Authors: Kim Dare
“You’d act differently with a wolf than a human.” Axel spoke with complete confidence.
Bayden made no reply.
“I can usually read guys pretty well. I can usually tell if they’re club guys who’ve subbed to a dozen different men, or if the closest they’ve got to leather is jerking off watching internet porn. You’re harder to read.”
Bayden rubbed the back of his neck.
“You might have screwed your way through dozens of men. You might never have done more than grope another boy in the shadows of a club. You might be used to scenes that run completely differently because you’re used to wolves. I’ve no intention of doing anything until I know where you’re coming from.”
“I know what I’m doing with humans,” Bayden repeated.
Axel smiled. “Tell me about how things work with another wolf.” He thought for a moment. “The laws would make a club just for wolves impossible, wouldn’t it? So where would you meet another wolf?”
“In a human club.” There was no harm in telling a human that, was there? It couldn’t be used against him.
Axel considered that. “Not all wolves have amber eyes like you, do they?”
“Not all humans have blue eyes like you,” Bayden pointed out. Wondering if there was any way at all to get Axel to reconsider the whole conversation thing and skip straight to screwing him, or whipping him, or, well, anything that didn’t involve talking.
Axel chuckled. “Fair point, but I meant that not all werewolves have eyes that make the fact that they’re shifters obvious.”
“Some wolves can pass for human among humans,” Bayden allowed.
“But another wolf would still recognise them?”
“Yes.”
“You could find another wolf in a crowd of humans?”
“Scent doesn’t lie,” Bayden said.
Axel took that announcement in his stride. “So, you’re in a human club. You sense another wolf is there and…”
Bayden looked at the chopping board. “Is there anything you want me to do?”
“Yes—answer my question.” Axel smiled when their eyes met. “You can pour yourself a coffee and take a seat as well.”
Bayden followed the last two parts of the order, but the bit about answering his question was harder.
“Problem?” Axel asked after a while.
Bayden studied his coffee. The hot, dark liquid offered up no solutions. “It’s not something that’s talked about.”
“You mean with humans? Am I asking you to give up species secrets?”
Bayden shook his head. “No. It’s not that. It’s something you just do, not something you think about or use words about. When you’re reacting to another wolf it’s all instinct. It’s…” He shrugged as he ran out of words entirely.
Axel frowned, but his scent didn’t contain any anger. “Okay. Try this. Close your eyes and picture it in your head. You’re in a club. There’s another wolf on the other side of the room. You’d like to hook up with him.” He paused. “Calling it a hook up works?”
Bayden nodded.
As Axel spoke, he turned his back on what he’d been doing and leaned against the edge of the counter. “Good. You want to hook up with this wolf. What do your instincts tell you to do?”
Bayden forced himself to close his eyes. Blind and vulnerable, he did his best to picture it, but it wasn’t easy to do that while Axel was right there, taking up so much room in his head. He pushed humanity aside as best he could and dragged his instincts to the surface. “Is he more dominant or less dominant than me?”
“He’s a dom,” Axel picked.
More dominant. That made it easy. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“If he’s more dominant, I don’t do anything. It’s his choice if he wants to approach me.”
“There are rules about things like that?”
Bayden shook his head, his eyes still closed. “Just instincts.”
“How do you know if he’s a dom or not?”
“Body language, scent,” Bayden hazarded. “It’s just…I just know.”
“Even from the other side of the room?”
Bayden nodded. He opened his eyes.
Axel seemed to give that some thought. Bayden tried to imagine a world where things weren’t so obvious. It probably went some way to explaining why humans were so screwed up.
“So, he approaches you, what happens next?” Axel asked.
Bayden sipped his coffee. “If I’m not interested, when he gets in my space, I back off. I leave the room, maybe leave the club.”
“But if you are interested?”
“When he wants to get in my space, I let him do that,” Bayden said. “Then we do what he wants.” He put some stress on the last few words, but he wasn’t sure how to make his willingness to obey Axel any clearer than he already had.
“What about what you want?”
