The Good Boys Club (Mythical Mishaps #2)

26. Can’t Fight the Moonlight

Can’t Fight the Moonlight

Present Day

Mash

“ MASH!” came Cian’s voice, distant and growing more distant as I ran at full pelt down the road towards the house.

Except, I wasn’t heading towards the house. Misdirection. By the time Ci got in his car and chased me down, I would have slipped into one of the tiny lanes that led towards Mam’s workshop. I’d hide out there, at least until I’d figured out what I was going to say to him. Mam wouldn’t be there, it was too late for her now. Or maybe she would be. Maybe I just needed to be with someone who loved me and didn’t ask me to explain stuff about myself I didn’t fully understand yet.

That had been the plan, until a vehicle honked its horn directly behind me. I jumped out of my skin and fled into the closest gap through the trees. I knew where the workshop was. I headed in that direction. Ci wouldn’t be able to follow me with the car, and his legs were so much shorter than mine. There was no way he could catch up with me.

“MASHEW KEYLAND CASSIDY!” Cian screamed. I spared a glance over my shoulder and saw him abandoning his car. He was pulling his jumper over his head. Why was he undressing?

“DON’T MAKE ME SHIFT!” Oh, that’s why. He’d never reach me that quickly on human feet.

I couldn’t risk people seeing him in his shifted form two weeks outside the full moon, so I ground to a stop. “FINE! I SURRENDER!” I yelled. Besides, when he changed back to his human form, he’d be naked, and I’d have to look at him and I didn’t want that.

Did want it. But didn’t trust myself.

I walked into a small clearing and sat on the trunk of a felled tree. I felled the tree in fact, about six years ago. We’d left it where it landed—for nature. It was now its own ecosystem, with fungi and flora and insects all claiming their own patch. I’d even seen stag beetles making their home here one summer. One time, Juno and Felix and I counted the rings in the centre of the trunk. The tree was over a hundred years old.

Cian’s footsteps drew closer, and I turned to face the opposite side of the forest. Childish? Yes, but I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes.

“Mash,” he said again, breathing heavily as his boots crunched over the woodland floor.

I said nothing.

“Mash, come on.” It was giving distinct I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed vibes. He sat next to me, facing the opposite way. The rush of gratitude that I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye as I confessed everything was nearly overwhelming. He knew me so well. Knew this kind of chat would make me uncomfortable. It made my heart ache all the more.

“So, you’re bi?” he said.

I shrugged. “I think . . . maybe. I just . . .” I let my sentence trail off.

“And how long have you known? Was it really Charley’s house party? Or was that something you were telling Felix to make him feel less alone?”

I ran the back of my trainer up the decaying bark of the tree. I never used to wear shoes out here, not when playing about or just going for a stroll. The shoes were all Cian’s doing.

Ci huffed out a long sigh. “And you never thought to tell me?”

“Didn’t want to bore you,” I said, suddenly super interested in the diamond pattern on the rubber soles of my trainers.

“Oh, fuck off, Mash, I’m not buying that for a second. You didn’t want to bore me? The man who once asked me to sit through his two-hour-long uni lecture on identifying lichen. The man who once, for an entire car ride to Bordalis, spoke of nothing except how pines are an infinitely superior tree and all the other trees were dogshit kindling in comparison. The man who insists on recounting the plot of every single rom com he’s ever seen, minute by minute, even though I fucking watched them with you.”

I winced. I did do all of that.

“In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never once thought, ‘Am I boring Ci?’”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” What if I’d been driving him to the brink of his patience over and over and he’d been too polite to tell me?

As though reading my thoughts, he said, “You haven’t been boring me, by the way. I could listen to you recite shampoo ingredients.” My shoulders eased. “But that’s not the real reason you’ve never told me, is it?”

I stared into the trees for a few minutes. Cian said nothing, he simply waited, as patient and unflappable as ever.

