Striped

by Barnette, Abigail

  The door opened and Mitchell waved them inside. “It’s pouring out.”

  “We were enjoying it,” Jason said, winking and shrugging a shoulder.

  “I should probably get going,” Sean said as he ducked under the eaves. “Thanks for a great time, guys.”

  “Thank you,” Mitchell said, pulling Sean in for a hug. He slapped him on the back and released him, so that Jason could hug him as well.

  That threw him for a loop, and a lingering feeling of weirdness clung to him long after they’d said their good-byes and he’d started the drive home. The rain had dried as suddenly as it had started, and the sun was up by the time he pulled onto his road. Though he was exhausted, he knew he wouldn’t get to sleep right away. He’d never had a casual fuck that had ended with hugs and a genuine feeling of friendship. Usually, it was a one-off that would never happen again. But they had made it seem like they would want to do it again.

  He would, too. It was difficult enough not to turn the car around and go back. The only thing that called him away was his tiger, straining to get out. After all that submission, he had to run, had to get it out of his system.

  He was almost home when he pulled the truck over and hopped out, stripping off his clothes violently as he broke into a run at the tree line. He didn’t care who saw. He didn’t care if someone who was a non-shifter saw him running in tiger form and took a shot at him. He needed this wildness after behaving himself for so long.

  He picked up a scent on the wind. Something…no. He couldn’t cause trouble, not when he’d given Mitchell and Jason his word. They’d warned him one last time. They could kick him out of the only community he’d ever felt truly comfortable in, if not actually a part of. He probably wouldn’t get another chance.

  But it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

  You don’t need to ask permission in the first place. Who are these guys to tell you how to live your life? Who are you, if you’re going to listen to them?

  He took off into the woods.

  Chapter Nine

  “Damnit!”

  Jason looked up from his laptop and watched as Mitchell paced back and forth behind the couch. The muscles of his bare back rippled, and he growled, sounding dangerously like the big cat he shifted into. Jason gently reminded him, “Not in the house, please.”

  Mitchell rounded the end of the sofa and dropped onto the cushions, adjusting the knees of his linen lounge pants. “He did it again.”

  Jason’s stomach dropped. “Already?”

  “I trusted him,” Mitchell said, pinching the bridge of his nose. When it came to Gwinn Close, he took failures personally, even ones he had no control over.

  “The sex thing isn’t guaranteed to work for everyone, you know,” Jason said, trying to keep the mood light. He was already disappointed enough in Sean’s behavior; he didn’t want to become bogged down in Mitchell’s misplaced guilt. “He made his choice, Mitchell. Now, I guess we just deal with it.”

  Mitchell’s mouth tightened. “You know I can’t kick him out. I could never…we’re one of the only places a shifter can be himself.”

  “But being himself isn’t working out for everyone else.” Jason laid his book aside. “I’m going to go over there and have a talk with him.”

  “Before we even know what we’re going to do?” Mitchell looked incredulous. “We just saw him a few hours ago, I don’t know—”

  “Mitch, you know I’m good with people. Let me just make sure he’s really being an asshole about it. Because if he’s not, if it’s just a control problem, we can’t kick him out. If he’s just trying to take advantage of our good natures, then I’ll be able to tell.” Jason stood, regretting that he would have to change out of his sleep pants. He’d decided to take the day off to lie around reading and watching TV, to rest up after their big night. Emotional confrontation didn’t seem like a fair trade.

  After a quick shower, he put on his most comfortable pair of jeans, a soft, faded pair with ripped out knees, and a t-shirt. He was not, he firmly reminded himself, trying to look younger than his forty years. He just wanted to be comfortable and he didn’t like wearing his PJs out of the house.

  He believed himself a lot less when he pulled onto the dirt two-track leading to the fishing cabins, and his stomach lurched, full of the dreaded butterflies. He hadn’t felt so uncool and uncertain since high school, a time he definitely did not want to revisit. So why did it feel amazing now? The hope that a guy would like him used to be agony, but now Jason savored it. Maybe that was a benefit of being in a successful long-term relationship; the extra-curricular flirting, while harmless, was sexier when it didn’t mean anything.

