by Cooper Davis
Josh moved with him, his voice becoming more agitated. “At six a.m. in the morning, Hayden? That’s when the accident was. Just after six a.m.!”
Hayden pressed hands against his temples, trying to ease the splitting pain in his head. “It had to have been those beers.”
Josh got right up in his face, gripping his arms tight. “I know what time we got in the truck, and it’s not the time I had to claim to the police. It was right after two a.m.”
Hayden jerked out of Josh’s hold on him. “Wait, that’s…that’s four hours before the accident.”
“There are four hours missing from your memories, Hayden. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Josh stared up at him, his green-blue eyes darkening.
Hayden couldn’t breathe. It was as if all the beliefs he’d constructed for himself, starting in the hospital and later in prison, were collapsing on him. Crushing him.
And then a white hot pulse of fury set him on fire. Rounding on Josh, he slammed a fist into his jaw as hard as he could, sending the cop reeling back against the wall. Hayden was on him, pinning him there. “Why the fuck would you have lied to the police, then? At the trial? How could you have lied about where we were, the timing of it all? I always knew something smelled rotten about that night…”
Hayden drew back a hand to deck Josh again, but Josh’s forearm came up, preventing him. A tangy scent filled the room and he realized he’d drawn blood from Josh’s nose. The metallic odor instantly sobered him. Slowly, Hayden began to release his rough hold on Josh, but still kept him pinned against the wall. And Josh wasn’t resisting—he was letting Hayden do whatever he wanted to him, as if willing to accept any abuse, if that’s what it took to reach a breakthrough. No Alpha ever responded to a physical or emotional threat so passively, yet Josh just stared at him, ready to take whatever he dished out. All of it—Josh’s responses, his words—felt surreal and downright unnatural.
“Why aren’t you fighting back, you fucker?” Hayden seethed, breath coming hard and fast, just like Josh’s. Their gazes locked in a battle of wills, huffing chests pressed close. “Tell me the fucking truth, for God’s sake. I deserve at least that much.”
Josh’s eyes slid shut and he became incredibly still, slumping against the wall. “All right, Hayden. You do deserve the full truth, you’re right.” Josh’s eyes remained closed and he whispered, “We became lovers that night. Spent hours together, making love, falling in love.”
Hayden couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Felt as if the entire room was closing in on him, and his wolf side begged to break away.
“No…I would remember.” He pressed his forehead against Joshua’s, panting. “I know I’d remember.”
Slowly Josh’s eyes opened and a wistful, heartbroken smile formed on his face. “I’d never been with a guy before,” he said, touching Hayden’s cheek. “You were my first…my only. And I gave myself to you completely. Because I fell in love with you then. And I’ve never stopped loving you, not once in all these years.”
Hayden took a step backward. Some quiet part of his soul would know, would have to know. “No…you’ve got to be lying. Nothing would have driven us apart,” he insisted. “Nothing could have.”
Josh hardly seemed to hear him. “We drank shots of whiskey because I was nervous and you wanted me to relax. Because…well…so it wouldn’t hurt.” A deep flush filled Josh’s face. “I guess we did get a little drunk, not too much. But it didn’t hurt, you were right. You were so gentle with me, and I’d never felt anything like it before. No one had ever been so tender, so arousing. It was like you led me right to the stars and back, the way you touched me…everywhere. You set my body on fire and I fell so hard. Took no time at all.” Josh met Hayden’s shocked gaze, lifting a hand to slowly stroke Hayden’s cheek. “Things…changed between us then.”
Hayden couldn’t fight the rush of rage, heartache—the insane swell of emotions warring in his head. He ducked sideways, escaping Josh’s tender touch. “Things changed.” Hayden growled. “Changed so much that I killed a man a few hours later.”
Josh closed his eyes again, dropping his hand from Hayden’s cheek. “Of course you didn’t. It was all part of how our beautiful night came crashing down. You never broke any law, Hayden.”
“I knew it,” Hayden said, feeling absurdly triumphant, almost cruel, even as sharp tears burned his eyes. “I knew you set me up.”
