Bas felt cuffs around his left wrist.
Then his right.
“You need to be ridden hard, I think.” Gray considered him. “I normally do this with women, but you seem to need it more than most of my dates.”
Bas hated the idea of Gray with anyone else, but he refused to put himself out there more than he already had. “Gee, handsome. And here I definitely would have pegged you as a man’s man.
A real bottom.”
Fury flashed in Gray’s eyes. “You don’t know when to quit.” Gray leaned close and…
bit his shoulder.
Bas yelled out in pain just as he felt another shock. Gray moved like lightning. One minute he had his fangs buried in Bas’s skin, the next he’d managed to wedge his hips between Bas’s thighs and shoved the tip of his cock into Bas’s ass. But instead of ramming deep, Gray withdrew his bite and steadied himself on his forearms, his shaft moving with extreme slowness. The bastard took his time as he fucked him, making him feel every inch.
“Damn it.”
Gray chuckled, but the meanness didn’t leave his eyes. “Feel it.
Every fucking inch.
Coming inside you before was perfect. I needed it.” Gray glanced down at Bas’s weeping cock. “Bet you need it too, don’t you? Need to come all over me, to feel me slide deeper inside your hole.”
“Quit playing,” Bas snapped, while his beast delighted in the powerful male’s attention. The dominant Circ cared, offering a bonding even if Gray didn’t consciously realize what the bites and sex meant. Bas’s beast knew, and as Gray watched him while they fucked, new thoughts entered his mind. Of
how good it feels to fuck Bas. But I wish I didn’t want the sexy, obnoxious Circ so much. I shouldn’t be so drawn to this unnatural creature. Shit, he’s a scientific experiment. But he’s so hot, and he feels so fucking good. I can’t stop myself. Why him? Why is he so different, so important to me?
Bas had a hard time understanding until the truth suddenly rushed through him.
Shit. I’m hearing his thoughts
. He didn’t want to hear any more. It hurt to know Gray saw him as something inferior, yet at the same time, it gave him hope that Gray couldn’t stay away. If what he heard from the man was true, Gray lusted after him with a hunger he’d never felt before.
“Stay with me.
Right with me.”
Gray ran a hand over Bas’s cock, and the dual stroking sensation, inside and outside his body, jolted a burst of seed from him. “That’s good, baby. Give me more. Put it all over my skin.”
Bas had a hard time holding it in.
The love, the lust, the need.
The anger.
And then Gray leaned down to kiss him and clutched his cock tighter.
Bas groaned as he came and continued to come. The explosion rocked his entire world, and the intensity nearly made him black out. When he came back to himself, he saw Gray’s belly covered in semen. Then Bas shifted his hips. Gray’s face tightened, and his lips parted on a moan as he came inside Bas. A second, smaller eruption jetted from Bas’s cock.
“God, you smell so good.” Gray paused, blinked, and seemed to come back to himself.
The intimate connection that had all but joined them as one just
seconds
earlier faded, then disappeared. Gray withdrew from Bas, left the bed, and stood.
“You good now?”
“Good? I’m great.”
And confused as shit.
“Okay, then. I’m going to hit the shower and get some rest. You should do the same.” The look he shot the door couldn’t be mistaken. Gray wanted him gone.
Bas sat up, his chest tight, and his eyes burned with what he tried to tell himself was rage. For all that he’d initiated sex, Gray had been right there with him.
“Sure thing,
hero
.
I’ll take my unnatural, experimental ass back to my room.
Away from your fucking ego.”
He leaped from the bed, ignored the twinge in his ass, and slammed the door shut when he left the room. Then he took a long hot shower in the other bathroom and wondered how the hell he could have fallen in love with such a prick.
The moment the door slammed, Gray shuddered and slumped to the floor. He’d never felt so weak yet so strong at the same time. It was as if Bas had left with a piece of him, and his odd parting words made a scary kind of sense.
Unnatural?
Experimental?
