by Odessa Lynne
He crossed his arms.
“Don’t,” Kem said, and wrapped his hands around Devon’s forearms and lowered Devon’s arms.
Devon felt his eyebrows raise but he restrained his inclination to scoff and instead put his hands down on the soft quilt, fingers grazing a ridge of tight stitching.
The room wasn’t anything special, just an ordinary looking bedroom with a desk crowded into one corner and so many pillows piled onto the bed Devon couldn’t imagine how anyone could sleep for all of them.
He heard a roar from somewhere in the house and he stilled at the sudden sensation of chills racing down his spine.
“Alpha’s drugs are wearing off fast now.”
Devon looked up at Green-eyes. “Yours?”
“Fading. I want to fuck you but I can still resist your scent.” Kem’s eyes seemed brighter with only the low light of a lamp at the desk to illuminate the room.
Kem flexed his fingers at his sides, and just stood there watching him. Then his nostrils flared on a indrawn breath and his head tilted.
“You smell like the human Alpha claimed as a heat mate. Why?”
Devon shrugged. “Hell if I know. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
He hoped not. Even so, suspicion twisted its way through him. If Ian had discovered he’d gone missing four days ago, he might be stupid enough to come looking for him. Ian hadn’t wanted him to hang around those guys that night, but Devon had been in a bad mood, knowing he needed to get his hands on some more money, the sooner the better.
Ian had a tendency to let Brendan manipulate him because of how long they’d been friends. Devon knew better, because he’d been half in love with Brendan when they’d started dating before realizing Brendan had a thing for Ian that wasn’t going away any time soon. So Devon had fucked Brendan—or let Brendan fuck him, more like, until that night when he’d finally had enough and ended it.
He watched Kem, taking in the broad shoulders, muscled arms, the sinew and veins visible below the short sleeves of the black t-shirt. The wolves had taken to wearing human clothes over the years, and the t-shirt ended right below the waistband of a pair of denim jeans, serviceable but nothing special.
Mean and lean, Devon decided, and attractive, with a way of staring with those inhumanly green eyes that made Devon’s throat close up tight.
He wasn’t sure what it was messing with his head, but if the submitting and dying were taken out of the picture, he would have probably been open to trying out some alien sex with this wolf—if it hadn’t been heat season.
Heat season changed everything.
“Lamar was better looking than me,” Devon said abruptly. “Kayla prettier.”
Kem ran the tip of his finger along the line of Devon’s jaw and Devon let out a shaky breath. “Mating has nothing to do with appearance. No one else had the right scent.”
“I’m surprised it mattered.” Devon heard the unsteady tone to his voice and he tried to get it under control as he continued, “We’re all humans.”
“If I weren’t drugged, it wouldn’t.” Kem’s hand curled around the back of Devon’s neck. He started to lean in.
Devon cleared his throat. “So. We’re getting right to it then.”
A round jar thumped beside his knee on the bed, and Devon’s gaze flickered toward it long enough to notice the label was a collection of words and symbols that he couldn’t read. He could guess what it was, though. Lube.
“Yes.” Kem had gotten so close that his outer thighs brushed up against Devon’s knees, which were spread wide at the edge of the bed. “We shouldn’t wait.”
“Why?”
“My heat cycle is about to hit after days on the repression drugs. That’s reason enough.”
“If you say so.”
With the hand wrapped around the back of Devon’s neck, Kem tugged Devon closer, until their mouths were almost touching.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” he said, his eye-teeth clearly visible at this distance, “and then I’m going to strip off your clothes and mate with you, and you’re going to submit. We’ll fuck most of the night and there will be times when you’ll wonder if I’m going to hurt you, because I won’t be in control of myself, but as long as you submit, I won’t do you any harm at all. You’ll wake up sometime tomorrow feeling well-fucked, and I’ll show my gratitude for your submission.”
Devon exhaled roughly and swallowed. His mouth was dry, but surprisingly enough, he didn’t think fear had caused it. He remembered their earlier kiss and couldn’t control the flood of saliva the thought brought with it. He wanted Kem to kiss him again.
