The Wolf at Bay (Big Bad Wolf)

by Charlie Adhara

  Park blinked, looked down at their clasped hands, and picked them up. He brushed a kiss across Cooper’s before dropping it to the table. The whole thing happened so quickly that if not for the flare of heat across his knuckles, Cooper might think he’d imagined it.

  “Thank you.” Park’s voice was quiet, hesitant, almost confused.

  “Uh, yeah, of course. What happened after that?”

  Park cleared his throat, and his expression returned to normal. “I confronted my family. They refused to speak of it and forbade me from making contact with my mother, which I didn’t agree with. I...removed myself from their control.”

  “That’s why you’re not part of the pack. What about your other siblings?”

  “They were upset, but ultimately chose to remain. There are a lot of pros to being a Park, and the reasons for the lie were understandable, it’s true.”

  “What’s okay about telling children their parents are dead and denying them a relationship?”

  “It’s not okay. I’m still angry with them for making a choice that essentially determined I would never get the chance to know my father. But I started investigating his murder, and the more I learned about what happened, the more I understood where they were coming from. They wanted to protect me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Park tilted his head. “None of my family would give me any clue as to where my parents had been living or why they’d decided to leave us. Even my uncle Marcus was out of information. Eventually I hit a dead end and asked a favor from an old acquaintance. You know her, actually. Margaret Cola.”

  Cooper’s eyebrows shot up. “Head of the Trust? Top wolf in charge?”

  An old memory of their case in Florence and an odd conversation Park had with a local alpha named Rudi came back to him.

  I know you owe Cola...

  Park looked bemused. “Top wolf isn’t exactly accurate. She’s an elected representative. But as head of the Trust, she had resources that a college professor didn’t, so I asked her to help me track down my mother.”

  “And in return you agreed to join the Trust?”

  “It wasn’t that simple, but yes, that was the end result.”

  “So you have seen your mother since that night.”

  Park shook his head. “No. I...reached out to let her know I knew. We’ve corresponded off and on the last couple of years, but—she’s made it quite clear several times that she doesn’t want to see me.”

  “Oliver...” Cooper didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, he couldn’t even wrap his head around a mother hurting her child like that. But on the other hand, so many things about Park suddenly made so much more sense. First and foremost, how angry he’d been with Cooper for lying to his own family and pushing them out of his life. The situation wasn’t the same, but it had obviously opened an old wound and a deep one.

  “Is that what you meant about your grandparents lying to protect you? They didn’t want you to know your mom was a...uh, not interested?”

  “No.” Park stood and paced the room, radiating an unusually twitchy, agitated sort of energy. “Have you ever heard of the WIP?”

  “The whip?” Cooper raised an eyebrow. “This took a turn.”

  “Behave. No, the Wolf Independence Party.”

  He frowned. “Independence from what?”

  “The old, established families who run things, make the rules, distribute the...punishments,” Park said vaguely.

  “Families like yours,” Cooper guessed.

  Park inclined his head slightly. “It started with good intentions—it was the WIP who first pushed for the coming out, actually. But there are radical groups who have split off, who want different things and try to get them with violence. It turns out my parents were active members of one of the factions. You can imagine why that drove a wedge between them and my grandparents.”

  Cooper gaped at him. “What does that mean, exactly? On a scale of punny signs carried by protesters to semi-violent activists to domestic terrorists?”

  Park shrugged. He was looking jittery again, the way he had last night right before he’d had his dizzy spell, like his skin wasn’t fitting right. “Honestly, I don’t know. We don’t talk about it much.” His mouth twisted. “We don’t talk much at all. I exaggerated when I said we’ve been corresponding for two years. I’ve received exactly three emails from my mother, ever. The last one was over a year ago.”

  Cooper stood and walked over to him. Park eyed him cautiously, and for one bizarre moment he looked almost young to Cooper, his expression surly and unsure. If Park had been an angry teenager, this was what he would have looked like. Everyone had a little angry teenager left behind in them somewhere.

