Chapter 10 Rafe
A familiar metallic scent filled the air as Adri stepped into the clinic, and Rafe’s head snapped up as he let loose an involuntary rumbling growl that filled the room.
He had his mate pinned to the wall in under a second, turning him gently to inspect the bullet hole that was still healing in his arm.
“What the fuck, kitten?”
“The bullet dropped out already. It’ll be healed in no time.”
“You’re damn lucky it wasn’t encapsulated silver nitrate.”
“I’m fine, Doc.”
“I need to examine you.”
Adri rolled his eyes at him, and Rafe raised an eyebrow. “Are you winding me up on purpose? Is that how you want to play it?”
“Rafe? It sounds like you’re busy!” Katie’s cheerful voice called through the speaker from his laptop where they’d been looking at images of the melted device he’d found in the dead shifter’s brain.
Pulling Adri along behind him because he couldn’t stand to let him go, Rafe moved back to the computer so he was in the video feed frame. “Thanks for your help, Katie. Let me know if you think of anything else.”
“Of course. And if you get a live subject and need a consult, call me. Any time.”
“You’re not going to Rafe’s clinic to perform surgery, babe!” Bella called in the background. She had a strict no contact with illegal business rule for her wife, although Katie was as independent as Adri was, so it didn’t always work out how Bella hoped.
“I can give him pointers by video, sweetness,” Katie replied over her shoulder. The idea of anyone calling the murderously scary woman ‘sweetness’ was hilarious.
“Sorry to cut things short, but I need to go sort Adri out,” Rafe said.
“Ah, yes! Your jaguar fighter! Is that him?”
Adri sent Rafe a quizzical look, but dutifully waved toward the camera. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask if we could borrow you for a fundraiser.
One of the hospital board members got it into their head that we should run our own version of an amateur celebrity boxing tournament, and we can’t seem to dissuade them from it.
I want to sneak some professionals in there to reduce the likelihood that I spend the rest of the night dealing with avoidable concussions.
You can still win the match, but your reflexes will mean you can avoid hurting them too badly while you do it. ”
“Katie’s a neurosurgeon at the hospital,” Rafe explained to Adri, who was looking even more confused.
“For humans?” Adri asked.
Katie laughed. “Yes. It’s fun and rewarding. The best combo.”
Bella had come into the shot now and was watching her wife indulgently. “Classic contrary cat shifter. Her folks forbid her from studying medicine, so of course she went and spent fifteen years at college to specialise in an area that was the least likely to be of use to her own kind.”
Katie wrinkled her nose at her wife. “You love my contrariness. It’s how I ended up with you.”
Bella leaned down and gripped her throat, pulling her into a filthy kiss.
“And that’s our cue to leave. Bye, ladies,” Rafe said.
“Let me know the details, and I’ll come help with your fundraiser,” Adri added.
Ending the call, Rafe stood and turned to his mate, his eyes drawn back to the trail of red down his arm from his wound. His wolf was howling inside him at the thought that his mate had been hurt, that he could have lost him while he was sitting here chatting with his friend.
“Come upstairs and I’ll clean you up,” Rafe growled.
“I really am fine. Don’t you dare waste your power healing me when my body can do it perfectly well on its own.”
“And what if I want to use my power to do something else?”
Adri audibly swallowed, and Rafe pressed a firm hand to his muscled back, directing him up to the apartment.
“You shouldn’t waste your power on that, either,” Adri said.
Rafe’s smile was all predatory teeth when Adri glanced back at him as they passed through the door to the bedroom. “Your pleasure is never a waste.”
“If I let you have control here, it doesn’t mean you get a say in where I go or what I do outside.”
“I’m well aware,” Rafe said, eyes drawn back to the dried blood on his mate’s arm. “Now, come get clean. The blood and grime must be driving your jaguar crazy.”
Rafe kept the lights dimmed and his movements slow as he undressed them in the bathroom while the shower warmed.
Stepping in behind Adri when it was ready, he grabbed a washcloth and soap, letting his power wash over his mate’s skin along with the water to reassure himself that his mate was okay. That he was safe.
“Why does that feel so good?” Adri moaned as he leaned into Rafe’s touch, sparking another surge of arousal through him.
