Mack’s hips are bucked up enough that Caleb can just see his dick, flushed and leaking steadily on to the sheets, and fuck, he needs to taste him there too. He gives his hips a tug, mumbling into his skin. “Roll over, big guy,” he says quietly, voice husky. Mack obeys, turning and spreading his legs around Caleb, cradling him between his strong thighs. His hole, slick with Caleb’s spit, opens easily when he slides a finger in while he also swallows his cock, lapping up his precome as he goes. Mack has a hand on each side of Caleb’s head, fingers running soft circles through his hair and across his cheeks where they’re hollowing as he as sucks him slowly, lovingly, mouth exploding and sparking with the rich taste of him.
“Caleb,” Mack whisper-moans, hips rocking up ever so slightly. He answers by pressing his tongue firmly against the underside of his cock and pushes in a second finger.
Mack comes with a gasp, emptying himself with bitten-off grunts across Caleb’s tongue, hips jerking. When he finishes, Caleb pulls off and scoots down, resting his cheek against the inside of his thigh, arms tucked underneath him, holding him close. Mack runs his hands over his hair, his shoulders, soothing and warm.
Caleb rolls his tongue around the taste of Mack’s come in his mouth, his cock throbbing. He doesn’t really want to move though, is entirely too comfortable where he is. Mack tugs on his hair impatiently, insistently, as if he’s personally offended that Caleb hasn’t come yet. He lets him pull him up by the armpits, hands falling to his waist to guide him into position, straddling Mack’s chest, his big hands wrapping around his cock. Mack works him fast, eyes locked on his. Caleb bites his lip to keep from yelling when he comes, one of Mack’s fingers pressing against his hole, body seizing and clenching, painting Mack’s chest.
They’re both asleep again in minutes, stuck together, still holding on tight.
It’s a long day, hanging out with his dad and Ramona and pretending both of them hadn’t nearly died in the kitchen the night before. Mack is tense and stiff, like he’s on alert, bracing for the worst. If his dad or Ramona notice, they don’t say anything; they seem to be entirely too wrapped up in giving each other heart eyes all day. It’s ridiculous really, how lovey-dovey they are. If he wasn’t so grateful for their distraction, Caleb would be complaining about it, loudly. He does whisper something to Mack about it at one point, when his dad stops midsentence to gaze longingly into Ramona’s eyes when she comes into the kitchen to start making lunch.
Mack just looks at Caleb like he’s the dumbest person on the planet, his stiff demeanor cracking slightly. “I was just thinking that this is what it must be like for everyone around us.” He gives him a little smile that Caleb just has to kiss as he laughs, which earns him a groan from his dad, which in turn earns a smirk from Mack, and Caleb finally starts to think that everything really is going to be okay.
Just as they’re sitting down to a late lunch of Ramona’s incredible tamales, Caleb’s phone buzzes in his pocket. Ignoring his dad’s no phone at the table rule, he glances at it quickly. From Liam, two words.
It’s done.
Caleb slides the phone back into his pocket, looking up to Mack’s knowing gaze.
“Everything okay?” his dad asks, passing him the salad.
He smiles. “Everything’s good.”
They’re clearing the table when his dad’s phone rings and he disappears upstairs to answer it, coming back down several minutes later in his uniform.
“Heading in early?” Caleb calls from the kitchen, biting his lip, trying to sound casual.
“Yeah, pretty nasty car accident on Route 9.” He’s pulls his coat from the hall closet and steps into the kitchen. “Caleb, you’re still friends with Daisy Perrin, aren’t you?”
Officially, Diana Perrin, notorious for her alcoholism, had too much to drink and wrecked her SUV into a telephone pole. Violent as the crash was, it immediately caught fire, burning long and hot before the fire department arrived. Her identity had to be confirmed via dental records, and the specific cause of death will forever be unknown.
Unofficially, Thomas Perrin had let Liam Nolan into his home and looked the other way when he ripped her throat out, and together they had staged the accident. Liam disappeared without a trace, and Thomas, after lying expertly to his father, left town, claiming he had to go to his sister’s home in Montana to deal with her effects.
“It’s over,” Mack says, after he relays the details of his phone conversation with Liam. They’re alone, finally, Ramona having left for her night shift at the hospital not long after his dad left to supervise the investigation into the accident.
“You’re sure?” Caleb asks, knowing he is but still wanting to hear it again.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Mack has him pulled in close, his head resting on his broad chest, hands petting slowly in his hair. They stay that way for a long time, wrapped up in each other and talking softly well into the night like they have all the time in the world, because they do.
Caleb must have fallen asleep against him at some point because all of sudden Mack’s shaking him awake, pulling him up from the couch. “Come on,” he’s saying, excited. “I want to show you something.”
Caleb rubs his eyes and lets Mack walk him out the front door to the rental car. “Mack, what the hell,” he asks, finally fully awake, finally realizing that it’s the middle of the night and he was quite comfortable, fucking blissful, really, sleeping against Mack’s warm chest on the couch.