  That harmless feeling twisted into something more uncomfortable when Sean opened the door. In the same moment that Jason realized Sean was irritated by the unexpected visit, Jason also realized that it hadn’t been simple flirting and meaningless sex. He wanted it to mean something. He wanted Sean the same way he wanted Mitchell. He wanted them both.

  “We got another complaint.” He struggled to keep his voice steady.

  “Yeah, I supposed you did.” Sean shrugged, his expression hard. Beneath that shell was a void of sadness, fear, and uncertainty. He knew what he’d done, and he regretted it. There was no way he could admit to that regret, because then…

  Then Mitchell would be winning.

  This was going to take more finesse than Jason was usually capable of employing. Mitchell was the one who always knew what to say. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” Sean stepped back to let Jason through the door, but as he passed, he asked, “Just need to measure for new drapes, for the next tenant?”

  “Don’t do that,” Jason warned. “I don’t have a lot of patience for self pity. Look, we don’t care if you did this because you really couldn’t help yourself. We understand that. We can help you.”

  Sean scoffed. “With more dominance games? We’re not wolves. We shouldn’t try to be like them just because it’s inconvenient. I don’t want an alpha dog telling me what to do, and that’s all Mitchell is to us.”

  “That’s not what Mitchell is to me.” Jason’s voice raised, and he fought to keep his control. “He’s my partner, in the truest sense of the word. He understands my feelings and emotions, and he understands my need for control. He gives me what I need because he cares about me. Now, if the sex thing doesn’t work for you the way it does for me, we’ll figure something else out. But Mitchell wasn’t using this as an opportunity to get laid, and neither should you. Is that what it was? Just a game, and you’d lie about wanting to change your behavior so you’d get to fuck us?”

  “Technically, you guys fucked me,” Sean reminded him quietly.

  Before Jason could retort, the absurdity of the statement forced a shocked laugh from his throat. Sean laughed, too, and the tension melted away between them.

  “There it was,” Jason said, still smiling. “That shield that was there is gone.”

  Sean’s smile faded, just a touch. “It’s lowered, not gone. I don’t trust people blindly.”

  “I never said you should.” Jason rubbed his jaw as he thought. “When you were with us, did you enjoy yourself?”

  “I did. I enjoy sex. I’m a guy, it’s what we do.”

  “So, it was just the sex? None of the other stuff was enjoyable, just the fucking. You can’t stand us?” Jason had him cornered, and he suspected Sean didn’t like being cornered. He backed off. “We don’t want to see you leave. We like you. Even if nothing comes of it, we like you, and we want you to be able to stay. We don’t ever like to leave another shifter in need.”

  “I just don’t know if I can handle it.” Sean walked away, to sit on the edge of the bed. “I like who I am. I like to be a predator. I like to get out there and get my heart pumping. I don’t want to lose that.”

  “We wouldn’t want you to lose it, either.” There was only one way Jason would be able to prove it to him. “Look, let’s go outside a minute. I have
something I want to show you.”

  They went out into the blinding bright Michigan morning, and Jason stripped off his shirt and unbuckled his pants.

  “I’ve seen you naked,” Sean pointed out.

  “Shut up.” Jason kicked off his shoes and pulled off his jeans, tossing them to the side and shifting into tiger form before they even hit the ground.

  Talking wasn’t going to convince him. It would take more drastic measures. Jason growled, letting the sound rumble through his deep chest as he prowled slowly closer to Sean. He looked up with his feline vision, sharper and more detailed than when he was in human form. He saw the tension in every muscle in Sean’s body, smelled the desire for wildness in the perspiration that hadn’t yet risen to the surface of his skin.

  Jason let loose with a feline scream, like audible lightning, and Sean stepped back.

  “Okay, I get the point.” He held up his hands and kept retreating as Jason advanced.

