Copyright © 2020 by Eliot Grayson
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by Fiona Jayde
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eliotgrayson.com
Contents
Chapter 1: Ian
Chapter 2: Arik
Chapter 3: Matthew
Chapter 4: Ian
Chapter 5: Nate
Chapter 6: Matthew & Ian
Read book one in the Mismatched Mates series, The Alpha’s Warlock…
Now available: Captive Mate, book two in the Mismatched Mates series…
Get in Touch
Acknowledgements
Also by Eliot Grayson
For all of my darling Escapees!
Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah, winter, New Year, and anything else you choose to celebrate! Whatever holiday you like the best, may you be free of zombies.
Chapter 1
Ian
“A little help?” Nate said irritably, turning to glare at me over his shoulder. “All those alpha muscles ought to be good for something!”
He startled me out of my fugue, and I blinked at my red-faced mate, who was sweating even though the temperature had dropped to near-freezing and the air smelled like snow. Nate had needed to bend over really, really far to load the trunk of Matt’s Prius. And then wriggle around. A lot. With his ass in the air, waving back and forth hypnotically. I hadn’t even noticed he’d been struggling to shut the trunk and cursing under his breath until he brought me back to the present and I rewound the last couple minutes in my head. I’d been too focused on how someone so thin could have such a round ass.
Magic? Nate used magic. Would he use magic on his own ass? Would he let me watch?
“Your fault for not wanting to bring a real car,” I said, trying to distract him from the bulge in the front of my jeans. My mate and my brother both had shitty taste in cars, and they ganged up on me. Especially since Nate hated my driving. Arguing some more about the car was sure to distract him. He’d never let me hear the end of it if he caught me getting that hard in a hardware store’s parking lot. Especially standing next to a Prius.
On the other hand, trying to stuff that many light-up candy canes into my Barracuda would’ve been fucking sacrilege, so maybe it was just as well. Christmas. We didn’t do Christmas.
Until Nate came along. Now, apparently, we did Christmas on steroids.
“Real car,” Nate huffed. “Real piece of — eep,” he finished, as I crowded him up against the car and loomed at him.
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you.”
Nate batted his eyelashes, giving me teasing glimpses of his mischievous dark eyes. I’d have suspected he used magic on those, too, if I hadn’t seen both his eyes and his ass under circumstances where he didn’t have any magic to spare. They were naturally that fucking amazing.
“What are you going to do, Ian? Bite me? Throw me over your shoulder and drag me off somewhere to do unspeakable things to me?”
“Been there, done that, got the magical socks,” I grunted. I tried to scowl at him, but the way my hands had found their way to his waist and started tracing little gentle circles probably made that a losing deal.
“Mmm,” Nate hummed, relaxing under my touch. “Help me fit all this stuff in here and close the trunk and then set up the candy canes along the driveway and put up that Santa,” he said in a rush, like I’d miss the details if he hurried, “and you can do unspeakable things to me all night.”
I looked over his shoulder at the sheer volume of fucking candy canes. And the inflatable Santa. Fuck, did I even have the right kind of pump in the garage? Did I need one? And the boxes and boxes of jumbo-sized all-weather rainbow-hued ornaments he claimed were going on the trees in front of the pack house. And the strings of lights, like a dozen of them. Why? Jesus fucking Christ. Our pack barely had money for the utility bills, let alone this kind of thing. We definitely wouldn’t be able to afford electricity after he plugged all that shit in. Nate had paid for it all out of what he’d earned with his freelance warlock business, and that rankled even more. I ought to be able to provide for him. Even if he wanted red-and-green plastic crap covered in fairy lights.
“Setting those up will take all night. How stupid do you think I am?” Nate stretched up and nibbled the side of my neck, rubbing his body against my half-hard cock like the little tease he was. “That stupid, okay,” I grumbled. “Yeah. Okay. But really, really unspeakable. I’m tying you up so you can’t try to get out of it.”
Nate’s eyes gleamed. “Promises, promises.”
I got the trunk shut in record time, and in spite of how much I hated this fucking car, I insisted on driving, dangling the keys over my head out of Nate’s reach until he stopped hopping around and gave up. If Nate took the wheel, we’d get home two stops for coffee and a million years of following the speed limit later.
He sulked most of the way, but brightened up when we pulled off the main road and into the long, winding driveway that led from the pack territory’s boundary to the main compound and the pack house.
“There’s a lot of driveway,” he said with glee. “Lots and lots and lots of driveway. Good thing I got a lot of candy canes!” And then as soon as we pulled up at the house he leapt out, grabbed an armful of non-driveway decorations, and ran inside, calling out, “Put the Santa up out in the back yard, and have fun!” over his shoulder.
Oh, he was so going to fucking get it. I adjusted my cock a little so it wasn’t pressing against my zipper and got to work.
***
Four hours later, I stomped up the steps to the little house I shared with Nate and flung the door open. Even with my alpha metabolism, I’d gotten chilled — except my feet, because magical socks — and I was dirty and tired and grouchy.
