Chapter 15 #2
Taylor shook his head, looking at Johnny with wild confusion.
“No. No, you haven’t. I’ve… I’ve done something to you, haven’t I?
The biting… it’s messed with your brain and now you think…
Oh God, now you think… Oh fuck. I need to go, JP.
I need to move out. I need to leave. I need to get as far away from you as—”
Johnny’s wolf suddenly surged to the surface, growling as he reached under Taylor’s seat and slammed it all the way back. Before Johnny could even get a grip on himself he straddled Taylor’s legs and pushed down hard on the headrest.
“Look at me,” he snapped, shoving his forehead against Taylor’s. “And listen so you understand. I love you. Not like friends. Not like brothers, but like I want to bury my knot so deep inside you that you taste it on the back of your tongue for the rest of your life. I. Am. In. Love. With. You.”
Taylor’s mouth was moving, and sound was coming out, but nothing that even remotely resembled words.
“Being with you last night,” Johnny continued, scalp suddenly hot and tingly.
He slid his face down Taylor’s throat and pressed it to the empty space at the front of his stab vest. “It was like pressing my mouth to a glass of cold water after years of walking in the desert. And I… I can’t do it anymore, Tay.
I need… I need to know if there’s something more for us. ”
There was silence again, made heavier by the tight confines of the car. He’d have almost preferred it if Taylor would have raged or shouted, because at least then he’d have something to work with. But instead, there was nothing.
“Could you say something?” Johnny eventually whispered.
Taylor’s breath was shaking against his hair, and he gripped the sides of the seat with both hands as he said, “JP?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you seriously just call me a tall drink of water?”
Johnny squeezed one of his eyes shut, mouth splitting into a grimace. “Shut up,” he huffed, head-butting Taylor’s chest.
“Oof, okay. Got it. Won’t take the piss.”
Letting his head loll to the side, Johnny rested his cheek against Taylor’s collarbones.
It hadn’t come out how he wanted. In fact, he had no idea how or what he should have said because in all honesty he’d planned to keep it a secret for the rest of his life.
Taylor had been through so much as a kid, and the last thing Johnny wanted was to make him feel like the only way he could be a part of the pack was to pretend like he felt the same way.
One of Taylor’s hands drifted from the seat to the gap between Johnny’s neck and stab vest, and he gently ran his nails through his hair. “I don’t know any shit metaphors like you, JP.”
Okay. Ouch.
“But… I guess… Do you know why I loved taking care of my guns so much?”
Johnny looked up, finally meeting his gaze. Taylor’s pale cheeks were flushed and his lips were wet.
“Because you like keeping your hands busy?”
“Well… yeah, but—” Taylor shook his head. “It’s because I knew that if the time came and I had to shoot someone, it wouldn’t be to protect the public. It would be to protect you.”
Johnny blinked, the tightness in his throat easing a little.
“And the pack, obviously. Does that make me a shit police officer? Actually, I know I’m a shit police officer, but…” His words trailed off as he spread a hand over his face. “Oh man, JP. What a mess.”
Johnny drew in a breath, pressing his forehead to the back of Taylor’s hand. “Does it have to be a mess, Tay?”
“Everything’s messy when it comes to me.”
Johnny grinned. “Well, we can agree on that, because apparently we can’t even do a threesome right anymore.”
“You mean when we nearly suffocated a man between our pecs? Yeah, loved that for us.”
Johnny laughed, nipping his knuckles. “You know what I mean. But it didn’t seem like you hated it. Kissing me, I mean. And to be honest, you were practically sucking my dick at one point.”
Taylor groaned as he tipped his head back, pressing both hands to his face.
Johnny was acutely aware that this was the moment where he could push things just a little too far, so he waited. And waited. He was just about to snatch Taylor’s hands away when he finally said, “Yeah. Yeah, I liked it. You’re a pretty decent kisser, I guess.”
Johnny’s chest swelled, and he wondered if it was actually possible for someone’s heart to burst with happiness.
Had they been anywhere else, at any other time of day, he might have just ripped Taylor’s stab vest off there and then, however it sounded like there was a ‘but’ coming, and a big ‘but’ at that.
“But?” Johnny said, unable to stop himself.
Taylor nibbled his lip again, and it was taking all of Johnny’s self-restraint not to bite it. “But I still think I’ve caused this by biting you.”
Johnny let out a frustrated sound and sat up, his head knocking against the roof of the car. He hooked his hands into the armpits of Taylor’s vest and shook him. “Don’t fucking patronise me, Tay, after I just said I love you.”
