He didn’t get to say it aloud, though, because one big bad wolf was drawing him forward. One strong arm looped around his waist, the other cupping the back of Cam’s head. Trace’s kiss almost buckled his knees. The way he worked his tongue over Cam’s, the slight tug when he sucked Cam’s tongue. Thank God he didn’t have to speak because his voice was gone.
‘Thank you for saving my life back there, Cameron,’ Trace whispered, pressing closer. They were pressed tight together – front to front – hard-ons touching. Cameron wondered if they stayed this way would their heartbeats synch up?
He didn’t get to answer Trace, because as soon as the wolf said it, he pressed his mouth against Cameron’s again and deepened the kiss. There went his hands again, trailing slippery lines over the broad chest. Cam let his hand rest over the steady beat of the wolf’s heart. He curled his fingers against slick skin even as he licked the bigger man’s lip. That soft touch ripped a growl out of the wolf and he pressed Cam to the wall.
‘You make me nuts, you know. You don’t make sense. You’re such a nice, gentle man and yet you run hot blue with lightning of all things. You don’t know any of us from Adam and you come to help. Want to help.’ His bulk pressed Cam to the wall of the shower; cool tile kissed his back.
‘Here?’ Cam asked, unable to suppress a smile.
‘Here,’ Trace rasped. His hands slipped behind Cam, teasing the sensitive skin along his sides before finally reaching out to grab his ass. Hard. Effectively pinning them against each other in the most intimate of ways. Trace’s hard cock pressed to Cam’s belly and Cameron found it hard to catch a breath between the friction and the steam and the kiss.
‘Good,’ he managed, and that was all as thick, strong fingers wrapped around his cock. Stroking him until his body seemed to vibrate with the need to stand taller or simply buckle. It was a bizarre but blissful feeling and Cam sighed into the wolf’s mouth.
‘Turn around.’ Trace turned him roughly. Just rough enough to heat Cam’s blood. To make his pulse beat as if trying to escape his skin.
Trace’s fingers trickled down his back like the water, the fingertips dancing on each knob of Cam’s spine. It made him shiver, the almost gentle touch after the rough turn. Those same fingers tickled along the small of his back, before fingers became palms smoothing down over his backside. Trace laughed softly and squeezed gently. ‘Have I told you that you have quite a fine ass?’
‘No.’ Cam gulped.
‘Well you do. Outside …’ There was another gentle caress and then a finger slipping into his hole, stretching him. ‘Inside,’ Trace finished.
That intimate insinuation of just a single digit had Cam panting. He pushed back to open himself, make room for another finger or, hopefully, something more substantial.
He moaned before he realised he was doing it. Had a wild moment of panic that the priest would come down and hear them. Something told him Father Finn didn’t interfere in people’s lives. Or spy.
‘Yes,’ Cameron said, biting off any more words from spilling out of his mouth. Yes was all he really had to say. The only real sentiment he had to convey, so he simply swallowed down the waterfall of the same word over and over to push back, greeting a second finger being forced into his willing body.
‘So tight,’ Trace growled in his ear. His teeth raked over that soft flesh, his tone enough to make Cam’s cock even harder than it was – something he felt impossible.
The water rushed down over them, and Cameron remembered seeing this man being tugged under. Seeing him taken, seeing him struggle, feeling the terror all over again. A sob floated out of him and he tried to gulp it back. Too late.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No, no.’ Cam shook his head. ‘I’m … sorry.’
Trace grew still, patient. ‘You’re what? We don’t have to do this –’
Cameron blurted it out before he lost his never. ‘I was just remembering. Seeing you go under. Being afraid … So afraid.’
‘Tentacled beasts are scary,’ Trace said, removing his fingers and running the broad head of his cock against Cam’s ass. It felt good. Almost too good. Cam moaned again, and again it twisted itself into almost a sad kind of sound.
‘Tell me,’ Trace said, pushing but not hard enough to penetrate.
‘Not afraid of it. Afraid for you. Afraid I’d never …’ He shook his head. Eyes stinging. Trace would think him a fool. Some kind of clingy waif of a man.
