Chapter 10 A Compromised Secret
A COMPROMISED SECRET
“All that action, and none from the magical healing cock?”
Mathlin choked. “What?”
Hamilton rolled his eyes. “Healing magic, remember? It doesn’t only have to come from your hands. You have magic in every part of your body.”
Mathlin groaned. “I don’t think my cock is magical.”
“You’re making a very grave assumption,” Hamilton said severely, wagging his finger. “Magic is in your DNA. Your eyeballs contain magic. So does your tongue.” Then he gasped. “Maybe you can use the magical healing tongue.”
Titan eased into the passenger seat with a frown. “Ham. I haven’t discussed it with Mathlin yet. Let’s just get us home, and we’ll work out more things tomorrow.”
Hamilton shot Titan a serious look—the first that Mathlin had seen from him. “You’re feeling better.”
Titan sagged into his seat. “Yeah. Thanks to you and Mathlin.”
Mathlin blushed. He reached across Titan’s generous lap to buckle him in, ever so aware of Titan’s sheer size. Before he could shut the door, the alpha turned, looking him in the eye.
“You made today a lot better than it would’ve gone, Math. Thank you.”
“Um, you’re welcome!” Mathlin leaned back and slammed the door in Titan’s face. Then he realized how rude that was. He crawled into the back seat and met Titan’s gaze through the rearview mirror. “Sorry about shutting the door in your face?”
Titan shook his head, but he was smiling. “How else are we going to drive home?”
“We could do it with all the doors flapping open,” Hamilton said, “but we’ll probably be hit with a traffic violation. If you’re up for a full-body cavity search, I highly recommend it.”
Mathlin cringed. “You can’t have done that before.”
Hamilton cackled. “Who says I haven’t?”
A mental image flashed through Mathlin’s mind: Hamilton braced against the side of a police car.
Mathlin recoiled and squawked, “I’m not thinking about it!”
“You’re definitely thinking about it.” Hamilton wriggled his eyebrows. “You may have to practice with a big strong alpha so you don’t lose your cool during an actual body search.”
Mathlin peeked at Titan. Suddenly, he could imagine Titan crowding him up against a cop car, those large hands petting over his body, dipping into all his nooks and crannies in search of illegal things. He grew warm.
“But it needs actual working arms,” Mathlin blurted. Then he realized what he’d just said. “Oh gods. I didn’t mean I want to practice with Titan. I just meant—”
Titan coughed lightly, the tips of his ears turning red. “Let’s just get going, please.”
“Of course,” Hamilton sang, steering the car onto the highway. “I can confirm that the police are very happy to stick their fingers up—”
“Please tell me you haven’t tried to seduce a cop,” Titan said, his voice strained.
Ever so innocently, Hamilton said, “I haven’t tried to seduce a cop.”
His smile said otherwise.
“Did you get the police officer to... let you off?” Mathlin asked.
“What do you think?” Hamilton’s smile grew. “I was doing 80 in a 40 zone, all by my lonesome on a quiet road. The flashing lights sliced through the night like an alpha’s piercing gaze.”
Titan groaned. “There’s no way they let you off.” When Hamilton didn’t reply, Titan squinted at him. “Tell me you didn’t...”
“Wear a skimpy, translucent tank top under my clothes?” Hamilton cackled.
Suddenly, his face changed, wrinkles disappearing, age spots fading, his skin turning rosy with youth.
His bone structure changed, too, his shoulders growing narrower, fingers becoming small and delicate.
When he spoke again, his voice was high and feminine, long blond hair brushing his shoulders.
“It was so cold out. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and my nipples were hard and perky.
The best part of being a shapeshifter is that you can choose the size of your tits. ”
Titan sighed heavily, thumping his head against the headrest. “The cop actually fell for it?”
“Didn’t take much,” Hamilton said. “All I had to do was toy with my neckline, show a lot of boob, and kick down my pants a little. I begged, too! I was all, ‘It’s cold outside, Mr. Officer. Please don’t make me get out of the car.