The kiss lasted longer than Devon expected. Kem’s lips pressed to his, slick and moist and warm, and Devon was ready when Kem’s tongue slid against his lips and made its way deep into Devon’s mouth. Devon opened for him and breathed deep through his nose and kept on kissing until Kem eased away from him.
Then while Devon was still trying to reconcile the flavors Kem had left on his tongue, Kem did as he’d said he would do.
The faintest prick of claw grazed his ribs as Kem raised Devon’s t-shirt up his torso. Devon put his arms up as Kem pulled the shirt over his head and then gave a little jerk when he felt the back of Kem’s fingers glide across his nipple.
His shirt fell behind him as Kem tugged the tip of Devon’s nipple between two knuckles, keeping his dark fingernails and claws away from Devon’s skin.
Devon lowered his arms, and then leaned back on them.
“I find it fascinating that even male human nipples are sensitive to touch, much more than ours.” Kem tweaked Devon’s flesh again.
Devon’s breath hitched. “Are they?” he managed to say, even though his throat didn’t want to work right.
Kem’s gaze seems stuck on Devon’s chest, watching his fingers play with Devon’s nipple.
Blood started a slow path into Devon’s dick. He was getting hard again, and he wasn’t sure what to think of that other than that his body liked what was happening, obviously.
Kem leaned in and licked the nipple he wasn’t toying with and Devon couldn’t help arching his back into the rough, hot glide of tongue. His nipple peaked in a rush of tingling sensation, and Kem looked up at him through his lashes without moving away from Devon’s nipple. Every breath from his mouth tightened Devon’s flesh a little harder. “You like having your nipples licked, don’t you?”
“Ye—ah.” He sucked in his breath in the middle of the word. Kem had gone back to licking, flicking his tongue over the peak of Devon’s nipple until Devon thought he wasn’t going to be able to hold himself up any longer on his arms. His back bowed and he groaned at the too-sharp pleasure of having his nipples worked over so thoroughly.
“Stop,” he finally said. “I can’t take anymore.”
A growl was Kem’s response, and then he grabbed Devon by the hips and pushed himself hard against the bulge of Devon’s cock before using his leverage and greater strength to toss Devon onto the middle of the bed.
Devon landed with an “oomph” of sound and a sudden acceleration of his pounding heart.
Between one moment and the next, Kem had reached for Devon’s fly. The button popped loose.
“Okay, what the hell? You don’t have to—”
Ruin my pants, he was going to say, but Kem reared back and roared at him, “Submit!” and Devon shut his mouth.
He was breathing hard, from the sudden rushing of adrenaline in his blood or the effort to keep quiet when he wanted to be anything but quiet. He wanted to tell Kem to stop acting like an asshole, because it wasn’t like Devon had said no to the sex. He could handle the sex.
Getting fucked up the ass was actually his favorite part of the whole thing, the way the pleasure mixed with the pain, the stretch and fullness of taking a cock in such a private place. He liked the dirtiness of the act, and he never failed to remember being told by good ol’ Gran that ass-fucking was disgusting. Fuck her. Ass-fucking was the pinnacle of intimate, and if th
at’s what he liked then God Almighty that’s what he’d do.
They’d come to an agreement there at the end, before he’d run away. He didn’t talk about his boyfriends, and she didn’t talk about her illegal activities. The fights had stopped after that. The hate hadn’t.
The bitch had not made his childhood easy after his mother died. Only Aunt Lucille had kept him from leaving, but then she’d moved away with her daughter Priya and Devon had been done.
Then the wolves’ came and he’d met Brendan and Ian within the year.
Kem’s eyes had narrowed on him, but Devon just took another deep breath and waited. Submitting wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for him, but he managed to keep his mouth shut and concentrate on his breathing while Kem visibly fought for control, fingers flexing on his thighs, claws peeking out from beneath those dark fingernails.
Kem sat back on his heels.
Devon exhaled. He reached for his zipper.
Kem grabbed his wrist, his firm, hard grip just this side of painful.
