My Second Chance

by Shelley Munro

  “That would be me then.” Charlie shuffled a few steps, the brush of their limbs sending urgent messages to his groin. Right about now he would’ve loved to remove his jeans. “I haven’t slept with anyone, male or female, for a while. Safe is my middle name.”

  “How long is a while?”

  The warmth of Gavin’s lips against his neck made it difficult to think. How long had it been? “About four months,” Charlie murmured. Damn, the heat of Gavin’s body and his scent—something citrusy and underlying man—was doing a number on his restraint.

  All he could think of was the next step. The pleasure of intimate contact. Instead of following his instincts to rip off his clothes and jump Gavin, Charlie focused on driving him crazy instead. More than one way to tease a cat. He ran his hands down his broad back, finally dropping them to cup Gavin’s buttocks. At the same time, he ground his groin into Gavin, closing his eyes at the jolt of pleasure. The tension between them exploded, masculine groans and harsh breathing interspersing the lyrics of the song.

  Charlie’s balls drew tight, and he thrust Gavin away, desperate to regain control of his unruly body yet running low on self-discipline. “I can’t do this.”

  Gavin paled.

  “Aw, shit. No! I mean I want you desperately but I can’t go slow.” Charlie ripped off his shirt and scrambled out of his jeans. He yanked down his boxers and almost groaned with relief. Naked, he prowled up to Gavin and stopped a foot away. His brows rose in silent question. “I’m out of patience.”

  “And willpower by the looks.” Laughing, Gavin held out his hand, and when Charlie took it, he led him from the lounge, tugging him down a dark passage. He pushed open a door and drew Charlie after him.

  Charlie went without fighting, anticipation throbbing through every inch of his body. A sharp yank on his arm had Charlie flying through the air. A lamp flicked on. He landed on the bed with a soft grunt, bouncing once before Gavin grabbed him. Although Charlie had imagined them skin against skin, his mind hadn’t done justice to the sensation. His groin throbbed as he ground his erection against Gavin’s warm thigh. Already pre-cum leaked from his tip and a heady sense of anticipation filled him. Gavin’s hands swept across his back and downward to rest on his rump. Charlie clenched his butt muscles, tensing at the thought of the coming pleasure.

  One moment Charlie sprawled on top of Gavin and the next, he viewed the world from a different perspective. Gavin moved without warning, his feline strength giving him an advantage. With his arms he caged Charlie, holding him prisoner. For a second Charlie thought about protesting before deciding he couldn’t lose. Instead, he waited for Gavin’s next move with heightened awareness skittering between them.

  Charlie licked dry lips and grinned at Gavin’s soft curse.

  “You’re not making this easy on me.” Gavin nuzzled his neck, warm lips lingering against his skin.

  “I’m a desperate man. Why should I make it easy when I know there’s pleasure ahead for both of us?” Charlie relaxed into the mattress, turning his head in silent permission for Gavin to explore further. Charlie’s heart drummed against his ribs when Gavin’s lips and a hint of teeth nibbled down his neck and headed for his shoulder.

  “You have no idea of the payback I could exact from you,” Gavin warned, the twinkle in his green eyes belying the forewarning in the words.

  A sharp jolt of pleasure shook Charlie when Gavin bit a fraction harder. His groan was a dark sound. A plea for more. It had never been like this…an avalanche spinning out of control. Hell, they’d barely started and his balls ached as if they’d explode at the smallest amount of stimulation.

  “Is that the marking site?” he asked, panting against the urge to beg Gavin to bite. Gavin had implied restraint was necessary and instinct could take over if a couple wasn’t careful. Now he believed. He understood the driving need to claim because the dark wanting swirled through him, driving him to tease and seduce. To take Gavin as his mate. Awe filled him at the magical bond flowing between them.

  “Yeah. Damn, I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to stop or I’d have steered clear.” Gavin lifted his head, his breathing coming hard and his eyes shining in the eerie glow Charlie had noted before. “I want to bite you so bad.”

  “We haven’t even started with the good stuff yet,” Charlie said.

  “I know.” Gavin seemed to force himself to move away from Charlie’s shoulders. He trailed kisses down his chest, taking small bites from his pecs. “There are lots of things I’d like to do to you, ways I crave you.” He nipped. Charlie hissed, enjoying the attention, the combination of pleasure and pain. He slipped his hands over Gavin’s back. Muscle packed the man’s body. Working as a vet and feline doctor kept him in great shape.

