Fire Of Love

by Preston Walker

  Moody looked at what Isaac held. A tube of lube, which looked as if it had seen much use. The body of the tube was crumpled up, looking as if it had already been drained of any useful contents.

  “How often do you use that?” he laughed.

  Isaac flashed him a wicked grin, his eyes heated and lustful. Shivering in response, Moody settled down to watch and wait. As horny as he was, his thoughts were still uncertain. He wanted to be guided through this, and he knew Isaac would get him there. He depended on it.

  Flipping open the cap on top of the lube with a distinctive click sound, Isaac squeezed from the bottom up. The motion of his fingers was strangely sexual, sending another throb of pleasure through Moody’s groin.

  Squeezing a liberal amount of gel onto his fingers, Isaac set the tube aside. He took himself in his hand and started to spread the lube over his entire cock, from hilt to head. Weak sunlight filtered through the bedroom window, making his slick skin glisten.

  When he was done, Isaac offered the tube to Moody. “Here.”

  Moody reached for it, still feeling uncertain. What if he looked stupid while doing this? Or what if he didn’t do it right?

  Hell, was there even a way to do it wrong? How would he know?

  Either seeing or sensing his hesitation, Isaac pulled the tube back to himself. “I’ll do it,” he said, voice gentle and understanding.

  Moody blushed, not that he had long to worry about seeming foolish. Slick, hot fingers pushed against his opening, then stroked in a circle. Moody’s back arched up, his hips wriggling with excitement as more tingling pulses went through him.

  Isaac rubbed his fingers all over Moody’s opening, until he was thoroughly covered. Then, he pressed a finger against his tender pucker and kept pressing, unrelenting and yet somehow still gentle.

  “Ah,” Moody said, the word tangled up in a gasp.

  Isaac paused, the very tip of his finger just barely inside him. “You okay?”

  “Keep going.”

  Isaac went back for more lube, then repeated the process, pressing his finger deeper inside Moody in tiny increments.

  His breath coming fast, Moody tried to relax. He could feel how tight his pucker was, how he gradually became stretched, more used to being entered. All of this took place over only a couple of minutes, though it seemed like years to Moody. His cock wasn’t as erect as it had been before, since he was so occupied with other feelings, but he was still hard as hell. It would only take a little bit of encouragement for him to get back to the place he had been previously.

  Isaac kept applying more and more lube, making sure to smear it all over Moody’s inner walls. When he had his finger in as deep as he could go, his other fingers pressed right up against Moody’s ass cheeks, he stopped. Very slowly, gently, he crooked his finger.

  Moody tossed his head back, crying out as an enormous jolt of pleasure shook him from the inside out. “Fuck!” he exclaimed, knowing no other word to express the experience he’d just had. “What was that?”

  He was no stranger to orgasm but what he’d felt just now was sharper and more intense than anything else before.

  “There’s so much more where that came from,” Isaac growled. He crooked his finger again, making Moody cry out again. His erection was back, hotter and harder than ever.

  Isaac twirled his finger inside now, withdrew, then pressed back inside. Not quite thrusting, just letting Moody get used to the motion.

  Whimpering, incoherent now, incapable of thinking even if he wanted to, Moody writhed and bucked, pushing against Isaac’s fingers. His body moved to the rhythm that Isaac set for the both of them. With one hand, he gripped the mattress. The other wrapped around his dick, stroking and caressing, almost pulling. Heat climbed up his shaft. He couldn’t hold on much longer. There were fireworks behind his eyes. The gathering tsunami wave from before was about to come crashing down. He would lose himself in only another few moments and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Isaac withdrew his finger, quickly and smoothly, clearly sensing Moody’s need. Lowering his hands down to the mattress to support himself, he repositioned so that the tip of his cock pressed between Moody’s spread cheeks. He started to push inside again and it was much easier this time, though the sensation of stretching and being stretched was uncomfortable still.