“Not me, Hayden.” Josh shook his head with almost violent force. “I would have been willing to lie down in the road and die for you that night. For you, I’d have taken any bullet, any punishment.” Josh laughed harshly. “And I guess, in a way, I did…I lost you. And I watched your life fall apart because of my choices.”
Hayden couldn’t take another moment of the deceit, the half-truths, the veiled intimations. Seizing Josh by the shoulders, he squeezed him hard and shook his entire body. “Tell me all of it, you fucker.”
Josh’s distant, pained gaze bore into Hayden. “All right. You want to know, I’ll give it all to you. Then you can decide how you feel about the elders’ proposition. About us mating.”
“Won’t happen,” Hayden barked, keeping Josh pinned against the wall, wanting to throttle him, hold him, a thousand other things. “Never going to happen. You won’t have that part of me.”
“But that’s just it, baby.” Josh smiled again, his eyes lighting for the first time in the past few minutes. And then he began laughing, a lost, quiet sound. “I already do.”
Hayden shook his head, the room almost spinning.
Josh leaned forward, pressing his lips against Hayden’s mouth. “It’s not day two of anything,” he whispered gently. “There’s no countdown to a decision, no need for us to fulfill the elders’ mandate.”
“Of course there is.” Hayden shook his head, not following Josh’s lost, dreamy-sounding words. “The council gave us thirty days,” he said stupidly, hoping to keep the conversation on track.
“They can’t give us a time limit to decide about something that already exists,” Josh told him softly. “They can’t urge us to do what’s already been done.”
Hayden’s heart nearly stopped in his chest, his mouth went dry. Was Joshua saying what he thought? “Wh-what do you mean?”
“We’re already mated. It happened that night, when we made love for the very first time. So, you see…” Josh laughed wistfully, wiping at his eyes, “…there’s a lot you don’t recall. Including the fact that I belong to you, and you to me, Hayden, like it or not, for the rest of our lives.”
Hayden’s arms fell limp at his sides, and he felt as if his entire universe was unzipping, but Josh kept talking, saying things that Hayden couldn’t even hear. Josh reached for him, tried to hold on, but Hayden’s resistance was too strong.
Hayden couldn’t stay, couldn’t listen. He had to run, had to move into the darkening woods and turn feral. There was no escaping the pain, no way out, no way through what Josh was saying they’d lost.
With a savage growl, he sprang from the house and never looked back.
Chapter Eight
Five years earlier, December 30th, early a.m.
Hayden followed Josh into the other wolf’s modest home, wildly curious as to what he might learn about his long-time obsession. Would the guy be a neat freak, a collector of bizarre knickknacks, a diehard gamer? Hayden had no idea what to expect and was subtly searching the place for any clues, his gaze sweeping the neat little kitchen with keen curiosity when Josh busted him.
“Yeah, it’s not much,” Josh said a tad defensively as he followed Hayden’s inspecting glance. Then he shrugged. “But at least it’s mine. Well, mine and the bank’s.” He laughed, tugging on his wool ski cap self-consciously, pulling it down over his ears.
“I think it’s great.” Hayden smiled his approval as he wandered all the way into the kitchen. “Besides, you don’t see me owning my own digs yet. Pretty impressive at our age. And you’ve got lots of privacy out here.”
They bot
h fell silent at that comment, the reminder that they might really need some privacy for what they’d come here to do. Joshua stared at the floor, scuffing a snow boot wordlessly, and Hayden wasn’t sure how the hell he was supposed to get the other Alpha into the bedroom at this point. Beneath the bright lights of the kitchen, the two of them had reclaimed their customary roles together, so it seemed downright unlikely. Especially with the way Joshua kept averting his eyes, appearing awkward and unsure about the whole situation. Why hadn’t they just figured out how to blow each other in the damned truck? Maybe now things wouldn’t be back to square zero.
Hayden sighed and took a step closer to Josh. “Look, dude,” he began. “We don’t have to… You know, maybe we just got a little carried away earlier, and if you don’t want this. Don’t want to, well, you know.” Hayden coughed, clearing his throat, wishing Josh would pipe up and help him out, not leave him twisting in the proverbial wind. Instead, the guy just folded both arms over his chest, and looked toward the other side of the kitchen, toying with the zipper on his ski jacket.