“What are your limits, kitten?”
“Why? What do you want to do?”
Rafe sighed, softening his touch even further to teasing strokes.
“If you want this, you need to communicate, sweetheart. But, sure, I’ll start.
My sole interest is your pleasure. If you’re not into something, you tell me.
Immediately. Be as rude as you like if it’s about drawing a boundary in bed.
Or just say stop. No biting to break skin unless you’re prepared to bond.
I can’t control my wolf if you tease that way.
I’m not into humiliation, yours or mine, beyond the thrill you’d get from being forced to orgasm wherever and whenever I choose like the good kitten I know you can be. ”
“Fuck,” Adri groaned, his eyes squeezing shut as he squeezed the base of his cock like he was trying to stop himself from coming.
“Too much?” Rafe asked.
“No.”
“Good. Now talk. You don’t want anyone to have control over your life. What else?”
Rafe somehow managed to find the self-control to take his hands off his mate and start methodically washing himself as he waited for Adri to find his words.
“Holding me down is fine, but I really don’t do well with restraints of any kind or being locked up, and I don’t like being blindfolded.
Whips and impact play are out, too. I get enough of that at work—impact, not whipping, obviously,” Adri finally said, voice so quiet and rushed it almost blended in with the sound of the falling water splashing over them.
Rafe couldn’t have stopped the growl his words sparked if he’d tried.
He knew exactly why his kitten didn’t like those things.
Being trafficked for the fighting ring as a teen had left a lasting mark.
Pulling Adri into his arms, Rafe nuzzled into his neck, dragging his scruff along the delicate skin so he could reestablish his scent on him.
“Did they hurt you any other way?”
“Not the way you’re asking. Only being forced into the ring until I fought back.”
Rafe wished he’d tortured the vampires who’d taken Adri longer.
He’d tracked them down not long after they first met and made sure they’d never take another young person from their home.
It didn’t stop the flesh trade, of course.
There were always more immoral assholes to take their place.
But at least he knew his mate would never come face-to-face with the people who’d stolen his life from him on the street.
Turning off the water, Rafe grabbed a warm towel to wrap around Adri’s body.
“Everyone who touched you back then is gone,” Rafe promised, as he got to his knees to pat his mate’s feet and legs dry.
“I know. It pissed me off something chronic when I realised what you were doing.”
“You wanted to kill them yourself?” Rafe asked.
Adri shrugged. “I couldn’t back then. Not without getting in more trouble than I could get out of with Viviana. I hated that you could give that to me, and then you started pushing Viviana to move the gym and improve things for my fighters, and it just made me even more mad.”
“Mad enough to avoid me for over a decade,” Rafe said, getting back to his feet and pressing a kiss to Adri’s jaw before heading to the bedroom.
“Only because I knew I’d lose myself to you the second I let you close.”
“Oh, kitten. You’re not going to lose anything. All I want is to give you everything you need to be truly free to be whoever you want. If you lost a part of yourself, it would be like losing a part of me, because you’re the piece of my soul that walks the world outside my body.”
Adri shuddered in his arms where they stood next to the bed. “I’m not ready for that,” he whispered.
Rafe cupped his jaw, pressing a series of gentle kisses along his lush lips.
“That’s okay. I’ll be right here waiting when you are, and we can still have all the fun with this chemistry between us in the meantime.
You didn’t mention any of the things I told you I could do with my power were a limit.
Do you want to add anything to your list? ”
Adri tilted his head up, his lips parting to let Rafe plunder his mouth. “No. Do your worst, Doc.”
Rafe’s soft smile turned predatory. “On the bed. Hands on the headboard.”
Adri was all feline grace as he crawled onto the bed, arching his body in long, seductive lines as he stretched to follow Rafe’s instructions.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Rafe said, standing transfixed as he stared at the picture Adri made on his bed.
Starting at his ankle, Rafe set to work worshipping his mate, using tongue and teeth and fingers to draw a symphony of needy moans from Adri’s mouth as he slowly worked his way up his body.
His healing power thrummed beneath his skin, begging to be let loose, so he let a tiny trail seep into every spot he touched, knowing it would set Adri’s blood aflame with arousal.