Eventually, I spoke. “It’s just that I . . . still don’t know if I am bi. It’s fucking ridiculous. I’m thirty-four and I have no idea what to think right now.” I dug my fingernails into the tree bark. Okay, here went nothing. “There’s only ever been one guy I’ve . . . thought about that way.”

Cian remained silent, but I felt his body shift, turning towards me slightly.

“I don’t think it’s enough to make me bi.”

“That’s not what you told Felix,” Ci said, his voice soft and understanding.

“Felix is twenty years younger than me. He has forever to figure his shit out.” And he’s not in love with his best friend . . . or the alpha of a pack who’d have to live seven hours away from said best friend.

“You don’t need to figure any shit out either.” Cian’s fingers nudged at mine.

“I know,” I said, resigned. “I wasn’t gonna.” I turned to him and gave him a lopsided smile.

Cian rolled his eyes, but smiled regardless. “This one guy you’ve had thoughts about . . . Is he me?”

I searched his face, unable to read his expression. I looked away. “Yes,” I said in a whisper, as though whispering it would stop it from tearing our friendship apart.

Please don’t reject me again. Please.

Cian said nothing. Or if he did, I didn’t hear him over my pounding heartbeat.

“You were my best friend,” I said, filling the silence because it was becoming painful. A dagger to my heart. “I wasn’t prepared to destroy what we had because I was . . . curious. Ci, you’re my favourite person in the whole Eight and a Half Kingdoms, and I almost ruined what we had once before. I’m not doing that again.”

“Are you talking about the time we kissed at your brother’s mating ceremony? Because you didn’t almost ruin anything. I’m always going to be your friend. No matter what happened—happens.”

I wasn’t referring to that moment, but it fit, so I rolled with it. “If that owl hadn’t interrupted us, we’d have . . . done other things, and when I do other things with girls, that’s typically the last time I see them.”

Cian placed his hand on my shoulder, pushing my torso around to face him more. He was quiet for a while before he spoke. “Were. You said ‘you were my best friend.’ What do you mean?”

“I don’t do relationships. Everything I touch falls to shit. I’m not gonna let that happen to you.”

“Nothing’s changed,” he said.

I shook my head. Turned my body an extra degree away from his. “Everything has changed. Everything.”

Cian swung his leg over the trunk so he was straddling it, facing me. “Mash, I know about the alpha thing.”

My vision whited out. The surrounding trees vanished. I thought, though I couldn’t be sure, Cian said he knew about the alpha thing.

I was gonna be sick, or pass out. I put my head between my knees and tried to remember how to breathe.

The warmth of his hand pressed against my back between my shoulder blades. “I understand why you didn’t say anything before. About the alpha thing, not the bi thing.”

Damn, we were really just going to lay out all my secrets like that.

“It’s a lot of responsibility to expect a twenty-five year old to take on. There’s what, eight hundred acres?” Cian said. I nodded. Eight hundred and fifty, actually. “Plus the actual pack itself. Twelve, thirteen wolves?”

“Yes, but it’s more, because we’re a figurehead pack, meaning that a lot of other packs consider our pack the . . . like, the main one. That’s why we have such big Harvest Fest events, so that we can provide for all the smaller packs and lone wolves who are somehow connected to us. And sometimes when troubled teenagers leave home, if they’ve got nowhere else to turn, they’ll come here. That’s how my mam and dad met. She was a runaway. He was the pack successor. It was kinda controversial at the time.” I was over explaining. Sharing details that didn’t matter right now. Deflecting.

Cian smiled, soft and warm. My smile, I realised. The one only I got to see. “It sounds like a beautiful story. You’ll have to tell me sometime. But going back to your alpha situation, it’s too much pressure to put an eleven-year-old child under. To grow up knowing you aren’t truly free to live the way you want to. It’s not surprising you ran from it for so many years.” Ci placed his hand on my shoulder again, gently pivoting me to face him.

“I’ve promised Nana I’ll accept the call of the alpha during the Hunter’s Moon in October. A pack shouldn’t have an alpha who’s too old to shift, they should be someone who leads from the front. And if I wait too long, and she . . .” I couldn’t finish my sentence, my breath caught in my throat.

