Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
SCREAM SQUEAK
Sliding into my mate’s warm and willing body was the single best sensation of my life.
I’d had more than my fair share of partners over the years, but he, my Wiley, was superior to all others.
I swore I could feel his pleasure and my own as I filled his ass with my cock.
He didn’t question where the slick had come from, didn’t wonder how he could bear me continuing our mating after he’d already come, he simply gave everything over to me and let this happen.
“You are perfection,” I whispered to him as I filled him fully and rested in the depth of his heat.
“Oh, god… You feel so good. Please don’t stop,” he said with a darling little whine.
Begging. Already.
I eased his hands over his head, stretching him out, and pecked his lips. “I’ll fuck you all night, if you wish.”
Wiley moaned so beautifully as I started thrusting, staying deep, and letting myself revel in the clench of his sweet body.
We might not have much longer to abuse our unwilling hosts’ absence, but I couldn’t help taking my time.
Our first mating had been rushed by necessity.
I wanted this one to show him that we were made for each other.
Whether he understood what we were or not.
I growled at that errant thought, and Wiley’s breath caught as he stared up at me with low-lidded eyes.
Moans bled from his parted lips, his cheeks flushed, and the soft hair at his temples curled.
He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen with his sparkling blue eyes, whisky-colored hair, and pouting lips.
And he was mine.
I ground my cock into him and leaned down to ravage his mouth.
He wrapped his legs around me, holding on, trying to move with me, and I fucked him fast and hard.
His erection was back, thick and stiff against my stomach, and I made sure to ride it as I thrust repeatedly.
When I had him wailing, eyes closed and head tipped back, I growled to know he was about to come.
Wiley came with a cry, his body tightening on my cock, and the scent of him all combined to make me come with him.
I shoved deep and filled him up, loving that he would absorb more of me that would keep him safe.
Feral over the fact that it would mark him as mine to all of my kind. Mine, mine, mine…
“Yes…” he whispered between panted breaths.
Had I said that out loud? Was he agreeing?
Doubtful. He still didn’t know what we were.
Needing to keep him close, I rolled to my side and tucked him under my chin, our limbs tangled around each other. He sighed, relaxing into me, and I hoped he would sleep peacefully, instinctively knowing that I would protect him.
I’d tell him we were mates tomorrow.
Holing up in a house that was mostly windows had not been the best idea.
I awoke not because I was done sleeping, but because my ankle was slowly burning thanks to a goddamned skylight allowing the morning sun to shine down on me.
I moved my entire leg out of the way while looking around the room to see where else the sun shone.
From where he sprawled on top of me, Wiley gave a snort and turned his head before nuzzling against my right pec and then falling back to sleep.
Perhaps I would just stay here and fry so as not to disturb him.
No, for fuck’s sake, that wouldn’t help either of us.
Everyone at the institute no doubt knew who he was, so he needed me to keep him safe from them.
I also had an obligation to make sure The Coalition knew what was truly happening at the Barnabas Institute of Genetics under one Doctor Edsel Barnabas.
“Wiley?” I petted his hair and down his back. “Wake up, love.”
Did he…moo?
“Five more minutes,” he muttered and turned his head so that he was breathing against my sternum. “Nooooo…”
Oh, he’d said no. Like a lamentable cow. I huffed a laugh, making him bounce, and he gave a tiny kittenish growl. I patted him and gave him a few more minutes while keeping an eye on the sunbeams.
To appease my curiosity while I waited, I gave a series of calls—because I was in human form and not as strong—to use echolocation on the house and grounds.
Downstairs, the sunlight seemed more muted, and I wondered if they might have laminated glass that blocked most UV rays.
Interestingly, the garage was underground with a drive that wound up and around half the house before meeting the street.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be injured as we prepared to leave this place after all.
I almost didn’t want to leave, but I was certain we couldn’t stay this close to the institute for much longer.
As if on cue, I heard a doorbell chime below.
Wiley lifted his head with a start, blinking fast and wiping drool from his chin.
He looked down and was then wiping away the pool on me before he sat up, straddling my thigh, a blush blooming on his cheeks.
If it weren’t for whomever was down there, I might’ve caught Wiley in my arms and convinced him to let me mate him again.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
The man’s voice sounded slightly mechanical and distant, but I still flew from the bed to peer around the doorframe to the main room below us.
“Pardon us for bothering you, sir, but we’ve had reports of a prowler in the area. Could we come in and look around for a moment?”
The three men at the door might look like police officers, but I doubted they were anything other than institute soldiers. I didn’t recognize them, but I was fairly certain I’d killed all those who’d regularly dealt with me. It was too much of a coincidence for them to be anything else.