The sight of Nate curled up on the couch wrapped in a blanket, all warm and cozy and sipping from a mug of what smelled like whiskey-spiked hot chocolate, didn’t help. Little bastard. He raised his eyebrows at me and grinned over the top of his mug.
This one said My mate has a giant candy cane on the side, and it looked like he’d Sharpie’d it right before he made his cocoa.
My annoyance spiked, and then washed away in an instant. Yeah, Nate had left me to do all the work by myself. But if he’d tried to help me, I’d have sent him inside out of the cold anyway.
And seeing him here, in my house — our house — safe and warm and alive, after all the shit we’d been through…okay, yeah. There honestly wasn’t anything I’d prefer in the whole world.
Except one thing. But shower first. I kissed the top of his head on my way to the bathroom.
When I came out, clean and warm, Nate had moved from the couch to the bed. I’d ditched the towel in the bathroom, and so I didn’t have anything to hide how my cock went from relaxed to standing straight up in a millisecond.
Nate wasn’t wearing anything particularly seductive, and he wasn’t doing more than just lounging there, in a t-shirt and boxers I recognized as mine — because he stole my clothes so often I’d stopped keeping track, even though nothing fit him.
But I’d never seen anything so fucking gorgeous.
And okay, my clothes were seductive on him. Because wearing my clothes, and lying in my bed, he couldn’t possibly have been more mine. And I’d never thought I’d have him. He’d had a thing with my now-deceased cousin, and that had only been the icing on the Nate-hates-Ian cake.
I’d changed his mind eventually.
Two strides and a leap, and I landed on top of him,
catching most of my weight on my hands on either side of his head and making the bed thump and creak. A snapping sound followed after a second, vibrating through the mattress.
“Damn it, Ian,” Nate said through his laughter, his hands coming up to brace against my shoulders. “We can’t afford a new bed.”
“Return the inflatable Santa.” God, I hoped he returned the inflatable Santa. That fat red-suited bastard had taken me at least forty-five minutes, and he was still tipping to one side like a drunkard. Fixing it would be on my to-do list for the morning, I just knew it.
“Not a chance. If it makes you feel better, I had you put it up in the back so that it’s right outside Matthew and Arik’s window, and Arik can see it first thing when he gets up every morning until New Year’s.”
Ah, Arik. My brother Matt’s mate, necromancer, slippery fucker, and of all things, a cat.
That did make me feel a lot better.
“Can you magic it up so it flips him off with both hands?”
Nate slid his hands over my chest and around my back, stroking with his fingertips and making me shiver. He grinned at me. “Sometimes your ideas aren’t all bad, you know that? Sometimes. Rarely. I can probably make that happen.”
Nate told me he loved me sometimes, though he didn’t say it all that often. He’d apologized for the way he used to call me all kinds of names, and insult me, and tell me I was an idiot.
But he still teased me enough that I wondered which was true. He could love me but still kind of, like, tolerate me at the same time, right? You didn’t have to think someone was perfect to love them. And I hid it, but it still stung.
Because I thought he was perfect, no matter what faults he might objectively have.
And it also made me wonder what to believe, even after nine months of having Nate as my mate.
I had one ace up my sleeve, though — one way to even the playing field, even though Nate was almost always a step ahead of me.
I lowered myself down, letting the head of my cock nudge between his legs, pushing behind his balls and showing him what was coming next. Nate tipped his head back and moaned, parting his thighs and giving me more room to work. His cock rose, tenting the front of my stolen boxers, which sat loose enough on him to give it plenty of room.
His hands flailed over my shoulder blades.
Right. I’d promised to tie him up, and I liked to keep my promises.
“Hold still,” I said in his ear, and licked a stripe up his neck. “I’m going to get some rope.”
Nate did go still under me, but not in the I’m obeying your orders, alpha sexy kind of way. I left his neck alone so I could take a look at his face. He was biting his lip, looking guilty. Guilty?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m — I trust you. Just. It sounded fun earlier. But I’m still not really — it kind of freaks me out.”
Oh. Right. I got that.
Thinking about the way we’d both almost died when his insane father came back from the not-dead-enough to try to steal Nate’s magic for himself kind of freaked me out, too. And Nate — fuck, I never wanted him to be that scared again. He’d almost died a second time, when Arik’s past had come calling, but I was the one who’d been scared shitless that time. That had honestly been worse, but for Nate, nothing compared to that night we’d spent in the Kimball pack’s barn being tortured and evilly monologued at by the worst parent a warlock could have.
My claws through Jonathan Hawthorne’s spine had felt pretty fucking good, not gonna lie. Not for him, obviously.
“Okay,” I said, nudging Nate’s nose with mine and kissing his cheek. “No rope.”
“You can hold me down, if you want,” Nate said. “You know, if it’s not too much trouble?”
“How’s that better than rope?”
“Even when I close my eyes, I know it’s you.”
That made my heart give an embarrassing, girly little quiver, and I covered it by growling, “Oh, you’ll know it’s me.” I flipped him over like a pancake, earning a squeak and a flail. He managed to kick me in the side.
I didn’t care. I had him under me, his ass sticking up in the air and his head down in the pillows, and maybe I wouldn’t be tying him up — but he owed me for the candy canes.
