Chapter 2 Colt #2
“What?” Angus stared at me. “Impress him for what reason?”
I shrugged, trying to look casual. “You know. So, he’ll accept you as his alpha.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Colt? You’re not making any sense. Do I seem like the type of man who would color his hair? As for Ben, I’m too old for that boy no matter what color my hair is.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “Age is just a number.”
“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit. I’m three times that boy’s age. And twice yours.” He mumbled the last part, but I’d heard it.
“Just come out with what you want to say.” I went back to staring at my plate.
“Well, I would if you’d give me the chance and stop talking about my hair,” Angus grumbled. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m sorry I never told you how I feel about you.”
My eyes flew to his face, which was red with, I was fairly certain, embarrassment.
My heart beating hard, I asked softly, “How you feel about me?”
Angus turned his focus to a scrape in the wood of the tabletop and cleared his throat. “Yeah. You’ve been distant for a while, and I was thinking maybe it’s because I never let you know how much you mean to me.”
I had to lean forward to hear the last bit, Angus’s voice having fallen to a low grumble.
I had to ask. “How much do I mean to you?”
Angus’s bright blue gaze shot to mine. “A lot. A whole lot.”
I let that sink in.
“Another thing I haven’t told you is, you’ve got eyes the color of a storm cloud right before it bursts with a downpour.” Now his cheeks really were red.
I’d never heard Angus talk this way and resisted the urge to look around to see if maybe it was a prank and Maddox was about to jump out with a camera and laugh at me.
“Of course, maybe you aren’t interested in me that way. Maybe what we used to do was just a passing thing,” Angus said, uncertainty heavy in his tone.
“It wasn’t just a passing thing,” I said quickly. “But…what about Ben?”
Angus frowned. “Why do you keep bringing up Ben? I’m talking about us, for fuck’s sake! Did you fall off a horse and hit your head while I was at lunch?”
Ignoring his orneriness, I said, “I’m pretty sure you bonded with Ben, and—even if that isn’t true—Angus, I can tell you have feelings for him.”
Scoffing, Angus looked away. “I’m an alpha and the kid’s staying in my house, and I feel responsible for him, that’s all. I don’t want to talk about that; I want to talk about us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, us. You and me.” In his frustration, Angus’s voice was rising.
Reaching over the tabletop, I rested my hand on his.
It was warm and both rough and soft at the same time.
“Okay, okay. Let’s talk about us. You’re saying you have feelings for me.
Well, I have feelings for you, too. Only, I never knew how to voice how I feel or if you’d ever be up to anything more than what we were already doing. And then Be—”
Angus gave me a warning look, and I stopped.
He didn’t want to talk about Ben.
Picking up my plate, I stood and headed for the sink.
“I want to kiss you,” Angus blurted out, and I fumbled, nearly dropping the plate and the remains of my lunch on the floor. “I’ve wanted to for a long time. But I was afraid.”
Carefully setting the dish on the counter, I turned to look at him and found him standing right in front of me.
Used to be, I would have heard him struggling to get up and the click of the cane as he walked on the hardwood floors.
But it seemed Angus no longer had trouble getting out of a chair, and his cane was nowhere in sight.
Up close, Angus was thrumming with vitality, and it was attractive as hell.
“Seriously, Colt. Why haven’t we ever kissed?” The softness in that perpetually gruff voice was doing things to me. Angus moved closer, and I tightly gripped the counter as I leaned back against it.
“Because I wasn’t sure you wanted—”
“Well, I’m telling you now, I did want to and I still do.”
My heart knocked against my ribcage. Angus wanted to kiss me. It was something I’d never dared imagine.
“Did you hear me?” Angus asked softly when I didn’t answer. Putting his hand against my cheek, he looked me in the eyes. “Is it okay if I kiss you, Colt?”
He said my name like it was precious, and my knees trembled. I nodded, holding my breath as Angus leaned closer.
That was when the sound of the front door opening and Maddox’s voice calling for us panicked me so much, my hands shot out and pushed Angus away. He stumbled, his right leg buckled, and then he was falling.
“Angus!” I lunged to catch him, and he pulled me down with him.
Maddox walked in the exact moment Angus landed on his back on the floor, with me on top of him, the two of us nose-to-nose.
“Are you okay?” I asked Angus, quickly pushing myself up and off him. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay; I’m fine,” Angus grumbled as I helped him up.
“What happened?” Maddox asked, and I looked over my shoulder to where he stood in the doorway with David and Ben beside him.
I couldn’t think of a plausible explanation other than the truth, so I asked stupidly, “Where’s Trey?”
“Bertram took him and the baby home.”
“Ah.” I nodded.
“I lost my footing, that’s all,” Angus said to Maddox. “What are you doing here? I thought you were out mending fences.” He looked at Ben and David. “And you two are supposed to be planting the garden. How do you expect us to have vegetables this summer if you don’t plant them?”
“We haven’t had lunch yet,” David said, scooting around Angus to get to the refrigerator. “I’m going to make us some sandwiches.”
“Oh, well, fine.” Angus turned to me. “Colt, come help me with my physical therapy.”
I kept my eyes down as I followed him to his bedroom. Angus’s legs were doing so well, he didn’t need physical therapy anymore. The others had to know that.
When we got into the bedroom, Angus shut the door and then pinned me to the wall so quickly, it confused me for a minute.
“Let’s try this again. Can. I. Kiss. You?”
“Yes,” I rasped out and his lips took mine. Hard and soft and a little salty and…amazing. As I kissed him back, he deepened it, and my tongue eagerly met his stroke for stroke. But when Angus wrapped his palm around the back of my neck, I stiffened and pulled away.
“What is it?” Angus asked, breathing hard.
“I, um, your hand.”