The other voice seemed to be coming from a doorbell camera device attached outside the house.
“Oh, I’m not sure. We’re not home right now.”
“Have any alarms tripped in the last few hours?”
“No, nothing.”
Excellent news for us. I hadn’t thought there were any cameras on the patio, but sometimes they were small. My own home had seventeen cameras.
“Are you able to unlock the door remotely, sir?”
Say no, I willed toward the homeowner. Don’t let them in.
“Well, yes, but it doesn’t seem necessary if no one’s broken in.”
“And you’re absolutely certain?”
The homeowner didn’t answer right away, and I turned to look back at Wiley because he was rustling around.
Apparently, he’d found clothes that fit him and was getting dressed.
I caught the boxers and trousers he threw at me, quickly dismissed my distaste for putting on another man’s underwear, and dressed as I listened for more from downstairs.
“Sir? Are you still there?” The doorbell rang again.
“I’ll be sure to call 911, if necessary. Thank you, officer.”
The fake police officers seemed stunned to be turned down, and it took a moment for them to walk away.
I could hear them mumbling about whether they should break in anyway, that this was the perfect place for me to hole up and finish my snack.
If they only knew… I tracked them back to their car—not a patrol car—and watched them drive away.
Echolocation let me see that they truly did drive down the road.
“Time to—” I said as I turned back to Wiley, but a voice spoke over me.
“I don’t know who or what you are,” a homeowner said from a speaker somewhere downstairs, “but you will leave my home immediately. If you don’t, I’ll send the footage of you breaking in to every wannabe journalist on social media. You’ll be trending in under an hour.”
Wiley gasped, but I merely chuckled. Did he think he was saving those officers’ lives?
He was. But though I didn’t want my two faces appearing online—for if he had a speaker inside, he might also have cameras—I knew The Coalition would have that recording erased as soon as I let them know it existed.
“Time to go,” I repeated.
“Yeah.” Wiley was done dressing, the turquoise dress shirt and charcoal slacks too large on his lean frame. He wore startlingly white tennis shoes that were laced up tightly and carried a dark gray sweater. “Dude, get dressed!”
Since I would be in front of several officials before the day was over, I selected my clothing with care.
Wiley had given me a pair of dark brown trousers, so I found the suit jacket to match and selected a cream-colored shirt, turquoise tie to match my mate, and…
“Ah, how nice,” I said as I stole the man’s Ferragamo’s.
“Hamilton, I swear to god, we’re not shopping. This is an escape. Another escape.”
“Yes, dear.”
I didn’t want to burden him with what awaited us just yet since he was already agitated. “Why don’t you find the garage and see what car we should take?”
“What? We can’t steal one of the man’s cars,” he whispered harshly. “He’ll definitely post the video then.”
I finished dressing and came out of the closet. “Who would believe such footage in the age of AI? And if he shows this face, I’ll sue him for defamation. Besides, there are people who would remove anything revealing, if necessary.”
We headed down the stairs, Wiley following me. “Like hackers and stuff?”
“Something like that.” In truth, I thought they might be witches.
The garage was off the kitchen on the other side of a long wall of windows with morning sunlight streaming in. I reached out, letting my fingers touch the light to test my theory that the glass was laminated against UV rays.
“Fuck. Really?” Wiley asked, his eyes wide.
When my fingers didn’t burn, I continued toward the garage. “Really, but apparently, not here.”
“What about in the car?”
We entered the garage full of various vehicles. “Most modern cars have windshields that would protect me.”
“That’s good.”
“However, most modern cars also have apps that would let the owner disable them.” I pointed down the line to a gorgeous classic. “So we’ll take that one.”
Wiley snorted. “Oh, will we? A ’67 Ford Mustang? I’m pretty sure that dude didn’t want us to take his TV. You really think he’s going to be cool with losing a car that sold at auction two weeks ago for a hundred eighty thousand?”
I paused in looking through the keys hanging on the wall by the door to pan over and stare at him. “You know this how?”
“Don’t get snotty. I like old cars.”
I selected the very clearly labeled set of keys and handed them to him. “Then you can drive.”
His face instantly brightened. “Seriously?”
“Of course.” Especially since I was more used to being driven and should, in fact, ride in the back to minimize my sun exposure anyway.
“Oh my god,” he practically giggled before running down to the shining cobalt-colored car. He had it started and the engine purring before I could dash to catch up with him. “It’s like that, huh?” he said when I squeezed into the back seat.
“Head North, Jeeves. Toward Parnell.”
“Yes, sir! