by Aiden Bates
"You know, the day we met I thought you hated me," he said, grinning at his omega in the rearview.
Darren stared at his reflection.
"You thought I hated you?"
"Well, you did tell me to fuck off more than once," Blake pointed out.
“In my defense,” Darren said, “I was sick as hell with no idea why, and I thought you were some kind of stalker.”
Laughter Blake couldn’t quite hold back answered that declaration. Really, he knew he shouldn’t tease Darren about something that had been entirely out of his mate’s control. Darren, with no pack to teach him about what it meant to be an omega, had gone into his first heat, triggered by the near proximity of a compatible Alpha, completely unknowing. Blake, waiting outside the Walmart he worked in to ask him what he was doing all alone in Iowa, had been there to catch him when he’d stumbled out, had taken him to help him through his heat. Darren, at first reluctant, had begged Blake to join him in his bed, eager enough that Blake had never guessed that he was in his first heat.
He hadn’t intended to bite Darren. That bit had just sort of happened, though he should have known. Not that he would change it if he could. He had never once regretted claiming Darren as his mate, had never even regretted how fast it had happened. Darren had been his from the moment Blake laid eyes on him. It had just taken them a few hours to figure that out.
“I’ll give you that,” he said, going back to the conversation with Darren. “I thought it was pretty cute, actually.”
It was Darren’s turn to laugh. “You thought it was cute that I told you to fuck off?”
Blake grinned at him, unrepentant. “I thought everything about you was cute, darling. There wasn’t much I wanted as much as I wanted in your pants.” The grin widened. “In fact, there’s not much I want more than that most days now.”
He liked making his mate laugh. Darren laid his head against Blake’s shoulder, laughter fading to a smile.
“I’m glad you waited,” he said, tipping his head back to look up at Blake. His voice had gone soft and serious. “I’m glad you were there.”
Blake wrapped an arm around Darren’s shoulders, tugging him in closer.
“I’m glad I was there too,” he answered, as heartfelt as Darren. “Never not going to be there, Darren,” he promised. “I’ll never leave you.”
It was a promise he’d made two years ago, that first morning after, and it was one he fully intended to keep. Darren was his, and he always would be. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Eight
The drive to Hatfield was not a terribly long one. They made it into town by the early afternoon. Darren sat up as they neared it, staring out into the trees where the highway ran past the edges of forests, searching for flashes of the river through the trees, hoping there would be something that matched up with his memories.
Even if his memories were from Hatfield, he knew it was likely that he would never see the specific stretch of river that he sometimes remembered in his dreams. And even if he did, there was no guarantee it would bring anything back. If he were going to remember something, the doctors had told him, he would most likely have remembered it already. But still he hoped, eyes searching the unfamiliar woods.
They crossed a stream coming into town, but it woke no memories, and Darren leaned back into his seat, watching the first houses appear along the sides of the road, the flash of the lake through the trees.
It was a tiny little town, stretched out along the railroad tracks. They followed it down toward its end and the cabin Blake had rented for the night. When they reached it, Darren sank back against his mate’s shoulder and closed his eyes. There had been nothing that he recognized at all. Coming out here had been a waste of time.
“Not a complete waste,” Blake said, as though he’d heard the words.
Darren opened his eyes and his Alpha smiled down at him.
“After all,” he continued. “We have our own private cabin, just a short walk from the lake, and two nights completely to ourselves.” His grin was slow and wicked. “I intend to make the absolute most of that.”
Darren felt a little shudder run through him at the promise behind his mate’s words, the hunger in his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t such a waste of time after all.
------
Going out to dinner with Blake was a treat Darren didn’t often get. There were a handful of decent places nearby, but in the last two years they’d been to most of them, and since Alex was born they’d spent most of their nights at home. Not that Darren was complaining, but it was nice to have a night out with his mate. He smiled across the table at Blake as their dinner was set down in front of them, and felt warmth settle under his skin when his mate smiled back, tender and attentive.
After they’d eaten, they went and sat on the shore of the lake, watching the sun set slant across the water. Darren leaned into his mate’s side, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat, and felt some of the stress slide from him. It wasn’t, he thought privately, as nice as the lake he’d grown used to living on the shore of, but it was still a lovely view.
Blake took him back to their cabin as the sky grew dark, carried him over the threshold while he laughed.
“One of these days,” Blake said, “I’ll take you somewhere better. Switzerland, maybe. The Alps. Or France.”
Darren looked up into warm grey eyes and curled his arms around the back of his mate’s neck, drawing him down closer.
“Anywhere you are is somewhere better,” he said, hooking a leg around his Alpha’s hip. “I like it right here just fine.”
He was rewarded with a hard kiss, and then his Alpha’s mouth moving down along his throat, brushing kisses against the thin skin there. Darren let his head fall back against the pillow, neck arching into the touch, and whimpered.
“You know,” Blake said between kisses, “what the best part of this is?”
“Hmm?” Darren asked, already a little breathless.
Blake smiled down at him and Darren pulled in a sharp breath at the look on his Alpha’s face.
“The best part,” Blake said. He kissed Darren again, and then again, scattering them in with the words. “Is that I can go as slow. As I. Want.”