  With each touch hunger bounced between them, razor-sharp. Charlie arched his body against Gavin in blatant invitation. He craved release, to beg Gavin to hurry yet contrarily he wanted to relax and enjoy every kiss and touch because instinct told him the loving between them would be way beyond anything he’d experienced before.

  Gavin continued to tease, dipping his tongue into the indentation of his bellybutton. In silence thick with sensual tension, Charlie dug his fingers into Gavin’s dark hair and tried to control his breathing. Then Gavin moved lower. He ran a finger down Charlie’s shaft from tip to root. Charlie fought a girlie whimper. His dick jerked. When Gavin repeated the move along the prominent vein on his underside, his breathing went shallow and Charlie realized he gripped tufts of Gavin’s hair in his fists. Hell, if he pulled any harder, he’d make the other man bald. He clenched his thighs together and loosened his hold on Gavin’s hair, trying to relax and ignore the ache in his balls.

  “You like that.”

  “I’m fighting the need to grab your head and direct your mouth straight to my cock.” The hoarse note in Charlie’s voice made him sound like the crazed criminal he remembered investigating in Wellington. He cleared his throat, relieved to hear Gavin’s soft laugh.

  “I’m trying to go slow, to make it good.”

  “Already know it’s gonna be good,” Charlie said. “I need you to handle the goods. Action. No more talk.”

  Gavin’s hand moved past his groin to rest on one of Charlie’s thighs. “Part your legs for me.”

  Charlie followed the order without hesitation despite a preference for the dominant role in his sexual relationships. He spread his legs, canting his hips upward at the same time in silent entreaty. Gavin glanced at him and their gazes connected. Held. Silent messages and promises passed between. Then Gavin dipped his head, and he took the tip of Charlie’s cock into his mouth. Heat flared out of control in Charlie. He panted and his hips jerked, pushing his shaft deeper into Gavin’s mouth.

  Gavin lifted off him and Charlie couldn’t help the groan of complaint. Gavin smiled. “Just a little teasing. Don’t come. I want you to wait until I’m inside you.”

  “Bastard,” Charlie said even though he grinned. “Do you have lube? Condoms?”

  “I have both, although we don’t have to use condoms. I told you I can’t catch anything.”

  “Or pass anything on to me?” Charlie asked, even though he’d already decided to bareback. From what he’d learned about felines from Laura and Gavin, he knew he could trust what they said.

  Gavin moved up the bed to lean over Charlie. “I swear you’ll never pick up any sexually transmitted diseases from me.” Once again, his green eyes shone with truth.

  “Okay. How do you want to take me?”

  “I’ll take you from behind.”

  Not his favorite position. He liked to see his lover’s face, see the raw emotions when they were in the grip of passion. “I’ll choose next time.”

  “Deal.” Gavin bent to kiss him, his tongue slipping into Charlie’s mouth and stroking back and forth while their engorged cocks, trapped between their bodies, brushed together with enough friction to make him want to hurry. His cock wept, and judging by the dampness on his stomach, Gavin’s was do
ing the same thing. Charlie trembled and the sharp pleasure in his balls told him he wouldn’t last much longer. Talk about embarrassing.

  “Now. Please. Damn, it’s never been like this before. I’m so bloody desperate.”

  “It’s the mate thing.”

  Charlie snorted, shivering at the stroke of Gavin’s finger down his throat. The trembles intensified when the finger smoothed lazily over the marking spot. “If it’s like this all the time, you’re gonna kill me.”

  “It’s intense,” Gavin whispered, replacing his finger with his mouth. The sensation of his warm mouth pushed at Charlie’s control. He swallowed, shivering in the aftermath, every nerve lit up like the lights of a Christmas tree.

  “Dammit, Gavin.” Charlie’s heart beat in a sharp staccato, and for a moment, he wondered if it might leap up his throat.

  With a soft laugh and a final nibble across the mating site, Gavin pushed to a sitting position. Almost instantly, Charlie’s senses reacted to the lack of contact and craved Gavin’s touch. A protest formed on his lips but he bit it back, instead waiting impatiently for Gavin. He never dallied on purpose, found it a new experience. Not one he enjoyed.