Hayden raked a hand through his hair and tried again. “My point,” he said in a tight, embarrassed voice, “is that maybe I should just head on home. If you don’t want…this.”
Josh began to smile then, giving him the blasted, cocky grin Hayden always found so annoying. The same one he’d flashed at the airport. His knowing smile indicated that Josh knew exactly how much Hayden lusted after him, how he craved and yearned so pointlessly. Joshua never looked up, but, oh yeah, he most definitely smirked.
“I’m gonna take off,” Hayden blurted, feeling heat crawl from his neck all the way to his cheekbones. Had the other wolf been playing him the whole time? Just having a laugh, seeing exactly how far Hayden would try to go in an effort to get between his legs?
The sideways grin grew a little wider and for the first time Hayden noticed deep splotches of color on Josh’s own face—and the way his hand trembled as he fiddled with his jacket. A thought occurred to Hayden then, such a radical revelation that he started smiling himself. Maybe Joshua Peterson wasn’t so self-assured after all. And maybe he wasn’t making fun of Hayden, nor getting his rocks off at how much Hayden longed for him.
Hayden’s mind riffled through fractured bits of evidence, and suddenly he became convinced of one clear fact. All Josh’s thrusting and touching back in the truck hadn’t been a put on, nor had it been mockery. It had been the most passionate damned few moments Hayden had ever spent in any person’s arms. And it had been real, as full of heat on Josh’s side as on Hayden’s.
Hayden pushed his wireframes up the bridge of his nose, suddenly confident again. “So, to quote the song, ‘should I stay or should I go now’?”
“Good one, man.” Josh laughed huskily. “I definitely don’t want you to go. I’m just not sure what to do now that I’ve got you here, that’s all,” Josh admitted, his eyes lifting cautiously until that luminous green-gold gaze pinned Hayden hard. Speared him through the chest, the very soul. “I want you, though, Garrett. Promise you that. I’m just a little clueless. And…well, nervous as shit, frankly.”
Hayden couldn’t help it; he beamed. Josh wanted him and badly.
With his admission on the table, Josh’s sideways grin spread a little wider, and he went back to tugging on his jacket zipper.
“Nervous as shit, huh?” Hayden repeated with a laugh.
“Uh…yeah. And horny as hell, too.” Josh stared at the floor, still smiling.
Suddenly Hayden understood what had never become clear until that exact moment. Joshua’s odd little smile wasn’t smug or cocksure, not even close. All these years and Hayden had been reading the guy totally wrong.
Damn. Joshua Peterson was shy. Incredibly shy.
Hayden couldn’t help it, but he began to laugh and Josh’s eyes narrowed. “You’re laughing at me?” The blush in his cheeks deepened to true crimson.
“Oh, no, baby. I’m laughing at me.” He moved straight to where Josh leaned against the counter and cupped him beneath the chin. “Just never saw it coming.”
Josh tilted his head sideways, a wolf’s expression of quizzical confusion. “Saw…what coming?”
Hayden bent down, brushing his lips against Josh’s with a very soft kiss. Tangling his fingers through the guy’s unruly, damp hair, he murmured, “This shy streak of yours, Joshua, it’s sexy as hell.”
Josh growled, wrapping his arms about Hayden’s neck and deepening their kiss greedily. Then after a breath-stealing moment, one where their tongues warred and twined, where Hayden pushed his hips flush up against Josh’s until their groins pressed together hard, Josh broke the kiss. Looking up into Hayden’s eyes, he murmured, “I’m not that shy.”
Hayden grinned in satisfaction. You never threw down a gauntlet to an Alpha wolf. Not if you didn’t want very decisive results.
Josh was shaking all on the inside, and it was all he could do to keep those tremors from moving to the outside.
Garrett had him up against the counter, hands winding all through Josh’s long, waving hair, hard body pinning him in place. But Josh, much as he wanted every damned touch of Garrett’s, just couldn’t stop shaking.
Hayden obviously picked up on those feelings because he hesitated, breaking their kiss. “What we need,” Hayden offered in a knowing, gentle tone, “is some booze. To take the edge off.”
Josh splayed his palms against Hayden’s chest. “I’ve got whiskey.”
“That’ll do.”