  Cooper opened his arms and—slowly, so Park had the chance to avoid it if he wanted to—wrapped them around him in a light hug.

  Park felt stiff in his arms, unmoving. “This is different,” he said, finally. He knew Cooper wasn’t big on non-sexual touch.

  “Felt like the thing to do,” Cooper said, resting his chin on Park’s shoulder. “Besides, if you get sent up the river, I’ll never get another chance at this.” He groped Park’s ass once, jokily, and felt him huff a laugh and gradually start to relax. Soon even the jitters subsided. Why would someone throw away this man?

  You make your own family.

  Ed may not have been the best father, and he certainly wasn’t a role model for expressing his emotions, but he had made a good point there.

  “I’m glad you’re in my life,” Cooper said simply. There was a lot more he could have said, maybe a lot more he should have said, but this was the clearest, most honest thing he could give right now.

  Park did nothing for a moment, almost as if he hadn’t heard, then pulled back and looked Cooper in the eye. His expression was so fierce it was actually startling.

  “There isn’t anywhere I’d rather be,” Park said, and kissed him, hard.

  A wave of heat coursed through Cooper’s body as every nerve ending woke up and responded to the raw need he felt in that kiss. He ran his hands through Park’s hair, pulling him closer, and Park groaned, his lips turning gentle. He slowly guided Cooper across the room toward the bed.

  “You should get some sleep,” Cooper murmured against Park’s lips.

  “Not tired,” he said, falling backwards onto the mattress and pulling Cooper with him until he was resting between Park’s legs. They kissed there for a while, and touched unhurriedly. Park felt warm, lush, and unusually pliable beneath Cooper, and they ground against each other gently, the tug and ache of the wakening erection in his jeans like a poultice for everything that had gone wrong this weekend. Hell, longer. If Cooper could just have this and only this, he’d be okay.

  Park’s lips moved across Cooper’s face, brushing his nose, cheek, corner of his eye, and the small hollow behind his ear, as if they had just met and he was carefully mapping the planes and valleys of undiscovered territory. Not that they had been this tentative the first time. Or the second. It was so much harder to truly marvel at a brand-new lover. When you don’t know where they’ve come from, it’s less amazing that they’re here, with you, like this. But now...

  Cooper found Park’s mouth again, and the familiar taste anchored him to this moment. He tried to shape what he was feeling into a kiss and was rewarded with a groan.

  Against his lips, Park breathed, “I’d like you inside me.”

  Cooper pulled back a bit, surprised. “Oh.”

  “Is that okay?”

  His dick pulsed a hearty yes, but he hesitated. They’d done it this way a few times, which he generally liked, but he’d have liked it a lot more if Park didn’t get so damn quiet during it. Whenever Cooper fucked him, Park, usually so talkative in bed, would go silent and get this dark-eyed, soft, searching look on his face, as if he had just asked a question and was waiting for a resp
onse. It was so pronounced there had been more than one occasion that Cooper had paused in the middle of things and asked, “What?” and Park would say, “What?” and Cooper would say, “What did you say?” and Park would respond, “I didn’t say anything.” And that time-old awkwardness was a serious mood killer.

  So gradually Cooper had stopped suggesting it, and Park never brought it up. Which was fine. He enjoyed using sex to clear his head, and generally there was less thought involved when he let Park take the more “active” role.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t rock-hard at the thought of pushing into Park and making the usually so tight and controlled man supple and begging beneath him. He’d just never imagined Park would be the one to ask for it.

  “Are you sure?”

  Park tilted his head, looking up at him from the bed. “Do you not like that?”

  “I do. I really do. It’s just, I mean, it didn’t seem like you, uh, did. And I like it the other way fine.”

  Park raised an eyebrow.

  “More than fine,” Cooper amended, feeling his face heat. “Obviously. So if you aren’t sure, I don’t want you to feel like, you know, you have to do anything or...” He snapped his mouth shut before he could monologue his way out of bed.

