by Parker Foye
Sighing, Jim pried them apart a bit and ground his semi-erect shaft against Teddy, simply to remind him of what he did to him. “I’ll protect you from all the Chihuahuas,” Jim murmured against his neck.
“That’s not funny.”
“Hey. Chihuahuas are pieces of the devil. Pomeranians, too, in my experience.”
“Alas, the dog that bit me was neither of those things.” Teddy rocked his hips forward a bit, pressing his half-hard cock against the fly of Jim’s jeans.
Jim kissed up his neck and the side of his face and claimed his tart mouth.
His eyelashes fluttered against Jim’s lids, and he sighed into Jim’s mouth.
He wasn’t what Jim would call a passive kisser, by any means. He kissed back, but let Jim lead the dance. His tongue moved where Jim wanted it and at the speed he wanted it moved at, and his body followed along.
With each clench of Jim’s fists into the meat of his ass, Teddy gasped and thrust a little more.
“You want me in you?” Jim was stupid for provoking him and making him put off that I’m ready scent that made Jim’s dick hard as granite.
Jim wanted to drop to his knees and kiss, lick and explore that thrusted part, but that would lead to other things. He’d have Teddy bent over the counter with his pants around his ankles and he’d be working that tight hole of his with finger and tongue, getting him ready for other things, and they’d probably never make it upstairs before other things happened.
Jim was so needy—needed him so badly.
Pressing his hands to Teddy’s upper cheeks, he backed away with a sigh, then leaned in to kiss him once more.
Teddy looked dazed, eyes hooded and lips a crushed berry color. He swayed a bit on his feet before clearing his throat and straightening up. “Go away,” he whispered.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I do. I know what’s gonna happen if you don’t. I’m going to be naked and embarrassed because this thing is moving too fast and you’ve somehow gotten me to forget all my principles.”
“What kind of principles do you have that’ll exclude me?”
“The ones that have to do with bossy men and booty calls.”
Jim grimaced. The bossy thing he’d have to be more aware of. The trait was part and parcel of being an alpha. But the second part... “I don’t consider this a booty call. I never wanted you to leave, remember? That’s why you’re here in my house, wearing my clothes, eating my food and firing my maid.”
“You’re practically a stranger.”
“You know enough for right now.” The rest could come later. After the full moon, he hoped.
He’d already had a lot of obstacles in winning Teddy over, but the dog phobia was going to be a problem. Jim didn’t care if Teddy never showed his pretty face around the pack—in fact, his life would be easier if the man didn’t—but he was a smart enough asshole to suspect that Teddy wouldn’t like being prohibited from doing anything even if he didn’t really want to do that thing in the first place.
When Teddy knocked his hand away, Jim realized he’d been fondling the man’s cock.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“No, you’re not.”
Jim shrugged. “I’m not if you’re not. You care if I touch your cock?”
Teddy shifted his weight and studiously avoided Jim’s gaze.
Chuckling, Jim pressed his palms to the counter at either side of Teddy and kissed his neck again. “Do you?”
“No,” Teddy whispered.
“You gonna make me ask every time?”
“No, but I won’t have you thinking you can grab my cock and everything will be all right and that you can shut me up.”
“Does that usually work?”
Teddy didn’t answer.
Jim grunted with frustration. He didn’t have time to experiment. He really did have errands to run, including finding out why the hell Carter was running around furry in broad daylight in front of Jim’s fucking house.
He planted a kiss on Teddy’s lips and then told him, “Be good. I’ll be back.”
“Pardon me if I don’t see you out. Make sure you check all the corners of the garage before you let the door down.”
“Don’t worry.” Jim pushed away from the counter. “I won’t let any dogs I don’t know about into the house.”
“Wait. Does that mean there are dogs here?” Teddy’s pitch canted upward at the end, and that made Jim cup his cheeks again and massage his thumbs over Teddy’s lips.
“Just me, baby, and I’d say I’m even worse than anything outside.”
Chapter Seven
“What the hell were you doing?” Jim barked at Carter a few blocks down the street and inside a wooded lot the coyotes often used for impromptu conferences.
“Sorry.” Sullen as always, Carter stepped into the pants he stored in a cache on the lot. “Didn’t know you had a guest. Wasn’t that the guy from the restaurant?”
Jim folded his arms over his chest and stared toward the road. The tree trunks were so close together that he couldn’t spot his truck through them. “What’s up, Carter?”
“So, I was scouting, right?”
“In your coyote form? Why waste the energy this close to the full moon?”
“I needed a better nose. My friend called this morning and said she thought she saw bear shifters near the territory and she knew we’d had issues with them before.”
Issues was an understatement. The bears were a thorn in the collective side of every shifter alpha on the eastern seaboard.
Jim rubbed his temples. “Yeah. What’d you find out?”
“Best I could tell, they haven’t been inside the territory, but I think I picked up some secondary taint. Friend of a bear or something. Your nose is a hell of a lot better than mine, though, so you might be able to tell what’s what.”