  One hand dipped to stroke his erection, the flash of pleasure something to focus on instead of the intense craving he experienced when the feline shifter touched the fleshy spot at the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

  Gavin bent over to open a drawer and pulled out a bottle of lube. He turned back to Charlie and popped the lid. The bottle made a wheezing sound when Gavin squeezed it, and a jolt of anticipation shot through Charlie.

  He cleared his throat. “I hope you’re warming that.”

  “Of course,” Gavin said, but his eyes glinted with mischief. He slapped Charlie’s hand away from his cock. “Spread.”

  “Oh man,” Charlie murmured. His eyes fluttered closed, and he sank into pure sensation. Gavin blew warm air along his straining shaft but otherwise ignored his cock to tease him in different ways. He took small nibbles from Charlie’s inner thighs, the nips becoming increasingly harder. The pinches of pain ran together until he ached and throbbed in one big mass of craving. Gavin moved back to his taut shaft, nuzzled his balls, licking and stroking him with mouth and fingers. A croak emerged, but thankfully, Charlie kept the begging words on the tip of his tongue trapped inside. Sensual tension coiled into a tight ball and his breathing deepened to harsh. He thrilled at the firm footsteps of a finger along his perineum, tingled at the warm massage of a finger eased by lube.

  Charlie tensed, remembering the burn of pain that sometimes accompanied the initial intrusion of a finger.

  “Relax,” Gavin said. “This is gonna be good between us. So good, you won’t ever want to be with another man.”

  “Promises, promises.” Charlie barely recognized his own voice. The sharp prod of a finger fought the ring of muscles at his entrance. He panted, his body straining to accept the intrusion. Gavin slipped his finger deeper and worked his hole until the inward and outward glide was smooth and easy. A second finger and the scissoring action prepared him, the faint bite of pain keeping Charlie grounded. Did he want this? Hell yeah. His entire body jerked with pleasure when Gavin angled his fingers and skimmed over his prostrate. A moan escaped and when Charlie opened his eyes, he caught the satisfied smirk on his lover’s face.

  “You haven’t done this for a while.”

  “No, not with a male.”

  “Lack of opportunity or desire?”

  “A bit of both. Dammit, Gavin. No more torture. Please.”

  But Gavin didn’t listen. He thrust his fingers into Charlie, nailing his gland only now and then, just giving him enough to keep him on edge. Finally, Gavin slipped his fingers from him and reached for the lube again. Their gazes connected when Gavin stood, peeled off his underwear and squeezed the transparent liquid into the middle of his palm. He set the bottle aside, smiling while he greased his cock.

  “On your hands and knees.”

  Charlie’s cock pulsed and somehow thickened even more as he turned and pushed to his hands and knees. Nerves jumped in his gut then. Damn, this was like being a virgin all over again. Nervous and excited at the same time.

  Gavin moved behind him, his slick hands urging Charlie to widen his stance. The mattress shifted as Gavin lined up his cock. Instinct made Charlie tighten against the intrusion, and he had to force himself to relax, to push back against the invasion.

  “That’s it,” Gavin murmured, his breath warm against his back. “We’ll take it slow.” One of his hands reached around Charlie’s legs and clamped down on his cock. Charlie started at the firm touch even though it was what he preferred. Most women were way too tentative in handling his cock. This was better, much better.

  Gavin pumped his cock and took his time embedding his own shaft inside Charlie. The burning discomfort gave way to intense pleasure and a sense of rightness, as if he’d arrived home. Muscles flexed and rippled while Gavin rocked his pelvis and drove deeper. He glided in to the root and, fully embedded, Gavin leaned over him, his warmth scorching Charlie’s back.

  “Damn that is addictive.” Gavin’s teeth scored the marking site and pure lust and desperation grabbed hold of Charlie. He groaned and moved insistently, urging Gavin to cooperate.

  He expected Gavin to tease and nibble but his teeth clamped down without warning. White-hot pain roared through Charlie, exploding into a pleasure so vast and deep Charlie didn’t think he’d survive the shock of it. Climax ripped through him, semen splashing across his stomach and Gavin’s hand. He kept coming, spasms shooting from his cock, pleasure scorching across his arms and legs, stealing his breath. A shout filled the bedroom as his channel clenched tight on Gavin’s cock, then a tongue rasped across the place where Gavin had bitten him. Charlie shuddered through another round of pleasurable vibrations.