  Jason hadn’t planned to give a demonstration of why it was so damned scary to be stalked by a big cat. That was just a side benefit. He sank back on his hind legs, getting low to the ground to pounce. Sean recognized the behavior for what it was. Moving slowly, he unzipped his jeans and took a step back as he pushed them down his hips. By the time Jason sprang up, Sean had turned and run, shifting as he bounded over the hood of his own truck. Jason unsheathed his claws to gain purchase on the gravel, and sped after him.

  Tiger bodies were designed for short bursts of speed. They would both be exhausted in a matter of seconds. They were fast, though, and made it to the tree line, Sean leading in a wide turn toward the lake. Jason caught him, jumping onto his back and rolling with him, right out of the tree line and onto the sandy shore and tangled tall grass of the lake’s edge.

  Jason didn’t relent, even as they rolled into the shallows, crushing the reeds beneath them. Sean swiped at his face, claws retracted. It was a warning, that he didn’t like being pinned, didn’t like being taken down. Immediately, Jason backed down, and Sean sprang up, knocking Jason to his back. Sean was over him in an instant, jaws nipping at Jason’s throat. He backed up, front paws still braced on either side of Jason’s body, testing to see if he would rise again. The instinct was too great. Jason flipped and dove for the shore, but Sean was on him again, covering his back with his weight, their dripping fur mingling. Beneath Sean’s heaving belly, his barbed penis had emerged from its sheath, and it prodded Jason’s hip.

  Without warning, Jason shifted, bracing himself on his hands and knees in the water beneath Sean’s huge body. Jason didn’t run, he didn’t move. He let Sean have the upper hand, let him be the most powerful.

  Sean shifted, too, falling against Jason’s back and pushing him over, flat against the wet sand. He kissed him, grinding his hard cock against Jason’s hip.

  It didn’t feel wrong to kiss him back. The thought had occurred to Jason on the ride over, that something might happen between the two of them. He’d felt a little guilty even thinking about it, like he was cheating on Mitchell just by wondering how he would react. But this was far from a sleazy sex thing. They were male tigers, all three of them, and it bound them, whether Sean recognized it yet or not.

  Jason gripped Sean’s ass and pulled him tighter against him, letting the gentle waves sneak under their bodies as they lay locked together on the beach. Sean grunted and thrust against him, as if he hadn’t just spent the whole night fucking and coming, as if he’d been dead and just woken up.

  When Sean broke away for air, Jason leaned up and bit him lightly on the neck, then whispered, “You don’t have to give it up.”

  Sean rolled to his back on the sand, his forearm across his eyes.

  Jason leaned up on an elbow. “Tigers need each other. I don’t know why, we just do. Mitchell will tell you, he was a mess before we met. I was a mess for a long time after we met. We can help keep each other in check.”

  “It seems like I’m getting ripped off,” Sean said, still breathing heavy from the run. “You guys are great. Incredible. The way you are together, I would love to have something like that some day. But I want it because I want it. Not because someone says I need them, or I feel drawn to them because they’re a shifter. I want to make the choice.”

  Jason rolled up and sprang to his feet. “The choice is always yours. You know where we are.”

  He went back to the cabin and collected his clothes. When he got in the truck, Sean was still sitting at the water’s edge, staring out at the lake. He was glad that he’d come alone. Mitchell would have just been frustrated by the situation. He liked to solve problems and make everyone happy. Until Sean figured out that he didn’t truly want to be alone, that it wasn’t necessary to maintain his solitude and rebellion in order to remain an individual, he wouldn’t want to be with them.

  But Jason knew, from experience, that all they had to do was wait.

  Chapter Ten

  Sean sat there for a long time after Jason left. When the water chilled his skin, he shifted. Damp fur was warmer than damp skin.

  It was easier to think when he was a tiger. Though every part of his body still ached from the night before, and though he ached in a wholly different way from the incredibly arousing wrestling match Jason had engaged him in, as an animal he was able to ignore it. Maybe it felt more natural to be a tiger. He’d long wondered if he was a tiger who shifted into a human, rather than a human who changed into a big cat.

