Chapter Twenty A Losing Battle
Chapter Twenty
A Losing Battle
ELI
Gabe’s eyes went wide, hand still on my cheek. His pupils blew into the size of tiny black holes. I was scared I might be sucked into his depths.
Not that I thought I’d mind.
“What? What is it?” I asked. Shit. Had I been too forward? I had been the one to grab his hand and move it to my dick. Maybe he was the kind of DL guy who didn’t like other men being so aggressive?
Another reason why dealing with someone who wasn’t out and likely never would be wasn’t a good idea.
Gabe blinked, and that wide-eyed stare was gone, replaced by the same half-lidded gaze he’d given me that night in the hotel room.
The look that made my core tighten and my thighs clench, as if I could put out the fire he fanned through my body.
The heat singed away any cautionary red flags that had littered the field only seconds before.
“Nothing, I just, uh, realized something.”
My eyebrows inched together. “Did you leave the oven on or…”
He chuckled, his hand dropping back down to my stiff dick while I held his. “No. Just how badly I want this,” he said, rubbing me under the water. “How badly I want you.”
I narrowed my gaze as pleasure began to build up inside me. “You’re realizing that now?” I teased.
Gabe chuckled. “No, you’re right. I realized that the first time I smelled your scent from halfway across town.”
“You can smell that far?”
“Only you.”
That surprised me, but his hand between my legs disintegrated any questions I meant to ask.
He was definitely more assertive than I was, finding the waistband of my briefs and tugging at them.
I lifted my ass and helped him pull them off me.
He tossed the soaking wet underwear onto the porch.
Without prompting, he took his off and tossed them next to mine.
There. No barriers between us now. Exactly what I’d been needing.
Ever since I had a taste of him that night in the hotel, I just couldn’t shake him.
It was the strongest, most insistent, most needy pull toward another man I’d felt in my entire life.
It didn’t matter that I was likely still in shock from finding out werewolves—shit—shifters existed.
It didn’t matter that I’d seen Gabe attacked and wounded and bloody hours earlier today. None of that mattered.
All that seemed to matter, as fucking crazy as it sounded, was the fully naked man sitting next to me and looking at me as if he was ready to devour me whole.
I wiped a water droplet from his chin with my thumb. He dipped his head down, rubbed his bottom lip against my thumb, opening his mouth and sucking it. Those ocean-blue eyes held me prisoner as his tongue swirled. My dick throbbed. Breathing started to get heavier, rougher.
He smiled, giving me my thumb back before moving in to claim my mouth.
His hunger was on full display now as he pushed forward, locking my lips with his.
He moved off the seat and stepped between my legs.
I wrapped them around his waist, moaning into the kiss as we rubbed together under the warm water.
“You’re trouble,” Gabe said, looking down into my eyes. His lips were shining, plump. He had a shadow of a five-o’clock stubble growing in around his perfectly cut jaw. I ran my hand over his jaw, feeling the soft hair under my palm, moving to cup his cheek.
“And you’re a magical being who can transform himself into a wolf on command.” I smirked and winked at him.
He laughed, the sound as rich as velvet and as deep as a well.
He kissed me again before he grabbed my hips and lifted me up.
I gave a surprised yelp as he effortlessly turned me around so that my ass pushed up against his stiff cock.
I groaned with the same need that had filled me in the hotel room and that I had successfully fought off.
Logic had prevailed that night. I had been extra cautious and didn’t want to give myself any more reason to fall for Gabriel.
And yet…
It wasn’t looking like I’d be winning that fight tonight.
Or ever again.
My body relaxed as he leaned forward and kissed my shoulders, slowly trailing his lips to the back of my neck, his hands kneading the knots out of my lower back, all while he rubbed himself against me.
He leaned forward, and between us, I could feel his hand moving down to my ass.
Lightning bolts ricocheted through my body as his finger traced over my hole.
It was as if a live wire had been dropped directly into the water.
His face was against mine, his lips pressing to my ear.
I could feel the warmth of his breath mixing with the steam of the hot tub.
“Your hole feels so tight, so hungry for me.”
I could only whimper as he teased a finger inside me, only getting the very tip in before pulling out.
“Eli,” he said my name with a pant. “Is it okay if I taste you?”
The yes came out strangled. The next thing I knew, I was being sent directly up to the clouds as Gabe spread my ass and ran his tongue up and down, circling my hole. I gripped onto the edge of the hot tub with such force that I was sure I’d somehow crack it.
“Fuck, Eli, look at you trembling already.”
He went back in, lapping me, devouring me. He pushed his tongue in, and my vision filled with the light of a thousand goddamned galaxies. “God, that feels so good, Gabe.”
He seemed spurred on by my words, burying his face between my cheeks and having his dessert.
I pushed back. The electrical currents of pleasure zapped and sizzled inside me.
I jerked myself off as Gabe rimmed me. It wasn’t something I typically did—Ben had never really liked it—but holy fuck had I been missing out because this felt amazing.
I closed my eyes and rode the waves. Gabe continued to work me a little longer before he slipped a finger in with his tongue. I clenched around him.
It was my body asking for more. It was me feeling a need to have him enter me, not with a finger or a tongue, but with his cock. I wanted to ride him until he gave me his load, making me explode with mine.
“I need you to fuck me,” I said into the night. All of my defenses had been destroyed. Any caution or worry I had about having sex with Gabe vanished. A wisp of steamy fog rose from my mouth as I let out a moan, feeling Gabe’s finger push down on my prostate. “Please.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhmm.”
“Fuck, buddy, I’m turning you into a whimpering, pleading mess.”
He was right. I was.