Gray had been thinking that while they’d fucked.
When his first attempt into Bas’s mind had failed, Gray had retreated and hadn’t tried again. Though he had the power, he didn’t like abusing it. As much as he wanted to know what Bas thought, he’d never been into rape—of
any
kind. A violation of another’s mind was a strict taboo. The only times he’d done it in the past had been through his sister to warn her of mortal danger.
In any case, he didn’t want to read the man’s mind. That would mean opening up a connection that apparently already existed, because he’d swear Bas had somehow read
his
thoughts.
An impossibility
, or at least it should have been.
He sent out a telepathic knock, needing a conversation he knew his sister would keep quiet and private from their meddling grandmother. If his parents hadn’t been vacationing halfway across the world, he’d have asked them. But he didn’t want anyone even guessing at what he suspected.
“Ava? You busy?”
His sister answered right away.
“Yeah, busy trying not to lose my
friggin
’ mind. This kid of mine is crazy hungry all the time.”
Great.
Just what he needed.
To think about his sister breastfeeding.
He mentally scrubbed his brain.
“I need you to do me a favor. Read my mind.”
She gave a laugh.
“Yeah, right.
You know I can’t do that. I’ve never been able to.”
“Just try.”
“Okay.”
She paused.
“Nothing.
Tighter than a drum.
But…”
“But what?”
“You seem different. And what’s with the chocolate?”
“What?”
“I don’t know how, because you can’t smell thoughts. But it’s like you’re coated in chocolate. Oh God. I hope that’s not a sign I’m pregnant again. I need some recovery time from Sophie.”
He heard the mental echo of a baby’s gurgle and sent a burst of love to his niece.
“She’s like me,”
he said with pride.
“My little girl can hear thoughts.”
“You mean
my
little girl. You’re as bad as the others. Gunnar brags she has his strength and his bright blue berserker eyes. The others are claiming she mimics whatever they do, and Grandma is so proud, she’s about to burst.”
“Good. Keep Alicia busy and out of my hair.”
“Uh, about that.
I heard her on the phone with Lonnie earlier. You don’t pull through on this mission, and she’s planning to put you behind a desk, bro.
Be
careful about this one.”
“Fuck.”
“Watch your mouth.”
He could feel her frown.
“Sorry. Hey, at least the kid can’t understand words yet. Can she?”
Ava sighed.
“I hope not. Because half the things Gunnar says would melt her ears clean off. Oh hell. She’s hungry again.
Gotta go.
Love
ya
.”
“You too.”
He disconnected the link and tried not to jump to conclusions.
His parents could read each other’s thoughts. So could Alicia and Lonnie, now that his grandmother had finally accepted him as her mate. Gray had been gifted with an advanced telepathy from the time he could crawl. Any serious ties to a mate would be mental as well as physical.
He’d never before been so tuned into another person. With Bas, he felt physical desire. But did he also share a mental connection? He couldn’t be sure, not without looking into Bas’s mind. Tempting as it was, he didn’t think Bas would welcome the intrusion. Certainly they shared chemistry. But what if Bas had only wanted him to
sate
his needs? They’d worked together for months, but this was the first time Bas had shown any interest. Hell, up until this point, he hadn’t realized Bas liked men.
Though most Circs were bisexual, many preferred one gender to another, seeking other Circs more as a necessity than due to any real sexual preference. Bas had never displayed the typical characteristics of a Circ—the mating heats, the out-of-control rages, resistance to the
change
. From what little Gray knew
,
Bas was a rare individual who had adjusted to the Circe serum without a problem.
Until now.
Until he had his first mating heat.
But why so late after becoming Circ?
The nagging question remained, though Gray tried to ignore it. What were the odds he’d been thinking of Bas as an experiment and the man just happened to mention it in a fit before stalking out the door?
On shaky legs, Gray stood and moved to his shower, where he washed himself clean. Yet the bonded scent of himself and Bas didn’t fade. His beast stretched inside him, wrapping himself in the familiar, welcomed touch of Bas’s memory.
