell this Favo was. It wasn’t a name he’d come across before.

  “Dominants shouldn’t have to,” Grier shot back.

  “Fuck man, have you been living under a rock? How do you reward your subs? How do you get them loosened up to take your cock?”

  Grier mumbled something that Dante couldn’t catch.

  “Can’t hear you,” Dante snapped. “If you got something to say, then just spit it out.”

  “I said that I’ve never had a sub,” Grier growled back at him.

  Dante sat up and peered at the man through the gloominess of the cell.

  “So let me get this straight. You applied to a gay wolf pack, that is run from a BDSM club and you’re not gay or Dominant?”

  “I’m not submissive, that makes me a Dominant.”

  “No, man, it makes you fucked in the head. Fuck, who trained you?”

  “What are you talking about, training? I watched it on the internet. I know what this BDSM shit is all about. The Dominant gets to tie up subs and beat the crap out of them for as long as he likes. I’ve seen it and I know I can fucking do that.” Grier’s eyes glistened with malice in the darkness.