“My hand?” He looked at his left hand, which was on my waist. “You want me to move it?” He brought it down to my cock, and I let out a groan.
“Not that one, the other one. On my neck.”
Angus stared at me a moment, and then understanding seemed to dawn. “Oh. Sorry.” He removed his palm from the back of my neck.
“It’s just—”
“No, I get it. I don’t know how I’d react to another alpha holding me that way, to be honest. I’ll try not to do it.
” Leaning in, he kissed me again, and we were back to where we’d been within seconds.
I turned us, pinning him against the wall, and Angus broke away, pushing at my chest with his hands.
“Sorry,” I murmured, stepping away.
Leading me by the hand to the bed, we sat down and we began kissing again. The slow strokes of Angus’ tongue against mine, like he was languidly lapping up whipped cream or something, notched up the heat in my groin. I leaned into him.
“I want you,” I said hoarsely between loud kisses.
“I want you, too.” He unsnapped my jeans and took me in his rough palm.
“Lie down,” I said, adding, “Please,” so it wouldn’t sound like an order.
Angus moved onto his back, and I pulled off his pants. He wasn’t ashamed of the scars on his legs in front of me, and I was glad, although I had the passing thought that they didn’t look half as ragged as they used to. When I climbed on top of him, he frowned.
“What are you doing?”
I’d forgotten Angus had never been with a man other than me. “Something like what we usually do, but a little different.” I brought my cock to brush against his, and he sucked in his breath, then groaned.
“That…that feels good.”
“Yeah?” I pressed down, moving against him, and the silken skin of his cock against mine and the occasional scratch of his pubic hair quickly had me shaking with need.
I kept it up, pressing our hard cocks together, circling my hips and grinding.
Angus spread his legs, bending them, pumping upward, making more friction.
We tried to keep our moans quiet. I could hear the three men in the kitchen talking, and I was glad when someone turned on the radio, then wondered if they did it because they could hear us. A minute later, I no longer cared.
I was reaching my peak, and Angus stopped moving.
“What’s the matter? I asked, panting.
“This seems…I don’t know.” Angus looked pained.
“What? Tell me. Are your legs hurting?”
“No.” He swallowed. “It’s just…well, the position I’m in. It feels kind of…” he left off.
I glanced down at our cockheads red and leaking against each other. My hand that wasn’t keeping me steady on the bed was wrapped around as much of them as possible, stroking our thick lengths. The sight was so erotic, I closed my eyes as tingles climbed up my spine from my groin.
“A-Angus, I’m going to come.”
“What?” Pushing my hand away, he replaced it with his, stroking me until I shuddered and spilled.
When I opened my eyes, Angus was staring at me heatedly, my seed all over his belly and chest. Without hesitation, I bent and took the top quarter of his cock in my mouth, sucking hard, and four sucks later, he came with a cry, emptying into my mouth. I swallowed greedily.
When I lay down beside him, he said, “I’m sorry about before. For stopping you. It was just kind of a submissive position for me.”
I nodded. “I get it.”
“I guess this is the reason two alphas don’t normally get together,” he said, staring at the ceiling.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I enjoyed what we did. We don’t have to do other things if they make one of us uncomfortable.”
“Mmm,” Angus hummed.
“But maybe that’s not fulfilling for you. I could try…I mean, I could, uh—”
“Turn up your ass and let me fuck it?” Angus asked, one dark eyebrow arched.
“Well, that’s a little crass, but…uh, maybe.” I knew I didn’t sound convincing.
“And the next week I can do the same for you?” Angus continued.
My eyes widened. I couldn’t imagine it. “I guess. If you’re comfortable.”
Angus sighed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable doing that, Colt. Frankly, I’m not sure you would be, either, and even if you were, it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to be the only one making the sacrifice. But I do need the penetration. I crave it. I think you do, too.”
Silently, I nodded. I felt sick because it was obvious where this was going.
“The way I see it, there’s only one thing we can do,” Angus said.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, I told myself. I didn’t want to lose Angus, but it was probably better it happened now rather than later. Before we got too deep. Who are you kidding? You’ve been in love with Angus for the past two years at least.
“Give up on us,” I said.
“What the fuck? No! We need a third,” Angus said.
What did he just say?
“Colt? Did you hear me?”
I heard him, but I didn’t understand. I shook my head.
“We need a third person in our relationship. Someone who isn’t an alpha. A beta, or…”
“Or an omega,” I finished.
“Well, I don’t know how feasible that would be.”
“And exactly what beta can take on pleasing two alphas?” I asked.
Angus fell silent because he knew the answer to that as well as I did.
No beta could. One alpha in a “soft” rut—a rut much less intense than what supposedly happened when an alpha was with an omega—was enough to keep a beta busy in the bedroom.
Two alphas in soft rut would be much too much for a beta to handle.
“We’d have to have two betas,” I said. “That would mean taking two more men into our relationship.”
“Or women,” Angus said. “We could have children.”
“Is that something you want?” I asked him. He’d had only Maddox’s dad with Lucy. Perhaps she couldn’t have another child after that.
“Well, maybe. I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately.”
I swallowed. Things were not working out for us. “I guess we could, but I wouldn’t want to be physical with a woman. I’m gay, Angus, not bisexual.”
“Oh,” Angus said, seeming to think about it. “I guess that would make things kind of uneven.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It would have to be two beta men. At that point, we’d look like we were starting a basketball team. Anyway, what are the chances we can find two betas that we both could fall in love with?”
“Very small,” Angus said. “I’ve always thought my Lucy was the only person I could ever love. I was pretty shocked when I fell for you. And to be honest, I kind of feel weird when I think about being with a woman other than Lucy.”
I didn’t say anything. We were at a crossroads.