  Isaac’s thickness, rubbing all over his inner walls, filling him…

  Moody reached out, gripped at Isaac’s back, dragging his nails across smooth skin and muscle. The tsunami crashed down over him, carried him away. Everything was darkness and colors at the same time, and he was awash in heat. He was aware of nothing, not even the passage of time or Isaac’s body pressing ever harder against his. All he knew was pleasure, heat, ecstasy.

  After a span of time, he started to become aware of his surroundings again. Fullness from the inside, where Isaac’s cock was still buried in his ass. The scent of sex, strong and thick in the air. The weight of the alpha’s body, bearing down on him.

  Stirring around now, Moody tried to wiggle into a more comfortable position. Isaac moved with him, dropping one hand between his thighs for a moment to pull out. “Sorry,” he said. His voice was thick, a little hesitant, as if he no longer knew what to do with himself.

  Now that the moment was past, Moody didn’t know what to do, either.

  Isaac slid off Moody, propping himself up on his elbow. His eyes were so heavy-lidded that nearly all of the color was obscured. His features were passive, hiding whatever he truly felt in that moment. “I hope it was good for you.”

  “It was the best I could have hoped for,” Moody replied. He winced inwardly, knowing that his words could possibly be taken in a negative light and that wasn’t how he had meant them.

  For what it was worth, Isaac didn’t seem bothered by this lackluster response. He must have been feeling pretty shoddy himself, because he sat up then and placed his hand to his forehead. “I’m glad. I think you better go, though.”

  As far as goodbyes went, it wasn’t a particularly bad one. However, neither was it good.

  Something heavy formed in his stomach, like a brick wall being built to prevent him from leaving. He didn’t want to go. But, he had to.

  Reaching out, Moody grabbed onto the edge of the bed and pulled himself forward, sitting up at the same time. He swung his legs to the ground and stood…and then immediately sat back down again as his ass gave a dull throb of pain. A whine rose up in his throat and he swallowed it, then forced himself to stand up again. The pain really wasn’t all that bad. Not sharp, just constant.

  “You look a little sore,” Isaac rumbled.

  Moody snorted. Rather than bend down to pick his underwear and jeans up off the floor, he used his toes to grip the garments and lift them up to his hand. “I’m fine,” he said.

  Isaac sighed. The bed creaked as he lay down, springs in his mattress letting out pitiful groans. “I’m tired. I want to nap. Tell Destiny if he wants to talk to me, he’s going to have to be patient. I’m not riding a motorcycle or even getting on a bus until my headache’s gone.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Moody said. He wondered abruptly if his cries earlier had caused Isaac pain. “Why did you drink in the first place, though?”

  “Didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could have come to me.”

  Isaac turned his head away, rejecting the statement. He didn’t snort or growl, didn’t say a single word.

  Driven by desperation, Isaac had returned to Pensacola. This time, when he was hurting and uncertain, he had chosen alcohol over confiding in Moody. There was an enormous gap between them, sex or not, a chasm formed of bad memories and regrets.

  Despite that, Moody was determined to see this through.

  Without saying anything else, he dressed and left the bedroom, then exited the trailer. As an afterthought, he opened the door again, locked it from the inside, and then shut it again.

  Once that was done, he felt a little bit better. Grabbing
his motorcycle, he rode off in the direction of the highway so he could deliver Isaac’s message to Destiny.

  But first, he went and fetched a canister of gas and dropped it off at Isaac’s trailer. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A start.

  6

  There’s something I don’t understand about all of this,” Cain said. He held his sleeping child cradled in one arm, the infant leaning against his broad chest with all the trust in the world. He was giving his mate a break from child-rearing, which had become all the more difficult recently. Most shifter children didn’t discover their abilities for a few years after birth, though that estimate was often inaccurate. Shifters who would become alphas also tended to learn to transform earlier. If that was the case with little Knox, then he was destined to be a dominant wolf like the world had never known. He wasn’t even a year old and already he was able to transform at a moment’s notice.

