by Owner
His leg was still throbbing by the time he finally came out of his pain-induced haze, but it wasn’t as bad as before. Storm was unwrapping his bandages and changing them for new ones, his face was the definition of concentration, and his white-blond hair was loose from its ponytail and down at his shoulders.
It was dark outside, and several lamps were lit up around the little hut they were in. John must have been sleeping for a time.
Storm looked up and their eyes met. John reached his hand out to touch along the side of Storm’s scarred eye. The lids were scarred shut, and there were no lashes either. From the sunken look of the socket, he’d guess there was no matching brown eye beneath the flesh anyway.
“How did you lose it?” he asked.
Storm reached down and quickly fished out his eye patch from their bag of supplies. He had it around his head and covering up the missing eye before John could stop him. “My brother,” he said finally. “Somehow my family found out that my tastes weren’t quite to their expectations, and when they did, they hunted me down. They might’ve killed me if…”
He trailed off, but John knew what he was about to say. They would have killed him had that hunter not saved his life, creating a life-debt that Storm felt he needed to honor.
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Storm’s hand came down to rest on John’s forehead. “You’re not feverish anymore.”
John took hold of his hand and brought it to his lips. “That’s good,” he said. Then he tried to pull Storm into bed with him.
Storm resisted. “That doesn’t mean you should be doing that,” he said, his tone partly scolding. “You’re a fast healer, but you’re still recovering from a shot with a silver bullet.”
“Yeah, I was shot.” John stared up into the face of his lover. “And I’m grateful you decided to take care of me.”
“I owe you―”
“You don’t owe me shit,” John insisted. “Don’t try and trick yourself into thinking that you only did it because you had to. I know you care more than that.”
When Storm didn’t say anything, John knew he’d won. He’d just wished the other man would admit to it.
Until then, there was something he wanted taken care of.
“Now, I was shot and nearly killed. I know exactly what I want right now.”
This time he did manage to get Storm halfway onto the bed before the next protest came. “Your leg―”
John captured his lips in a gentle kiss. They were plump and tasted perfectly of everything that John had ever wanted. The act also cut off everything else Storm had been about to say.
“Just go slow. We’ll be careful,” John said. He put his hands into Storm’s hair as the other man straddled his hips, bringing their mouths together again.
There was no way Storm could deny any longer that he wanted this, too. John felt the way his cock became thick as he sat on his lap.
Storm was so careful to keep most of his weight on the right side of John’s hips, not only to keep himself from touching John’s bandaged bullet wound, but to also keep as much weight as possible off of it.
They kissed slowly. John loved the soft feeling of Storm’s lips massaging his, the way his tongue slipped out so John could suck it 68
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gently into his mouth. He’d never taken this sort of care with kissing before. He was going to have to remind himself to do it like this more often.
His dick was already throbbing for attention. He hadn’t been joking around when he’d said he wanted this. There was something about recovering from a near-death experience that made him want to have sex with his mate, to come inside him and mark the man as his again and again.
Storm loved him. John just had to get him to admit to it.
Because it hadn’t been that long when they’d last been together, it was simply a matter of John reaching down and around with his fingers to find and stretch Storm’s asshole.
Storm pressed his ass against John’s fingers. He wanted it just as much as John did, it seemed.
He was still loose from earlier, and he could probably handle it without anything to ease the way, but John wanted to use the last of the conditioner he'd brought with him.
“You still have the bag?” he asked.
Storm blinked down at him, coming out of the haze of pleasure that having John's fingers in his ass had put him under.
“Yes. Why?” he asked.
“Get it. There should still be that little bottle of conditioner inside.”
Storm’s jaw dropped, then his brows came down as he frowned.
“Were you making plans on having sex while we were traveling?”
“Maybe,” John said, unable to help the grin that spread over his face. “I'm a Boy Scout like that. Seriously, grab it out of the bag so I can get inside of you.”
He accented his words by thrusting his fingers up farther inside of Storm’s ass. The man shuddered, his eye popping wide, before he climbed off of John to do as he said.
He brought back the small bottle, shaking his head at the sight of it before handing it to John and getting back into position. They were Hunted and on the Run
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both too eager to put this off any longer.
John put some of the condition into his hand and stroked his dick.
He couldn’t help but moan when he touched himself.
“You’re beautiful when you do that,” Storm told him.
John put more of the slick stuff onto his hand and returned his fingers to Storm’s pucker. The other man closed his eye and slowly rode up and down on John’s fingers, keeping his balance by resting his hands on his shoulders.
John stared at him. “Thinking the exact same thing.”
Storm blushed. John didn’t think he’d ever seen the man do that before.
He kissed him again, pulling his fingers out of Storm’s hole and grabbing him by the hips. John shifted him up just a little farther, and taking hold of his slick cock once more, he lined it up with Storm’s asshole.
