Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-one
LEON
The pups were back. Of course they were. Nothing on earth was going to keep them away from a living, breathing jungle gym with a flicky tail.
Leon stretched luxuriously where he lay in a patch of sunlight. He could always climb a tree to get rid of the two pests. But his coat was warm, the ground was comfy, and if the pups got ideas about using him as a chew toy, he figured he could maim them gently.
They hadn’t dared pounce yet, just hovered nearby in that intense way young wolves had, full of desperate longing and barely concealed eagerness.
Predictably, Charlie was the bolder one.
His nose kept twitching toward Leon’s tail, which was slowly swishing from side to side.
A purely coincidental movement. Obviously.
Karl’s laughter caught him off-guard. It was rich and low and felt like sunlight itself. Leon rolled over lazily to find him standing in the doorway of the cabin, upright, dressed, and no longer looking as if he might fall over in a stiff breeze.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Karl said, leaning against the frame with a half-lidded, amused look that made something in Leon go hot and reckless.
Charlie, traitor that he was, abandoned the hunt and barreled straight for Karl with a yip.
Karl managed to ease himself down the doorjamb without wincing and accepted the pup’s excited greeting with grace.
Charlie’s little friend took a bit longer to warm up, but before long, Karl had both of them in his lap, overexcited paws dangerously close to some very delicate anatomy.
And Leon had a vested interest in keeping that anatomy in full working order.
Padding over to where he’d left his clothes, he shifted smoothly and took his time dressing under Karl’s lingering gaze. He felt better for being outside, and for having shifted. He’d been getting positively wolfish. No more. His cat was back, sleek and superior.
He dropped to sit beside Karl, shoulder brushing his mate’s, as the pups tumbled away in search of more mischief. “Shouldn’t you be resting and healing?” So that they were ready to go, just as soon as those wolves got back with confirmation.
“I’m sitting,” Karl said mildly. “Not exactly running laps.”
“Mm.” Leon let their arms touch from wrist to shoulder. The heat between them was immediate, a slow simmer that had nothing to do with sunlight.
“So,” Leon said eventually, voice casual. “Assuming we make it back to the ranch without getting abducted by any more paranoid wolves or eaten by bears, how long d’you think before you’re cleared to do anything strenuous?”
Karl turned his head, eyes sliding over Leon with open appreciation. “Depends what kind of strenuous you mean.”
“The kind that starts horizontal and ends with me not walking straight,” Leon said, and then, because Karl’s gaze had gone molten, he decided some more teasing was in order. “I mean, assuming that’s on the table. Maybe you just want to recover to patrol your territory again.”
Karl didn’t laugh. He turned fully toward Leon, eyes still locked on his, and reached to brush Leon’s hair behind his ear with surprising gentleness. The rough skin of his fingers caught against the shell of Leon’s ear, and he shuddered.
“It’s not just on the table,” Karl said. “It’s the whole damn feast.”
Leon swallowed hard. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Leon said, faintly annoyed, “Well, thanks for that. Now I’m going to spend the rest of the day with a hard-on and no privacy.”
Karl grinned. “Good. We’re even.”
Leon felt the smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Not quite. You’re sitting there looking disgustingly smug while I suffer.”
Karl looked deeply unrepentant. Almost cat-like, in fact. “Guess we’ll just have to make it worth the wait.”
Leon groaned. “You better not be one of those ‘delayed gratification is good for the soul’ types.”
“Depends. You up for a test of endurance?”
Leon’s smile was slow and wicked. “Honey,” he said, “I’m a cat. We invented patience. Doesn’t mean we like using it.”
The air between them was still thick with want, and he pushed a little closer against Karl’s side, feeling the curl of something hot and sharp in his belly at the press of smooth warm skin against his. The firmness of Karl’s muscles that led to him thinking about—
About absolutely nothing, actually. He stared determinedly up at the branches of the tree overhead as Ruth approached.
They needed to get out of here, to have privacy and time. Away from interruptions, away from pups demanding Karl’s attention, away from everything except one another. And a big bed.
Leon could do patience. He just didn’t want to.
KARL
The two wolves sent to the nearest town wouldn’t be back for at least another day, but it seemed he and Leon had been conditionally accepted. Hailey stopped by late in the afternoon to invite them to eat with the rest of the pack that evening.
Karl had to bite down a grin at the horror on Leon’s face. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but he’d gotten to know Leon well enough to read his mind—eat with a bunch of wolves? Some of whom had pups, loud and messy?
“Thank you,” he said smoothly, “but I think we’d do better staying here, so I can rest my leg.”
Ruth brought them supper not long after. She was still full of questions about Jesse, laughing when Karl told her about Jesse’s sugar addiction.
“Hasn’t changed a bit,” she said, her voice catching on a sob. “His father was like that too. I don’t know how he never put on a single pound.”
Pain flickered in her eyes at the mention of her mate.
“Did he have a grudge against chickens too, Jesse’s dad?” Leon asked.
Karl had no idea when he’d picked up on Jesse’s vendetta against poultry. That cat noticed everything.
Ruth blinked, totally lost. “Given that he never met a chicken in his life,” she said slowly, “I really couldn’t say.”