  Park had started to smile slowly. He pulled Cooper back down on top of him, spreading his legs and tilting his hips up. He ran his lips over the rim of Cooper’s ear. “I’m very sure. I want you to fuck me.”

  Cooper felt dizzy, he got so hard so fast. “Wow. Well. Okay. They told me prison changes a man, but I didn’t believe it.”

  Park huffed a laugh against Cooper’s neck. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

  “Mmm, and yet you still like me.”

  “Yes,” Park said simply. “I do.”

  They undressed each other slowly, kissing and touching as much as possible, until they were both naked and ready. And then they touched some more.

  When things were getting almost too ready and he was in danger of blowing it, so to speak, Cooper reluctantly left to fetch a condom and lube from Park’s carryall. Rooting through the bag, he felt an odd flurry of nerves, which was a little absurd. He wasn’t new at this any way you spun it. And besides, whatever else they were or were not, Park was a sex partner he worked well with and whom he trusted to communicate his needs and wants honestly, and to respect Cooper’s in turn. There was an extremely low chance of this going poorly.

  And yet the fluttering persisted.

  Cooper grabbed the supplies, turned back to the bed, and his heart twisted. Park had curled up on his side and was holding his knees in the center of the mattress. His eyes were closed. Cooper crept to the edge of the bed and hovered a hand over the curve of Park’s spine, ass, and legs, tracing the thick muscles without touching him.

  “I’m not sleeping,” Park said, softly cracking his eyes open, glowing gold and flickering with want. His hair had fallen over part of his face, and Cooper tucked it back in place and then kept moving over his shoulder and down the same path his hand had taken before, this time feeling warm skin and shifting muscles beneath his palm. Park arched into his touch, and his eyes closed again. When Cooper’s fingers passed over his ass, Park flexed his hips and made a small, needy sound.

  Cooper continued down his leg, taking his time. He squeezed his ankle then traced back up the inner side of the other leg. This time when he reached the crease of Park’s ass, he dipped inside to massage his hole and then played with his balls until Park’s breathing had sped up and his skin was flushed and darker than usual against the sheets.

  “How do you want me to take you?” Cooper said softly, and heard a rumble from Park’s chest that must have been a deep, smothered groan.

  Park rolled quickly to his back, and his bent knees shook a bit like he was unsure whether to drop them open and expose himself or keep them up and protective.

  As much as he said he wanted this, Park was still a little nervous, and seeing that banished the last of Cooper’s own anxieties, replacing them with an overwhelming desire to take care of Park, to soothe him. It was a vulnerable thing, opening yourself up to a lover.

  Rather than push his legs apart and get to business, Cooper crawled up the bed so that they were lying side by side. Park tracked the movement with a small frown. “What are you—”

  Cooper kissed him gently, feeling the willing give of his mouth. Then he started to move up and down Park’s body. He ran his lips over each freckle, his nipples, his belly button, the light smattering of hair leading down to his dick. When he’d kissed everywhere, he started over again, dragging his lips and tongue into every sensitive nook and cranny while he lubed his fingers, trailed them down Park’s cock and between his legs, and finally, gently began to prepare him.

  Park closed his eyes and moaned very softly. He seemed more relaxed now that Cooper was touching him and not down there staring at him, so Cooper kept his eyes and lips focused on Park’s torso, neck, and face. His body seemed just a bit different, bones closer to the surface, muscles slightly less defined, flesh softer. He was beautiful to Cooper either way, and he said so, whispering the words into Park’s skin. How sweet he was, and handsome and smart and kind and good. So good. All while stretching him open more and more.

  Park was humping Cooper’s hand now. Little needy twitches that shook the bed. His dick was rigid against his stomach, but every other line of his body was loose. A puddle of trembling man splayed out on the sheets.

  “I like seeing you like this,” Cooper admitted without intending to. He flexed his fingers inside him, nudging his prostate, and Park gasped. “Soft and receptive.”

