Authors: R. Cooper
“But I won’t be any good as a mate,” Tim pointed out, because Nathaniel should get at least one more chance. That was about as fair as Tim felt like being. Silas would have been appalled at even that. Tim drifted toward Nathaniel’s every glorious inch. There had been a mistake somewhere down the line. Clearly none of this was meant to belong to Tim, and yet he wanted to stamp his name onto Nathaniel’s flesh.
“You’ve done all right so far,” Nathaniel answered in a husky voice. “I would’ve told you that before, if it wouldn’t have sent you running.”
Tim couldn’t even feign outrage. It was the truth.
Nathaniel wasn’t done. “I could’ve done things better.”
Tim raised himself up indignantly. “How the fuck could you have done better? You gave me information when I asked, and freedom and choices, all while running this town. Do you know how many times I have voluntarily stayed somewhere? Twice. Los Cerros and here. That’s it. And this place still panics me a little. But I stayed because you never tried to force me to. Do you know how frightening that is when it’s never happened before? I want to scream just thinking about it. I—” He didn’t like Nathaniel’s stillness, the chill of him contrasting with the blood-scents he was no longer trying to hide. Tim was so bad at this. “I wanted to run, but not as much as I want to stay here right now. With you.”
Something fell to the floor in the world outside Nathaniel’s office, a paper cup maybe, audible in the hushed silence. Tim looked to Nathaniel, who was breathing harshly with his head down.
“I want to stay, if that’s still what you want.” Tim tried again, then shook his head rather than give in to his nervously flipping stomach. “No, fuck that. You’re mine. I claimed you. I claimed you in front of witnesses, bitch, you’re mine.”
Nathaniel growled, short and rough, and raised his head to stare at the ceiling. Tim watched him swallow, take another breath. “If it’s what I want?” Nathaniel repeated in disbelief. His voice broke. He closed his eyes as he fell against the couch. His breathing was off, too fast.
“No?” Tim turned toward him, regretting every stupid, brash word. “Oh. I thought maybe…. Sorry.”
Nathaniel’s chest rose and fell as he let out a dry, rasping laugh that made Tim shiver. “Say it again,” Nathaniel ordered without opening his eyes. “Say yes.”
“Yes,” Tim said blankly, then gasped as he was pulled onto Nathaniel’s lap. That wasn’t even what it was. He was halfway in Nathaniel’s lap, pressed mostly up against Nathaniel’s side, close enough for Nathaniel to bury his face in Tim’s neck. His hand was still fisted in Tim’s shirt, his knuckles pressed uncomfortably to Tim’s sternum. Tim’s knee had to be digging into Nathaniel’s thigh, but Nathaniel wasn’t moving, he wasn’t even breathing.
“Nathaniel?” Tim’s hand curved around the back of Nathaniel’s neck in what was becoming a habit. Nathaniel shivered under his fingertips. “It’s, uh, are you okay?” Tim scratched softly at Nathaniel’s hairline. There was that shiver again, getting stronger. “You have to breathe. Even awesome alpha wolf sheriffs have to breathe.” Tim almost extended his claws. “
Breathe
.”
Nathaniel inhaled sharply and let it out with a shudder that rocked the couch. Tim bent his head, nosing closer until he was rewarded with
relief
. It ran deep alongside the fear that hadn’t gone anywhere. “Don’t,” Tim huffed at him. “I don’t know how to fix this.” He stroked over Nathaniel’s scar until the skin was almost as warm as it would have normally been, and turned his head to offer Nathaniel more of his throat. “Please.” He had no problem begging for another mark, but Nathaniel only lifted his head to press his mouth lightly over Tim’s bruised cheek before ducking in once again. He breathed against Tim’s skin and never once relaxed his grip.
“Yes. Yes, I’m staying.” Tim took a moment, then closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He licked the tip of Nathaniel’s ear. “I’m sorry.” He kissed Nathaniel’s temple, blushing hotly at his pathetic attempt at tenderness. “It figures you’d have a breakdown now. I’ve been having them all over the place. Carl’s right. Love is not soft.”
Nathaniel snorted, a wet sound, as if he had been crying, but Tim wasn’t going to tell if Nathaniel wasn’t. “This makes us both badasses, you realize?” Tim could babble like no one else. “Aside from how we’ve both taken on Silas Dirus and walked away, we are both badasses in love. I’m going to write Ramona Greenleaf a fan letter and suggest that as the title of her next book.”
Nathaniel rested his other hand against Tim’s ribs. He inched it down and splayed it carefully over Tim’s stomach, his wounds. Tim tensed but didn’t flinch. “Don’t worry about that either, okay? It’s not so bad. Yeah, I’ll have nightmares for a while, but whatever. You’ll be there when I wake up, right?”