‘Never what? Tell me.’ He pushed again. The very tip of his cock spreading flesh, penetrating just enough for that sweet, stinging jolt of pleasure. Cam’s eyes slammed shut and he held his breath. Waiting. Wanting to be filled.
‘Never see you again. That’s what scared me. Not the beast. Not anything else, just seeing you pulled under and thinking – fearing – that was it for us.’
‘I just found you,’ Trace reminded him. He leant in and there was another slow drag of flesh on flesh as he pushed into Cameron. His hand snaked around to find Cam’s hard-on and he slid his fingers along the shaft, lingering like the feel of it was heaven to him.
All the words died in Cam’s throat. Swallowed up by the sensation of those fingers playing over the length of him, sweeping wetly across the top of him. He let himself thrust just a little into that waiting hand as Trace pressed even deeper into him from behind. He was full of the wolf. Not just physically, but mentally too, and yes, his heart seemed to swell to the point of almost bursting from just being with him.
This, right here, was more dangerous than any monster from beyond. This emotion was more volatile than any dynamite, more deadly than any weapon. And it felt so good to embrace it: that swell of caring, that rush of … something more.
He hung his head and bit his lip and let Trace take him, relaxing his body to ease the bigger man’s way. Falling backwards into the constant thrum of lust that was always in him when the wolf was around. Even after he’d pulled him free of the water under the falls and the sheriff and Eliot had come crashing up, he’d noticed how wet and vulnerable Trace was and he’d wanted to help. But not just help. He’d wanted him.
‘Good?’ Trace whispered, his mouth pressed up tight to Cameron’s ear so he could hear the words above the rushing hiss of the shower.
Cameron could only nod. He curled his fingers to the thick forearm locked around his waist. The contact during total surrender was the final step in what felt like a complete circuit. If he were an electronics geek, he could explain the complex and yet simple workings of a circuit. He wasn’t. Instead he understood instinctually that rush of you touching me, touching you, circle of contact.
The water turned cold and they both let out shocked sounds. And then Trace was chuckling – a sound that never failed to send arousal skittering along Cam’s skin – before pulling free.
‘Don’t worry. Not done with you,’ he growled. He cut the water and held back the curtain. The small bathroom was a churning landscape of mist and steam.
Trace pushed him by his shoulders and Cam sank to his knees. He didn’t think twice about doing it, parting his lips and moving forward to take him, but Trace shook his head. ‘No, Cameron. Face away from me. Belly up to that tub, boy.’
Cam moved in a stunned sort of fog. But it was fine, it was good. He’d do just about whatever Trace wanted as long as he made him feel that way only he could. He pressed his belly to the cool porcelain, his fingers flat to the wet bottom of the tub. Trace got on his knees behind him, pressing his body to Cameron’s without entering him. Every beat of Cam’s heart was accentuated by the chill of the tub beneath his belly. He felt his pulse thump through his body – every vessel, every cell.
Trace draped his body over Cam’s, moving in short, sharp bursts that forced Cam’s cock to the cold tub. It was blissful and horrible and wonderful and he feared he’d come like a teenager with a hair trigger.
‘Don’t you dare come,’ Trace said gruffly.
When he said that, it made it all the worse. Trying not to. Worrying
he would. Keeping him on edge and panting, fingers curling against slick porcelain and doing him no good at all.
Trace thrust hard once, twice, a final time, and he grunted roughly as he came. His teeth scraping a hot line along Cam’s shoulder.
‘Good boy,’ Trace said in his ear, his breath short from the orgasm. He rolled his hips side to side, thrust lazily even as he softened and then withdrew. ‘Now stand up.’
Cameron stood slowly on shaky legs. His cock so hard it hurt, his heart so full it hurt too, but in an entirely different way. It really didn’t matter if he ca –
‘Turn around now.’ Trace was still on his knees and the realisation and the full impact of what he hoped beyond hope that meant hit Cameron. His face went unbearably warm. So warm he actually reached up to touch his burning cheeks.
‘Shut your eyes.’
He shut his eyes, though he didn’t want to. But he did it, anyway. Because Trace had asked. The moment the wolf’s tongue touched the tip of Cam’s cock, he had to curl his toes into the meagre bathmat to keep from coming. The slow and maddening drag of a humid mouth down his shaft had him reaching desperately for nothing. He finally put his hands up and grasped the metal bar that held the shower curtain.