  “Join the club,” Isaac grunted. He folded his arms, leaned back against the wall. He felt like a caged animal, on the verge of crawling out of his own skin. Pretty soon he would start pacing again, walking back and forth through the little room which served as Destiny’s office. The leader of Shadow Claws used to also live at the garage before moving away to be with his mate, Markus. His room used to be conjoined with the office, all of it located in this room right here.

  Since then, his bed and other furniture had been relocated. Supplies and other odds and ends took up the empty space, running right up against Destiny’s desk and filing cabinet.

  Cain stood in the middle of the room, subtly swaying and rocking so his son would stay asleep. Destiny sat on top of a stack of boxes, his eyelids lowered with intense thought and concentration. As for Isaac, he was sitting in the desk chair.

  Cain flashed a vague smile, congratulating the attempt at a joke. “What I mean is, why would your former pack members just assume it was you? It doesn’t seem to me like they would have had enough evidence to support that judgment.”

  Isaac nodded, looking down at his hands. After hearing from Moody all that he’d spilled during his drunkenness, he had been ashamed and surprised all at once. One would think he’d have told everything, but even inebriated he’d left out some important pieces of information. “I can see how you could think that,” he replied, choosing his words carefully.

  Lifting his chin from his chest, Destiny rumbled, “You hadn’t really given them reason to assume you were an arsonist, had you? Or just a troublesome person in general?”

  “No,” Isaac said. That, at least, was the truth. “I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t friends with everyone, but I damn sure didn’t go around trying to make enemies.”

  Destiny nodded, as if he had come to this conclusion on his own and just wanted to have it confirmed aloud. “Then what are you hiding?”

  If he told them the parts of the tale that had been omitted up until just now, he would look guilty. And if he didn’t, he would look guiltier still. Knowing he had no choice, Isaac sighed and resumed looking down at his hands. No matter how decent these two wolves seemed to be, he wasn’t yet familiar with talking to them so openly and indiscriminately. They were from separate packs up until very recently, after all.

  He might not have had much loyalty to Brock, that was true. He just wasn’t used to this change, yet.

  It won’t matter for very much longer, anyway. I’m not going to be here much longer.

  “I was there. At some of the locations. Around the time the fires started.”

  Destiny narrowed his eyes. They were different colors, one side brown and the other blue; both were beautiful, gemstone shades. The glint from them now was as hard as any precious stone, shafts of light seeming to bore into Isaac’s skin and even deeper still. “You were there? At the homes of your affected pack members?”

  Isaac nodded. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, a lump of wood rather than anything living. “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think?” Isaac growled, suddenly frustrated. “We were having a tea party, obviously.”

  From over near the doorway, Cain let out a soft, soothing sound. His lips brushed gently through his son’s hair, glancing over skin that smelled like sweet shampoo. The infant stirred, then settled back again.

  Though the comfort wasn’t meant for him, Isaac found he felt better anyway. He unclenched his fingers, then wrapped his hands around his knees while leaning forward to look at Destiny.

  The Shadow Claws pack leader was a handsome man, tall and broad and fearsome. His fierce spirit was tempered somewhat by the more mellow, carefree nature of his mate. But Markus wasn’t here right now. Destiny was ablaze with curiosity and instinct, deeply immersed in his natural desire to do the best he could with his pack. His attention bordered on overbearing, his demeanor smothering.

  There was a reason alpha wolves often fought one another, a reason they constantly vied for the position of pack leader. Dominant creatures would eventually clash over one thing or another. That truth was inevitable.

  Taking a deep breath, Isaac pushed away the argumentative part of himself that wanted to push back against the scrutiny placed on him by Destiny. He was going to have to get used to it again, especially if he went through with what he knew he should do.

