Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance

by Stephan James

  Shawn looked up at the old butler and mouthed, “What happened?”

  Terrance just shook his head. “I came in to find him with his head on your chest. I know nothing more than that. You’ll have to ask him. Just…” He swallowed hard. “Mr. Timmerman is very upset at the moment. I know he didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  He’s a tiger?

  At any other moment in his life he would have rejected the idea as being too stupid and childish even for him, but there was no denying that the simplest explanation was nearly always the correct one. Eric was a tiger, and he was shackled up at night to prevent exactly something like this from happening; why that safety measure failed tonight he didn’t know, but he did know now that he had seen horrible, terrible sadness in Eric’s eyes in the midst of his rampage.

  It was this which made him try to sit up again. This time, Terrance didn’t argue. He merely stood there, looking worried. Shawn scooted over to the edge of the bed, swung his legs over, and padded toward the corner of the room between the TV stand and the wall. Eric crouched there, seeming much smaller now that his fur was slicked down and his ears flattened against the side of his broad head. He was huddled up, whimpering in faint little chuffs of sound.

  I’m so sorry, Shawn thought, and reached out to touch the other man’s –the tiger’s- shoulder. “Hey, Eric?” he whispered quietly. “Hey, we need to talk.”

  That broad tiger head swung in his direction, eyes filled with hurt. Somehow getting the message, Shawn glanced away. There was a sensation unlike anything he’d ever known before, a sort of sideways pull which resembled a strong gust of wind pushing him, but not quite. And then it was gone. When he looked back, there was only Eric, scarlet bruises on his joints where the metal cuffs bit into his skin when he transformed, before shattering off his body.

  The larger man looked down at the ground. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered brokenly. “I promise I didn’t hurt you. Except for when you fell. But, I mean, I didn’t…I didn’t bite you. I stopped just in time. I’m sorry.”

  This man looked so broken, so utterly destroyed inside, that it woke up something in Shawn which had been dormant nearly his entire life: empathy. Looking at the emotional tiger-man, he recognized that sadness, the utter rejection, as being something he so often felt for himself. Seeing it now, he realized he would probably never again be angry at Eric. Something was going on here, something so much bigger than himself.

  He reached out and wrapped his arms around Eric, hugging him. Eric raised one hand to hold onto his arm, but that was all he moved. “It’s okay,” Shawn whispered. “I know you didn’t mean it. I could tell.” Eric nodded desolately, his eyes closing.

  “But,” he continued gently, “it’s not fair to keep anymore secrets from me, okay? You have to tell me what’s going on, right now.”

  “This has happened to me my whole life,” Eric whimpered after a moment, his voice cracking in the darkness. “It was so easy and fun at first, but the older I get, it’s so hard to control… Whenever I’m angry, it just gets worse. I gave up control of my company so someone else could run it. I stopped leaving my home. I’m so, so scared of hurting someone. That’s why I decided I should get a caretaker, and have the room with chains built.

  “But, everything went too fast and before I knew what was going on, you lived here. And Shawn, I just didn’t know how to tell you. I should have, but I didn’t, and I’m so sorry. I almost hurt you so badly…”

  Shawn interrupted the flood of self-contempt, his voice shaking and his heart aching for this beautiful tiger. “But, you didn’t.”

  “I almost…”

  He insisted louder, “You didn’t.” Hugging his arms tighter around Eric, he ran his hand up through the larger man’s soft, bright red hair and cuddled closer. “I looked into your eyes and you stopped. I…don’t really understand any of this, but you stopped when I looked at you. That means I can trust you not to hurt me.”

  “Shawn…”

  Shawn hushed him quietly. “We can rebuild the room. Make it even stronger than before. I won’t give you a hard time anymore. We can even work on controlling it together, if you want to.” He had to admit how curious he was, and knew that it was driving at least part of his decision right now. “It’ll be okay,” he finished soothingly.

  Eric looked up at him, his expression unreadable. Then, suddenly, those broad hands grabbed his face and brought their lips crashing together.

