26. Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-six
Axel
“ A x? Wake up, Ax,” Dylan’s voice slowly filtered through my sleep-addled brain.
“Huh?” I squinted, and the room was still dark. “What’s wrong?” I asked, suddenly concerned about why I was being woken up in the middle of the night.
“I’m—“ Dylan groaned, and then the scent hit me, and I was immediately wide awake. Dylan had gone into heat and my rut was due any day now. We must have synced up because he wasn’t expecting his heat for another month.
“Do you want to stay here or—“
”—No! We need to get to the den. Right now, Ax, we need to go!“ He groaned again as the wave of heat made his entire body tremble.
His t-shirt stuck to his sweat-covered body, and his curls were a wild halo around his head. I climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of joggers and a hoodie. I’d left a rucksack by the front door, which was filled with drinks and snacks that would keep us going for a little while, and then we began the short ten-minute walk to our den.
The moment we climbed through the trapdoor, Dylan began stripping off his clothes like their existence offended him before stomping over to where the bed and nesting materials were and began ‘his process’.
His words, not mine.
I stayed back and let him do his thing until a particularly strong wave of heat hit him, at which point I stepped up behind him and wrapped my arms around his chest, holding him through it.
“Fuck, Axel. I forgot to grab any worn clothes; we need to go back!”
“You’re okay. I stuffed some worn t-shirts into a zip-lock bag, and they’re in my rucksack. We have everything we need, don’t worry,” I tried to reassure him. Mollified for now, he nodded his head while I retrieved the items.
I got undressed while he stuffed the last few worn clothes in the perfect spots of his nest and then stepped back with his hands on his hips.
At a quick glance, Dylan looked so petite with his delicate features but he was actually just very compact. His stomach and arms were toned, and you could bounce a coin off his bum. It was no hardship that I’d spend the next few days buried inside it, my knot locking us together.
“Is it ready?” I asked.
“Of course it’s ready. Does it not look ready? What’s wrong with it? I had to make some alterations because we don’t have your duvet, maybe that’s what’s wrong? God, all my dreams come true, and I’m fucking it up.”
“Breathe, love. It’s beautiful, and I couldn’t have asked for a better mate or a better nest. I only asked because I didn’t want to climb in if you still had any finishing touches,” I explained.
“What finishing touches would you add?”
“None. Let’s pretend I never asked. I was being a dumb alpha; you’re the pro on nests.”
“I am pretty good at them, aren’t I?”
“The best ever.”
I kissed him and pulled him down on top of me into the heart of our nest.
“How are you feeling?” I ran my hands up and down his bare back, enjoying the little shiver when my fingertips brushed along his ribcage.
“I’m tired. I hadn’t been asleep for that long when it started.”
My hand travelled up to his hair, and I weaved my fingers into his curls so I could massage his scalp. “Mmm, that feels good,” he mumbled.
“What do you need right now?”
“Can you knot me? I think I could fall asleep then.”
“Of course. Do you want to come?” I checked because sometimes Dylan preferred not to when his heat was just beginning. His need for it would build over the course of the next few days, and he often held off at the start.
He shook his head. “No, not yet.”
“Do you mind if I do?” I always felt kind of bad coming when he didn’t, but it was really hard to stave it off once my knot formed.
“You know I don’t mind.” He smiled a tired smile and kissed me.
“And you know I like to check. Lie down on your side.” I tapped him on the bum, and we shuffled until he got comfortable.
From behind him, I began by massaging along the side of his body, helping him to relax. When a wave of heat hit him, I pressed two fingers inside his slick hole, which clenched around them.
I avoided his prostate, not wanting to overstimulate him if he was trying not to come, just scissored my fingers to stretch him and prepare for my knot.
He rocked his hips back and forth until I added a third finger. Once he was comfortably taking four, I stroked myself a few times to make sure I was fully hard. The scent of him alone did most of the heavy lifting, though.
“Ready, love?”
“Mmhmm.”