Darren whined softly, low in his throat. “Alpha…”
His mate’s laughter was warm. “Oh, no, sweetheart. You’re going to get just exactly what I give you,” he promised, voice sliding into a growl that made Darren shudder. “And you’re going to love it.”
Blake, Darren discovered anew, was very good at keeping his promises. He laid Darren out on the bed, wrapping his fingers around the posts and ordering him to hold them there, and then he stripped him one piece of clothing at a time, brushing kisses against every inch of newly revealed skin. Darren was writhing under him by the time Blake had unbuttoned every single button of his shirt with deliberate slowness, leaving a trail of purple bite marks where each button had touched skin, pausing to tease at Darren’s belly button with the tip of his tongue. Darren curled his fingers tighter around the posts, spine arching as Blake’s mouth teased his nipples, alternating between them to lick and suck and bite. Sensitive already with the pregnancy, Darren whimpered and bucked under him, pleading for more with little gasps and moans.
Further down, and his mate lingered over his stomach, pressing kisses to the curves of it, the swell where his pregnancy was beginning to show. He shaped them reverently with his mouth, his hands.
His jeans were next, and Blake pulled them off and tossed them aside, kissing up Darren’s legs to his inner thighs, chuckling against the skin when Darren let his legs slide open wide but not touching him where he knew Darren wanted–needed–to be touched.
“Please,” Darren gasped, breathless already, hands almost moving down, catching himself at the last second. “Please, Alpha.”
“Be good for me,” Blake purred against his thigh. “I know you can be.”
Yes. He could be good. Would be good. Darren let his legs slide further o
pen, pulled his lip between his teeth to keep from pleading before his Alpha wanted him to, though he couldn’t help the wordless noises that slipped from his throat, didn’t even try. He knew Blake loved to hear them.
Chapter Nine
His omega made the best noises. Blake nipped at the soft skin of his mate’s inner thigh and listened to the little hitching gasp, the begging whine. He was hard and aching, but he didn’t mind withholding from himself for a bit when it meant getting to watch his pretty omega fall apart under him. Listening to Darren beg without words, watching the helpless little motions of his hips and the way his fingers clenched white-knuckled around the bed posts, which was worth every minute of waiting.
Blake reached up and hooked his fingers in the waistband of his mate’s underwear, drawing them down slowly. The sweet scent of desire, already curling through the room, filled his nose, and he growled low in his throat, pleased when it made Darren’s hips buck. He pulled the underwear the rest of the way off, threw them in with the rest of the clothes, and then he resumed his leisurely path up Darren’s thighs, kissing along the inside of the right one and then up and over the front to his hip bone.
“Do you want me?” he asked against the warm skin.
“Yes,” Darren answered instantly, voice wrecked with needing. “Want you, Alpha. Please. Please.”
“How do you want me?” Blake asked, hiding his smile.
“Anything, Blake. Alpha. Please. Don’t care how. Just want you.”
He really should have learned by now, Blake thought. He lifted his head to watch as he ran a single finger across Darren’s hip and traced the length of Darren’s cock with a touch so light it did little more than tickle. Darren sobbed his name, and Blake tilted his head to one side.
“That’s how you want me to touch you, right? Anything, you said.”
He knew very well he was being cruel, knew Darren loved it as much as he did. Darren shook his head against the pillow, eyebrows drawing together over his closed eyes, his expression one of pleasure that verged on agony. The frustration of waiting. Desire was written across it clear as if Blake had stamped it there himself.
“No?” Blake asked, sliding his thumb across the head of his omega’s cock before he pulled his hand away entirely. “You don’t want me to touch you?”
“Oh, god, Alpha. Please. I want your hand around my cock and your fingers inside me.”
Heat painted his sweet omega’s cheeks red, but Blake smiled.
“Good boy,” he growled, leaning down low over his boy to speak into his ear. “That’s all I needed to know.”
He wrapped a hand around his mate’s length, and Darren jolted under him, hands curling tighter around the bed posts before relaxing again. As much as they ever relaxed with Blake’s hand wrapped around him, anyway.
“Don’t come yet, darling.”
Darren nodded a little too quickly. He tossed his head to flick his hair back out of his eyes, opened them to look down at Blake. His gaze was as dazed as his expression, pleading.
He dropped his head back to the bed again when Blake slid two fingers inside him, easy with how slick he was, curling upward to stroke over his prostate. Darren’s hips jumped, his legs falling open wider, and Blake smiled.
“Don’t come,” he reminded him.
Blake leaned down and wrapped his lips around the head of his mate’s cock, thrust his fingers in again, and listened to him moan, listened to him beg. ‘Please,’ and ‘Alpha’ and ‘Oh, god. Fuck.’ He would have smiled if his mouth weren’t full. Instead he moaned around the length, and Darren writhed and swore and sobbed his name, begged “Please, please, please.”
Taking pity on his mate, Blake pulled slowly off his cock, fingers still working inside him.
“You want to come, baby?”
Darren’s nod was nearly frantic.
“Yes, Alpha. Please. Want to come. Need to. Please.”