’ Obviously he did. And obviously I wriggled my perky butt in his face.
I swore up and down that I was hiding nothing on my person.
” He cackled. “He frisked me thoroughly.”
Titan sighed again. “Was this after you stopped working for me?”
“Yup! I was so bored.” Hamilton pouted. “Imagine not having anyone to harass, night and day.”
“The horror,” Titan said dryly.
“Did you use a condom?” Mathlin whispered, fascinated and horrified.
“Of course I did. I put it on with my mouth—he was so impressed. Then I helped him forget his duties by the side of the road. By the time it was over, he didn’t remember what he had pulled me over for.” Hamilton snickered.
Mathlin imagined trying to do that, with Titan as the cop. Being underdressed, showing off his body a little, trying to look sexy enough that Titan would drop everything to fuck him.
When he looked up, he realized that Titan was watching him through the rearview mirror.
“I’m not fantasizing about you!” Mathlin yelped. And he felt his heart miss a beat, exposing his lie immediately. He groaned, burying his face in his hands.
Hamilton grinned in delight. Titan merely watched Mathlin with his dark gaze.
“I would need at least one arm fully healed,” Titan said quietly. “Then we can discuss the rest.”
Mathlin grew hot between his legs. That wasn’t a no.
In fact, that was a yes, with a compromise since Titan would take forever to recover fully. What would it feel like to be touched by that alpha, to be held down and intimately explored? To have those fingers sliding against his sensitive parts, opening and examining him? Mathlin swallowed dryly.
Titan’s nostrils flared; his mouth curved.
“You smell me, don’t you?” Mathlin blurted. He wished he could take back those words too.
“I smell everything,” Titan said mildly, sniffing again. But they both knew he had zeroed in on Mathlin’s fresh slick, and he was taking slow, deep breaths of it.
Mathlin’s face burned.
“Drive,” Titan said to Hamilton, who had returned to his middle-aged form.
Hamilton looked tickled. “Yes, we’re going to your pack, who will immediately notice the hickeys on Mathlin’s neck.”
The ensuing silence was so loud, all they heard were road noise and Jannie’s babbling.
“I have hickeys?” Mathlin squawked.
Hamilton shook his head. “Oh, you sweet summer child.”
Titan’s ears turned pinker. “I might have, uh, left a couple on your neck when Gonal was there.”
Mathlin craned his neck to look at himself in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, there were two huge purple splotches on his throat, one on each side. “Um. We’re going home. Your pack will be there. They’ll see this.”
Titan’s blush spread through his face. “I might’ve mentioned that we’re faking a relationship.”
Somehow, Mathlin didn’t think the pack was expecting this level of relationship-faking.
“Did you also tell them you’ll be smelling like each other’s love juices?” Hamilton asked gleefully.
Titan dropped his chin to his chest and groaned. “No!”
“Wow, this is going to be so awkward,” Mathlin whispered. “It’s worse than when your mother-in-law who hates you finds you in her marriage bed fucking the alien tentacles.”
Titan turned slowly to look at him. “That’s oddly specific.”
“If you’ve watched enough TV, you’ll know,” Mathlin protested.
“I guess I haven’t watched enough TV,” Titan said dryly. “But I can’t imagine two claim marks being worse than your mother-in-law situation.”
“Except it’s happening to me in real life!” Mathlin cried.
Titan grimaced, his shoulders sagging. “Should I text my pack to explain?”
“You might want to go straight home,” Hamilton said. “Get into your cabin, scrub off those scents before you bump into everyone.”
“They’ll sniff us out like gossip-seeking missiles,” Titan muttered.
“If this happened to one of my brothers, I’d do so much to be the first to know,” Hamilton said. “Gossip like this is the gift that keeps on giving.”
Titan straightened his shoulders. “This means we make a break for the front door. No dragging your feet.”
“I’ll do my best,” Mathlin said doubtfully.