Chapter 4
Devon didn’t think he winced at the overly tight hold Kem had on his wrist, but Kem must have noticed something in his expression because his hold gentled, the warmth of his fingers bleeding into Devon’s flesh. “You test me too much.”
“Maybe you just don’t—”
Kem growled, a vibration starting low in his chest and rising through his throat. He leaned in toward Devon, taking a long, slow sniff that traveled from Devon’s chest to his underarm over his shoulder and up the side of his neck.
A short nudge of his head tilted Devon’s chin up, and Devon almost resisted, but then realized he’d better not. He went with the motion as Kem’s wet tongue scraped over the highly vulnerable column of his throat.
Chills skittered down Devon’s spine, and he breathed deep as his heartbeat ratcheted upward until he could feel the hard thump of every beat under his breastbone.
His cock was still hard, but he wondered how much of it came from arousal and how much from outright fear.
“You are mine,” Kem said, accent so heavy Devon had trouble picking out the words. “Say what else you will, but your smell, your taste, it draws me in until I can’t think of anything but taking you, making you submit to my will. I’m not Alpha yet so the repression drugs haven’t worn off completely. They will soon. That’s why I have to fuck you now. If we’ve already mated, I’ll be more certain of your submission later.”
“I submitted,” Devon said, “I’m here. I’m not fighting.”
Smooth skin and chiseled jawbone pressed against the side of Devon’s cheek as Kem flicked the lobe of Devon’s ear with his tongue. Devon didn’t think he’d ever seen a wolf with a beard. Most of them used the hair removal technology they’d shared just as freely as they’d shared medical technology; Devon had used the salons that offered the service for the first few years, until he couldn’t afford the luxury any more. These days he was lucky he didn’t have a beard all the time.
“You said the words, but I’m starting to wonder if you meant them. You don’t smell of submission to me, but it’s too late now. I can feel my blood firing with the heat and you will submit. You are mine.” Said with a deepening emphasis, the words almost a growl from his throat and so adamant that Devon felt another chill race down his spine.
He remembered Gran’s words. “You’re mine, boy. You don’t want to be out on the street, you better earn your keep.”
He’d cooked and cleaned and kept the old home maintained; he’d kept records on the customers and learned how to break into their gold accounts and take what Gran wanted from the ones who threatened exposure. He’d been good at what he did, and she’d still got mad at him on a whim and pushed him down the stairs that led to the underground compound where she kept her rooms for meeting with her customers. Every time he looked at that scar on his chin, he hated her a little more.
No matter what this wolf thought, Devon didn’t belong to anyone.
But there was more to Kem’s words than a claim he didn’t have. Devon wondered how much control the wolf actually had, if he’d make it through this even doing everything he was supposed to do.
But then again, maybe a distraction would help both of them. “I haven’t had a shower in four days and I stink to high heaven. I don’t know what the hell you’re getting out of it but hey, you like it, enjoy it.” He raised his arms over his head and flopped them back into the pillows that were crowded too close for comfort and pushed thoughts of the past out of his head.
Kem’s hand came down in the center of Devon’s chest, five sharp claws poking Devon’s skin but his nose went right for Devon’s ribs and underarm, his whole body seeming to shudder at the scent.
Kem loomed over him, his nose trailing down Devon’s side, toward his waist, then across his abdomen. Devon sucked in his breath as Kem left a trail of moisture in his wake, until he reached the open waistband of Devon’s pants.
Kem pulled Devon’s pants apart, the zipper tearing all the way down, Devon’s hips coming up off the bed a few inches at the sharp pull.
“Son of a—” Devon bit his lip to stop the curse as he bounced against the mattress.
Kem buried his head against Devon’s thin underwear and Devon grabbed for Kem’s short hair.
“Careful!” he said, clenching his fingers in hair that was softer than it looked.
But Kem merely scraped his nose and mouth over Devon’s cloth-covered flesh and Devon’s dick reacted with a twitch and went completely hard.
