Chapter 5
5
Elliot Crane
I could use your help, if you’re not busy.
Seth Mays
I’m not busy.
Where are you?
Garage.
I’d been filling out more job applications—things I really didn’t want to do, but would if I had to and things that would require a two-hour commute from Shawano that I realistically wouldn’t make because I’d have to get an apartment wherever that job was. I didn’t exactly want to move out of Shawano and away from Elliot, but I was starting to think that maybe that would be easier—a cleaner break, anyway.
We’d probably still text, given the fact that he’d just texted me from the garage, when I was literally feet away from him.
I stood up from Elliot’s old office chair, then padded down the hall and opened the interior door to the garage. “What do you need?” I asked him.
Elliot heaved a bag of dirt onto a stack of other bags of dirt. “A willing pair of hands and a strong back,” he replied, then grinned at me.
“As long as you don’t need two good knees, I can do that.”
“The Lyme?” he asked me. “Or some sort of injury?”
“The Lyme,” I answered. “It’s pretty much always the fucking Lyme.”
“Except when it’s the other tick thing,” he retorted.
“Except then,” I confirmed.
“What size shoes do you wear?” he asked me.
“Uh, thirteen?”
Elliot grunted. “I don’t suppose you’re going to want to squeeze them into eleven-and-a-halfs?”
“No, thanks.” I grimaced. The thought of squishing my feet into shoes a size and a half too small was not appealing.
“Then we’ll have to be extra careful of your feet,” he replied.
“Why?”
“Steel-toed work boots are always a good idea when you’re maneuvering heavy lumber,” came the reply. “But I’m guessing you’re not going to want to drop a hundred or two on good boots.”
I snorted. “I’ve never spent more than like forty bucks on shoes in my life.”
“So we have to be careful of your feet, then,” he repeated. “I have an old pair, but your giant feet apparently won’t fit in them.”
“They won’t,” I agreed. “What are we building?”
“Go put on some sort of shoes, and I’ll show you.”
The answer was raised garden beds. The heavy objects were the railroad ties that Elliot was using as the base level, and they were fucking heavy .
“Do you need these things to withstand being hit by a truck?” I grumbled as we maneuvered the fourth tie into place. Moving them into position was hard work. Especially for me, because I was clearly out of condition. I hadn’t been getting as much exercise as I had been before I’d contracted Arcana, and since I no longer was slinging bodies around for a living, I’d lost some of the muscle I used to have.
Elliot laughed. At least he was sweating almost as much as I was.
And Elliot sweaty was hot, in more ways than one.
He was wearing another stained t-shirt, this one heather grey with a Packers logo, and his ripped jeans. His forearms and biceps bulged as he lifted, those rough hands of his covered by heavy work gloves. He’d given me a pair, as well, and I was grateful to not have splinters or cuts, even though my hands were aching from the work even with the gloves.
I definitely didn’t have thick, corded arms or pecs that looked like they were trying to escape my t-shirt. I just had my slightly-too-big UVA shirt—one of several—hanging awkwardly from a body that was both too soft and too thin for its size and wear. I also had on jeans, but mine hadn’t been ripped when we started. They were now. At least I’d intentionally worn the ones that had the most wear on them, because I figured they were going to get filthy at the very least, if not ripped and stained to boot.
We weren’t just building boxes—we were replacing them. Which meant that we’d already ripped out the old ones. They weren’t as big as Elliot wanted them, the dirt needed to be cycled and fertilized with what smelled like literal cow shit and rotting vegetables, and he wanted to reconfigure the yard.
So first we’d pulled out twelve boxes, which was when I’d snagged my jeans on a nail and ripped them. I’d also snagged myself on the same nail, which had led to an argument about whether or not I needed to go get a tetanus shot. I’d won the argument by pointing out that milk proteins were used as stabilizers in tetanus vaccines, so getting one would definitely kill me.
I had let him pour alcohol on it, gritting my teeth against the sting.
We weren’t going to finish the beds today—that had become clear to me the minute I’d realized we had to tear apart the old ones, shovel the dirt into the compost bins, put the wood somewhere to dry so he could burn it later, and put bulbs and any living plants into buckets or pots for temporary storage until we got the beds rebuilt.
Well, half the beds.
The other half were apparently on the list for fall, once the plants in them went dormant or died for the winter. Like the tomatoes and cucumbers and squash.
There were four total beds. We’d laid out the ties for one.