But her eyes were brighter again. Leon, ever the strategist.
* * *
Leon stood combing out his hair, almost the last touch in his nightly ritual. Also, as Karl had learned, the first in his morning routine.
Karl was already in bed, ends of his hair damp from the wash he’d finally been able to have standing up, without it being done for him.
The scent of soap and toothpaste still lingered faintly in the air.
The room was somewhere between a hospital, a prison cell, and the world’s most hostile AirBnB.
But Karl couldn’t focus on any of that. Not with Leon undressing across the room.
Everything Leon did seemed to be graceful, languid, and unapologetically sensual without ever crossing into posing. He peeled off each layer slowly, his skin revealed inch by agonizing inch, the long sweep of muscle, the way his spine curved as he bent to step out of his pants.
Karl swallowed. His skin felt too tight.
And then Leon slid under the covers beside him, skin warm where it brushed Karl’s. Just that was nearly too much. Karl tried not to let his breath catch, but Leon’s eyes flicked over, amused and sharp and very aware.
The silence between them stretched, taut and loaded.
Karl swallowed again. He could feel the heat rising off Leon, the way his muscles shifted just beneath the skin. So close.
Leon shifted onto his side, facing him properly now, eyes unreadable in the low light. “We’re not going to sleep any time soon, are we?”
Karl gave a low laugh, breathless. Then, deliberately, he reached out and laid his palm flat against Leon’s chest. Warm skin and a strong heartbeat, kicking up under his touch.
Leon went very still, his pupils blowing wide, black swallowing gold.
Karl traced his thumb across Leon’s sternum, following the dip between muscle and bone. “No,” he said. “We’re really not.”
His hand drifted lower, fingertips tracing the fine line of hair that disappeared beneath the blanket. Leon sucked in a breath, his hips canting upward.
“You’ve been like this all day,” Karl murmured, voice rough. “Torturing me.”
“Pretty sure you started it, honey.” Leon’s voice was uneven. “Looking hot and righteous at the same time.”
“Righteous?” Karl bit gently at his earlobe, and Leon gasped.
“You have resting martyr face when you can’t get any.”
“You’re about to have resting wrecked face,” Karl said, a growl in his voice. He slid his hand down, slow and deliberate, over the curve of Leon’s ass, then up again.
Leon’s breathing roughened. “God, yes, please. Just, no hickeys where wolves can see. I have a reputation.”
“You’re way past saving your reputation.”
“You’re smug. You’re so smug it’s disgusting.”
“Cat-like, even,” Karl said, aiming for deadpan but not quite pulling it off.
Leon gave a low groan, and Karl slid his hand to the back of his neck, tugging him in. Nothing slow or teasing about this kiss—it was heat and hunger and sheer, brutal need. Leon made a low, broken sound, his hands already skating down Karl’s back, leaving sparks in their wake.
Karl rolled them, careful of his leg, caging Leon beneath him. Leon arched up, wrapping his legs loosely around Karl’s hips, grinding their bodies together, both already shamelessly hard.
“Oh, fuck,” Karl got out, voice low and wrecked at the press of Leon’s cock against his.
Leon laughed, breathless, head tipped back against the pillow. “Quiet, remember?” he whispered.
Karl kissed down the line of his throat, soft at first, then biting just hard enough to make Leon gasp.
Leon slid his hand between them and gave a satisfied hum as he wrapped his fingers around Karl’s cock. “Oh, God, that’s nice.”
Karl swallowed a groan and reached for him in turn.
They stroked each other slowly, rhythm matching, breath ragged in the silence between them. Karl ducked his head, pressing kisses along Leon’s collarbone, his chest, catching one nipple between his teeth just to hear the sound Leon made.
It was too much and not enough. The friction, the warmth, the sweat starting to slick their skin—he wanted more. Wanted to crawl inside Leon and never come out. But they couldn’t. Not here. Not with half a dozen shifter ears just outside the door and pups who didn’t know what boundaries were.
“Gonna come,” Leon whispered, eyes shut tight. “Fuck, Karl—”
“Yeah,” Karl said, speeding up his strokes, their hands moving in sync. “Come on. I want to see you.”
Leon shuddered beneath him, mouth falling open in a silent cry, and he came across Karl’s hand, chest heaving, eyes locked on Karl’s like it was too much to bear and not enough all at once.
Karl didn’t last long after that. He bit down on Leon’s shoulder to muffle himself and spilled between them, shaking, every nerve ending singing. Leon held him close, and Karl didn’t ever want him to let go.
“You know,” Leon said at last, “I was thinking we should hold off until we didn’t have to explain the sheets to Ruth.”
Karl cracked one eye open. “And yet…”
Leon turned to him with a lazy, wicked grin. “Couldn’t wait that long. Right now, I’d fuck you in a pile of pine needles.”
His sheer open desire for Karl was enough to have Karl wanting to do that now, forget the pack around them, forget the pups who might wander in. But he knew they couldn’t.
So he settled beside Leon, draping an arm over his waist, and told himself soon.
They’d be home soon. And then, he could take his time with Leon, do all the things he wanted, feel again the sensation of that hair trailing over him as Leon kissed his body.
And if he kept on thinking like that, they’d never get to sleep.