by Leta Blake
Vale’s gut clenched. He didn’t know how he could confess to Jason about what had happened during that second rebound heat, but he wasn’t sure if he could morally contract with him while keeping it a secret either. He needed to know what Jason thought of his pater’s situation, how he viewed such things in general before he came out with his own history, but how to ask without it being obvious?
“I’ll think about it.” Jason squeezed Vale’s hand in return.
Vale closed his eyes and gathered courage. His hands went clammy, so he pulled his fingers free and sat back. “We’re talking about being honest and real with each other, and I heard something the other day that makes me anxious.”
“What?” Jason asked, his brows dropping low.
“It’s just that it’s come to my attention in a roundabout way that it’s possible you’re keeping something from me.”
Jason’s throat worked and he closed his eyes. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yes, and I need you to be honest with me, Jason. If any contract negotiations are going to be fruitful, then we have to bare ourselves to each other. An associate of mine said that there were rumors…”
Jason’s lips trembled slightly, as he ducked his head blond hair fell in front of his eyes. “Is it about Xan? Does a professor friend suspect? About us?” He swallowed convulsively.
Vale blinked in confusion, thrown off course. “Xan? Your friend from the library?”
“Yeah.” Jason frowned. “Did he tell you himself? Or did someone guess…” He scrubbed through his hair leaving it ruffled. “Whatever you heard, you don’t have to worry. It won’t happen ever again. I promise.”
Vale’s brain stumbled trying to change direction with Jason’s words. He had no idea what Jason was talking about, but he decided to follow the end of the piece of yarn until he got to the whole ball. “All right. But I’m going to need you to explain a little more.”
“It was just a game!” Jason’s earnestness shone from his face. “For me, anyway. I think, for Xan, maybe it was more. I think he developed feelings for me.” He cleared his throat. “No, I know he did. Which is wrong on so many levels, I know. But the Holy Book of Wolf doesn’t leave room for someone like him, and it seems cruel, don’t you think?”
Vale stared at Jason, a suspicion forming.
“He didn’t choose to feel this way. It’s not what he really wants to be! I don’t know how you found out, but please don’t judge me for it.” He wiped a hand over his mouth, eyes darting around. “It was only a game. And no one was supposed to ever know. Did Xan tell you? I know he’s jealous, but I thought he’d accepted this.” He motioned between them. “Us.”
“Xan didn’t tell me anything. I’ve never met or spoken with him.”
“Oh, thank wolf-god,” Jason whispered. “He’d be stupid to tell anyone and I know he’s upset, but he’s not suicidal. He wouldn’t want anyone to know he’s unmanned.” Jason’s mouth clomped shut, and his eyes went wider. “No! I didn’t mean that. He’s not unmanned. He’s just…different.”
Vale took a sip of water, wetting his suddenly dry mouth, full understanding dawning. “Let me see if I understand. You’re telling me that you’ve been having sex with your best friend, penetrating another alpha?”
Jason frowned, confusion marring his features. “But you knew that. You just said—” He flushed darker. “Oh. You didn’t say.”
“No, I didn’t. You must have felt guilty about this and thought I was referring to it,” Vale supplied.
“Yeah.” Jason’s foot tapped rapidly on the floor, and he looked like he would vibrate out of his chair. Even his lips trembled.
Vale knew there were all sorts of taboos about alpha-on-alpha sex, but he also knew that growing boys, wild with hormones, needed outlets. Indiscretions were to be expected. Omegas at Mont Juror didn’t hold back.
“I didn’t realize your family adhered so strongly to the Holy Book that you’d feel guilty for blowing off steam with your friend. Though obviously, it needs to be kept secret for his safety, and, to a degree, yours. But I’m not the man to judge you for it, either.”
Jason ducked his head. “It’s not that. I don’t feel guilty about that.”
“Then…?”
“We did it one last time. After.” He met Vale’s eyes with his lips twisted up and tears drawing at his golden lashes. “I’m sorry.”