“Staying means I’m agreeing to do what he wants, that I’m accepting that he’s more dominant than me and that he has the right to have things the way he wants them.” He paused. It was stupid to pretend that they were talking about anyone who wasn’t right there. Axel was the most dominant man in the room. Bayden knew that. Axel knew that. If it needed to be said out loud, Bayden could do that. He took a deep breath, grabbed whatever faith he could summon up and leapt. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Axel could do whatever he wanted with him. As their eyes met, Bayden had never been more aware of just how true that fact was.
Whatever you want.
Subs had said that to him in the past, but Axel wasn’t sure that any human could mean it the way Bayden seemed to—so instinctively, so unequivocally. As their eyes met across the kitchen table, Axel had never been more aware of another man’s submission. All the control rested with him, all the power, all the responsibility.
Axel was king of the world. All he had to do was to make sure his one and only subject was never given a reason to want to turn it into a republic.
“A lupine dom would never ask you what you want?” Axel asked.
Bayden shook his head. “Why would he?”
Axel studied Bayden for several seconds. It seemed like an honest question, as if he really didn’t get why anyone would care what a sub wanted. Bayden shifted in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation, but the simple fact that he found talking about it difficult convinced Axel that he’d been right not to jump straight into a scene with the boy.
Wolves were different. It wasn’t about shape shifting, it was about a different culture. In that moment, everything seemed up for debate. No assumptions were safe. Hell, they didn’t even seem to be working from the same dictionary.
First things first. “You said he’d get in your space—how?”
Bayden shrugged.
Axel stepped away from the counter. “Stand up.”
Bayden obeyed.
Axel came around to his side of the table. He took Bayden’s coffee cup and set it to one side. “Pretend I’m the sub wolf. How do you get into my space?”
Bayden took several paces back, his movements so quick they had to be borne of pure instinct. He was two yards away before he stopped.
Axel’s lips twitched into a smile. “Not one of my best ideas?”
Bayden shook his head. The look in his eyes made him appear on the edge of panic.
“What if we pretend that you’re the sub wolf?” Axel suggested, trying not to make it obvious that he was choosing his words with great care.
Bayden nodded. He seemed to relax.
“You’ll need to tell me what the dom wolf would do,” Axel pointed out. He looked down at his own body. “What kind of body language do I aim for?”
Bayden blinked at him.
“What should I be stressing?” Axel specified.
Bayden opened his mouth, but closed it again before he managed to come up with any words. “You…” He shook his head. He looked Axel up and down. Axel remained perfectly still. “I mean, you’re…”
“Communicating loud and clear already?” Axel hazarded.
Bayden nodded very rapidly.
Axel looked down at himself more carefully. He really was just standing there. As far as he could see, there was nothing unusual about his posture. “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to find a polite way to point out that I’m shouting without even realising it?”
Their eyes met. Shouting was apparently a very good word for it.
Axel laughed. “Fair enough, pup. So, you said I get in your space?” He took a few paces forward. Bayden stayed right where he was. He made no attempt to look up and meet Axel’s gaze.
Axel stepped confidently into Bayden’s personal space. “Is this the point where you’d back away if you weren’t interested?”
Bayden nodded.
“So, just by staying where you are and letting me get in close, you’re telling me you’re interested in submitting to me?”
Bayden offered up another nod. He swallowed rapidly.
Body language. Bayden’s gaze was lowered, his head tipped forward slightly. His hands remained at his side. His posture was open, accepting. In that moment, he seemed far more vulnerable than logic suggested he should. His breathing was faster and shallower than it usually was. Axel had no doubt that Bayden’s heart was racing. A glance further down, and it was clear that Bayden was hard behind his fly.
Axel had been right to insist that he get a better read on him before they played. Just the idea that they were relating to each other as wolves was making a huge difference to Bayden. There was no sign of the wolf who refused to give a single inch to any man he made a bet with.
Axel settled his hand flat against Bayden’s abs. Bayden’s fingers twitched, but he kept his arms at his side and just let it happen.
