by Tanya Chris
He was enjoying the dinner himself, but not as much as he was enjoying Ryker enjoying it—that unrestrained passion, the raw hunger—not to mention the joy of slipping into the role he’d always yearned to act out.
He’d made dinner from the game his alpha had hunted. Nothing could be more satisfying. Although, the prospect of what would come next was pretty appealing too.
“I haven’t had rabbit in a long time,” he said.
“I thought you might not like it.”
“Oh, no. I love rabbit. We had them in Southern Pack territory too. They were smaller and brown, not white, but they taste about the same. This is down-home food for me.”
“You live in human territory and you didn’t want to shift,” Ryker observed. “I thought maybe you didn’t like wolf things.”
It wasn’t wolf things Gage didn’t like. In fact, there were a lot of wolf things he very much did like, alphas especially. He just didn’t like being reminded that he wasn’t who he was supposed to be, so he hadn’t shifted since moving to the city. The disconnect hurt less in human form, but in pack territory it didn’t really matter what form he took. Everyone decided with a single smell who he was. Who he thought he was didn’t matter.
“We can shift for the trip,” he conceded. “It’s not that I can’t. I’m just out of practice.”
“Right. It’s hard to do in human territory, isn’t it? Not enough space to really run around.”
He nodded, even though that wasn’t what he’d meant. There was no way to explain it. Some of the joy he’d been feeling fizzled. It wasn’t Ryker’s fault for not understanding. No wolf would understand. Ryker had treated him more like an omega than anyone ever had—picking him up like that, carrying him even. The sex would probably be very good.
“For someone who doesn’t cook, you have a well-appointed kitchen,” he observed. He’d found everything he needed, even these wine glasses that Ryker had filled with actual wine. He took a sip, relishing the fruity sparkle on his tongue.
“My mother,” Ryker said. “She’s always buying stuff when she comes to visit and then she leaves it.”
“She doesn’t live around here?”
“No, she’s still in Western Pack territory, where I’m from, but she visits me twice a year here and I try to get out there for Summer Solstice. She’s classic omega—non-stop fussing at me while she’s here. I don’t know how she thinks I survive the rest of the year.”
Ryker smiled in a way that told Gage he liked having his mother fuss over him. Gage thought of his own mother. Even though they hadn’t connected as betas, he missed her. She and Carmen were the only ones he did miss. His father and older sister and brother had never paid enough attention to him for him to notice they were missing.
“Why did you leave your pack?” he asked Ryker. “You don’t have to answer if it’s too personal,” he added quickly, realizing he was prying. He and Carmen had both had personal reasons for leaving. Not many wolves wandered far from their pack of origin.
“No big secret,” Ryker said with a shrug. “I had ambitious aspirations growing up. I wanted to be head alpha, have epic battles, conquer … well, stuff, I guess. Just conquer stuff.” Ryker picked up the cloth napkin Gage had tucked under his spoon, looked at it like he had no idea what it was and folded it carefully back into place. “I left in search of adventure, I guess you’d say. I travelled around a lot. Lived a few years in Southern Pack territory—you would have been just a pup then—and a few with the Eastern Pack. They’re a whole different kind of wolf, let me tell you. I even spent some time in New During. That’s where you live now, right?”
Gage nodded.
“I didn’t like being in human territory, though. Not being able to shift, wearing clothes all the time. You know.”
Gage nodded again. He had an idea how Ryker felt about clothes because Ryker hadn’t even put back on his loincloth when he’d returned from his hunt. Not that nudity was uncommon amongst wolves, but it was hard for Gage to think straight when he knew what was hidden below the table—that cock he’d watched unfurl earlier like it was a self-opening present. Gage wanted to dive bomb that cock. He wanted to eat it more than he wanted to eat rabbit. And he must have been trying to drill a hole through the table with his eyes because Ryker had stopped talking.
“And then I ended up here,” Ryker finished when Gage raised his eyes back up to face level.
“What made you decide to stay here?”
“I was ready to stay somewhere. I didn’t want to go back to the Western Pack—felt too much like slinking back with my tail between my legs—and the Northern Pack was willing to have me. I like what they’re doing here. Head Alpha Marta is an alpha I don’t mind playing second fiddle to. She’s running the pack a lot better than what I’d have done if I’d been made head alpha at eighteen like I thought I deserved.”
“You never mated?”
Ryker must be in his early thirties, Gage calculated, based on the timeline he’d laid out, so ten or so years older than he was.
Ryker scowled at his spoon. “Mating’s not for me,” he said shortly.
“I feel the same way.”
Ryker seemed sad about it, much like Gage felt when he thought of never having that special pair bond that other wolves enjoyed. Gage couldn’t stop himself from trying to comfort him.
“We’ll both find someone,” he said, even though he didn’t believe it for himself. What reason could Ryker have for not being able to find a mate? He was a prime alpha hunk. “You’d want a male mate?” he asked, assuming he hadn’t been reading him totally wrong.
“Definitely male.” Ryker winked at him.
“An omega? Beta?”
Ryker took a few bites of stew in quick succession, like he didn’t want to answer, while Gage tried not to hold his breath. It wasn’t like there was an answer that would work for him.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said, letting them both off the hook.
“Oh, I guess I always imagined an omega,” Ryker said with a huff, “but it won’t happen. It’s just a fantasy.”
He probably meant he didn’t want to mate at all. Some alphas liked fucking around with omegas but didn’t want the responsibility of claiming one. Gage wondered if Ryker was the type who haunted omega bars and then ended up mating with a beta.
He stood up and cleared the dishes into the kitchen so he wouldn’t have to think about it too hard. It didn’t matter what Ryker’s preferences were since he could guess Ryker didn’t have a preference for omegas who smelled like betas.
He’d made a fruit salad for dessert, since there hadn’t been time for anything fancier, but he’d bought fresh cream to add a touch of decadence, so once he had the table clear he whipped up the cream and used it to top a large dish of fruit for Ryker, then added a decorative dollop to his own dish.
Ryker dug into the whipped cream with lots of licking of his lips and more of those yummy noises.
“Are you going to eat the fruit?” Gage teased.
“When I’m finished with this. It’s so good.” Ryker moaned again, the sound raising a flush on Gage’s cheeks, both because it was a sexy sound and because he was proud that Ryker enjoyed his cooking so much.
“Aren’t you having any whipped cream?” Ryker asked.
“I had a taste. I don’t need the calories the way you do.”
“You will if we’re going to shift. Here, have some of mine.” Ryker held out his spoon and he obediently opened his mouth and accepted a bite. The next bite didn’t make it into his mouth. It landed on his nose and Ryker’s tongue quickly followed it. Ryker painted him with whipped cream, licking it all clean with his rough tongue and snuffing along his skin as he nibbled.
Somehow he found himself in Ryker’s lap, the whipped cream forgotten. There was just Ryker’s hungry tongue on his increasingly sensitive skin and the little whimpers that came out of him as he felt himself being devoured the way he’d always dreamed of. His next whimper was met with an aggress
ive growl that rumbled out of Ryker’s chest with a fierceness that made him shiver.
“Sorry,” Ryker said, pulling back a little. “I’m going all alpha on you.”
Gage grabbed at him to halt his retreat. “Don’t apologize. I want you to. I like it. Please.”
“You do like it, don’t you?” Ryker asked thoughtfully. His grip on Gage re-hardened. “You like being treated like a little omega.”
Gage nodded, holding his breath. Hoping.
Ryker stood and picked Gage up and threw him over his shoulder so hard that Gage’s breath whooshed out of him. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, little omega. You’re going to be begging for my knot.”
Oh, Great Moon. Knot. He’d never been knotted, wasn’t sure he could be knotted. Would Ryker actually—
“Knot,” he echoed, and Ryker growled back at him. So, so hot. But, fuck. “Lube?” He hated asking, hated that he couldn’t produce his own slick. If he could, he’d be gushing a river of it right now, that was how turned on he was. He could feel it—that wet, open yearning for his alpha’s knot, but it was a phantom sensation, not real.
“Shh now, little one. I’ve got you.” Ryker literally did have him, in that Gage was still upside down hanging over his shoulder. “Alpha’s got everything you need. Don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”
OK, that was fucking hot, and nice too in a way that made both Gage’s dick and his heart expand, but he was a little worried that everything he needed might not include lube because while human males expected lube to be a necessity, alphas sometimes forgot that not everyone was built to accommodate them, but Ryker detoured into the living room and stooped down to pull a bottle of lube from underneath the sofa.
So, one, Ryker was crazy strong that he could do a deep squat with a full-grown wolf over his shoulder without breaking stride, and, two, now Gage knew where he did his jerking off.
He only had a few steps to appreciate the sight of Ryker’s heavily-muscled ass flexing with his long strides before they were in the bedroom and Ryker was dropping him onto a mattress on the floor. Now wasn’t the time to shake his head over another barely-furnished room, not when there was a completely naked, very hard, aroused and aggressive alpha standing over him.
And wow, he’d never seen anything more gorgeous in his life. Ryker’s braid had been loosened by Gage’s grasping fingers. Strands of long, dark hair fell around his face which was transformed by possessive lust. No one had ever looked at Gage so possessively, like he was a thing to be taken and owned. It made his dick achingly hard and the longer Ryker stood over him, watching him, the harder his dick got until he realized that part of the reason it hurt so much was because he was still fully dressed.
“I really want to just rip those clothes right off you,” Ryker said, “but they seem to be the only clothes you’ve got, so I’m giving you thirty seconds to get them off.”
He actually had a backpack stashed at the edge of town, which he’d forgotten about in the heady excitement of coming home with Ryker, and the prospect of having Ryker shred him naked was pretty appealing, so he dallied until another low growl made him scramble to obey. He undid a few buttons and yanked his shirt over his head, then wriggled out of his pants, leaving only his boxers.
“Time’s up,” Ryker said. He pulled at the waistband of Gage’s boxers and raked his claws down in a move that left him girded in tatters, shaking from the exposure and the risky thrill of having claws so close to his cock. Ryker’s teeth were out too—long pointed fangs poking out from each corner of his mouth, dripping with anticipatory saliva.
Gage whimpered in invitation and Ryker dropped onto him. They were flesh to flesh, Ryker’s hot skin covered in a soft layer of dark hair that rubbed like tinder across his own hairless skin. Omegas weren’t necessarily hairless in their human form, but he used a depilatory to keep himself mostly hair-free because it made him feel vulnerable and sexy.
“So fucking gorgeous,” Ryker murmured as he ran a large hand tipped in claws over Gage’s flank, across his chest, and down his arm. “Look at you, so perfect. And such a good boy for Alpha, aren’t you?”
Gage nodded, too excited to speak.
“You want to suck Alpha’s cock, little one? I bet you’re hungry for some big cock.”
Fuck yeah, he was hungry, but he didn’t dive for Ryker’s cock. He stayed where Ryker had put him and waited for Ryker to swarm up his body and feed his cock in from above. Ryker pushed the tip down into his waiting mouth and then pressed forward, deeper and deeper, until he was breathing cock as much as he was tasting it.
Ryker hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d called his cock big. It wasn’t gigantic, not unmanageable, but there was plenty of it to go around, to fill every bit of space in Gage’s mouth and throat, enough that he could live off Ryker’s cock alone for the rest of his life. He let his eyes roll back with a contented gurgle and allowed Ryker to control the rhythm and the depth, breathing deeply to take in the musk of Ryker’s balls when they tapped his chin.
Ryker’s hand slid along Gage’s cock—just a light trace of claw, like a warning, and Gage couldn’t breathe from the combination of lust and anticipation and flat-out being choked on cock. He made a panicked cough and Ryker pulled back.
“I think your eyes are bigger than your mouth,” Ryker teased. “Little wolf wants more cock than he can handle.”
“I can handle it,” Gage pleaded. It had only been a moment there. “Please, Alpha?”
“Please what?”
“More cock. Please?”
“Since you beg so pretty.” Ryker scooted up a bit so that it was his balls he fed into Gage’s mouth instead of his cock. “How about a taste of these?”
He nodded as best he could around a mouthful of ball. So fucking good. There was nothing like an alpha’s sack. Literally nothing. Human sacks were shriveled walnuts, often as hairless as Gage’s own. Ryker’s sack was quintessential alpha wolf—hairy, humid, smelling like strength and tasting like aggression, ripe with pheromones that made Gage’s head spin, yet not quite so prone to causing a lack of breath as a cock. Ryker was such a considerate alpha—giving his omega what he needed but making sure he was safe too.
A ripple of sensation accompanied another of those light rakes of Ryker’s claws along Gage’s shaft and then a ring of fire circled the tip of his cock. Holy fuck. Ryker had hold of his cock head with all five claws in a just-less-than-gentle grip as though he might pop off the top like the head of a dandelion. The pricks of delicious pain, the implied threat, had Gage weeping with longing pleasure. Tears streaked down his face and pre-come streaked down his cock and imaginary slick ran in rivulets down his legs.
He managed to spit Ryker’s ball out of his mouth. “Please, Alpha,” he begged. “Need you.”
Ryker let go of Gage’s cock and reached for his own. He stroked it right there in front of Gage’s eyes—no trace of claws now, just a roughly languorous slide of indulgent pleasure.
“Need more of this?”
Gage nodded, not moving his eyes from that cock.
“Need it inside you—fucking you open, filling you up?”
He nodded again.
Ryker lowered himself down so he was blanketing Gage, his body a heavy, hot weight pressing Gage flat. He brought his mouth to Gage’s, nipping at him, then captured it in a slow kiss of possession. He pulled away with a last, long lick across Gage’s mouth and up his throat, to speak directly into his ear.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” he promised.
Yes, yes. Gage didn’t seem to be capable of doing anything but nodding anymore. His limbs were heavy with anticipation and submissive paralysis. Ryker could do anything he wanted to him. He didn’t even care if there was lube at this point. Ryker could rip him open and he’d enjoy it. If this was the last sexual encounter of his life, it’d be worth it.
But Ryker popped the top on the lube and coated fingers which were thankfully claw-free with it. Gage turned his head away. He didn’t like to
watch himself being prepped. The reminder that he needed it wasn’t sexy, but Ryker somehow made it sexy.
“Look at your greedy hole,” he said when he had two fingers in there. “Sucking me down. Come on, little one. Show me how much you need my dick or I’m going to think this is enough for you.”
Hell, no. Gage fucked himself onto Ryker’s fingers, twisting and opening for him, trying to show him he was ready for more.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ryker said, his voice rich with satisfied alpha ego. “You’re going to need a cock.”
“Your cock,” Gage agreed.
“You’ve got a hungry hole there.” He crooked his fingers over Gage’s prostate. Gage arched with a shocked yelp and Ryker laughed in sadistic glee. “Little cock slut needs a cock in him.”
“Fuck me,” Gage begged, even as he twisted up to get more of those fingers. Part of him was waiting for Ryker to pop a claw, which sent mixed messages of excited fear up his spine.
Fingers could be good, he realized. Ryker wasn’t just finger fucking him because his stupid beta body didn’t do what it was supposed to do. Ryker was enjoying finger fucking him, was enjoying ripping him apart emotionally. Was probably enjoying the threat of ripping him apart physically, too.
“Alpha,” Gage choked out, overwhelmed with emotion, helpless in his alpha’s hands.
“Yeah, little one. That’s it. Maybe you should come for me like this. You’ve got a lot of coming to do still tonight.”
Fuck, Gage wished he had the recuperative powers of an omega in heat, that he could come over and over all night. As hot as Ryker made him, he could probably manage more than once, but he couldn’t slam out orgasms back to back. He was trying to figure out how to remind Ryker of that without breaking the mood when Ryker pulled his fingers free and sat back on his heels.
He put a big hand on each of Gage’s thighs and flipped him onto his stomach, then tugged him onto his hands and knees.
“Present yourself,” he ordered.