The blood drained from Vale’s face and a sharp pain lanced into him, unexpected and strange. Why did he care? They barely knew each other, and it was clear Jason didn’t intend to carry on with the other boy, so why did it feel like he’d just been stabbed? He had no right to that feeling.
One voice in his head whispered, Get used to it. He should take a surrogate, while another hissed, No, I want him to choose me! Please always choose me.
Jason scrambled up from the table and around to kneel at Vale’s feet. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’ll never do it again. It was the last time and I did it for him, because he needed it. But there’s no excuse. I wish I could take it back.”
Vale’s fingers shook as he threaded them into Jason’s hair and tilted his head back. “Shh. Be quiet. You don’t need to say anything more.”
“Will you ever forgive me?”
Vale smiled gently. Oh, there was his insecure baby alpha after all. “If there’s one thing I’ve figured out over the years, it’s that I’m not good at holding grudges. I’m not thrilled, but we aren’t contracted. I don’t have any legal grounds for objection.”
“Morally, though…” Jason trailed off. “I shouldn’t have done it. For a lot of reasons.”
“I’m more concerned for your friend.” Vale couldn’t resist letting his fingers trail down Jason’s cheek, finding the skin smooth from a recent shave.
Vale had heard of grown alphas who enjoyed the taboo nature of sex with another alpha before. They were called unmanned and scorned by society, thrown into jail if caught in the open, and considered morally depraved. He’d never bought into those ideas but he’d never known an alpha who yearned for another alpha personally.
Over his years as a professor, there had been a few rare instances of an unmanned alpha amongst the students. But when it was discovered the unmanned was usually withdrawn by his parents and taken home for an attempt at so-called re-education, which, from what he understood, consisted of contracting with an omega and getting him pregnant as quickly as possible. A family life was supposed to cure the problem.
“Is he safe? Will he get into trouble seeking out another alpha in the future?” Vale asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Jason whispered to Vale’s shoes. “He says he wishes he was an omega.” Then he shuddered. “Don’t tell anyone. Please!”
“Of course not,” Vale promised. “I’d never put a friend of yours in danger.”
Jason looked up with wet lashes. “I’m scared for him.”
“You have every right to be.” Vale stroked his fingers down Jason’s face again, wiping the tears before they fell, and rubbed his thumb along Jason’s lower lip. The temptation to kiss him again was strong, and he fought it valiantly.
He deserves an omega he can reproduce with. Stop doing this to yourself. Stop doing it to him. Stop wanting him to want you. And stop lying to yourself that he won’t resent you later when you’re contracted and you can’t provide him with a continuation of the family line.
Stop, Vale. Stop.
But his body didn’t listen to his mind. He twined his fingers in Jason’s hair, growled, and gave in.
Kissing Jason was too sweet and right. His asshole gushed and he moaned, begging with his body as he tugged Jason up until their combined weight toppled the kitchen chair and they landed hard on the wood floor.
Still they didn’t stop kissing, and Vale’s cock throbbed with renewed need. Jason gripped his ass and they humped together, kissing, moaning, and pawing at each other. Sweat broke over Vale’s body, and he felt the tug of an orgasm drawing near.
“Yes
,” he crooned, moving against Jason harder. “Make me come, darling.”
Jason gripped his chin, kissing him thoroughly, and Vale arched up, his cock flexing in his pants. He cried out as he spurted hard and his asshole overflowed with slick again. He trembled, his hole squeezing and releasing, seeking Jason’s thick cock.
His body spasmed as he rushed up into the hotter, higher place omegas ascended to after the first shared orgasm with an alpha. Vale needed to be fucked and he needed to come again—this time he wanted the mind-numbing, earth-shaking orgasm that came from being plowed by a massive alpha-cock. It was one of the blessings of being an omega—multiple orgasms of several different kinds.
Jason moaned and hunched against him. “Fuck!” He buried his face in Vale’s neck, going still, while Vale still shuddered against him. His panting breath tickled, and Vale squirmed.
“Come for me,” Vale begged. “Give me your cock. Please.”
Jason shook his head.
Vale moaned and shoved against Jason’s thick dick. “Take me upstairs if it makes you feel better about it. But please, Jason. I need you inside me.”