“You don’t need to explain it to me,” he said, his thumb stroking softly over my shoulder. His eyes were glassy, tears balanced along his waterline but never fell. “I might not be a werewolf, but I understand some things can’t be fought indefinitely.” He took a deep, wobbly inhalation. “I’m gonna really fucking miss you, though.”

“You’ll make me cry.” I didn’t want to think about what would happen in six weeks’ time. It wasn’t a forever goodbye, but it fucking felt like one.

“What are you going to tell your alpha—your entire pack—when I go back to Remy at the end of October? Also, what happened with your uni job?” Ci said. I pulled a face. “You got fired?”

“Technically not fired, but they’re not renewing my contract.”

“Is this because of that student you slept with in May?”

“Marnie?” I had totally forgotten about her. “No, three members of staff put in complaints about me. Not sure if I fucked them, or they’re pissed off on behalf of their colleagues, or . . .” Whatever, it didn’t matter any more. “Anyway, I’ll be alpha then so I can just order the other wolves to stop nagging me about finding a mate, and they’ll have to do it because an alpha’s orders must be followed.”

“Simple as that?”

No, it wasn’t. I cocked a shoulder, pretended like I knew for certain. “Have to be some benefits to this gig, right?” Gig, prison, whatever.

“What are you going to do for the rest of forever with only a handful of women to choose from?”

I shrugged again. “I dunno, maybe I’ll be alright. I haven’t had sex in ages, and I haven’t thought about it much either.” Sex with a woman, that was. I’d thought about it plenty with another very specific person. “Eventually, I’ll have to find someone willing to put up with me—I’ll need kids, I expect, to pass down the legacy.”

“Maybe you’ll be so busy as an alpha you won’t have time to miss it. Maybe you’ll be able to make do with a quick wank in the mornings to set you up for the day,” he said, a teasing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s always worked for you,” I said back.

Cian slammed the heel of his palm into my shoulder and pushed me, but he left his hand there. Let it linger.

A few moments passed. Neither of us said anything; we simply observed each other. He didn’t have his wolf ears and tail, and the moonlight drained his already pale complexion.

“So . . .” His hand moved from my shoulder, down my arm to lift my hand and hold my fingers. I got the distinct impression he was breaking up with me . . . again. It was a move I’d used on countless women before.

“So . . . this was fun,” or, “So . . . it’s not you, it’s me,” or, “So . . . it’s been nice knowing you.”

“You’ve thought about me and you together . . . doing stuff?” he said instead.

I cringed. “You could pretend you never heard any of that. We could just go back to how things were.” I really, really did not want to ruin our final few weeks. When Cian and I eventually headed back to Remy, it would be to pack up my shit and bid goodbye to the city forever.

“Kissing?” he asked.

I nodded slowly.

“More than kissing?”

I buried my eyes behind my fingertips.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because . . . I would lose you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you—you, Cian, my best fucking friend—becoming another notch on my bedpost. Another person I vaguely remember.”

“You’d never lose me.” He crushed my hand within his. “Even after I go back to Remy. Even if I am simply a curiosity itch that you need to scratch, you’ll never lose me. I’m always going to be there for you. In fact, it’s best to try out new stuff with me because one, who knows you better than me? And two, I won’t become overly attached and unnecessarily clingy, because I’m already those things.”

I laughed because the opposite was true. It had always been me clinging to Cian, following him about like a lost puppy.

Ugh, it all made so much sense now.

“You’re saying . . .” I began. “I could scratch my itch . . . on your post?”

He snorted, his laughter lighting up his face.

“And I wouldn’t lose you as a friend?”

His smile dropped, his expression sobering in an instant. “Never,” he whispered. His eyes were fixed on mine.

I didn’t know if he kissed me, or if I kissed him, or if we met in the middle, but his lips were brushing mine. My hands already threading into his hair. My tongue already seeking out the familiarity of his mouth.