Trace worked him slowly at first, almost daring him, with his tongue, to come. Cam shook with an effort not to. Mostly because he didn’t know if he was allowed, but also because he wanted so very much to make this last.
When his breath kept stilling in his lungs and his body seemed to run all over with a fine tremor, Trace breathed against his skin, ‘You can open them.’
Cameron opened his eyes and took him in – big, broad, beautiful beyond belief. More beautiful than he ever felt he deserved. His breath hitched.
‘When you’re ready, you may come. And you can keep your eyes open.’
It didn’t take long once he was allowed to watch. That mouth, often set in an almost-frown, drawing down the length of him. His cock disappearing an inch at a time into the recesses of wet comfort. Cameron clutched the overhead bar, gasping, driving forward just enough to give his body some control. He hoped the bar held, he hoped Trace didn’t mind, he hoped –
All of it bled away from hope into happiness as his body called the shots and let go. He came with a small sigh, giving in to what he was feeling fully. Not holding anything back.
He watched Trace lick him clean, thinking certainly he’d lost his mind and started hallucinating. And then the wolf was looking up, leering at him in a way that made him want to do it all over again. ‘So,’ Trace growled. ‘Are you hungry?’
Chapter Twenty
‘Brick oven pizza!’ Father Finn proclaimed. He set down a big wooden serving board bearing two pizzas; one laden with olives, peppers, sausage, and more, one just copious amounts of gorgeous melted cheese and what looked like fresh basil.
‘Smells great. What time is it, Father?’ Cam followed the question with a loud yawn. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured as Trace chuckled.
‘Oh, about eight. Wine? Oh wait, can you –?’
‘He’s fine,’ Trace said, eating his first slice in three big bites.
‘Isn’t that hot?’ Cam asked. He was gaping. He couldn’t help it. Steam curled off the pizza in long, white ribbons. How in the world had he eaten that? Did wolves have asbestos mouths?
Father chuckled and handed them each a glass of wine. ‘He does that all the time. Not sure how he has any taste buds left.’
Cameron shook his head and sipped his wine while he waited for his pizza to cool. ‘I’m beat. I feel like I’ve been going for days. Though I know it’s the opposite.’
‘It’s quite understandable. Your body went through a trauma,’ Finn said, seating himself across from them. He slid a piece of pizza onto his plate and blew on it. ‘So, what do you think of our fair town, Cameron? Besides the monsters and the near-death experiences.’
His eyes twinkled when he smiled, and Cameron found himself snorting with laughter. ‘Besides that, I think it’s lovely.’
Trace grabbed a second slice of steaming pizza and pressed his thigh against Cameron’s under the table. The contact made a thousand dirty thoughts – some of them memories – rush through Cam’s head. He cleared his throat. ‘What do you know about Batts Dunn, Father?’
‘You can just call me Finn,’ the priest said.
‘My grandmother would roll over in her grave and then come haunt me until I apologised,’ Cameron said.
‘Ah well, best to stick with Father, then. I know that Batts loves water. I know that Batts is friendly, drinks a bit too much, and has a lovely home that he doesn’t mind sharing. He’s basically a normal man. As we all are, here,’ he said, scratching his chin.
‘I wasn’t implying –’
‘Oh, I know,’ Finn said. ‘I know, son. Now eat. You look pale.’
‘We’re worried about him, is all,’ Trace cut in. ‘He’s missing, Father. His house is empty and he’s the only one of us who was up at the falls regularly. And after that thing pulled me under …’
Finn nodded, taking a bite of his food. He sat back and sighed. ‘I am very grateful that you’re OK, Trace. I’m very grateful you both are. I don’t know what to say about this newest development.’
Cameron, who’d had more than one bad experience with religious types who proclaimed judgment on God’s behalf for various reasons, didn’t know what to think. He asked softly, ‘You don’t think this is God’s judgment?’ He tried not to let his voice shake.
Finn looked surprised. ‘No. I don’t. God did not stand in The Den and chant and use magic to call these things up. God had nothing to do with this. Humans seeking power did. Usually, that’s how things go when they go wrong.’
