Chapter 29 #2
“Goddess, you are wound tight.” He leaned back, the energy of their inexplicable connection unmistakable even as he worked so hard to ignore it.
“If you need to be close to me to access your powerful animal, it follows that we will be spending a lot of time together. I just want to know who I’m sharing a foxhole with.
” He held up his hands in surrender when Mark’s frown deepened. “Nothing more.”
Mark settled further into the couch, angling to face Caster, the frown easing. “How are you so comfortable with this?”
The sound of the door opening trapped his response. Sophie walked in and placed several dishes on the small table between them. She chose to say nothing as she plated the food and handed it to Mark. He accepted the offer with a mumbled thanks, and she was gone.
“Eat.” Caster nodded towards the plate he only held and watched him obey with little hesitation. He couldn’t stop watching him, a factor that didn’t bode well for his conviction to keep this attraction from affecting his life.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Mark said between bites, the steak disappearing fast. He must have been very hungry.
“You didn’t answer mine either.”
His sigh was dramatic, exasperation clear in the way he placed the plate on the table with more force than necessary. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Everything” hovered on the tip of his tongue, but that would only bring up those guard rails. “Where did you learn how to fight like that? You had Bastian before he could even see you.” He tried and failed to keep the pride from his voice.
Mark shrugged, resuming his meal with renewed vigor. “My father insisted on training all of us. Dean makes sure I never get rusty.”
“Where were you during the war?”
“Dean had to be there. I stayed behind just in case.”
Caster nodded. He was the spare. The leader his kind would need should anything happen to his brother. But… “You’re not an Alpha.”
Mark placed the now-empty plate on the table and pushed further into the couch, his gaze on the ceiling. “No. But I would be if something happened to Dean.”
“How would that work?” He thought a wolf had to be born an Alpha.
Mark turned to him, his face mirroring their casual conversation. “It’s kind of like rank in any military, but with real physical changes.”
“You’re telling me that in you is everything that makes your brother Prime Alpha, lying in wait?” How had he never known this?
Mark nodded and reached for the small tub of ice cream. “Yeah. But I would just be an Alpha. Prime Alpha is not something you inherit. You have to earn that.”
That, he knew. The Prime Alpha was the strongest wolf in existence, his position born of an equal measure of violence and dominance.
“You already knew that?”
“Dean told me.”
Mark lifted a spoonful of the treat to his lips, moaning around it, and Caster forgot their conversation, his mind pulled back to a time when his mouth had been full of something else.
He cleared his throat, and Mark pulled the spoon out of his mouth slower than necessary.
Time slowed to a crawl as they stared at each other.
It would be so easy to order him to his knees, and his total surrender meant there would be little objection.
But even lost in the need to feel those lips around his cock, he recognized Mark’s vulnerability.
Now that he knew how he affected his wolf, it was too easy to go overboard.
His training warned against taking advantage of a submissive in any way, so he fortified himself against the need to touch him.
He swallowed what he wanted to say. “Do you want to be?”
Mark blinked at him. “Huh?”
He smiled. It seemed he was not the only one affected. “Do you want to be Prime Alpha?”
Mark frowned. “Oh, Goddess no.” He paused, catching Caster’s eye before bringing the next spoonful to his lips. “Too much responsibility.”
Caster thanked him when he placed the ice cream on the table, breathing easier when their conversation was not interrupted by Mark’s obvious enjoyment of the treat.
It surprised him how easy it was to talk to him.
The intensity of his desire for him didn’t relent; it simmered in the background, held back by his immense control.
Every time their conversation made Mark laugh, it reared its ugly head, and he imagined pushing him into the couch and taking what he wanted.
But he’d remember the vulnerable, drunk state he’d been in when he’d walked in here, and the urge retreated.
“What I don’t get is how you and Dean are even friends…” Mark’s latest question ended on a yawn.
“Sleepy?”
He glanced at his watch. “Oh, man. It’s 3 a.m.”
The change in his energy was impossible to ignore. He thought Caster would ask him to leave. The chime of an incoming text message tore his attention from Mark’s now rapid heartbeat. “Damien needs me.”
“Right now?”
It was clear he didn’t want Caster to leave.
His control slipped, and he was in Mark’s face, their lips inches apart before he could rein it in.
The moment stretched into eternity, Mark’s breath caught, and he closed the distance.
The kiss was a simple brush of the lips, hesitation preventing it from growing into the all-consuming encounter he’d expected it to be.
He started to pull away, but Mark grabbed his shirt and opened his mouth, then all was lost. He drowned in the unique taste that was Mark, his control a distant memory.
Their desire for each other tore out of them in rhythmic moans that ignited the air in the room.
Mark’s hand went to the back of his head, tangling in his hair, and Caster started to push him further into the couch, only to be interrupted by the insistent ring of his cellphone.
He tore away from the only place he wanted to be with a curse, his intention to kill whoever was on the other end of the line overwhelming him. Mark watched him with a small smile as he reached for the offending device. Damien’s name flashed across the screen, and he regained some of his control.
Mark nodded toward the device, his fingers still in Caster’s hair. “He must really need you.”
Caster answered the call, hoping he didn’t sound as out of breath as he felt. “Yeah. I’m coming.”
Whatever Damien said disappeared in his need to kiss Mark again, but the distraction had brought his control to the fore. He could, however, do nothing about his earlier urge to brush away the strands of hair sticking to his forehead. “Stay?”
Mark’s nod was almost imperceptible, and it took more control than he had to let go and walk away.