  Maybe it was the adrenaline still flowing through his system, or a deep-seated want for comfort right in that moment; perhaps it was merely the attraction he’d been feeling this entire time, or a sudden culmination of everything else. Or maybe, just maybe, it was how the sudden loss of his frustration made him feel empty deep inside.

  Even in the midst of his depression and failure, Shawn always had his own misery to fall back on. Now it was gone, replaced only by his sympathy and probably-unfounded trust in the tiger, and he was left quite distinctly without that which he lived his whole life. In its absence, he needed something to fill the void.

  Eric was there. His lips were warm, and his breath was cut-grass-sweet. Shawn grabbed Eric’s wrists in his small hands and kissed him back roughly. Desire passed between them both, traded through their lips and filtered all throughout their bodies.

  Distantly, they both heard Terrance leave the room. In the solitude that followed, they went berserk.

  Their lips collided again and again, crushing together hard enough to make them raised and swollen. Their tongues danced together, pouncing and leaping, sucking and flicking in an intimate recreation of sex. Shawn kept his eyes open and watched the play of shadow on the other man’s face, in his hair.

  He was a sight to behold, man or beast, and he gave himself up to desire.

  Their bodies pressed together, shifting and rising up to interlock their thighs. Eric arched his back and rubbed his rock-hard cock on Shawn’s soft leg, and Shawn grinded himself against Eric’s thigh, but only ended up rubbing against his own pajama shorts. Frustration, sexual and hot, rippled down his spine.

  “Dammit!” he hissed, and reached down to yank his shorts off.

  Eric stopped him.

  Shawn looked up into hazy green eyes, and then he found himself on his back as Eric leaned over his body, grabbed the fabric of his shorts in his white teeth, and yanked. A line tore down the seam of his shorts. Wild passion ripped through Shawn as he watched the other man ravage his clothing until nothing remained of his shorts but mere scraps littering the floor. Then, Eric went after his underwear and had that torn away in a single brutal motion.

  “Oh,” he whimpered now, almost dizzy with relief as his member sprang free and nearly went into Eric’s open mouth. It felt so good to be freed, to be throbbing and swollen, that he nearly started to come right then and there.

  “Have you ever done this before?” Eric growled, his mouth still open. His hot breath came in pants right against his member. He could only nod in answer, too worked up to remember how to speak. The larger man purred suddenly, then grabbed his hips and flipped him over onto his stomach; he kept holding Shawn’s butt up in the air until it occurred to him what to do. Bunching up his legs beneath his body, he raised up his rear into the air for Eric to claim him.

  The larger man pounced on his back in a single swift motion, grabbing the back of Shawn’s neck in his teeth and biting down hard. Not enough to break the skin, but hard all the same. Shawn screamed out, surprised at the pain, at the blinding pleasure that exploded behind his eyes, and he pressed his hips backwards, seeking the tip of Eric’s shaft which was pressed firmly against his opening.

  Eric thrust his hips forward as Shawn pressed back, and sank himself up to his hilt in one swift movement. Their bodies met, arching together. Shawn gasped and panted, rocking his hips backward; Eric adjusted his grip, moved his mouth, and bit down again as he started to thrust deep inside.

  It had been so long since Shawn had done anything, so many years since his first exper
iences in high school, that he was incredibly tight. He felt every move Eric made, every inch of the larger man’s shaft dragging friction inside him. It was so furious, so savage, that he couldn’t help it. Reaching down between his own legs, he grabbed his shaft and gave it a single firm tug from base to tip.

  Immediately, his orgasm rocketed up from nowhere as waves of pleasure swamped his body. “Oh!” he cried out, and bucked beneath Eric so hard that his body bounced on top of him. His body shook and clenched, grabbing Eric’s cock and squeezing it.

  “Oh, god!” Eric moaned, and let his forehead drop against the back of Shawn’s shoulder as he came and spilled his seed everywhere in a burning rush.

  The two men collapsed onto the floor, and then rolled apart.

  I want to do it again, Shawn thought hazily, stretching out his hands to try and grab the other man. Eric grabbed his hands and kissed them. Let me do it again. Yet, everything he tried came out sluggish or not at all. Exhaustion wracked his aching body, and he was so utterly spent that he couldn’t stay awake.