“Or Jamie. I’ll give her a call and see if she can root out anything.”
“Jamie?” Carter pulled on his shirt and gave Jim a sideways look. “How long is she going to be around?”
“No.”
“I mean—Hey, I didn’t mean anything by asking. I was curious. We don’t see much of her.”
“Sure don’t. By the way, you’re too young for her.”
“I never said I was interested.”
Jim scoffed. Everyone was interested.
“And not that it matters, but I’m thirty. Same age as her.”
“Like I said, too young.”
Anyway.
Jim looked to the road. Still no traffic. He had no idea whether or not Jamie had the hots for any of the men in the pack. The best he could tell, she hadn’t shown any of them special interest. But then again, she hadn’t been able to tell he’d been eyeing Teddy, either. He made a mental note to ask her later about her prospects.
“Where are you heading to now?” Carter asked. He stooped and laced up his boot.
“Gotta go check on a couple of invalids. They said they didn’t need anything the last time I was there, but the nursing home admin let me know on the way out that they’re behind on their invoices. I guess their kids haven’t been paying.”
Carter knocked his messy auburn hair out of his eyes and furrowed his brow. “Are they even allowed to tell you that?”
“Nah, but I guess they know I’m good for the money and that I don’t tell other people’s business.”
“Got ya. So...is there anything you need me to do today?”
“Why are you so enthusiastic all of a sudden? Enthusiasm makes you motherfuckers seem suspicious. You don’t volunteer for shit.” Not the way Hardy and Nate did. Carter would never step into their shoes.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Bullshit.”
Carte
r put up his hands. “Okay, look. Maybe I want what other folks are getting, and I’m not the only one talking about it.” He rolled up one of the sleeves of his flannel shirt and stared at the ground. “It’s pretty dire here, man. I think worse since you sent Hardy and Nate down south to maybe find mates.”
“Nobody’s stopping you from going.”
“But you made arrangements for them. Got them places to live and hooked them up with jobs or whatever.”
“That’s because I had a friend who needed a couple of contract workers. A couple means two.”
“And Hardy and Nate were your top lieutenants.”
Jim raised his chin and gave Carter the stare down he deserved.
“You know what? Forget I said anything.”
“No. I won’t forget, and I don’t play favorites, coyote.” Jim wasn’t going to explain his decision-making to a disrespectful pack newcomer. He knew damn well he’d shown favoritism. He trusted Hardy and Nate the same as he did Jamie or his mother. They’d always been loyal and selfless. When shit hit the fan, they were always the first two to show up to help clean up.
And they didn’t have a damn thing to say about who Jim chose to take to bed.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you did, only that that’s what folks talk about when you’re not around.”
“I know what they talk about.” Jim started for the road, and Carter jogged to keep up.
“You know, you can trust me the same way you trust them.”
“Oh? I’ve known them pretty much my entire life. Hard for you to compete with that. You’ve only been with us for five years.”
“Not my fault I didn’t get bitten until then. You said it yourself. I was doing pretty good for a made-coyote. I was way ahead of the learning curve. I was really trying to get the hang of controlling my shifting because I knew strength is important to our pack. Can’t afford to slip up.”
“I’m not trying to diminish your hard work. You’ve been doing a damn good job, but you’re not seasoned.”
“Then who is?”
Jim’s growl of irritation resounded in the woods as he stopped and turned to the smaller man. “Carter, if I could answer that question, I’d already have had some guys step up into Hardy and Nate’s jobs. As you can see, I haven’t, and not because I’m so sure they’re going to come back.”
“You don’t think they will?”
“If they find mates who aren’t willing to move, you think they’re going to leave them?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.” Jim clasped Teddy’s back and checked the time on his phone. He needed to arrive at the nursing home before the admin took off for one of her legendary two-hour lunches, and then get back to Teddy. “I tell you what,” Jim continued. “If you want to do me a favor that’ll help the pack, get on the phone, call the guys and tell every single one of them to brush up on the full moon rules. Folks have been getting sloppy and waiting until the last minute to get to the safe space to shift, and we can’t afford that. We’ve been in this territory for a long time, but we still need to stay under the radar.”
“I can do that for sure.” Carter grinned and nodded with a bit too much enthusiasm for Jim’s liking. He didn’t trust zealous coyotes. “I’ll get right to work.”
“Great.” Jim started walking toward the truck, only stop at Carter’s call of his name. “Yeah?”
“I know I shouldn’t ask, but...are you...with that guy?”
Jim ground his teeth.
“I mean, I won’t say anything, if you don’t want. Otherwise...”
“Is that a threat, Carter?”
His long silence made Jim pivot to face him again. The man was licking his lips and shifting his weight nervously.
They were all brave when Jim had his back turned, but as soon as they could see his eyes, their cowardice returned. He hated that shit. They all thought they could be alphas when he wasn’t looking.