“It’s time,” Kem said. “No more delays. I need to—” He rose to his knees, already tugging at Devon’s underwear. The fabric rustled and the zipper clinked as Kem shucked Devon of the remainder of his clothes down to his boots, which he pulled off roughly and tossed over the side of the bed.
One boot thumped onto the seat of a straight-backed chair a few feet from the side of the bed.
“Got it, got it,” Devon said, scrambling with his hand for the jar of lube that had gotten lost under a pillow somewhere when Kem had manhandled him up on the bed. “Gotta use—”
“Of course. Lube yourself,” Kem interrupted. He got the pants off Devon’s ankle, his wide hand holding firm as he slung the pants across the room and then tugged off Devon’s socks.
When Kem released him, Devon’s foot came down on Kem’s taut thigh as Kem knelt back and yanked his black t-shirt off over his head, arms flexing, baring stomach and chest and nipples that were dark-tipped. A trail of hair disappeared under the edge of his jeans.
The air stirred between Devon’s legs and his balls tightened. He was completely naked and he felt uncomfortably vulnerable. Kem still wore his trousers but he was already tearing the fly open—and tear was the appropriate word. The fabric ripped apart where the zipper was sown into the material and Devon swallowed against the closing of his throat. He’d never seen a wolf’s dick up close before—only on video, censored for the widest distribution possible, but he’d heard they had a few inches on most humans.
He felt a little inadequate staring at Kem’s dick: long, flushed, thick, and hard as any human penis Devon had ever seen.
Devon didn’t measure up, by at least a few inches.
Then Kem looked at Devon for the first time since stripping his clothes off him, and his brow furrowed under a gleaming sheen of sweat. “What is this? Why have you done this to yourself?”
Devon rubbed his hands over his face and up into his hair. “Decoration,” he said. “It’s a tattoo.”
Ian had been drunk out of his head and Brendan had been offering a few ten-dollars and a blow job. Devon had earned both but only been able to collect one before he and Brendan had split. They were still friends, sort of, but the blow job was out of the question at that point. Brendan would have paid up but Devon no longer wanted to collect. Let Brendan moon over Ian if that’s what he wanted. Brendan was a manipulative son of a bitch anyway and Devon had had plenty of other options.
“It’s so—” Kem’s lip
s pulled back from his teeth.
“It’s a reminder to me to stop doing dumb shit for money. Trust me, I need the reminder more often than you’d think.” Sometimes it still didn’t make a difference, hence his current situation.
Devon could feel his erection fading the longer Kem stared at him. “Come on, it’s not that bad. It’s still a pretty nice dick.”
He reached down and took his dick in hand and gave his flesh a few firm pulls.
“It’s fascinating,” Kem said. “I’m—”
He reached for himself and started jerking his dick over Devon’s groin and almost immediately, a long thin streak of semen spurted across Devon’s cock and balls and into the hair at his groin.
The unexpected shock of wet warmth on the sensitive skin of his dick caused Devon to suck in his breath. He had never thought about how the wolves fucked, or what sex might be like for them. Quick, obviously. This wasn’t exactly what he’d thought was going to happen.
Kem dropped to his hands on the bed, almost straddling Devon, but Devon’s foot still rested on Kem’s thigh and the move forced Devon’s breath out in a grunt as his leg shifted closer to his chest, and he realized he needed to get a move on in case Kem lost it before Devon got himself lubed up. No way did he want to do this without lube. He’d been stupid enough to try that one time in his life, in a hurry and with only spit and a pre-lubricated condom to ease the way and he would never do that again. Took him days to get over it and that had been the worst fuck of his life.
He swept the bed with his arm, trying to find the jar, while Kem breathed heavy and harsh, his mouth coming down on Devon’s stomach, his teeth scraping across the fleshy part of Devon’s belly. Then he reared up and started jerking his dick again, and Devon’s eyes widened as he realized Kem had never gotten soft, and he’d gone straight from one orgasm to the next.
God Almighty.
He remembered Kem’s earlier comment about fucking most of the night. He hadn’t taken it literally, but—shit. Was he going to have Kem up his ass half the night?
His fingers closed around the coolness of the jar and he felt an immense relief wash over him.