  “Get out of here.”

  Shawn stared desolately at Eric, not understanding. He had just woken up after their bout of sex, only to find himself having been returned to bed again like an invalid. More than that, he’d been alone in bed.

  He came out to find Eric sitting in his regular spot on the couch, but he wasn’t lounging as he usually did. Instead, he was leaning over with his face in his hands and his knees drawn close together. As Shawn approached, he wouldn’t look up either, and only said that one thing.

  “Get out of here.”

  “Sorry,” he said gently, and took another few steps forward, “but you seem to have forgotten that I’m your live-in caretaker. That means I’m not allowed to leave.”

  Eric gave a bitter, pained laugh. “I’m freeing you. Game’s over. I don’t want you here anymore. I’m just going to hurt you.”

  “No,” Shawn shook his head and moved to sit down by the other man, only to back up with his hands up as he was snarled at. “Calm down, okay? Seriously, we went over this…” Yesterday? This morning? There had been so many jumps in time while he passed out that he was no longer certain. “We went over this before. We’re going to work on it together so you won’t be hurting me. It’s okay.”

  “No!”

  “Don’t push me away!” Shawn snapped, starting to grow desperate with hurt. He stared at Eric, willing him to look up, to meet his eyes, to see exactly how much he meant to promise and keep, but the tiger simply wouldn’t. “I…I don’t have anywhere to go from here, okay? I told you that before. Please,” he begged. “Please don’t force me to go back home.”

  Anything but that! Please!

  He wanted to scream, to cry, to rip out his beating heart and offer it up, anything to make the pain in his chest go away, but he knew when Eric looked up at his expression was cold and polite that he had lost.

  “I’m sorry,” Eric whispered, and then melded into a tiger right in front of Shawn’s eyes. Dropping down to all-fours, he suddenly reared up, taller than he was as a man, and flicked out his claws.

  Three straight lines burned across Shawn’s upper arm, and they felt like paper cuts more than claw wounds. He stared down at them, horrified, as they took a moment to widen, fill with blood, and then spill over.

  “Run,” Eric whispered somehow, his tiger’s voice gravelly. Dropping to the ground again, he threw back his head and roared. “RUN! Run from me!”

  The sound was ear-splitting, overwhelming, devastating. Paintings jumped from the wall, and Shawn screamed with the pain of it as his eardrums squealed in protest. Clamping his hands to his ears, blood splattering in hot trickles down his arm, he turned and fled.

  He left the paychecks in his room, even though he had no idea what he would do without them. He had no idea about anything. And as he ran, shoving past a startled Terrance, he careened crazily down the steps while apartment doors opened all around him as people left their rooms to figure out what was going on.

  His heart ached. That was all he felt. No fear, no betrayal, only anger.

  He promised Eric he would help, but the other man shoved him away without listening. And after what they’d just done together…

  He kept running.

  “You look a little bloated there today, honey,” Shawn’s mother murmured, not even really looking at him as he brought a forkful of pancakes to her mouth. “Since you’re not doing anything today, why don’t you go for a walk or something?”

  Shawn grimaced down at his own breakfast. He didn’t want to eat, or go for a walk, or do anything. And yes, he felt bloated. His stomach had grown noticeably since he went back home to South Carolina, even though he was so heartbroken he hadn’t eaten more than a few mouthfuls of any meal.

  Well, there was the heartbreak, and then there was the crippling nausea.

  It’s stress, he told himself, and believed it. After all, who wouldn’t be stressed after being forced to leave the apartment where they were staying for four months –a good apartment- only to have to return home as a failure? His parents weren’t disappointed in him, though.

  No, he disappointed them too much ages ago when he first left. Now they were merely tired, and distinctly unhappy to have him back.

  “Sure, Mom,” he said unhappily, and pushed his sausage around on the plate without taking a single bite. His father worked overnights and so was never home when Shawn was awake, for which he was glad. They’d only spoken once since he came home, on the day he arrived penniless and with one shoe stolen, violent claw marks on his arm, and it had been more than enough to last them both a lifetime.