Storm eagerly let himself sink down onto it, his face twisting and mouth opening with pleasure.
“That’s nice,” he said.
John couldn’t agree more. “Ride me.”
Storm did. With his hands on John’s shoulders, and John’s hands on Storm’s hips, they fell into a nice rhythm together. The slow pace they kept it at was torture and bliss all rolled into one. Before, John would have been happy to have as many orgasms as he could. He was the sort of guy who could bring himself off in the shower more than once and think nothing of it.
Now, as his pleasure built and he forced himself to hold back because of his injury, and Storm refused to hump against him any quicker for that same reason, he knew what he was missing.
Sex was an entirely different matter compared to just using his own hand, but still, the next time it was just him by himself, he was going to have to take his time and enjoy it, rather than speed through toward the end like he always did.
This time, Storm was the one to initiate their kiss. He grabbed 70
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John by the back of the neck and pulled his head up until their mouths were coming together hard and fast, entirely different from what was going on with their hips.
The slick slide of Storm’s tongue against his was what set off the chain reaction of the beginning of the end for John. Just the touch of that tongue while John was inside him, he wasn’t sure how or why, but in his mind it was the most erotic thing in the world, and he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He had to come, and he had to do it now.
He groaned as he thrust harder, gripping Storm’s hips tighter and pressing him down on his cock. It hurt, but he ignored the pain. This was better. He would die if he didn’t do this.
“John…John…” Storm said, throwing his head back and repeating his name over and over again. If he was trying to form some kind of protest to make John stop or slow down, then he wasn’t going to let hi
m. John shifted his hips and fucked Storm harder until his balls went tight and he was coming inside his mate.
John moaned out loud, his body quaked, and everything inside him was more alive and clear than it had ever been in his life.
It was probably very corny, and he would never confess this to anyone, but now that he’d had his mate, he had to say that coming inside him felt damn near spiritual. He was giving something of himself to Storm when he came inside him, something that did more than mark the man as being his. He liked doing it, and he wanted to do it as often as possible, until the spiritual connection that bound them together was felt by Storm was well.
When John came inside him, Storm hugged John tightly to his chest and moaned. He quickly reached down and jerked his cock quickly, still gyrating his hips as he shot his load on John’s chest.
They collapsed together, but Storm was quick to pull himself off of John’s lap. John reached out and grabbed him by the hand before he could go anywhere. “Stay with me.”
Storm stared down at him then pointed to the stove. “I’m getting Hunted and on the Run
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more dish towels. We need to clean that off,” he said, looking down at the little splatter of cum on John’s stomach and chest.
“I don’t mind it.”
“You don’t?” Storm said, surprise in his voice as John pulled him back down.
John would never admit to this either, but he actually kind of liked it when Storm came on him. If John was claiming Storm as his whenever he came inside him, then maybe it worked the same way when Storm came on him.
He probably wouldn’t like it so much after it dried up and got itchy, but for now, he was feeling too lazy to want to do anything other than sleep with his mate’s warm body beside him.
“No,” he said.
“I should at least check your wound. We got rough toward the end.”
John chuckled. “That we did.”
Storm slapped his arm, even as he came to rest on John’s good side, the both of them putting their arms around each other. “I’m being serious. How does it feel?”
John tested his leg by flexing the muscle that had been shot. His eyes popped wide at the pain. That had been a total mistake.
“Definitely still hurts,” John said through his teeth, but then he gripped Storm tighter when the man tried to get out of his arms to check. “But I’ll be fine until the morning. Look, it’s not like it started bleeding again,” he said, trying to reassure his mate as they both looked down at the still white bandages.
“What about you? How’s your wound?” he asked, remembering the long scratch brought on by a grazing bullet.
“Just fine. It’s you I’m worried about. I’ll be checking on your bandages in an hour,” Storm said.
“Mmhm,” John replied, hardly able to pay attention as exhaustion took hold of him once more and he fell asleep.
It didn’t feel like he slept for even ten minutes before Storm was 72
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shaking him awake, keeping his hand on John’s mouth to keep him from speaking.
John’s eyes snapped open wide. It was pitch dark in the cabin―Storm must’ve gotten up at some point to turn off the lamps―and there was no light streaming in under the crack of the door or anything. Still night.
Storm held a finger to his lips and pointed to the door. He mouthed the word hunter, and John went stiff. He sniffed the air, searching for the scent of whoever was outside.
When he got it, he wanted to curse.
That guy from before. The one John had spared on Storm’s insistence. The fucker just didn’t give up. Really, they should have seen this coming.
Then another thought occurred to him. Shit, was this the same guy who’d come after him in the truck and shot him with the silver bullet?
He was a lot more dangerous than both Storm and John had originally given him credit for if that was the case.
John sat up quickly when Storm moved his hand away from his mouth. He tried to, anyway. The bullet hole in his leg was far from healed enough for him to be able to run around carefree on it, but he was going to have to try.