“Think you can wait until you have my cock in you, sweetheart? Want you to wait for me, okay? Come on my cock.”
It was slower to come this time, Darren’s lip pulled between his teeth, but his omega nodded, and Blake pressed a kiss to his hip.
“Good boy,” he purred.
He couldn’t quite resist the urge to lean up and flick the tip of his tongue over the head of his mate’s cock. Darren jerked and gasped, cock jumping.
Gathering his boy’s legs up in his hands, he lifted them, bending them back until Darren could wrap his hands around his own knees, holding himself spread and open for his Alpha.
“Please,” he was saying between moans and little whimpers, breathless. “Please, Alpha, take me. Fill me up. Want you. Want your cock inside me.”
That kind of pleading was hard to resist. With a groan, Blake positioned himself, wrapping a hand around his mate’s hip, and slid inside him. The motion was slow, steady. Darren writhed on his cock, trying to push back for more, but Blake’s hand on his hip held him steady until he was all the way in, and then he slid back, just as slowly.
Darren made a desperate sound, spine pulling into an arch. He looked so pretty like that, Blake thought. All stretched out for him. Falling apart under him just the way Blake had wanted him to do. His hand tightened around his mate’s hip, and the next thrust was hard and fast and Darren sobbed and rocked down against it.
“Please,” he was repeating, over and over, like a mantra. “Please. Please.”
Blake slid all the way in, his swelling knot pushed through the tight ring. Another thrust, deep, and then they were locking together, and Blake was leaning down to whisper permission into his mate’s ear. “Come for me, come now.”
His omega shuddered under him, body drawing tight, and spilled over his belly, his walls rippling around Blake’s cock. Blake swore, low and fervent, and sank down to rest his weight gently against his boy, wrapping one arm around him and using the other to support his body. Blake’s head dropped to rest against his mate’s chest, and for a moment they laid there like that, listening to the sounds of each other’s heartbeats. Their breathing slowed.
“Worth the wait?” Blake asked finally, lips quirking upward.
“Fuck, yes,” Darren breathed. “So worth it.”
He still hadn’t moved. He was laying limp against the mattress like he didn’t have any bones left. Blake was inclined to stay right there with him. Carefully, he turned them so that his omega’s slighter frame was on top of his own, wrapping both arms around him. Darren laid his head against Blake’s shoulder with a little sigh.
“I love you,” Blake said.
His hands stroked soothing circles over Darren’s spine, up and down the length of it. Blake felt his mate’s smile against his skin.
“I love you too,” Darren said. “More than anything.”
Together, they slept, wrapped up close in each other’s arms.
Chapter Ten
Late the next morning, they got a call from Lydia. Blake, still half asleep, rolled over and grasped for his ringing phone, prompting sleepy, half-coherent murmurs from Darren. He smiled down at his mate, who had curled closer against his chest, burying his face there to hide from the light that seeped in under the curtains, and hit the answer button.
“Hello?”
“Blake,” Lydia’s voice said. “I found something you might be interested in.”
“What kind of something?”
“Well.” She hesitated. “I didn’t tell you this sooner, because I wasn’t sure where he was or if I’d be able to find him, but Ellis’ nephew is still in the area, and he’d be willing to meet Darren.”
Abruptly awake, Blake wrapped an arm around his mate and held him closer, staring up at the tawny wood of the ceiling, the same the walls of the cabin were built from.
“You found his cousin?”
“Yes.” He could hear the relief in her voice at the lack of anger in his. “I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up before I knew anything, but Ian is only an hour from here. He’d like to drive in and meet Darren, if y
ou give your permission?”
Blake turned his gaze from the ceiling to his omega still sleeping in his arms.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure Darren would like to meet him.”
“Excellent,” Lydia said. “I’ll let Ian know. Where should I tell him to meet you?”
“If he’ll be here after five, have him meet us at the Stone’s Throw. Otherwise, we’re staying at the Black River Lodge. Give him my phone number.”
They said their goodbyes, and Lydia hung up. Blake wondered if he should have suggested the supper club at all. It might be better for Darren and Ian to meet somewhere with privacy. Well, Ian had his number. When he called to say he was close, Blake would tell him to meet them at the cabin after all.
Chapter Eleven
Darren woke to Blake gently shaking him from sleep, fingers sliding through his hair.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Blake said when his eyes opened. “Sleep well?”
His tone was gentle, none of the teasing he liked to indulge in when he woke Darren. It set alarm bells ringing in Darren’s head, and he sat up, leaning his weight on one arm.
“What is it?”
Blake looked at him. “What do you mean ‘What is it?’”
“You know what I mean,” Darren said flatly, and Blake had the grace to look away.
When he looked back, his expression was serious.
“I had a call from Lydia.”
Darren’s eyes widened, and his fingers curled against the mattress, his stomach tightening with nerves.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes.” Blake reached out to run long fingers through his hair, scratching gently at his scalp in a way that usually made Darren melt into the touch. “Everyone is okay. It’s not a bad thing.”
Darren let himself lean into the hand that was sliding through his hair, looking up at his mate.
“What is it?”
“She found Ellis’ nephew, and he wants to meet you.”