“I’m not a freak, man,” Josh said, feeling embarrassed that he’d been hit with such a bout of nerves. “It’s just my—”
Hayden stroked a thumb across Josh’s lower lip, finishing the statement. “Your first time with another man.”
“I’ve been with women. Just so you know.” Josh tilted his head up proudly, defiantly. “I’m not inexperienced in bed.”
“Still, for tonight, Joshua?” Hayden backed away, opening a cabinet, already looking for the liquor. “Tonight you’re a virgin. My virgin.”
Josh turned and retrieved two very large shot glasses, and pulled down a big bottle of whiskey. He had a feeling he was going to need it.
Hayden followed Josh down a small hallway, both men silent. Yet electric expectation seemed to crackle in the quiet atmosphere between them. When Josh reached the first doorway, he nudged open the door with his booted foot and stepped back with a gesture of playful gallantry.
“After you, Garrett.” He didn’t look up or meet Hayden’s eyes, but swept a hand toward the room’s interior. “My digs.”
“The sacred chamber,” Hayden said, slowly entering the room. And how long have I dreamed of getting in here. A fluttering sensation swept through the center of his belly. It was no time to get nervous, not tonight. Not when it was Joshua’s first time.
The bedroom was plainly decorated and neat as any military officer’s might be, as if awaiting inspection. The tidiness of the small room didn’t shock him, but the walls of the space sure did. There were floor to ceiling bookshelves lined with a diverse selection of novels and books. He’d always known Josh was smart—he’d learned that much firsthand in high school—but somehow Hayden figured the other wolf wouldn’t have much to do with books.
“You like to read,” Hayden observed and it wasn’t a question. “No, let me correct that. I think you love to read.”
“So do you.”
Hayden walked to the first bookshelf, running his fingertips along the row of volumes, fascinated to see how closely their tastes intersected. “You have always surprised the hell out of me, Joshua.”
“Like tonight?” Josh’s question was throaty, full of sexual intensity.
Hayden swallowed, keeping his back to the other Alpha. Damn if he wasn’t the one who’d begun shaking, quite literally, in his snow boots.
“Especially tonight,” he agreed, struggling to rein in his physical reaction.
He heard the bedroom door close, and turned to find Josh leaning against it, both hand
s pressed behind his lower back. He stood there with an air of finality and resolve, all his earlier nervousness gone. Yet his face was even more flushed than it had been in the kitchen, red blotches high on his defined, sculpted cheekbones.
Josh had deposited the whiskey bottle and pair of shot glasses on his wooden bureau, and as Hayden stared at the dresser, he thought about Josh keeping his clothes inside the damned thing. Instantly he recalled the man’s fresh, earthy smell, how it was like the woods after a spring rain. Hayden was certain the flannel shirts, and jeans, and long underwear Josh kept in his bureau would carry the same delicious scent.
Josh pushed off the door, and removed his stocking cap, tossing it onto the center of the bed as if it were a choice prize. As if were marking the bed as the prime circus ring…no, as if they were about to box or wrestle and that simple wool hat was the physical invitation.
The front of Hayden’s pants drew tight, instantly uncomfortable and too constricting as his mind provided a visual of Joshua’s naked, sculpted body in the center of the bed, not his cap. Of diving forward for the true prize, the man who he’d secretly loved and desired for years now.
Neither spoke, but Josh moved to sit on the edge of the bed, removing first one boot, then the other. As if he meant to do nothing so much as get truly down to business. Now it was Hayden who stood, a little paralyzed by the moment, watching Josh from the side of the room. Hayden had to swallow hard as he noticed that Josh’s hair was still damp from their tussle in the snow. Or perhaps it was wet from how sweaty they’d gotten while making out in the truck? Either way, Hayden grew even harder realizing it was his touch, his kisses that had caused Josh to become so disheveled.
The memory of how incredibly intimate they’d gotten quashed his own bout of nerves and he moved toward the bed decisively, stripping out of his sweatshirt as he went. Josh glanced up, eyes widening first, then growing bright, otherworldly. And Hayden was absolutely transfixed by the beauty of those golden-green irises, the flecks of light blue and amber—and the way Josh dropped his long black lashes low as he studied Hayden’s bare chest.