“It’s just that, he didn’t have on shoes,” Carter said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“He looked comfortable.”
“Go figure.”
“I’ll, uh...” Carter started walking in the general direction of the bike he left parked at the roadside. “I’ll start the calls. We still meeting tonight at the restaurant?”
“Go if you want. I may or may not be there. Jamie might want to stay in tonight.”
And Teddy was off work.
“Yeah, she’s probably tired. I’ll catch up with you later, I guess.” Carter waved.
Jim raised his chin to him and watched until the sound of his motorcycle engine was out of range. Then he continued to his truck.
Nobody was going to force his hand, and he was going to do what he had to do to keep Teddy safe from pack enemies and, if need be, from the pack itself.
He suddenly understood why so many alphas cleaned house after they took mates.
It was hard to know who to trust.
Chapter Eight
Teddy had his hair combed and shoes on when Jim got back at around four, and was ready to head right back out the door.
Jim, however, seemed oblivious to Teddy’s urgent drive to leave. He nudged him into the living room and collapsed with him onto the sofa.
“Um.” He patted Jim’s back and shifted a bit beneath him. The guy was heavy.
“Did Jamie come back?” Jim asked.
“Briefly. She said she’d be back in time for dinner.”
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I haven’t thought that far in advance. I figured I’d—”
“Fuck, you smell like my soap,” Jim muttered. “I love that you smell like my soap.” He nuzzled his face against the top of Teddy’s head and drew in a long inhalation.
“Well, it was...what you used on me, and so...”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So...” Teddy squirmed a bit more.
Jim had his eyes closed and was rubbing Teddy’s arm as if he were a security blanket or a lapdog.
Beneath Jim wasn’t a bad place to be, though a surprising one. Jim was different than other men Teddy had been with. He had a hard time reconciling that the man who wore leathers and studs was a cuddler.
“Did the maid come by?” Jim asked.
Teddy scoffed and, tentatively, rubbed down the back of Jim’s dark hair. He didn’t know if he was allowed to touch him there, but he wanted to. He wanted to memorize all the feels of Jim and note his reactions, if any. Sometimes, the lack of reaction was as interesting as an overt one.
Jim made a soft, rumbling sound that Teddy thought was a marker of pleasure, but he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t heard such a sound coming out of a man’s chest before.
“Yeah, she came by.” Teddy pressed his fingers to Jim’s scalp and rubbed slow, gentle circles. If Jim was as responsive to massages as Teddy, he would be snoring in five minutes flat. He didn’t want Jim to fall asleep, though, but to keep him from moving. He was heavy, but pinned beneath him, Teddy felt like he was his. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t minded being possessed by someone. Closing his eyes, he bussed his lips against Jim’s neck. He didn’t usually volunteer affection, but he wanted some in return.
“Your lips are so soft,” Jim said.
Teddy withdrew them to speak, but Jim pressed his face back.
“Kiss me there again.”
Teddy did, and then repeated, laughing, until Jim finally let him up for air.
“What’d she say?” Jim asked.
“I have no idea. Whatever she said wasn’t in English, and I couldn’t pick out any individual sounds to relay to you.”
Jim grunted.
“I thanked her for her service, handed her the envelope and pulled the key from the door before she could snatch
it.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t happy about that. If I were you, I’d change the lock. Just because a key says Do Not Copy doesn’t mean some lazy key tech won’t do it anyway.”
“Duly noted. I’d have to special-order something to fit the door. That knob set came out of a catalog. Or so my contractor claimed. For all I know, he got it from The Home Depot and marked up three hundred percent for it.”
“You think he was bullshitting you?”
“Hell, pretty sure most folks try to bullshit me, but I rarely have the free time to get the proof.”
“You need a keeper. You’re probably being used left and right.”
“Yep. I’m pretty sure I am.” Jim pushed up onto his forearms and stared down at Teddy.
There was so much curiosity in his gaze that Teddy couldn’t help but to hope that Jim didn’t think he was one of those users. Teddy had worked for every damned thing he had, including the bit of attention he was getting from Jim. “Did...you finally realize who or what you were laying on?”
“No. I remembered you were wearing shoes. Why are you wearing shoes?”
“I was going to have you take me to my place.”
Jim slanted his head, and another one of those weird noises came out of his chest. “What’s the hurry? You not comfortable here?”
Comfortable might have been an understatement. Teddy was way too close to falling in love with Jim’s house. Jim had a fucking finished attic with a cushioned window seat and empty bookcases.
“Why are your bookcases upstairs empty?” Teddy asked after clearing his throat.
“Huh?” Jim crinkled his nose and righted his head.
God, he’s even sexy when he’s confused. “Uh. On the third floor. Why’d you bother finishing the space if you weren’t going to put books and stuff up there?”
“Come on, Teddy. I’m a single guy, and I’m not all that good at hoarding.”
“I’m an excellent hoarder.”
Jim shrugged and put his head back down. “Okay. Buy some stuff.”