The last time we properly kissed was ten years ago, but my body remembered everything about his. It would never forget the way he tasted—just like he smelled. I was sure Cian himself would be able to describe it in non-abstract ways, but the only words that came to my mind were love, friendship, belonging.

He tasted like I knew every moment from his past and his future. He tasted like he was meant for me, and me alone. And I knew it was stupid to think like that, but I couldn’t help it.

I was sure if I asked Ci what our kiss tasted like, he’d say something sensible and definable, like cola, or barbecued ribs, or weed, or whatever we ate or drank last. Not sunshine and rainbows and moonbeams.

But that’s what it felt like. Like respite, like a break from all my problems, like I didn’t have to worry about anything, at least for a little while, because he was here with me. Steadfast, and reliable, and mine.

I paused the kiss, held his face between my hands.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing, I just need to be closer to you,” I said. I swung my leg over the trunk and pulled him into the gap between my thighs, his legs now hung over my legs, and I brought our mouths together again.

My wolf purred in my chest. Cian made the most achingly beautiful whimpers. His hands travelled over every inch of me he could reach without breaking the kiss.

We kissed for so long. Until the birds stopped their daily chatter and went to bed. Until the moons were overhead. Until my face was raw from the scratch of Ci’s stubble against my chin. I had no control over my hips. They rolled upwards, rubbing the head of my cock against the fly of Ci’s cords, trying to steal an ounce of friction. I was so painfully hard. It felt like I was a teenager again, like this was all the first time.

We broke apart to catch our breaths. Our foreheads butted together, and we panted into each other’s mouths, chests heaving. I wanted to fuck him. Or let him fuck me. Or just touch him. But I was already teetering dangerously close to the edge, and I couldn’t stand the idea of my first time with Cian being over in a nanosecond.

“I want you to fuck my mouth,” I said. Cian whined in response, brow furrowed, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. “But there are two problems. One, I’ve never sucked off a guy before. I don’t know what I’m doing. And two, I’m gonna come. Like, I’m so fucking close to coming. If we carry on kissing like we are, I’m going to make such a mess in my shorts.”

He cupped my face in both hands. “Oh gods, you’re being serious aren’t you.” The vibrations from his voice travelled through his chest into mine, providing the most microscopic amount of friction, but enough to shove me that much closer to the point of no return.

“Don’t move. Don’t do or say anything. I’m . . . gonna . . . oh, fuck.” I screwed my face up and concentrated hard on letting the moment pass. It wouldn’t. I was just balancing right there on the brink, waiting for one tiny little nudge to push me over.

Cian moved his lips to my ear. “How about . . . Mash Cassidy, you are such—”

“Oh my gods.”

“A good boy.”

“Yep, that’ll do it,” I said, before my orgasm tore through me.

Cian held my face and watched me climax. His moans echoed mine, bouncing off the stillness of the forest. His expression mirrored mine, his mouth making all the shapes mine must have made. His brow was furrowed, his cheeks pink. Wet heat blossomed in my shorts.

“You’re so pretty when you come,” he said, hiding his self-satisfied smirk by pinching his lips between his teeth.

“Fuck me, that was a lot of cum.” I tried to ignore the ickiness.

“Well, I suppose you have been saving it up since . . . this morning. Are we far from the house? We should get you back and cleaned up.”

“About ten, fifteen minutes’ walk. Two-minute drive. But don’t you need to come?” Or shit, had I been the only one so recklessly caught up in the moment? Had I imagined his erection against my hip?

“Yes. I do.” Cian grabbed my hand and brought it to his crotch to feel how unmistakable his need for release was. “But I want to wait until we get back. I want you naked and in the shower, and I really love edging.”

“Oh my gods, are you gonna fuck me in the shower?” I couldn’t decide whether I was nervous or thrilled by the idea.

He hopped off the trunk and began walking through the forest in the direction of the car. “I don’t know if it’s physically possible with our height differences, but if that’s what you want, we can work up to it.”

I bit back my moan. “Great, I’m already hard again.”