  “Charlie,” Gavin said in a harsh, strained voice. His hips pistoned with unrelenting strokes while his teeth still grasped Charlie’s shoulder, the lash of Gavin’s tongue soothing the biting sting. Gavin groaned and wet heat filled Charlie.

  Gavin panted, leaning most of his weight on Charlie. “Damn, I didn’t mean to do that.” He pulled free and climbed to his feet. The next second Charlie heard the rush of water and light slid through the dark room. He dropped to the bed, lying in a sprawled heap on top of the green quilt cover. His fingers fumbled at his shoulder, producing a spike of pleasure that shot straight through his gut to his cock. When he removed his fingers, they were a little bloody.

  Gavin returned with a damp cloth.

  “My shoulder’s bleeding.”

  “I’ll fix that for you.” Gavin gave him a searching look. “You okay?”

  After cataloging the aches and twinges in his body, Charlie nodded. “Fine.”

  “Good.” Gavin wiped away the sticky cum coating Charlie’s stomach and groin, and after he’d cleaned to his satisfaction, he stood to toss the cloth into a cane hamper in the corner of the bedroom.

  “What about my shoulder?”

  “I said I’d fix it,” Gavin snapped.

  Charlie blinked at the flash of temper. Okay. It wasn’t as if he was Mr. Sunshine all the time. Some days he needed coffee in the mornings before he managed a civil word.

  “Sorry,” Gavin said, striding across the room to sit on the bed at his side. “I’m angry at myself for marking you.”

  “I thought it was what you wanted.”

  “It is, but I didn’t give you a choice. We scarcely know each other. I wanted to give you time to know me before I pounced.”

  Charlie couldn’t find it in himself to care about maybes and should haves. Or the fact Gavin had taken away his choices. Instead, he savored his closeness to the other man, the rightness. A bond. Now that he’d experienced the marking, he understood Laura’s explanations about her reactions, except in his case he didn’t have an ounce of confusion. He knew this was right.

  “Let me fix the bleeding.” Gavin pushed him against the pillows. He’d ex
pected antiseptic and perhaps a sticking plaster. Gavin rasped his tongue across the site, lapping away the blood and cleaning his wound. Charlie opened his mouth to protest, thinking about all the germs in a bite. One of his colleagues had suffered a bite while trying to control a group of drunken partygoers. It had turned septic.

  Charlie’s cock bucked, coming to life when he thought he’d done his dash for the night. He gasped as Gavin continued to lap at his shoulder. “Is it meant to turn me on all over again?”

  “So I hear. This spot will always be sensitive now.”

  Charlie rolled toward Gavin. He gripped his lover’s cock and grasped his own in the same hand, pumping them both together. “I don’t get to mark you, do I?”

  “It’s not necessary—no—but if you want to bite, I won’t stop you. I heal fast so you won’t hurt me. Damn, how did you know what I’d like?” His lids fluttered closed, making Charlie smile.

  His lover. If anyone had told him the previous evening he wouldn’t have believed it. But now…now his feelings about Gavin were certain. They encompassed him and in a weird way made him whole. The attraction he’d harbored had solidified to something more, stronger and powerful. He’d fight to keep this thing with Gavin, even if it made him seem possessive.

  Charlie continued to work their cocks, using the beads of pre-cum as lubrication. Instinct told him to nuzzle Gavin’s neck, and when his teeth grazed the marking site, Gavin shifted position to give Charlie better access.

  Gavin’s mouth worked on the wound he’d left on the fleshy part of Charlie’s neck, and the tension ramped up inside the bedroom. This time Charlie knew what to expect. The searing, intense wave picked him up and hurled him into pleasure so deep he wasn’t sure he’d survive. Semen spurted from his cock in thundering waves and Gavin came too, with a wet spurt on his belly and chest. It was rough and hot and raw. So damn right. Charlie wanted to repeat this again and again.

  The metallic blast of blood across his senses made him realize he’d sunk his teeth deep into Gavin’s shoulder, but the other man didn’t complain. If anything, he seemed as stunned as Charlie by the sheer power and heat pulsing between the two of them. Charlie released their softening cocks and lifted his head to study the mess he’d made of Gavin’s neck.