I waited until the next wave of heat hit him and slid home. We both groaned at that first glide, and his hole was dripping with slick. I pumped in and out of him slowly, still trying not to get him too worked up but enough to get me where he needed me.
Kissing along his neck and pale, soft shoulder, I gripped his hip as I rocked shallowly in and out of him until I could feel the sensation of my knot beginning to fill.
“My knot’s forming. It won’t be long now; you’re doing so good,” I praised.
“Yeah?” His voice was strained and breathy.
“Yeah, love. Always so good for me, aren’t you?”
“Aaah!” he gasped when my knot swelled to the point it couldn’t pull out of him easily anymore. He turned his face to kiss me as I thrust as gently as I could inside him, aware that my knot would be pressing against his prostate.
Dylan’s tongue in my mouth, the taste of him, the scent of him clouding my vision, the feel of his body holding me locked inside him, it all coalesced until my balls tightened and my release wracked through me like a bullet train. I shook and held Dylan tightly against my body as my cock pulsated inside him, filling him up and trapping my cum inside him until my knot would eventually wane.
“You okay?” I kissed his rosy cheek and his cute little ear.
“I’m perfect, thank you.” His voice had already turned sleepy so I grabbed one of the blankets and placed it over us. Using the dimmer switch Cooper had kindly installed near the bed, I held Dylan close as he drifted off to sleep. He looked so peaceful, almost ethereally beautiful, while he slept. With all of his expressions softened from rest, you could really see who he was with it all stripped back. My gentle soul with a fierce heart.
“I love you,” I whispered before squeezing tight and attempting to join him in sleep. I always found it a little difficult when I was still inside him like this, but I knew it helped him rest during his heats, so I was getting used to it.
The following day, we used what had been my dad’s house to have a shower before returning to our den. We laid around in our nest for hours, sometimes talking, sometimes I’d play an audiobook or a podcast, we’d nap, it was peaceful.
“What’s this scar from?” I asked Dylan. I’d been playing with his hand and spotted a small silvery scar along the inside of his index finger.
“Oh, umm. You remember that Christmas I spent with Bennett skiing?”
I… growled. And had to slap my hand over my mouth like I could stuff the noise back inside.
“See, this is why I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“I’m fine. Continue. It was involuntary.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “On Christmas day, we’d all had a lot of wine, and a glass had smashed. Bennett hadn’t cleaned it up properly, and long story short, I leant on a shard, and it got lodged inside my finger.”
“What a fucking idiot.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to!”
“Not you, him. I hope he still feels guilty about it to this day. Your finger is mutilated because of him.“ I huffed.
“My finger is mutilated? I have a very small scar along the inside of my finger. I thought I was the dramatic one in this relationship.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being hurt because someone was thoughtless, is all.” I crooked his finger so I could kiss the scar.
We must have dozed off again eventually because I woke up to my whole body overheated and flushed as my rut began.
Panic surged through me when I realised Dylan wasn’t in our nest.
“Dylan?” I shouted.
Nothing.
I scrambled out of the nest and lifted the trapdoor, it was late enough that the sun had set and outside was covered in a blanket of darkness.
“Dylan!” I yelled again.
“Sorry! I’m here, I’m right here.” Dylan sounded out of breath as he ran down the garden path in nothing but a pair of tiny running shorts in the middle of March.
“Where did you go?” I groaned as my muscles spasmed.
“Just to the bathroom. I thought I’d be back before you woke up. What’s wrong?”
“My rut’s starting; I need you to be in here.”
Dylan quickly climbed in through the trapdoor, immediately shucked off his little running shorts and tugged me back towards our nest.
This time, when we lay together, it was like there was electricity in the air. I’m not even sure how long we spent rubbing our hands all over each other, revelling in the way my heated hand felt against his heated skin.
When finally, our lips touched, it was like a bomb had gone off inside my chest. My tongue tangled with his, and even with him pressed as close to my body as he could get, both naked and skin to skin from head to toe, it wasn’t enough.