“I made a decision and I don’t want to wait. Get in the car.” Mack tosses his hoodie at him before he slides into the driver’s seat, and Caleb has never seen Mack this…well, giddy seems like an utterly absurd word to use in relation to Mack, but yeah, kinda. The feeling is infectious though, whether it's the simple power of Mack’s blinding smile or their mate bond, Caleb is starts to feel eager and excited too.
Mack drives quickly, and in no time they’re in the Preserve, and turning up a long, secluded driveway that gives way to a small yard and a decrepit, burned out husk of a huge house. Caleb catches his breath when he realizes where they are. He’s looking at the ruins of the Nolan house – the place where Mack's family burned to death.
He turns to him, deeply confused and slightly worried. “You seem really happy about being here and I’m not sure I really understand. Are you…okay?” He studies his face in the dim moonlight, wondering of the stress of everything that happened with Diana had pushed Mack over some edge Caleb didn’t know he was teetering on.
“Caleb, breathe. I’m okay. Of course being here is hard. But I’m really excited about what I want to show you, so just go with it.” He leans in and plants a reassuring kiss on his mouth before getting out he car, leaving Caleb to follow.
He follows him around to the back of the house, where clearly there was a spaciously landscaped yard long ago, now overrun by the encroaching forest. “My parents willed me and Maribel this land, Mack says, peeling his shirt off over his head and turning to face Caleb. He throws the shirt at him, and he catches it just before it hits his face.
“Um, okay. Does that have something to do with why you’re stripping?”
Mack goes on like he hadn’t spoken, unbuttoning his jeans. “What do you think about some day, not any time soon, but some day, maybe coming back here? Fixing up the house. Living here.”
The question is enough to distract him from Mack’s hands, now slowly unzipping his jeans.. Caleb’s gaze falls from Mack’s eyes, so big and hopeful, to his chest, where his fox tattoo glows warmly against his moonlit skin.
He thinks about the dream that made Mack a part of his life, a part of him, long before they ever met, about the strange twist and turns of magic that brought them together. It feels right, feels like honoring that somehow, to come back here and rebuild this house, build a life here together.
“Yeah,” Caleb says finally, smiling broadly. “I want this to be our home some day.”
Mack lunges forward and kisses him sloppily, clumsy in his happiness. “Good.” He sa
ys, punctuating it with a hard press of his lips against his before he steps away again, stepping out of his jeans completely and handing them to Caleb.
“So, the stripping?” Caleb asks, crooking one eyebrow up in his very best Mack impression.
“I like these clothes,” he says by way of explanation, and Caleb now knows where this is going. His heart begins to race, hands getting jittery, nervous excitement rushing through him. He’s been both dying to and completely scared of seeing Mack shift into a full wolf.
His Wolf.
“You ready,” Mack asks, stepping out of his underwear. Caleb swallows and nods, too excited and nervous to speak. “I love you,” Mack says, smiling before closing his eyes.
When he opens them, they’re red, and his neck bends and twists like it does when he beta shifts. Then his whole body begins to twitch too, the change rocking through him as he falls forward. The air around him seems to shimmer and shake, buzzing with hot magic, everything around him going blurry for a second. When Mack hits the ground his arms are legs and his hands are big, black paws. When Caleb looks up from the ground where he's staring in awe at those familiar paws, he’s face-to-face with the Wolf from his dream.
He's not sure how long he stands there, mouth agape, eyes unblinking. Wolf-Mack is huge, so much bigger than he seems in the dream, emanating even more uncanny strength and power. He’s gentle though, tentative as he steps forward, paws – paws – soft on the ground, slowly getting closer to him. His movement jolts Caleb from his daze and he lurches forward, wrapping his arms around Wolf-Mack and burying his face in his thick black fur, laughter bubbling through him even as his eyes grow hot and wet with tears. Wolf-Mack yips, licks a slobbery line across his ear.
“Dude, this is so weird,” he laughs, tugging him closer. Wolf-Mack smells like Mack but different, earthier, wilder. Caleb breathes him in deep, wanting to remember it, wanting that scent to live inside of him. It’s overwhelming, his dream coming to life like this, the bone-deep happiness, the utter wonder that he is somehow lucky enough to have this, to have Mack. It's so impossibly perfect it makes him weak in the knees, and he falls to the ground, breathing heavily as he tries to wrap his mind around all of it, still smiling like crazy.
Wolf-Mack presses up against him, nudges him and yips until they’re both lying on the damp grass, Caleb half on him, face nuzzled into the coarse fur of his neck. Mack’s big body warms him, and Caleb settles in, murmuring a whispered babble of feelings into his wolfy chest, words spilling out of him, desperate to let Mack know just how perfect he is, just how much he loves him, has always loved him, will always love him.
He falls asleep eventually, bathed in moonlight, curled tight against his Wolf.
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