He held his breath when Hamilton turned the car down the road leading to the pack homes. In the passenger seat, Titan was tense. Hamilton whistled a jaunty tune.
No one approached when they parked in front of Titan’s cabin. Mathlin squeezed between the front seats to release Titan’s seatbelt buckle, guiding it across Titan’s broad chest so it wouldn’t fly up and hit his face.
“Thanks,” Titan murmured.
When Mathlin looked up, he realized that there was barely an inch between their lips.
He froze. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh,” Titan whispered, his gaze heavy on Mathlin.
“Your breath doesn’t smell like slick, just so you know,” Mathlin said. “But maybe your face might? I don’t have a wolf’s sense of smell.”
Titan’s nostrils flared; his gaze dipped to Mathlin’s mouth. “A little.”
“Really?” Mathlin leaned closer, trying to sniff Titan’s lips. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You might only pick it up when you’re right against my skin,” Titan said.
Mathlin studied Titan’s mouth, wondering if he could lean closer...
“Wow, this is awkward,” Hamilton said behind Mathlin. “I like watching, but I’m close enough to you guys to make this a threesome.”
Mathlin jumped and yelled, flailing backward. “I forgot he was there!”
Titan choked. “Ham—Fuck! Go away!”
“Going away,” Hamilton said slyly. “I’ll get your cabin door open so you can run in immediately. Don’t drag your feet.”
Titan glanced around furtively. Mathlin scooped Jannie out of her car seat, strapping her back against his chest.
I can’t believe we were that close to each other, Mathlin thought. Close enough to kiss.
What would Titan’s kiss feel like? Would it be soft and intimate, like how he would touch between Mathlin’s legs? His tongue had gone so deep...
Mathlin needed some privacy to go over that moment again. Preferably later, after Titan had fallen asleep.
When he looked up, he found Titan watching him again.
“I wasn’t thinking about your tongue!” Mathlin blurted. And groaned. “Oh, fuck me.”
“I already have,” Titan murmured.
Not thinking about that! Mathlin whined and tore his gaze away, watching as Hamilton strolled up to Titan’s cabin. The shapeshifter casually petted the metal keyhole, murmuring to it. Then he inserted his key.
The moment the front door opened, Mathlin flung himself out of the car. He scrabbled at the passenger door to open it too. Titan was out in seconds.
Instead of diving for cover, the alpha hung back, waiting while Mathlin shut the car doors. Together, they made a beeline for the front door, Titan a hulking shadow by Mathlin’s shoulder.
“Hey, Ti!” someone called.
“Not right now!” Titan called back without turning around.
They tumbled into the cabin. Mathlin whipped around to shut the door behind them—
Only for a strong hand to catch the door, stopping it from closing all the way.
“Titan!” came an alpha’s rumble.
Mathlin glanced at Titan. Titan growled, shoving his foot against the door to keep it from flying open.
“This can wait ‘til tomorrow, Gav,” Titan grumbled. “Or you can text me instead of barging into my cabin!”
“It’s kind of urgent. And I texted you, but you didn’t reply,” Gav said from behind the door.
From what Mathlin remembered, Gavric was Titan’s youngest alpha brother, just as tall as him, and just as broad-shouldered.
“Aunt Yasmin is asking if you’re canceling her cupcake preorder for her party this weekend—Hey, did you mate with Mathlin? I thought you said—”
“He mated with Mathlin?!” another voice squawked.
This was going to get messy in a heartbeat. Especially when the pack might overhear their entire conversation.
“Damn it!” Titan pulled his foot back and nodded for Mathlin to open the door.
On the doorstep, Titan’s omega brother, Ottis, stood next to Gavric. Ottis was Mathlin’s height, with a bad leg, and he always looked exhausted.
He and Gavric stared at Mathlin, their gazes immediately locking onto the purple bruises on Mathlin’s throat.
Oh no, Mathlin thought.
Ottis was the first to speak. “You put a claim mark on him?!”