By the time we finished the last one, my stomach was growling, I was covered in sweat and mud and God-knew what else, and I was horny as fuck from watching Elliot squatting and lifting and sweating, catching glimpses of his rippled stomach when he used his t-shirt to wipe sweat off his face, and generally being in close proximity to his body, smelling his sweat.
It had me on edge, both in sexual terms and in shifter terms.
I tried to convince myself that it was good for me—practicing keeping control over my wolf-self. Mostly it had just driven me crazy, distracting me so that I did stupid shit like tripping over my own feet and dropping tools.
I couldn’t tell if Elliot had laughed at me because he knew why I’d turned into a clumsy disaster, or if he had just laughed at me being a clumsy disaster.
My stomach growled again, loudly, and I heard Elliot laugh again.
“Come on, baby shifter,” he said, picking up the shovel to go with the pitchfork he’d been using to turn over the dirt and manure. “Let’s get you fed.”
My neck was hot—well, hotter, since every part of me was hot and probably a little sunburned because I had not been diligently reapplying the sunscreen Elliot had tried to get me to put on my, and I quote, ‘pasty white-boy skin.’
“Fed with what?” I asked Elliot, since I knew we didn’t have food ready to go, and the few things he had in his freezer I couldn’t eat. Sandwiches, maybe?—
“Greasy Chinese, obviously,” came the reply. “We’ve got shit for Indian food out here, but we do have decent Chinese… assuming you like greasy American-style Chinese food.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, a bit more enthusiastically than I’d meant, but not more than I felt. “Do they deliver all the way out here?”
Elliot grinned at me. “Charlie does for me,” he replied.
“Charlie?” I hated the slight flash of jealousy.
Elliot nodded. “Charlie Dao. Her family runs the restaurant.”
“Her?” Now I felt stupid. Assuming Elliot was gay and not bi or pan, anyway. That thought made my stomach churn a little, but I tried to hide it.
“Charlotte Dao. Her dad, Huy, became friends with my dad in the last decade or so. After Mom died. Because Charlie’s mom was in chemo at the same time.”
Now I really felt like shit. Feeling jealous because of… I don’t know what my problem is. No, I do. My problem is that I’m in love with a man who probably feels nothing more than lust for me, and I know that, which means I know he’s just as likely to have sex with other people as he is me, and I don’t want that. It makes me sick to think of anyone else’s hands on him, or his hands on anyone else.
“Is she your age?” I asked him, pretending that I wasn’t being a clingy, selfish dick.
“Charlie? She’s younger. More… well, your age.” He made a face, and I wasn’t sure what it meant. “A baby,” he said.
“I’m thirty ,” I pointed out, a little irritably. “I’m pretty sure that elevates me out of ‘baby’ status.”
“Not to me,” came Elliot’s response, which sounded a little strained, despite the half-smile on his lips.
I sighed. “What’s the threshold, then?” I asked.
“What?” He looked at me, a little confused.
“At what age will I no longer be a baby?” I asked him.
The next smile felt more genuine, but still a bit… something. “To me, you’ll always be a baby.”
“Great,” I muttered, then headed toward the house, my longer legs moving me faster than Elliot’s shorter stride.
One more reason he wasn’t going to be interested in me. I was fuckable, but you didn’t date a baby. Okay, that didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean.
I kicked my extremely muddy shoes off in the garage, then padded quickly to the bathroom. I stripped down and practically threw myself into the shower, annoyance at myself and resentment about Elliot’s attitude surging through me. I turned the water on as hot as I could physically stand it, then stayed there a lot longer than I probably should have.
When I finally left the bathroom, I found Elliot on the couch, flipping through the TV channels. He looked up at me, his brow slightly furrowed. “You okay?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “Yeah.” It wasn’t his fault I couldn’t control my own emotions.
“I hope it’s okay that I ordered for you. I didn’t want to make you wait any longer than you had to for food.” He sounded apologetic.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I replied, leaning against the wall in the doorway. I didn’t mind if he ordered me food. I knew Elliot wouldn’t get me anything I couldn’t have.
He put down the remote and turned his full attention on me. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you?”
I didn’t. I mean, I did, but I also didn’t. “I’m tired,” I replied.
“And you don’t like that I call you ‘baby.’”
“I don’t care if you want to call me baby,” I corrected him. “It’s when you treat me like I am one that I get annoyed.”
“So why not just say that?”
I shot him a look.
“Seth?” he prompted.