  He thumped his tail lazily against the sand. Being alone had never been a problem for him. In fact, he preferred it. He thought he did. Alone, he didn’t have worry about another guy’s feelings. He didn’t have to wonder if he was missing out on something in the world, if he was being held back by his partner.

  Which was why he’d never had one. He pushed up and paced the shallows, the sand cool and mucky between the pads of his massive paws. Never a long-term partner, never a boyfriend, never even a guy he fucked regularly in a casual way. One-night stands, hell, even internet porn was a reasonable substitute for being saddled with a guy.

  He’d thought he didn’t want it. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Gwinn Close was more of a home than he’d ever known. He’d definitely stayed there longer than he’d ever stayed in one place. Maybe that was the root of his need to break the rules. If he sabotaged this place, he wouldn’t get comfortable. He’d have to pack up and move on, and be truly alone again.

  A blue gill darted past him in the shallow water, and he lunged at it, snapping it up easily. Fishing, like thinking, like so many things, was so much easier as a tiger.

  The world he wanted to occupy would only have him as a man. Tigers were rarely welcome in bars, no matter how much of a dive they were, and it wasn’t like he was going to be able to keep up on how the Yankees were playing if he was off in a jungle. Hell, two hours without internet and he got itchy. Moving the UP had been bad enough.

  If it weren’t bad enough to be torn between those two worlds, he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Gwinn Close, but the idea of staying, getting into a stable, regular something and settling down made his throat want to swell up.

  But god, the sex. The sex had been…

  Phenomenal. That was the only way to describe what had happened between them. He’d felt like he would die from the pleasure, it had been so intense. He’d felt reckless and wild. And he’d felt safe.

  It was that feeling of safety that scared him most of all. It was the kind of feeling he could get used to, and the kind that would crush him if taken away.

  Whether in human or tiger form, that was one thing his two natures had in common. His crippling fear that one day, something would be important to him, and he wouldn’t be able to hold onto it. He’d already started over so many times, it just seemed easier to keep doing it, and far more natural than hope.

  He shifted and washed the mucky sand from between his fingers, splashed himself with water to rid himself of the sand elsewhere, then walked along the beach until he reached his lawn. Though shift
ers were usually casual about nudity, he didn’t like the idea of shocking some poor old guy or gal looking out their kitchen windows first thing after an afternoon nap. They’d probably blame him for the heart attack.

  He collected his clothes and went inside. He looked from the bare counters and the equally empty pantries above them, to the furniture that had been there when he’d moved in. He’d brought only his clothes and his bedding. He’d gotten moving down to a science, what he could carry in the big toolbox in the back of his truck.

  The starkness of his life hit him all at once. He didn’t even own the dishes in the cupboards, or the cleaning supplies beneath the sink. He’d simplified himself right into what was pretty much homelessness, aside from the fact that he had shelter. He didn’t have a home. He didn’t have a career. He travelled around and did odd jobs. That was no kind of life. It was an existence.

  Maybe one day, you’ll figure out that it’s better to survive than try to live. He’d seen where that would get him. He’d seen his brother get married to a beautiful wife who fucked around on him and left him for his best friend. He’d seen his mom marry guy after guy, until the last one in the line put her in a nursing home the second it became clear that her cancer wasn’t going to take care of itself.

  There was no reason at all to lock himself down in Gwinn Close. At this point, everyone would just know him as the weird tiger guy who chases people, and he’d be ostracized. Better to move on before anyone found out they didn’t like you, and let you know about it.

  When he’d moved in, he’d signed a lease. Mitchell was one of those do-the-right-thing, stand-up kind of guys. He would probably take him to small claims or something for breaking it.

  It was probably kind of sick that thinking of that got him hot for Mitchell all over again.

  There was some horrible, sensible, normal person thing inside of him that suggested caution. To wait until his lease was up, and see how he felt then. There was another part of him that wondered if he could justify just packing up in the night and running. He’d done it before, he could do it again. But even he thought it was a shitty thing to do to two guys who’d been nothing but nice.