He eased his leg off the bed. Now that he was up and aware, he could hear the footfalls of the hunter outside as he tried to remain quiet. Humans were never as silent as they tried to be, and John could hear the man’s breathing, as well as the crunching sounds his booted feet made as they stepped over dried grass and rocks.
Storm was like a ninja and silent as the night as he hurried around their little shack, throwing the first aid kit into their travel bag, as well as some of the clean dish towels, and anything else that they could take with them that would be of some use.
Getting rid of the open soda cans, dumping out the water, and cleaning the wolf hair that had fallen to the floor was out of the question. There was no time for that kind of cleanup. If the two of Hunted and on the Run
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them managed to slip away before the hunters decided to break in, it would still be obvious to anyone that people had been here. Recently.
Storm zipped shut the bag as quietly as he could and lifted the now-bulging thing over his shoulder. He gave John the signal to shift.
John did, and he prayed to God that the man wandering around outside wouldn’t hear the snap in his bones as he got down on four paws. It was especially painful now because of the muscle damage to his leg. The shift took the longest sixty seconds of John’s life, and more than once he’d had to bite down a whine of pain as his bullet wound stretched and realigned itself with his new legs.
That had really fucking hurt.
Then John noticed their main problem. He must’ve been a little too out of it when they’d come here to notice it them, because he saw it now, and he bit down a groan.
There was only one door leading out of this little shack, and right now that hunter outside sounded like he was standing near it.
John looked at Storm, and the large cougar glared at the door. He knew about their problem, too.
Only one hunter. They could potentially take the man by surprise.
He had been stupid enough to come wandering around here by himself, after all.
He was about to send the idea to Storm when he stopped himself.
No, this was a hunter he was dealing with. He hadn’t been driving that truck and shooting at them at the same time, not through the trees before he’d crashed, at any rate. He wouldn’t have been able to hit John if he’d had one hand on the wheel.
There were other hunters with him. There always were, and whether they were hiding in the bushes or not, waiting in silence to pick off both John and Storm, was something they were going to have to think about when it came time to run.
The door looked to be in decent shape, even if it was ugly as shit, but the only way Storm would’ve managed to get them in here was if he broke the lock. There was always a lock. It was just a matter of 74
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time before the hunter noticed it.
Storm looked at him. “Can you make it to the trees?”
He would. He had to. “Yes,” he replied.
The footsteps of the hunter moved, as though he was about to search around the other side of the shack before coming back to stand in front of the door. John heard the clinking of metal against wood as he examined something.
“Run!” Storm shouted inside John’s head, and he charged the door.
He was so fast and powerful that the door came clean off its hinges with a snap.
The hunter screamed as he was knocked over and trapped beneath the door. He’d tried to push it off himself, but then John jumped out from the shack, landing on the door.
The hunter let out a whoosh of air as all of John’s weight came down on him. It was definitely the same guy from that group.
He growled up at John. “I’m gonna kill you, you fucking monster!”
Just for the fun of it, John snapped his teeth at the guy. He screamed and yanked his head back, but
not before John managed to nip at his nose, drawing blood.
It was a shame. He would’ve much rather taken the nose off.
Maybe it would’ve taught him a lesson.
The guy went bananas under the door as he thrashed, trying to shake John off him. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill all of you!”
“John!”
He looked up at Storm’s growling face.
Thoroughly embarrassed, John got off his hostage and started to make a run for it. Right when the dirt and rocks beside his right paw exploded as gunfire came down on him.
John ran for his life. Storm kept on looking behind him to make sure that John was following, and now he wanted to yell back at the cat to stop and just go. He didn’t want Storm to get killed because Hunted and on the Run
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John just had to mess around with one hunter.
That other hunter must’ve finally pushed the door off himself because then he got up and started firing off rounds at them as well.
Storm and John leaped into the safety of the trees just as another shower of shotgun pellets and handgun bullets struck the trees themselves.
They weren’t safe here. They couldn’t stop just because they’d made it into the woods. Those hunters were on foot, but they were still following them.
“What did you think you were doing?” Storm yelled inside John’s head as they ran.
“I know it was dumb,” John said, pushing past the pain in his leg.
It hard started to throb like a bitch again now that they were getting farther and farther away from the hunters. Due to the rate of gunfire, John was guessing at this point that there were only two of them.
Not a big group to contend with, but with only himself and Storm, they were still a major threat. Clearly.
Storm growled at him, his tail whipping around in that displeased way cats pulled off.
Now that they were outside and running, John could see the thin slip of light that was peaking up and over the horizon. The stars were fading and dawn was coming.
“So long as we stay in the trees and keep moving they shouldn’t catch up to us,” Storm said.
The only problem with that was that John’s pack was still too far away. There was no way they could make it all the way back without having to stop and rest at least one more time.