I sighed. “I don’t particularly want to talk about it,” I retorted. I didn’t. I didn’t want to talk about the fact that I didn’t feel comfortable criticizing anything Elliot said or did as long as I was living in his house. As long as I needed him to provide me with food and shelter.
As long as I was stupidly in love with him and he didn’t know it.
He patted the couch next to him. “Come sit with me?”
I wanted to. It was also a terrible idea. I did it anyway, the weight of my body sinking into the couch with its brown fake suede and overstuffed cushions.
I didn’t expect Elliot’s hands on my thighs, and I sucked in a breath, sharp and fast, something musky and pungent in my nostrils. Something that ripped through nervous system like fire, going straight to my groin.
I made a small, half-strangled sound as Elliot ran his hands down my legs, over my knees, then inside my thighs. He pushed them wider, and I shuddered, fighting the surge of energy that rushed through me, the pins-and-needles feeling of shifting washing over my skin.
Elliot froze—not in fear, just… going still. “Deep breath, baby shifter,” he said softly, and I could have kicked myself at the look of guilt that flickered across his face when he said it. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said, quickly, the urge to shift subsiding. “I really don’t mind.” I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of liked that he had a nickname for me.
I just didn’t want him to think of me as ‘too young.’ As ignorant or childish. As not a romantic option. Even though I knew I shouldn’t be.
Rule Two.
The doorbell rang.
I jumped, my heart rate spiking.
“It’s just dinner,” Elliot said softly, getting up to go answer the door.
My thighs felt cold where his hands had been, and my balls ached.
And then the smell of Chinese food—General Tso’s Chicken, some sort of eggroll, fried rice, something with shrimp, sweet and sour… My stomach rumbled loudly.
Elliot was sitting on the floor, leaving me semi-sprawled on the couch, my hands on my now slightly-rounded stomach, thanks to more Chinese food than I think I’d ever eaten in one sitting before in my life. I was sleepy, full, comfortable.
And still unbelievably horny.
I couldn’t think about that. Both because I didn’t want to shift and because?—
One of Elliot’s hands slid up my calf—under the loose leg of my sweatpants.
My whole body went electric.
Elliot’s hand stilled. “Deep breaths, baby shifter,” he said, repeating the same thing he’d said right before dinner arrived. This time, though, he didn’t apologize. Instead, his fingers flexed slightly, just the fingertips brushing against skin and hair on my calf.
I drew in a shuddering breath. My skin felt tight, my mouth too full of teeth. I swallowed, then drew in a shuddering breath.
Elliot’s fingers kept up their gentle motion, gently rubbing my skin, but doing nothing more.
I took another breath. Then another. And a third, the tension in my body easing, my pulse coming back under control, the tingles on my skin dissipating.
“Good,” Elliot all but purred. “That’s good.”
And then his hand slid a little higher, to the back of my knee.
The breath caught in my throat again, but I kept most of my reaction under control.
“Very good,” Elliot murmured. He withdrew his hand, but turned, running hands up the outside of both legs—over my sweatpants this time.
I kept my focus on breathing—not slowing my breath, but on the act of inhalation and exhalation. On drawing oxygen into my lungs, then pushing it back out as my nerves bubbled and tingled under Elliot’s hands as they slid up the outside of my thighs.
He was up on his knees, his chest pushing my legs apart as his hands moved higher.
I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing, holding still, not turning into a wolf.
Elliot’s hands paused, warm on my outer hips, the heat from his torso radiating through the knit of my sweats, warming the inside of my knees and thighs.
Deep breath in. And back out.
“That’s it,” Elliot murmured. “Keep breathing.”
I kept breathing. Got myself under control.
“Good.”
I didn’t know how that single word could be drawn out, made seductive. But he did it.
His fingers hooked in the waistband of my sweats. “Keep breathing,” he ordered.
I kept breathing, but it shuddered its way into and out of my lungs. The rest of me shook slightly, my skin pins and needles and electrical current.
Elliot began to push my sweats down, and I lifted my hips to let him. I was barely holding onto my control, but I was desperate to feel his hands on my skin, his body against mine.
He stripped them off me, leaving me sitting in my t-shirt and shorts, the knit straining against my erection. Elliot half-stood, sliding one knee between my legs, nudging under my balls and making me hiss as his thigh brushed my cock through my shorts.
He leaned close, one hand beside my head on the back of the couch, his lips so close to my sensitive ears that I could feel the heat and moisture of his words when he spoke. “I am going to make you come, and you are going to keep yourself under control. And then,” he continued, his voice dropping low and rough. “I’m going to fuck you until you come again.”