  His stomach roiled again, but at least that was getting a little better. At first, he’d even thrown up a few times. Now, he just felt a little dizzy and heavy-headed when the feeling of sickness struck. It was strange, but he wasn’t sleeping, or eating, and his thoughts never stayed still for a single second. Of course he was going to feel a little under the weather for a bit, right?

  He thought quietly, affirmatively, right. And then he thought, unhappily, I miss Eric.

  Even thinking his name brought a sickening jab of pain right to his heart. And suddenly, he couldn’t stand to sit here any longer. Pushing back from his chair, he said softly, “I think I’ll take that walk, Mom,” and left the room to go put on his socks and shoes before she could make a comment.

  Stepping outside, he looked around. The old neighborhood hadn’t changed a bit. Every house was exactly the same, built from the same blueprints in order to save time and money. White-washed and boring, the front yards were all identical shades of green-brown. There were no trees here, but for a few sickly saplings that looked worse off than even the trees in NYC, and the cold of oncoming fall had been replaced by mild humidity.

  I hate humidity, he thought, and started walking. His stomach felt almost unpleasantly full, sticking out ahead of the rest of his body in a way it never had before. Walking, while already not his favorite activity in the best of times, quickly grew annoying as his rounded, yet firm, stomach bounced around.

  He put his hands in his pockets, looped his thumbs through the belt loops, and then pressed up. The sloshing, heavy weight of his stomach nestled on his hands now, and he was more or less holding it up. It felt better, in relative terms anyway, and he started walking again.

  “Hey!” someone called out.

  Shawn ignored it. Not for me.

  “Hey!”

  Closer now. He squared his shoulders and held his nervous, squirming stomach with both hands. Did he recognize that voice? But no, it was impossible. The Eric he knew wouldn’t even step foot outside his apartment, much less trouble himself to travel miles and miles, but his heart throbbed worse than ever and he closed his eyes.

  All he wanted was to reject this person with some dignity, for both of them.

  The cry came a third time. “Hey, wait!”

  Shawn spun around. “Sorry, but I don’t know who you are. I think you better…”
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  It was Eric.

  He wore a suit, as immaculate as ever, but for some scruffy patches on his neck where he hadn’t quite shaved thoroughly enough. And even though his shoulders were scrunched up, and he cast sidelong glances all up and down the empty morning street, it was decidedly Eric and no one else.

  ‘What?” he choked out, and it was good enough.

  Arms out, Eric rushed him and grabbed him. Their bodies pressed together in such beauty and felt so good that he didn’t even know what he was doing. Tears slipped down their cheeks, mingling on their faces as they kissed and nuzzled, but Shawn pulled back very quickly and looked up into those moist green eyes.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Eric whispered, clutching at him. “I’m really not as brave as I think. I’m just such a scaredy-cat without you.”

  Shawn laughed, and it came out a sob. “I hate you.”

  That earned him a tiny laugh. “I know. Oh god, I know. And you have every right to. But, oh, Shawn, I acted like such a fool. I was so scared. I’m still so scared. I have no idea what I’m doing or even really where I am. I’ve been traveling at night for days, just following your scent. And…”

  Something kicked.

  It wasn’t the sort of kick which came from an animal or a human. It was nothing he had ever felt before, because it came from inside. With their bodies pressed so tight together, they both felt it. It was a jump, a sharp, sudden jab which didn’t quite hurt, but certainly didn’t feel pleasant. And all at once, the nausea came back.

  What’s wrong with me? He pleaded inwardly, too scared of being sick to say anything out loud.

  Eric stared at him, his eyes very wide. “Shawn?” he whispered. “What was that?”

  He struggled to find some words. Any words at all. “I’m…I don’t…” He stopped when he realized Eric wasn’t quite listening, the question, and an afterthought of some idea churning beneath that mop of scarlet hair.

  Eric knelt, bringing them both down to the hard concrete sidewalk. It was an unpleasant descent. Shawn’s joints felt bloated too, swollen without aching. The tiger took his hands and held them tight, leaning low over them and then looking up.