Taylor grabbed Johnny’s wrists. “I’m not.
Jesus, I’m not. I just… Even if the bite hasn’t caused these—” He gestured between them, pain tightening his expression.
“—these feelings, you deserve someone better, JP. Someone better than me, at least. If you actually looked, got on some dating apps, you’d find someone so fucking easily.
You’re going to be head of the pack one day, and you’ve told me so many times that you want a big family and—”
“Find—” Johnny’s breath caught in his throat, making it difficult to get the words out.
“Find someone else? Taylor, how the fuck can I find someone else when I’m so lost in you?
I wanted you to be mine from the moment I met you.
Even before we moved up North. Even before our fangs dropped and our knots popped. I knew it.”
Taylor’s face grew even redder and his gaze drifted towards the window. “But I punched you in the nose the first time we met.”
Johnny nodded resolutely. “Exactly. You drive me insane, Tay. You’re the scariest, strongest, most pig-headed person I know, and sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy just trying to keep up.”
Taylor let out an incredulous laugh. “Keep up with me? I’ve been trying to keep up with you!
You’re insanely good at everything and I just feel like a dead weight most of the time.
It’s what I’m saying, JP. You can…” His voice went quiet, cracking a little around the edges. “You can let me go if you need to.”
Johnny sighed and slumped back into his seat.
“You don’t get it, do you? There will never be anyone like you.
The day you turned eighteen you could have walked away from the pack, and I could have walked away from you.
But we didn’t do that, did we? We stayed together, and we carried on staying because we wanted to.
You’re here, I’m here and… we aren’t kids anymore, Tay. ”
There were several long moments where Johnny stared at Taylor, and Taylor stared out of the window. The smell of ozone was beginning to rise from the trees, and Johnny knew it was going to rain soon.
“Please say something,” he whispered, sliding a hand over Taylor’s “I can’t stand it when you’re quiet.”
Taylor looked down at their hands, his lip twitching. “I don’t think I can be with an alpha, JP. I told you, the scent… it makes my wolf crazy. It might just be biting now, but what about in the future? What if I seriously fucking hurt you?”
Johnny sighed, Taylor’s words wrapping around his heart like barbed wire. “Well then. What’re we going to do? I don’t want to be in a throuple. I don’t want an omega between us, because to be totally honest, I think I might die if I watch you fuck someone else again.”
Taylor shook his head. “I told you, we’re never doing that again.”
More silence, until Johnny finally said, “How about a test, then? No biting for a month. To see if you can control yourself. And I’ll know for certain that it’s not because of a hormonal fuck-up. But, spoiler alert, it’s not.”
Taylor huffed out a breath. “And then what happens? A-after a month?”
Johnny’s mouth pulled into a small smile and he tipped his head forwards. “I should say we’ll talk. But in reality I’ll probably take you into the woods and fuck you senseless.”
Taylor’s face went from pleasantly pink to bright red in the span of a heartbeat. He barked out a laugh and said, “I think we both know I’d be the one fucking you, dude.”
Johnny let the smile tip into a smirk. “So you’ve thought about it?”
Taylor threw his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “God, shut up.”
Johnny was about to say ‘fuck waiting a month’ before both of their radios crackled to life. “Five eight six?” the call handler said.
Taylor glanced at Johnny and sat up. “Go ahead,” he replied, the words unsteady.
“Thank you, five eight six. We’ve got a report coming in about a distressed elderly female on Clydesdale Close. No further details, but the informant says they can hear screaming, and that the female has stripped off all of her clothes. Do you think you can start heading over?”
Taylor groaned. “Why’ve they always gotta be naked? I’ve seen enough wrinkly boobs and ballsacks for a lifetime.”
Johnny laughed, a quiet sense of delirium washing over him; the kind that you only feel when you know you should have died, but somehow didn’t.
“It gets us out of the pharmacy line,” he replied, voice cracking a little.
Taylor nodded, pulling on his seat belt and readjusting his radio. He eyed Johnny. “Are we good?”
Johnny shrugged, trying to appear unbothered. “You tell me. I did just confess my undying love; surely you’ve got to feel some type of way about it?”
Taylor cracked his neck and fished a pair of blue gloves from his pocket. “Well, your confession went from Hallmark to pure filth in less than a second. So, yeah. My brain is a mess, but I will let you know in five to ten business days.” He grinned, and it was the best thing Johnny had ever seen.
“You’re such a dick,” Johnny replied, before pressing his radio and saying, “We’re on our way.”