I let out a whine that definitely didn’t sound human, my too-sharp teeth clenched in my mouth.
“Don’t you shift,” he whispered, his hand coming down between my legs, rubbing against me, deliberately teasing the base of my cock and balls through the navy blue knit.
I whined again.
“You haven’t let yourself come, have you?” he asked me. “Since you turned?”
I whimpered as I shook my head, breathing hard. Focusing hard. I was hard. God, I wanted him so badly. Needed him. Needed what he said he was going to do to me.
“Trust me, baby shifter,” he rasped, his hand continuing to stroke me through my shorts. “Trust me?”
I nodded, a small sound escaping the back of my throat.
“Breathe.”
I gasped in a breath as he squeezed, then forced myself to control my respiration. To get my skin and teeth and heart rate under control.
Elliot kept stroking, although the rate of his breath in my ear increased.
“That’s it, baby shifter. Hold on and let go at the same time. Let yourself come. Let me make you come.”
I whined again, my hips pumping a little of their own accord.
“That’s it,” he growled into my ear.
I clenched my hands, feeling the slight bite of nails that were too sharp—but not sharp enough to be claws. I was mostly holding it together—but the more Elliot stroked me, the harder it—and I—was. I needed… God, I needed this. I needed him.
“Come for me, baby,” he rasped, and I could smell the musk and salt of precum. Mine. His. God. The smell of it was making my balls ache, my stomach so tight it hurt. I had to hold on—but I wanted, no, needed to let go. “Seth… Come for me.”
The sound I made wasn’t at all human—raw and desperate and…
“Fuck,” Elliot rasped in my ear as the heat and stain of moisture spread across my shorts.
I hadn’t come in my underwear since I was a horny teenager.
My muscles trembled, my breath heaved, but I was still human.
And still turned on.
Maybe it was a shifter thing, maybe it was because it had been so long, or maybe it was just what Elliot did to me, but I’d just come and I was half-hard again a few breaths later.
Elliot drew in a deep breath, his nose pressed against my skin under my ear. “Fuck, you smell good,” he growled.
I made some sort of noise that maybe agreed with him or was maybe just encouragement. My body felt languid, like my bones were barely being held together by muscles that were too loose.
His fingers found my cock again, and he let out a soft moan against my ear. “Fuck, Seth. You’re already hard again.”
I made another sound, past words.
I was no longer in any danger of shifting—too many endorphins or oxytocin or whatever was keeping that part of me calm and relaxed even as other parts of me were becoming wound tight again.
“Tell me you’re ready,” Elliot growled, stripping me out of my now-wet underwear.
“Yes,” I gasped out.
I don’t know where he’d stashed it—under the cushions, maybe. In a pocket. I wasn’t paying enough attention to see where the bottle came from. But I heard him open it, my eyes still closed.
I kept them closed as he pushed a slick, hot finger into me, a moan slipping from my lips like a sigh.
I was lost in the feeling of his hands, his finger—fingers. In the rasp of his breath in my ear. The heat of his body. The smell of his arousal and my own cum.
By the time he’d stretched me far enough, I felt semi-delirious, drunk on Elliot.
Completely given over to the fact that I was in love with him, no matter what he did or didn’t feel about me.
When he stepped away to strip himself naked and pull on a condom, I felt cold. Then he stripped off my shirt and pushed me down sideways so I was lying on my back, one leg bent up against the back of the couch, the other falling off the side.
He reached down, sliding his hand under the knee of my lower leg, then lifted it to his shoulder. “Tell me you want me,” he ordered.
“I want you,” I gasped. I need you . I didn’t say that one out loud, no matter how true it was.
And then I lost the ability to say anything as Elliot surged into me in a single stroke, his head thrown back, giving me a view of the long line of his throat—the heavy scar near his jawline dark against his copper skin.
I reached up and gripped his muscled forearms, holding on as he thrust into me, pulled back, and thrust forward again. I felt raw and stretched, like Elliot was the only thing holding me together—and the very thing that was going to pull me apart and leave me in pieces.
I managed to hold it together when he came, and then, again, when he stroked me to orgasm a second time while still buried inside me.
I waited for him to go to clean up, then went into my own bathroom, running the sink while I gasped my way through the sobs that tried to tear their way out of my chest. I kept them—somehow—silent, knowing that Elliot’s hearing was as good as mine.
Fuck Rule Two.