A choking sound was his answer. It could have been a laugh. Nathaniel’s lips moved against Tim’s skin. “I’ll be there.”
“Fucking right you will.” Tim was guessing he smelled of relief too—warm salted caramel with a sea of bubbling hot milk underneath it. Or that was euphoria bouncing through him. Tim slid the rest of his body into Nathaniel’s lap, and Nathaniel made a grateful sound before pulling him in tighter. He unclenched the fist at Tim’s chest in order to wrap both arms around Tim but didn’t lift his head. His breathing tickled as it evened out. “Yeah, okay.” Tim got it now. “I’m going to breathe you in too.”
Silas had said their scents were blended, but Tim couldn’t tell. Maybe Nathaniel could. Tim hoped they were close to as good as the bright scent of Nathaniel alone, like fresh air feeding a wildfire. Tim sighed a little and eased down over Nathaniel’s thighs. He was in pain, there were aches up and down his body, but they were distant and fading, healing faster in the presence of his mate, he suspected. There were a lot of things Silas should have told him.
Nathaniel moved, and Tim opened his eyes, but Nathaniel licked Tim’s neck. Tim didn’t think it was meant to be arousing. There was an ugly red line from the torn necklace, and Nathaniel seemed to be following it. Tim turned his head to allow it and focused on Nathaniel’s bloodied uniform. It had to go. So did his radio. Tim was just extremely disinclined to move to make that happen.
“I’m going to sit on you forever if that’s all right.” Tim wasn’t really asking. “I’m going to take up residence on top of you for the time being, to ensure you don’t get away.”
“I wasn’t the one in danger of leaving,” Nathaniel remarked with a nip of his teeth that wasn’t playful. Tim wet his mouth but couldn’t find an answer that wasn’t breathless.
“If you ever try to leave me, I will sic Silas on you.” Tim turned his head the other way to grant Nathaniel licking rights to the other side of his neck as well. “Forget that. I’ll sic myself on you.”
“Silas?” Nathaniel paused as if remembering Silas’s existence. “What happened?”
“Um.” Tim tried to focus, but it had been an exhausting day, and Nathaniel’s tongue was starting to feel good in a different way. “I, uh, don’t want to talk about him now. Not when I’m on top of you.”
Nathaniel’s embrace hadn’t gotten any less fierce, but he nudged Tim’s head up to place a kiss under his ear. His voice wasn’t quite level. “That’s a fair rule.”
Tim liked establishing rules. He also liked changing his mind. “Would you have fought Silas for me? If you do, you can’t fight him the way you fought Luca. You give Silas no chances.”
“I wouldn’t have fought him like I fought Luca. That was a demonstration.” Nathaniel was fucking sexy when he admitted how powerful he was, and that he’d been using that power for Tim’s benefit.
Tim tangled his fingers in Nathaniel’s hair, which was his now, like the rest of Nathaniel, and politely urged Nathaniel to keep doing what he was doing with his mouth. He considered what Nathaniel had said. “But you thought about it, fighting him.”
“Of course.” Nathaniel had to go and get even hotter. “Silas and I share the same weakness.”
“Fuck.” Tim drew Nathaniel back by his hair so he could put his face on Nathaniel’s face. Mostly just his mouth. He wanted his mouth on Nathaniel’s face. “I might use that knowledge in the future, so you know.” New rule—Nathaniel always got at least one warning. Nathaniel seemed okay with it, or maybe that was how Tim petted Nathaniel’s head with both hands and grinned down at him. Tim felt like a sugar-starved fairy, but Nathaniel was gazing at him like Tim was the moon itself, which was no incentive to stop. “You’re my mate.” It needed saying, so Tim said it, and he said it loudly. “You’re
my
mate. Sucks to be you.”
The arms around Tim tightened and then relaxed. Nathaniel’s mouth turned up ever so slightly. “I don’t think so.”
“You think about a lot of things.” Tim petted him for that too and then arched up when Nathaniel’s big hands spread out over his back. “Was there more of a plan to convince me to stay, aside from bringing me lunch and fucking me brainless?”
There was a sudden flurry of activity in the other room. Tim kept his eyes on Nathaniel.
“As if anyone can make plans around you.” There was a distinct thread of
pride
in the puffy, ever-increasing cloud of
warm/good
around Nathaniel. “You have a way of ripping through them.”
“Well, now that is your problem forever,” Tim promised him. Then he froze. He had no idea what he was saying really, but forever was a scary word for someone who thought six months was a long time.