“Need… need to be inside you. Can I?” I asked between feverish kisses.
Dylan moaned as a wave of heat had him shaking in my arms. “Yes. I need it, too. Fuck me. I feel like I might combust.”
With Dylan underneath me, lying on his back, I pushed his legs back and effectively folded him in half.
“I fucking love how flexible you are. Like a really sexy pretzel.”
Dylan snorted and started laughing. “Babe, you need to work on your dirty talk. Sexy pretzel. Jesus.” He’d laughed so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks and I thought I should be offended but seeing him so happy with his green eyes dancing in amusement I wouldn’t have taken it back.
Lining my cock up with his hole, I leaned forward and kissed him as I pushed in. After however many times I’d been inside him the last twenty-four hours, he didn’t need any prep, but he still fit snugly around me.
I stilled once I was fully seated, taking a moment to stare down at this man I’d known almost all of my life. His lips were parted to form a little ‘o’ expression, and his chest and face were flushed pink like an orchid. Some of his wild curls had stuck to his forehead with sweat and those bright green eyes of his pierced me like they always had. There was so much life in Dylan’s eyes. Almost too much to be held within them, and it overwhelmed me that someone as uncontainable as Dylan had chosen me.
“Um… Babe?” Dylan’s voice brought me back to the present. “Sorry to interrupt your moment there, but usually this is where you fuck me rather than just like… stare at me.”
His disgruntled expression made me laugh, and I buried my face in his neck.
“Sorry, love.”
Catching his lips with mine, I kissed him hard as I pulled out slowly and thrust back in, deep. He let out a little gasp so I did it again.
I was surprised by how different it felt with him in heat and me in rut at the same time. We were in sync in a way I’d never experienced with anyone. It was as if even our heartbeats had harmonised.
I fucked him slowly, watched him come apart each time the head of my cock brushed against his prostate. He had such a tight grip on my shoulders I was sure to have little Dylan fingertip bruises dotted over them tomorrow.
“Are you—“ Gasp. “Trying to drive me mad on purpose.” Dylan moved his hands to my hips and pulled like he remotely had the strength to dictate how fast I’d fuck him. Cute .
“Maybe,” I replied, and he glared up at me. “I like when you get all needy and desperate.”
Dylan proceeded to shove me, and I let him. Let him manhandle me so I was lying down, and he could climb on top. He had a smug expression on his face when he sank down onto my cock. Like he’d won something. Like I wasn’t being rewarded with the sexiest man ever riding me.
He pressed his hands against my chest and used me as leverage to grind his arse up and down my length. I loved when Dylan just took. There was nothing as sexy as someone who knew exactly what they wanted, and Dylan always knew what he wanted.
I ran my hands up his thighs and gripped his hips, stilling him so I could thrust up into his slick hole and drive him wild. He stroked himself as I did it, his head tipped back as he was lost in the moment.
The telltale signs of my knot beginning to swell began, so I slowed down, letting Dylan set the pace again.
He moved onto his side so we were face to face, and I used my arm to keep one of his legs up as I slowly sank in and out of him. We kissed as my knot expanded to the point of pulling on his rim, and then I thrust gently so it wouldn’t hurt him.
Reaching down between our bodies, he stroked himself and kissed me hard at the same time; it was sloppy and wonderful and everything .
“I love you so fucking much, Dyl. I’m never letting you go,” I whispered between kisses.
Dylan erupted, shaking in my arms as his cum painted both of our stomachs, and I followed immediately. His tight hole clenching around my knot, watching him come undone, it was all too much. I groaned as my release painted him inside, marking him and claiming him as mine. In the den I’d built for us. My perfect omega.
When Dylan’s heat and my rut finally ended, we decided we would shift and head into the woods as foxes for a little while.
As kids, we had spent a lot of time playing in the forest and outside in the garden as foxes, but as we got older, it became more and more inconvenient, and most of us hardly seemed to shift at all as adults.