And his use of the word buddy in this context only worked to make me messier.
“Please, Gabe, I need to feel you inside me.”
He slowly pulled his finger out and replaced it with the head of his cock.
I started to push back, but he gripped my hips and held me in place.
He teased me, spreading his precum all up and down my already wet ass.
The sound of his slick and sticky excitement against my skin was as loud as the bubbling of the hot tub.
But he still didn’t give me what I craved.
“Let’s go inside. I want to look in your eyes as I claim you.”
He grazed his teeth against the back of my neck. My eyes nearly rolled directly to the back of my skull.
I needed no more urging. We got out of the hot tub, each grabbing a towel from the chairs and drying off as we hurried inside. Gabe gave up with the towel and dropped it halfway through his living room, his hand going to my stiff cock, which stuck out from the towel.
He gave me a couple of playful strokes before letting go and leading the way upstairs to his bedroom. Inside, we stumbled over to the bed, already locked in another hungry kiss. My towel fell open as he laid me back. He gave the command to turn the lights on, keeping them dim.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said, standing at the edge of the bed, looking like a marble statue of a horned-up god.
And he was saying I was sexy? Fuck. Was there a gas leak?
Again, no time to question things because Gabe had grabbed my legs and tossed them onto his shoulders. He smiled down at me, his cock pushing against my hole. Any coherent thought in my head self-destructed, leaving only space for one simple thing: dick.
I licked my lips and dropped my arms back, my entire body relaxing into the soft bed.
“Would you like me to grab a condom?” Gabe asked. It was a polite way to phrase the question, and I appreciated it, and I also vehemently opposed it.
“No,” I said. I got on PrEP once I re-entered the dating pool.
“Shifters can’t catch anything or give anything.”
“Good,” I said. I reached up and rubbed his muscular pec, feeling the soft, trimmed hair tickle my palm.
He grinned, his leaking cock pressed against me. Heat rolled off both of us. It turned the room into a damned inferno. “And do you need lube?” He looked down and stroked his already wet cock. He brought his shining fingers up to my mouth.
I sucked, tasting the salty, sweet precum that coated him.
“I don’t think I’ll need it.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think so, either.”
He pushed his hips forward. I gasped as his cock slipped inside me, finding no resistance. My body accepted him as if he’d been a missing part of me this entire time. Like he was the key that completely unlocked a new side of life for me, a new world of absolute and utter pleasure.
Gabe’s eyes opened wide—just like earlier—and he froze. Completely froze. Like someone had pulled the plug on his power cord. He didn’t even blink.
Did he… finish early?
“Gabe?”
It was like his name had yanked him out of whatever spell he’d been under.
He gave his head a quick shake, and his eyes returned to being sharp and focused in on mine.
“Sorry,” he said, slowly rolling his hips back.
“You just felt so fucking good. I was taking it in.” He thrust forward.
I yelped, gripping the sheets. I didn’t have to warn him to go slow at first. He knew to keep this pace, allowing me to get used to his size.
He wasn’t lying, either, about not needing lube. He slid in and out like silk.
“Fuck, Gabe, oh fuck.” My body was already wound so tight, I was sure I was only a few thrusts away from finishing all over my stomach. “I’m so close,” I moaned.
Gabe pounded me harder. He held on to my ankles and fucked me, shouting my name, growling, grunting. My skin stung from where it slapped against Gabe’s. My cock throbbed as I held it by the base, trying to prolong the inevitable.
No use. Seeing Gabe’s rippling muscles dance under the dim orange light sent me hurtling over the edge.
I blew my load, shouting out a loud and prolonged “fuuuuck,” while Gabe’s thrusts became erratic. His entire body tensed, his eyes snapped shut, and he leaned forward, stretching my legs as he buried himself balls-deep and came inside me.
“Holy shit,” I said, completely out of breath.
“Fucking hell.”
“I think I’m about to pass out.”
“I think I did pass out. What year is it?”
“Um, 1996, right?”
“Right. Yeah.” He laughed and leaned in to kiss me before he gently pulled himself out and put my legs back down, my feet planting on the plush rug. Tingles coursed through me, little postorgasmic shocks that cumulated in a shiver that ran all across my shoulders.
Gabe went into the bathroom and came back out with a damp towel. He wiped my stomach clean for me before setting the towel in the hamper and offering me water.
“No, I’m okay.” I glanced at my watch. Holy shit, it was one o’clock in the morning, I thought it was still much earlier. Gabe probably needed to go to bed.
“Do you want to stay the night?” he asked as if reading my mind. There was something in the tone of his question that I couldn’t quite place.
Excitement?
“Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to play it cool. “If you don’t mind.”
He gave me a look that said “of course I don’t fucking mind” before he climbed into bed and got in next to me.
It was like an instinct to lean into him and cuddle against him.
The way a baby sea turtle knew to follow the light of the moon toward the ocean or the way a salmon knew how to swim back home.
Or how a wolf knew to howl at the moon.
I wonder if they do that… Have to file that question away for another day.
I put my head on his chest, my hand on his furry abs. That crescent-shaped scar from today’s earlier attack was raised but no longer red or inflamed. It was as if he’d gotten that scar from a childhood accident and not from a battle that took place hours before.
It was proof that what he said wasn’t a farce, wasn’t a fairy tale. This was all real, and I was now tangled up in it—tangled up with him.
I should feel like I was in danger. This man could rip me to shreds in a heartbeat if he wanted.
There was another shifter actively hunting me for reasons I couldn’t even begin to guess at.
Millions of years of evolution honed my fear instincts for absolutely nothing, because even though everything about this situation screamed “run!” all I wanted to do was stay.
And so I did.