Nathaniel leaned in to touch their noses together. “Talk dirty to me some more.”
Tim took way too long to realize Nathaniel was teasing. “Oh my God,” Tim exhaled. “I absolutely hate you. If you weren’t mine, I’d be forced to get rid of you.”
“Yours?” Nathaniel’s wide smile was the worst. Tim wanted to roll in it. He leaned in instead and bit lightly at Nathaniel’s jaw. “Mine,” Nathaniel added, as if Tim weren’t in the middle of the act of claiming him. Nathaniel tasted so good Tim slid his mouth over more of his skin before wriggling in closer.
Nathaniel’s radio was in his way, not to mention in danger of crackling to life at an inopportune moment. The useless gun was another painful obstacle. Tim tugged at them both, more aroused when Nathaniel immediately clasped a hand around his wrist to stop him. He probably thought he was on duty right now, but Tim had seen the people outside and knew better.
“Take them off.” The small jolt through Nathaniel was satisfying. Tim bit him again, a little farther down Nathaniel’s neck. “The shirt too.” It had blood on it, and Tim didn’t want it anywhere near Nathaniel.
Nathaniel removed his hand from Tim’s wrist, only to press it to Tim’s chest. “You first. You still smell like—” He tightened his hand and didn’t say Luca’s name. Tim shivered despite himself but sat up. Nathaniel was serious. “I have spare shirts in my desk. Please.”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “You just want me to walk out of here in your clothes.”
“Yes.” Nathaniel was already breathing faster. Fuck, so was Tim. He tugged at his clothes, and when he winced at the lingering pain, Nathaniel helped him pull the flannel and stained T-shirt over his arms and then toss them to the floor. Nathaniel’s gaze went to Tim’s stomach and the mess of dried blood that did nothing to hide the neat line of stab wounds. Tim was going to have scars, but small ones.
Before Nathaniel could say anything, Tim poked at the radio, then his gun. Nathaniel firmed his mouth but slowly removed the radio and then his belt and let Tim lower them to the floor. Then Tim got to take off his shirt, his face in Nathaniel’s throat the whole time. He couldn’t tell if his need was making Nathaniel’s lust-scent stronger or if it was the other way around, but pushing Nathaniel’s shirt off his shoulders was like heat coursing through his lungs into his veins. He pushed closer, getting hard as he swiped his tongue over salt and skin.
Nathaniel
.
Tim pitched his voice low. “I could also walk out of here drenched in your scent,” he suggested, running his hands over Nathaniel’s chest and sucking a soft mark onto his shoulder. Nathaniel’s pulse was gorgeous under Tim’s tongue. “You should take me here,” he whispered into Nathaniel’s ear, “right here where they can all hear and know. Kings used to do it, back in the day, make their private business public so no one would wonder about their, uh, prowess.”
“
Tim
.” It did not sound like an objection, more like Nathaniel couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Tim marked him, bestowing wet, biting hickeys on any skin near his mouth. Nathaniel tangled a hand in his hair and let him.
“Shame is for humans.” That glorious scent was
mate
, Tim’s mate, and he was going to lock that shit down. He rose up solely so he could grind onto Nathaniel’s lap. He was a clumsy lap dancer, but he didn’t care. “Fuck, I want your dick in me. I want to fucking howl for it and know it’s driving you crazy.”
“
Little Wolf
.” Nathaniel wasn’t shocked, not with his cock hardening beneath Tim and his hands sliding to Tim’s hips.
“Yeah.” Tim rocked against him, hating his tight, chafing jeans. He put his mouth to Nathaniel’s ear. “A Dirus.” He put his hand to Nathaniel’s chest and felt the slight hitch in his breathing. “The Dirus heir is your mate. Don’t you want to prove it to them?” Hearing himself made him burn, but he never could shut up when he should. “Prove it to me?” he continued a moment later when Nathaniel was too quiet. Nathaniel let out a tense sound, agreement that he was trying to deny, as if Tim was the same kid who’d been afraid of him.
Tim had warned Nathaniel he’d been raised for power. He rolled his hips, like Nathaniel had taught him the night before, and Nathaniel met his gaze. Tim bit his lip deliberately and left his mouth open. Nathaniel stared with glassy, entranced eyes. “I could have left you.” Tim pushed him a little more, groaning at what he was doing, the torment of it.
Nathaniel grabbed hard at him, squeezing over the bruises Luca had left, but Tim didn’t protest. He wanted them erased. Nathaniel seemed to know that, for all he watched Tim hungrily. “You know I want you. But I won’t hurt you.”