Before, when I’d get through my ruts alone, I’d often spend them in my fox form. They tended to feel less consuming that way, and I’d just hide out until it was over. Now, I can’t imagine enduring a rut in my fox form, unable to run my hands all over Dylan’s bare skin. Unable to kiss him so thoroughly that he pants into my mouth, skin flushed pink and pupils wide.
As Dylan neatly folded his clothes back into my rucksack, I began to shift. Despite shifting more than most due to den building, it ached. My muscles and bones strained at the exertion as I willed them to shrink down and transform.
When I glanced up through my fox eyes, Dylan had paused to watch.
“I’ve not seen you as a fox since we were kids,” he said.
I couldn’t reply, so I padded over to him and rubbed my nose into the palm of his hand until he scratched under my chin.
Fuck, that feels good.
“I quite like this, where I can talk, but you can’t respond.”
I huffed and gave him my best ‘of course you do’ look.
Laughing, he returned to scratching under my chin and then, something really embarrassing happened.
I… I fucking… purred.
I had never purred in my life. The rumbling sound escaped my chest without me having any say over it at all. I knew that most omegas purred sometimes and alphas did occasionally, but I certainly never had.
But then… nobody had ever really petted me in my fox form before.
“Come over here,” Dylan coaxed. He sat with his back to the wall and covered his legs with the nesting materials.
I joined him and curled up in the gap he’d left between his legs and rested my head against his thigh.
Feeling small and a little vulnerable was an unusual feeling for me. I’d always been ‘big’. Had always taken up a lot of room whether I wanted to or not.
Before I’d shifted, we’d planned to both go for a run in the woods in our fox forms, but it seemed Dylan had a change of plans. He rubbed behind my ears, scratched the top of my head, stroked his hand down my back, and I… purred. I purred so loudly that it was pretty mortifying.
“I love the sound of you purring; it makes me feel like I’m doing a good job of taking care of you,” Dylan said, making me feel mildly less embarrassed.
Fuck it, if Dylan liked my purring then why try stop it. I shuffled around a little and exposed my belly to him. He kept scratching a spot that made my leg twitch and seemed to find it highly amusing. I kicked him lightly when he wouldn’t stop.
“I know you might hate me for saying this, but you’re so fucking cute when you’re a fox that I feel like my heart might explode.”
And then he booped me on the nose.
So I bit him.
Not hard or anything, just enough to get a little yelp of surprise.
Booping me on the nose. Like I’m his pet poodle or something.
Dylan returned to scratching my head right where I liked it, and I returned to… purring in his lap. Let myself indulge in the attention and affection despite the pang of guilt because I felt like Dylan had been showering me with care and affection a lot recently, and I was sure I wasn’t doing enough for him in return.
“Thank you for making me the most perfect den, Ax. You know, years ago, I can’t have been much older than thirteen. I remember washing the dishes after dinner one evening, and you were drying up. I said something like I hoped my alpha would make me a den himself one day, and you told me I deserved someone who’d build me the best den ever.”
I looked up at Dylan’s face; he was smiling, and his eyes were filled with happy tears. One escaped and rolled down his cheek, leaving a faint trail of his feelings behind.
“I remember thinking, Nobody could build me a better den than you could. And right now, it’s like all my dreams have come true. My heart is so full, and I’m so excited for our future that my heart won’t fit in my chest if I feel anymore,“ he choked out.
Without really thinking about it, I shifted back right between his legs and kneeled there. Leaning forward, I kissed his tear-streaked cheeks and cupped his beautiful face between my palms.
“Sometimes, you pour so much of your love into me that I feel greedy. It shocks me that you can possibly have any left inside you because you give me more of it than I knew existed in this world. I just wish I could give you back as much as you deserve,” I whispered into the quiet space I’d carved out into the earth for the two of us.
“I’ve never felt more loved in my life.” And then he kissed me. It was slow and tender, and it made me feel like the small, vulnerable fox again. Made me feel safe and… cherished. And I knew that I’d protect what we had here forever.
Because Dylan was the love of my life, and I knew it.