His higher mind, still silenced by the shock of orgasm, buzzed with a slight discouragement, a sense that he shouldn’t be begging Jason to do this. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Jason gently disentangled himself from Vale’s arms and legs and sat on the floor next to him, pants distended by his massive dick. “No. We shouldn’t. Not now.”
Vale nearly screamed in frustration, but he opted for reaching up and trying to drag Jason back into the kiss again. Jason rebuffed him gently. “No, I just wanted to make you come. To see what you looked like during and after. In case…” he let it trail off.
“What?”
“In case you won’t contract with me,” Jason whispered. “Because I know you’re not convinced you should yet.”
“And shouldn’t I get to see what you look like when you come?” Vale licked his lips. “What if that’s a selling point, darling? For the contract.”
“You want to see?” Jason’s voice was gruff.
“More than anything.” Right now, that was true, but as the seconds ticked past, Vale’s higher mind was coming awake again. A hint of doubt that this was wise coursed with the rush of orgasm.
Jason held Vale down, one hand on his throat, owning, possessive, as he kneeled up and took out his cock.
Vale’s eyes rolled back in his head when he saw the veiny thickness, loose foreskin, and great length, and then he forced himself to focus as Jason stroked it right beside his face. Vale put out his tongue, but Jason pulled back from it.
“Just watch,” he whispered.
Staring down at Vale, Jason’s cheeks went red and his lips ruddy as he worked his hand over himself. Vale wanted to join in, undo his ruined pants and stick his hand down past his still-hard cock to finger his wet hole while he watched Jason jerk himself off.
“Come for me,” Vale whispered. “Show me what you look like.”
Jason’s eyes grew vulnerable and almost frightened, as he thrust into his hand again and again. “Vale,” he whispered, and then his face crumpled, his hips spasmed, and white wads of come shot up into the air. It spattered the floor, the kitchen chair that lay toppled to the ground, and Vale’s shirt and pants. A glob landed on Vale’s cheek and another on his forehead, and Jason groaned, aimed, and pumped a huge spurt directly into Vale’s open mouth.
Vale’s tastebuds exploded with flavor and he convulsed on the floor, the weight of Jason’s hand on his throat holding him down, as he came a second time. His alpha’s taste triggered a cascade of previously unknown pleasure, an orgasm of an essence and texture he’d never experienced before. Quivering, sweating, and shaking, he swallowed Jason’s come down, and opened his mouth for more.
But Jason was done.
Panting and moaning, Jason collapsed on Vale and kissed him desperately before licking the sticky come from Vale’s forehead and cheek and sharing it in another kiss. Vale lay limply on the kitchen floor, letting Jason taste him and stroke him through his clothes. Then Jason sat back and tucked himself back into his pants.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said hoarsely.
“No, it wasn’t,” Vale agreed.
And while a skeptical part of him feared there were too many difficulties between them to rely on the idea that an agreement could be struck and a contract signed, he also knew he’d never regret having tasted his alpha’s come and witnessed his pleasure.
Protocols be damned. His heart be broken. His hope turned to misery. No matter what came in the future, this he would not regret.
Jason stood slowly, shakily, and helped Vale to his feet. “We should clean up. Separately. Or this will start all over again.”
Head still spinning, Vale nodded and waved toward the downstairs bathroom at the end of the hall just past the study. “That way. I’ll go up to my room.”
“And then I’ll go back out to work.” Jason swallowed hard. “You forgive me then? For what I did with Xan?”
Vale blinked at him. “Darling, a life lesson for you: don’t bring up former lovers while your current one is still shaking from the orgasms you shared.”
Jason ducked his head and blushed.
Upstairs in his room, washing and changing for the third time since waking that morning, Vale realized that he’d still never asked Jason about Miner and the abortifacients. How was he ever going to make an informed decision about whether or not he should throw his lot in with the Sabel-Hoff family if he couldn’t keep his hands off the boy? This was why protocols existed. So that level-headed choices could be made before it was too late.