  “I was fucking them. There’s no law against fucking. We’d be having a good time and then the alarms would go off. Or it would be while we were sleeping, people knocking on the door, telling us to evacuate.”

  “You had alibis?” Destiny asked. He stood up so that he was no longer leaning, no longer relying on anything but his own body. He took a few steps forward in his curiosity, towering over Isaac. “As in, you were in the act when the fires were started?”

  “Sometimes,” Isaac said. “It’s hard to remember details you weren’t really paying attention to in the first place. I didn’t know I’d need to keep an exact list of my activities.”

  “And your partners?”

  “Same thing with them. The more time goes on, the less certain you get.” Isaac sighed. “I know this all sounds like bullshit. But when you’re just living, and suddenly there’s smoke and fire and shouting…it’s hard to keep everything straight.”

  “No one is blaming you for anything.” Cain suddenly interjected this from where he stood, his voice soft and his eyes gentle. The expression he wore was very fatherly, as if he was having difficulty constantly switching back and forth from tending to his son and being a second-in-command. “We’re just trying to get everything straight so we know what we’re up against.”

  You’re not up against anything, Isaac thought. This trouble is all mine.

  “So, I understand a little better now why some of your pack members could have been a little suspicious,” Destiny mused. “But what about when your place of business burned down? Wouldn’t there be security cameras? Footage captured of the actual perpetrator?”

  Perpetrator. Such an official word, the kind of thing that only a person in charge would say.

  “I actually wasn’t at work that day,” Isaac muttered.

  “Day off?”

  “I was sick.”

  Destiny narrowed his eyes. Lifting one hand, he impatiently pushed a few errant strands of hair out of his face. “Shifters hardly ever get sick.”

  “Well, it happened,” Isaac growled, feeling a little defensive. In addition to their ability to heal at a rapid pace, due to the combined constitutions of man and animal, shifters were also in possession of strong immune systems. A bug had to be particularly nasty to even cause symptoms like a sore throat or runny nose. “It’s going to sound real fucking stupid.”

  “Try us,” Cain said, still using his parent voice.

  “A group of co-workers and myself, we went out the night before to celebrate. We just landed a new contract. I don’t even remember what it was. Something about soda. A local company, except they shipped to a lot of surrounding cities. Not small by any means.”

  There had been a lot of
money at stake. He did remember that. Negotiations were fierce. For the entire week leading up to that celebration, everyone in the firm was a tense mess.

  “We had drinks and dinner at this new Thai place. Good food. Made us all sick, though. Food poisoning. Being a shifter can’t fight that.”

  Destiny nodded in agreement. Cain pressed his lips together in sympathy.

  “None of us were at work that day. That was what, ten of us? A dozen? When I called off that morning, I remember my boss being super pissed because I was already the fifth one. A dozen of us was a lot of manpower they wouldn’t have.” Isaac gave an involuntary little shudder as he considered the alternative in his mind. If they had all shown up to work, the effects of the blaze might have been worse. A dozen more people crowding the smoky halls, the burning exits, might have done nothing to change the outcome; on the other hand, it might have meant injury or even death due to the elongated exposure.

  “And the security cameras…You wouldn’t believe how lax businesses can be about things like that. Blind spots, dummy cameras that are just for show. And electronics don’t tend to do very well when they’re burned up. No security footage could ever be recovered. So, as far as the police were concerned, there was nothing to confirm or deny I was there.”

  “But when your pack took that in account with your presence at the other fires, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion for them,” Destiny finished. “That all really fucking sucks, Isaac. I’m so sorry.”

  Isaac shrugged, lifting one shoulder and then letting it drop. “Thanks.”

  “Now this wolf from your pack wants you to come back. What does he think he’s going to gain by doing so? If the fires are happening without you there, it isn’t you doing it, and it wasn’t you doing it in the past.” Cain shifted his son from one arm to the other. The infant stirred, shifted just enough for fur to sprout all across his body, and then returned back to his normal form.