“Knees up, kitten,” he ordered, when Adri’s moans turned to muttered oaths.
“Rafe, please. Hurry up.”
Rafe just raised an eyebrow and stared his mate down until he wrapped a hand around each leg to hold his knees apart, putting every inch of himself on display. Rafe groaned, reaching down to stroke his throbbing length that he’d been ignoring to try and give himself some relief.
“Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Rafe growled, watching Adri’s cock kick in response to his voice as his balls sat high and heavy above his perfect, enticing hole.
Adri’s entire body tensed and arched as Rafe dived in to lap at his rim with his long tongue. Sucking and gently nibbling, he’d barely got his first taste with the tip of his tongue when Adri’s whole body tensed and his breathing became sharp and frantic. That wouldn’t do.
“No. I’m not nearly done with you yet, kitten,” Rafe chided, reaching up to roll his balls gently in his fingers and letting his magic soak into Adri’s skin to stop him from coming until Rafe was ready.
“Fuck!” Adri cried as Rafe relaunched the assault on his hole, not bothering to hold back now he knew his mate couldn’t orgasm and the pleasure would just build and build.
Pressing firmly with his tongue, he licked in deep, moaning as he felt the muscle contracting around him.
Grabbing the lube off his side table, he managed to squirt some on his fingers, and probably all over the bed, before reaching up to slide his hand up and down his jaguar’s impressive, ridged length as he continued his efforts to lick and suck his soul out of his body.
Adri’s moans grew louder, his hands shifting from holding his knees apart to wrapping tight in Rafe’s hair to hold him close as his legs splayed out across his sheets.
His hips jerked up repeatedly in aborted thrusts as he tried to chase the pleasure Rafe’s hand was giving him before pushing back onto his tongue.
“Rafe, please. I need to come,” Adri begged.
“Are you sure about that, kitten?”
“Yes, dammit!”
“Okay, remember you asked for it, though.”
Keeping up his firm strokes on Adri’s cock, Rafe slid two fingers of his other hand in alongside his tongue, crooking them to find the perfect pressure that would send his mate soaring.
Stroking with both his power and his hand, Rafe stopped holding back Adri’s orgasm and instead forced him into an instant, overwhelming climax that had his screams echoing off the bedroom walls.
He didn’t stop working him over as the orgasm went on and on, nor did he let Adri’s cock soften.
When his cries became muffled sobs of need, Rafe paused only long enough to raise his head to meet his mate’s eyes.
“You good?”
Adri just moaned, so he pulled back further.
“I need your words, kitten. Too much, or can I keep going?”
“More,” Adri whimpered.
Grinning, Rafe lifted himself up so he could take Adri’s cock into his mouth, letting his power soak in deep as he sucked him with purpose, quick and efficient, until Adri’s eyes rolled back in his head and he cried out as Rafe pushed him into another orgasm.
“Oh my fucking god,” Adri gasped.
Not giving him a moment to rest, Rafe crawled up his body, latching onto a nipple that had been lacking his attention and sucking it deep into his mouth, his tongue and teeth working it over as he used his still slick fingers to tug at the one on the other side.
“What the fuck? Nipple orgasms aren’t a thing, are they?” Adri moaned, the instinctive thrusting of his hips dragging his still throbbingly hard cock along Rafe’s stomach.
“Squeeze your legs together for me, kitten,” Rafe gasped before shifting his mouth to his other nipple.
It was Rafe’s turn to moan as Adri managed to create the perfect slick tunnel for his cock to thrust into between his thighs.
The pleasure had him biting down on the nipple still sucked between his teeth and letting his power surge again to drag another orgasm from his mate.
Adri’s chest was thoroughly coated in cum now, his breathing sharp pants of overwhelmed need.
The scent of Adri’s pleasure saturated the space as Rafe dragged his body along his mate’s, revelling in the dirty slide.
He refused to come himself, though. Not until he was inside his mate.
“Fuck, Rafe. It hurts,” Adri whimpered.
“Too much?”
“Hurts good. But I need…” Adri’s voice trailed off as Rafe dragged his fingernails down his chest to start loosely stroking his gorgeous cock.
Fuck, his jaguar was perfect for him. “Take one more for me, kitten. Then I’ll give you what you need.”