Cam nodded. Good to know. The father was not a negative nay-sayer who blamed all the world’s woes on those not adhering to God’s supposed rules. He blew out a breath and ate his pizza.
‘I think we should go back tomorrow,’ Trace said, squeezing his leg under the table.
The exhaustion that flooded Cam was staggering. It was all he could handle, now that the adrenaline had left him, to keep from putting his head down on the table.
‘Not to sound like a broken record, but you look worn out,’ Finn said. ‘Let me make you a tray and Trace can carry it down for you.’
Cam thought about protesting, but his body – fatigued like it had never been – decided for him. He gave a quick nod before he could stop himself. ‘Thank you, Father.’
‘Of course.’
Trace had dropped him into bed and that had been that. Cam felt himself slipping into sleep almost immediately. The wolf dropped into the chair and started eating the pizza.
‘You staying?’ Cam asked, hoping the answer was yes, but not wanting to show it.
‘For a bit,’ Trace had said and then, ‘Shh.’
Cam had fallen asleep immediately after “Shh”.
And now, in the morning light, he saw before feeling the giant arm draped around him. Cameron studied the espresso coloured hair, the way Trace’s wrists were both delicate and manly at the same time. How broad the wolf’s thumb was, how scarred his knuckles were. How he breathed in steady, deep waves and how the air from his exhalations tickled the back of Cam’s neck.
Cameron craned his neck to see that Trace was indeed on top of the comforter while he was under it. The rectory had air conditioning, and considering the rooms were underground anyway, they got quite cool in the night.
He strained to see what Trace was wearing – praying it was nothing. It turned out to be his boxers and socks and nothing more. Apparently that was a good look for the wolf because Cam’s cock got hard just looking.
‘What are you staring at me for?’ Trace growled without opening his eyes. He did give a small smile when Cam started.
‘Jesus, stop scaring me like that!’ His heart thundered and his mouth was dry. The man had truly looked asleep. He was good at playing possum. The fear turned into a low, but still nervous, buzzing of excitement i
n his bones.
‘You really have to stop calling me Jesus,’ Trace said right in his ear. He held Cam’s hip in his big hand and pushed forward so that Cam could feel the wolf’s hard-on nestling neatly against his ass crack.
‘How about God that feels good?’ Cam teased. He liked that he felt comfortable enough to do that. They’d been intimate more than once, had even grown closer, but something about Trace – something in Trace – still felt at arm’s length. He swallowed hard. ‘Why are you on top of the blankets?’
The wolf shrugged, but his lips brushed the back of Cam’s neck making all the fine hairs stand on end. A charge ran up Cameron’s skin and under his hair to make his scalp tingle. A familiar, yet odd, sensation given it had nothing to do with lightning this time.
‘Because,’ Trace said, ‘you didn’t invite me into your bed. I just decided I wanted to be there. It seemed the right thing to do.’
Cam shook his head. ‘You’re nuts. I want you –’ he licked his lips ‘– under the covers with me.’
‘They’ll be here soon to talk. To make a plan,’ Trace said, dragging his tongue along the nape of Cam’s neck. When Cam shivered, he chuckled. It was a dark, teasing laugh. ‘What if we don’t have time?’ His hand came around to grip Cam’s erection, it pressed eagerly to the thin comforter. When he squeezed gently, all the air left Cameron’s lungs.
‘We make time,’ he managed.
‘If you say so.’ The wolf moved swiftly under the comforter and then there was barely any barrier between them. Trace’s cock, made even silkier by the over-washed cotton of his boxers, pressed the cleft of Cam’s ass.
‘Why do you have those on?’
‘Why do you have these on?’ Trace countered, slipping a finger beneath Cameron’s boxer-brief waistband to touch his skin.
‘Take them off me,’ Cam said by way of an answer.
‘Oh, I like it when you boss me around,’ Trace said. He leant over enough for Cameron to see his face. He was smiling. ‘Off with these, then.’ He helped Cam wriggle free of his underwear and they went sailing across the room.
Beast in Me (The Divination Falls Trilogy) Page 12