So
not good.
Gray didn’t mind the thought of one day mating, but he intended to do it the right way. With a female Circ from home, one of those born gifted, like him, to produce children. He’d continue his family’s way of life, protecting the innocent while making sure society didn’t annihilate itself in the name of trying to make life better. Righting science gone wrong had been his grandmother’s agenda since he could remember. And she’d made sure he and his sister understood they had significant roles to fill.
Alicia could see the future, and she’d seen Gray saving lives. His importance in the grand scheme of things gave him purpose. He’d tolerated the unnatural Circs because they could help him where normal humans could not. But to mate at this early stage in his life, and with a male, no less, would ruin everything. No progeny to pass on his gifts. No easing into a more sedate life after the raw urgency of today’s crises. He’d have to drop everything now and cater to a male who needed tending, protection,
instruction
.
God.
Sebastian Decker might be good-looking, hell on wheels in the sack, and as strong as an ox, but in Circ years, he was a toddler. The thought made Gray slightly ill, and he hurriedly changed his train of thought. Instead of dwelling on what might be, he needed to think about what was coming. Al Ross was a problem if Alicia had sent him on the man’s path. And if she planned on benching him if he failed, he had a bad feeling Ross would be more than just a mission, but one of those fucking tests his grandmother loved to throw his way.
He sighed as the hot water in the shower turned cool. No doubt Bas was soaking away his anger in the other shower, hogging all the hot water. The man might be a few scant years younger, but he seemed worlds more vulnerable. His sense of humor, his forgiving nature, his ability to smile when the shit hit the fan, made him not just a decent partner, but a person Gray actually liked being around—a truth he’d take to his grave.
The thought of Bas’s smile warmed Gray and alarmed him, because the notion of Bas forever in his life seemed right. As he let the water cleanse him, he couldn’t shake the idea that no matter what he did, he’d never be free of Sebastian Decker.
* * * *
Friday afternoon, Ali pulled aside the curtains and watched the sun peer through the green pines and firs surrounding her grandfather’s—
her
—cabin. Once again she’d routed the scavengers sent to rape and
torture
her into submission. She glanced down at her scarred and healing arms, wishing she could just end her existence now. But until she took out the head of the labs who’d done this to her, she’d never know peace.
Nor would her grandfather.
She shivered as a sensation her grandfather would have called Ross Intuition crept over her.
The knowledge that change was coming settled into her blood and bones.
The rogues she expected. But this feeling told her something new approached.
She glanced at her dwindling supply of ammunition on the nearby counter and sighed. If she wanted to survive the summer, she’d need to find more ammo. But that meant a return to the warehouse.
A place that practically seethed with negative energy.
Granddad Dill had cursed her father up and down, but to no avail. Dan Ross had sold them out. His days in the army had amounted to little, except that his good friend Caleb Trenton had kept in touch after they’d both discharged from the military. Good old Caleb had given him a job, had even let him bring his daughter around after her mother passed. With childcare hard to come by with no money and no job, Dan Ross had been more than willing to do whatever Caleb said. He’d even allowed Caleb to test a special vaccine on his only daughter, his baby girl. She’d been a goner since she’d turned five. She just hadn’t known it then.
Ten years later, when her father had died and she’d gone to live with her mother’s parents, the shots stopped. But the damage had been done. And then in her early twenties, Trenton and his goons had returned with a court order to take her back to the labs. The first two sessions she’d spent there had been odd but not threatening. Months of tests, physical and mental, had bored her but not harmed her. But the last time, they’d kidnapped her grandfather as well. And they’d done…things…to her. Things she didn’t like to think about too hard, or the rage that made her blood mutate faster grew stronger. Her veins throbbed as the black disease spread to her forearms. The palms of her hands grew darker, and she drew in a deep breath and let it out to relieve the tension.