As Vale knelt in his shower with the alpha-dildo shoved into his still-needing ass, he wondered if he’d ever be level-headed again.
He closed his eyes and stroked his cock, rolling the lingering taste of Jason around in his mouth, and as he pictured Jason’s face crumpling in pleasure, he came again with a tight cry that echoed on the tiles.
He kept the dildo shoved inside and slipped to the floor of the tub, letting the water beat down on his legs and rigid cock.
“Wolf-god! Coming five times in one day,” he whispered. “I might as well be in heat.”
He bit into his lip as a terrible thought formed.
Yesterday, he’d loaded up on Rosen’s food, but he hadn’t been hungry all day today. Even after several orgasms this morning, he’d eschewed lunch. Then he’d begged Jason to fuck him, to forget protocols and plug his ass with that beautiful cock. He’d wanted him to do it. Again and again. And even more telling than that, he was still aroused.
But it couldn’t be…
Aside from the awful rebound heats, he’d never had an unexpected heat in his life. He shook his head firmly. He refused, absolutely refused to even entertain the idea. All his behaviors could be explained as due to finding his Érosgápe.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Because there was no way he was going to be obliged to attempt negotiation of a contract while descending into heat. The universe wouldn’t be that cruel. Would it?
He wasn’t a praying man, but he closed his eyes and whispered, “Don’t let me down on this. If you force me to suffer such an injustice, I’ll never forgive you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jason fidgeted in his chair at the long dining room table, separated from Vale by four feet of polished wood, the company of their attorneys, and the presence of his parents. His cock was half-hard and had been since the moment Vale had entered the room smelling of musk and the beard oil he’d started using. If everything went well today, he might be able to consummate with Vale that very night. And if that was the case, he was glad he’d forced them to wait yesterday.
The day before he’d returned to work in the garden with the betas, making a great deal of headway despite their constant jeering over what they believed had taken place with Vale in the house while they’d been alone. They hadn’t been far off from being right. If it hadn’
t been for the cool distance of alpha quell, he’d have fucked Vale silly while kissing him breathless, and then flipped him onto his stomach and done it again.
He shifted in his seat, watching Vale and Yosef read through the preliminary papers detailing the topics to be covered today. Vale glanced up at him, his cheeks above his beard flushing and his eyes darkening with arousal like he knew exactly what Jason was thinking, before he shook his head and focused on the paperwork again.
Jason licked his lips. He wanted to see Vale’s dick. It was cut, he’d said, and he wanted to know what it looked like. If they could just get on with things, then he might have a chance to do that in just a few hours’ time. Why hadn’t he done it yesterday? Stupid. He’d had every chance.
He sat forward trying to concentrate when Bisme Freet, Father’s attorney, a tall, thin beta with a bald head and narrow glasses, asked if everyone was ready to begin and started to read aloud from an outlandishly boring legal document. Jason already knew what it said. He’d insisted on looking over the proposed contract the night before and he hadn’t seen anything wrong with it. Every word was stamped into his memory.
Father was asking for Vale’s consent for Jason to consummate the imprint, consent for Jason to take control of Vale’s assets (a courtesy gesture since legally the assets belonged to Jason from the moment of imprinting), and at least one live birth. There were other details too, like discussion of the potential disposal of some other assets, but everything else covered in the contracts described what the Sabel-Hoff family would do for Vale.
Jason’s heart grew full thinking of all he had to offer Vale. Surely, since every request was reasonable and the attraction between them strong and mutual, Vale wouldn’t turn him down.
But it wasn’t long until the negotiations started to go pear-shaped. Vale, for all that he couldn’t seem to help returning Jason’s heated looks, seemed distant and brittle. Not at all the warm, passionate man he was on the telephone or had been while writhing with Jason on his kitchen floor the day before. His shoulders were tight by his ears and his jaw worked like he was gritting his teeth. Yosef noticed, too, and he kept rubbing Vale’s back and whispering in his ear, which only made Vale grow stiffer. Jason wanted to tell Yosef to shut up, that he was just making it worse, but he had no idea what ‘it’ even was.