  Park opened his eyes, and his expression was so trusting it made Cooper determined to make this the best he’d ever had. So good it would erase all the doubts and fights and misunderstandings and mistakes. So good it would connect them forever, even if just as a memory too sweet to forget.

  No one could fuck that well. But shit, he wanted to try.

  “Now?” Park said. “Please?”

  Cooper dropped a lingering kiss to Park’s knee, then repositioned himself between his legs, hovering over him, and pushed inside. Park arched up and pressed his open, panting mouth to Cooper’s collarbone. They stayed like that for a moment, and then Cooper slowly started to move, testing the waters until he found what he was looking for, and Park bit down convulsively on his collarbone with a muffled curse.

  The sharp sting was like a slap to a horse’s flank. Cooper jerked forward, and the resulting gasp turned gratified growl made him do it again and again, speeding up, until finally, finally, he was slamming into Park’s body.

  “Fuck, Oliver,” Cooper gasped, losing himself in the hot squeeze around his cock, the little whimpering moans Park made every time their bodies slapped together and the way Park was looking up at him wide-eyed and pleasure-drunk. His hands fluttered up between them like they didn’t know what to do with themselves, and Cooper grabbed Park’s wrists in one hand and held them down against the bed.

  He saw the flex of Park’s muscles as they reacted to the unfamiliar sensation of being restrained. He felt the power beneath his fingers rise to the surface, as if ready to toss Cooper off, and then recede as Park surrendered to the feeling of being totally controlled.

  Getting that submission from Park sent waves of electricity down Cooper’s spine, spots dancing across his vision and pierced something open inside him.

  “I don’t need you,” Cooper said, and Park whined underneath him. “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t—” He couldn’t stop himself from talking. The last bit of dam inside him had crumbled and all the bitten-back truths were pouring out. “I don’t need anyone.”

  He let go of Park’s wrists, twined his fingers in his hair, and pulled him forward while Park’s arms greedily wrapped around him. Cooper stopped his own mouth from spilling more secrets by pressing it against P
ark’s and kissing him possessively. He bit Park’s lip and felt Park’s hands dig painfully into his ass so sharply Cooper was sure they’d leave marks.

  “I don’t need you,” Cooper repeated, whispering into Park’s sweaty hair now. “But I want you. All the time.”

  He dropped his lips to Park’s temple and couldn’t pull away, due as much to tenderness as to the temporary paralysis while all his body’s resources focused on the tightening of his balls and the near-spasmodic jerking of his hips.

  “And I love you,” Cooper murmured.

  It was like someone had shoved him off a cliff and he was hovering in the air, legs spinning like a cartoon before plummeting into a free fall. It was a mistake to say it. At all. But especially like this, during sex, when it was guaranteed not to be believed.

  He hoped it hadn’t been heard. Right, because hard of hearing was totally Park’s thing.

  “Cooper—”

  The intensity of Park’s gaze was too much. Overwhelming, exhilarating, terrifying. More than all that together or maybe something else entirely. So Cooper covered his mouth with a hard kiss, and whatever words Park had begun to say transformed into a groan.

  Reaching between them, Cooper took hold of Park’s straining erection. He had hardly finished the first stroke when he felt the flesh swell and pulse as he came. The tightening of Park’s body around his dick and the guttural moan that reverberated between them ripped Cooper’s climax out of him, and he pounded out his release, chasing that bright, sweet bliss deep inside of Park, and inside of himself, until he couldn’t tell which was which.

  Cooper collapsed on top of him, skin sticking together, and listened to their heartbeats compete. When he’d regained semi-control of his muscles, he carefully pulled out of Park and disposed of the condom. Park hadn’t moved or made a sound yet. His eyes were half-closed, a bare glint of gold shining from beneath his lashes, but Cooper still got the impression he was being watched.

  “Okay?” Cooper said softly, unsure and just a little worried by the continuing silence.