Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-two
LEON
Karl was warm, tucked around Leon like he’d done it a hundred times before. And Leon wanted nothing more than for this to be in his future every morning—waking up together, skin to skin, heat curling low in his belly before his eyes even opened.
He moved slightly. Karl stirred with a low, unguarded noise that tightened every muscle in Leon’s body.
Well. That was unfair.
Leon tilted his head to press a kiss to Karl’s throat. Karl made a small, encouraging sound, his arm tightening around Leon’s waist. “Mornin’,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep.
Leon brushed his mouth across Karl’s collarbone. “Morning.” His hand slid down Karl’s stomach to find the heavy weight of his cock. “You’re already awake.”
Karl gave a low laugh that turned into a gasp. “Careful,” he murmured. “I might start thinking you want something.”
His hand drifted over the curve of Leon’s spine, to the dip just above his ass, and Leon shivered and kissed his neck, slow and lazy.
“That a yes?” Karl asked, voice low.
“That’s a shut up and keep doing that,” Leon murmured.
Karl huffed a laugh and kissed the top of his head. “You’re demanding in the mornings.”
Leon rolled until he was on top of Karl, grinding just enough to make Karl groan. “I’m a delight in the mornings. You should be thanking me.”
Karl grinned and kissed him. It was slow, messy, glorious. “Just making sure you start your day right.”
Their hands found each other without thinking, warm and familiar from the night before. They didn’t rush. It wasn’t frantic this time. Just slow, dragging touches under the covers, mouths meeting in fits and starts, hips rolling together in a delicious rhythm.
And then a voice sounded, outside but disastrously close. “Charlie! You stop right there!”
Leon breathed out through his nose and pressed his forehead to Karl’s shoulder. “Fuck. If I get interrupted mid-orgasm, I may never recover.”
Karl chuckled, and Leon felt it all the way down. “Can’t say I disagree.”
Leon moved so that he was lying beside Karl once more, though they didn’t stop touching.
Slowly, they wound down, until it was no longer about coming.
It was about pressing in close, sharing breath, the slow drag of fingers across ribs, hips, thighs.
Wanting, without urgency. Hunger as a promise for the future.
Eventually, Karl’s hand slid up Leon’s back, fingers tracing the line of his spine. “You planning on confessing to Ruth about the bedding, or am I the sacrificial lamb?”
Leon snorted against his chest. “She likes you more. And I have to protect my reputation.”
Karl lifted an eyebrow. “What reputation?”
“Exactly. I can’t afford another hit.”
Karl was smiling when Leon leaned in to kiss him, lazy and open-mouthed, all warmth and salt and the taste of morning. They stayed like that a while, trading kisses and heat, until a knock at the door broke the spell.
Leon hissed into the pillow. “We are never staying with wolves again.”
* * *
They drank what passed for coffee sitting out front, shoulder to shoulder while the sun finally chased away the lingering chill. The sky was blue and clean, and Leon calculated how long it would take to run back to the ranch.
Karl looked better. He moved easily now, like his body had finally caught up to his will. Leon had conducted a very thorough check of his healing progress earlier. Now, he just wanted to get out of here.
Just as soon as those fact-finding wolves made it back.
He nudged Karl’s shoulder. “So what—these guys are just going to wander into the nearest town and start asking if anyone’s heard about a silver wolf?”
Karl took a sip of the bitter brew. “They won’t need to ask. They’ll walk into the gas station, look at the magazine rack, and figure it out. Jesse’s been on the cover of everything. The women’s magazines are obsessed with photos of him and Matt.”
Leon pulled a face. “Of course. The world’s hottest alpha.”
“Envy doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m just saying, you know it’s bad when even Better Homes and Gardens is running Matt on the cover in flannel.”
Karl snorted. “You read Better Homes and Gardens?”
Leon took a sip of his coffee and, deciding he didn’t need caffeine that badly, dumped the rest of it out on the dirt. “You really think Michael’s going to come meet Matt?”
“Matt knows the politics, knows the right people to trust with breaking the news that there’s a whole pack of Argents no one knew about.
By working with him, Michael gets to retain some control.
But he’s probably going to need a few days—his whole world just got turned upside down, and he’s going to want contingency plans to protect his pack, just in case.
It’ll take him a while, but he’ll come.” He glanced sideways at Leon. “If he doesn’t, Ruth’ll drag him.”
Leon huffed. Ruth was evidently desperate to see Jesse but, as she’d pointed out caustically, by staying here for now, she was obeying her alpha. She said it with a very pointed look at Leon, not seeming to buy his expression of wounded innocence.
“What’s bothering me is that if we don’t get out of here soon, Luna and Matt are going to send out people after us. Hell, they might already have done that. And if they find we’ve been held here—”
Leon stopped talking just as Karl raised his head, nostrils flaring, eyes sweeping over the camp. Something in the atmosphere had changed.
There. Wolves were rapidly congregating around two others in human form. Leon had noticed them entering the camp and had thought they were guards finishing their shift. Evidently not.
He slid a sideways glance at Karl, whose tongue flicked briefly over his lips as he watched the pack. Karl had told the truth, but what if those two hadn’t found proof? Easing to his feet, he held out a hand to help Karl stand.
And then they waited, as Michael emerged from his cabin and strode toward the new arrivals, tension in every movement.
For an instant, the world seemed to hold its breath along with Leon. Until he saw that one of the newcomers was clutching a battered magazine, its pages curled from damp. Even from this distance, he heard Ruth’s gasp as the cover caught the light.
He didn’t need to see it to know which photo it probably was—Jesse laughing, Matt leaning in, that unguarded tenderness between them that had been splashed across every gossip site and supermarket rack in the country. Proof enough that their story was true, and that Jesse was very much alive.
Michael spoke to the scouts, then crossed the clearing to Leon and Karl. He looked at them for a long, unreadable moment, and gave a single nod.
“You were telling the truth,” he said to Karl. “You and your mate are free to go.”
Karl let out a slow breath.
Leon tucked his hair behind his ear. “Anyone might think you didn’t appreciate our company.”
Michael’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Don’t push it, cat.”
As he turned away, Leon decided it wasn’t worth the effort of putting the wolf back in his place. Not when they could finally leave. Karl’s warning elbow in his ribs was neither here nor there in his decision-making.
* * *
They left with the minimum of fuss, saying goodbye only to Ruth and Charlie. Karl’s excuse for seeing Charlie was to make sure he was safely under Jo’s eye and wouldn’t follow them, but Leon wasn’t fooled.
He’d shifted before accompanying Karl to see Jo. And if he happened to stretch and yawn in front of her, powerful muscles rippling under his velvet coat, teeth on full display, that was just coincidence. Obviously.
After a final scratch behind Charlie’s ears, Karl left his borrowed clothes in a neat pile outside what had been their prison, and shifted. And then side by side, they headed out, before Ruth discovered the defiled sheets.