Bayden still wore his vest. There wasn’t even any skin-to-skin contact. But every beat of his heart and every breath he took was relayed directly to Axel’s hand. There were no secrets now. Axel leaned in toward him, purposely crowding him and taking away the last vestiges of personal space.
Axel slid his other hand through Bayden’s hair and down to rest on the nape of his neck. Bayden took a deep breath; he still didn’t reach out to Axel in return. It didn’t seem to be a choice. He was as bound by his instincts as he could ever have been by leather.
A dozen different occasions played through Axel’s mind—all the times he’d casually reached out to Bayden without ever considering that there could be any special significance to his actions or Bayden’s acceptance of them.
“Since you started drinking here, whenever you’ve let me into your personal space, was this what you were telling me?” Axel asked, quietly.
“I know human signals are different,” Bayden whispered.
“I’m not asking about a human, I’m asking about you. When you let me into your space, was that an invitation or were you just being polite because I’m a human and I don’t know what I’m doing?”
Bayden swallowed. He closed his eyes.
Axel didn’t pull back. He didn’t retract the question. He just stood there in Bayden’s space and waited.
“I wouldn’t have said no to you,” Bayden finally whispered. “Not from the first day.”
Axel moved one hand up to Bayden’s chin and coaxed him into tilting his head back. He brought their lips together. The kiss was soft, sweet and chaste. Axel didn’t allow himself to linger over it for too long.
The kiss had been over for several seconds before Bayden opened his eyes. He glanced up at Axel, their eyes met very briefly before he looked down.
If that first kiss had been all about testing the waters, Axel made sure their second kiss was a clear statement of intent.
He closed the last of the gap between them and slid his arm around Bayden’s waist to pull him in against his torso. He tightened his hold on Bayden’s hair.
Bayden arched, pressing his body against Axel’s. His lips parted in welcome. He still didn’t reach out to Axel in return. As Axel began to explore his mouth, Bayden was all acceptance. But there was caution there, too—a determination not to do anything that might be misconstrued as him trying to take the lead. Because he wasn’t sure what Axel would allow, what a human would expect, or because that was what came naturally to a wolf?
Axel deepened the kiss. No rush at all, he let one kiss morph into another, then another.
As he licked his way into Bayden’s mouth again, Bayden cautiously sucked the tip of Axel’s tongue. Pressed together as tightly as they were, Axel felt Bayden tense at being so daring. Axel murmured his approval into the kiss and tightened his hold around Bayden.
Bayden relaxed against him, but his side of the kiss remained tentative, almost coy. Axel rocked his hips. Bayden was just as hard as him, just as ready as he was to fall into a scene and not surface for hours.
Axel broke the kiss. “Good boy.”
Bayden dipped his head rather than look up and meet Axel’s gaze.
Axel tugged gently on Bayden’s hair until he tilted his head back. This time, Axel made him wait before he gave him his kiss. “Such a good boy.”
He took half a pace forward, pushing against Bayden’s smaller frame. Bayden stepped back. Another step, then another, until Bayden’s back hit kitchen wall. Axel nudged his knee against Bayden’s legs, encouraging him to shuffle his feet apart. Axel’s hip rubbed against Bayden’s crotch as he slid his thigh between Bayden’s legs.
Bayden gasped, rocking his hips in return.
Axel wrapped one of his hands around Bayden’s right wrist and pressed it against the wall alongside his head. In moments, Bayden’s other wrist was similarly pinned to the paintwork. Bayden let it happen. No virgin could have looked quite so fascinated by each individual step in the process. He gasped for breath. There didn’t seem to be any part of his body that didn’t shudder under Axel’s touch.
Anything. He could do anything with the boy, and Bayden would go along with it all. He’d do whatever Axel wanted for the rest of the night—there was no doubting that. But, if Axel played his cards just right, he knew Bayden would submit to him for a damn sight longer than a night.
Axel forced himself to pull away and take several paces back.
Bayden blinked at him. For several seconds, he remained still, holding the exact position in which Axel had pinned him to the wall. Axel had never seen anything so gorgeous.
The moments ticked by. Bayden frowned. He lowered his arms, but he didn’t step away from the wall.