Seriously, he’d been such a brat about the goddamn candy canes.
A total brat. With his ass sticking up in the air. My hand tingled.
Too much? Maybe. I couldn’t always tell with Nate, even after a while of paying pretty fucking close attention. And I didn’t want to push him.
“If putting up a few decorations wore you out too much, I can get myself off,” Nate said, muffled a little by the pillow, but his laughter still more than clear enough. “Maybe you should work out more.”
Never mind.
I had his wrists pinned at the small of his back a second later, and yanked down the boxers with my other hand, leaving his ass bare between the hem of the t-shirt and the boxers around his thighs.
I stroked it slowly, savoring the smoothness under my hand. God, it was so fucking hot. And round. And soft. I could eat him out instead, make him scream and hump the mattress and beg me for my knot inside him. I spread him open with my thumb, staring at that perfect pink hole.
All mine. And I knew how good he’d taste. He always did, everywhere.
Four dozen light-up candy canes…
I brought my hand down hard, smacking his left cheek and making it bounce.
“Fuck! Ian, what the fuck —” I spanked the other side, leaving a matching handprint. “Ian, what are you — ohhh,” he moaned, as I moved back to the left for another smack, and then rubbed my thumb over his hole.
He tried to pull his arms out of my grip, but he didn’t have a chance. And he wasn’t trying that hard, anyway. I knew a lot of Nate’s tells by now, and he was struggling for the fun of it.
Mostly. He actually tried to get away for real when I spanked him three more times in quick succession, the impacts echoing in the quiet cabin like gunshots.
If I didn’t move things along, I was going to knot the empty air in a second. Fuck. I’d never actually hurt Nate. But his little cries and his jiggling ass and the way he couldn’t get away from me set something off in the back of my brain, some asshole alpha part of me that usually got its kicks from fistfights.
But when he stopped fighting me, I knew it was time to stop. I smoothed my hand over one cheek and then the other, loving the heat blooming on his skin, loving him.
It swelled up in my chest, that feeling, almost to bursting. I’d never loved anything or anyone as much as I loved him. Too much. I loved him too much, more than I could stand. I leaned down and nuzzled between his cheeks, finding the center with the tip of my tongue. Nate lay perfectly still and limp, letting out a broken little moan.
I teased his hole, licking in circles, holding him open with the hand that wasn’t still locked around his wrists. I didn’t need to pin him down anymore, but — I still needed to. I needed to know he wasn’t going anywhere.
When he started rocking his hips, I couldn’t wait anymore. He tasted like heat and mate and sweetness, and I licked my lips as I rose up again, chasing the flavor of him. He’d left the lube sitting on the bed, subtle as always, and I coated my fingers and opened him the rest of the way as quickly as I could. His panting breaths gave me a rhythm to work to. When I found his prostate and rubbed, we both moaned.
Sliding inside him knocked the wind out of me, like it always did. I pulled him onto my cock by my grip on his wrists, his shoulders straining as it lifted his torso off the bed. I could only catch a glimpse of his face, twisted in pleasure and a little pain, his lips reddened and swollen. He’d been biting them, and as I watched, he dug his teeth into his lower lip again.
I let go of his arms, letting him drop down to the bed, and grabbed his hips.
And then I fucked him so hard the mattress slid on the box spring, slamming into the wall over and over again and rattling the dishes in the kitchen cabinet a fe
w feet away.
My whole body felt like a live wire, fizzing and crackling and shooting sparks everywhere. The mate bond hummed between us, letting me feel how much he wanted it. Echoes of my hand striking his ass, twined with the way I’d gone so deep in him he almost couldn’t breathe…and the swell of my knot, starting to push its way into him, stretching him so wide that when I pulled back to thrust again, I could see inside him, hot and wet and open.
I lunged forward and filled him up, and he screamed, loud enough to bring the neighbors running if we’d had any.
I gritted my teeth, trying not to come yet. He was close. I could feel it. Alphas did not come before their mates, fuck…and then my knot forced its way inside, and his back bowed as he clenched around me and shook, clawing at the bed.
Coming felt like twisting into a knot myself, starting in my balls and moving up through the base of my cock. I filled him up, coming even harder thinking about how much I’d pumped into his slim little body. Mine. All fucking mine, from the inside out.
I dropped down over him, breathing so hard I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a second.
He still had the shirt on. I needed his skin. I’d gotten better, with lots of practice, at keeping my claws in check while we fucked, but I carefully popped one out of my index finger, slipped it under the collar of the shirt, and sliced it down the middle of his back.
Come to think of it, this probably explained why Nate always borrowed my clothes instead of wearing his own.
Fucking sneaky little bastard.
I couldn’t care, though, because when I pushed the cloth aside, there was Nate’s long, slender back, shining with sweat and silky-smooth. I settled my head next to his, chin hooked over his shoulder, letting out a groan of satisfaction as my chest pressed against his bare skin.
“I love you,” I whispered against his ear. “Love you so fucking much.”
He tightened his muscles even more around my knot. It made me flinch and groan, so much fucking pleasure that it turned into almost-discomfort.
A Very Armitage Christmas Page 1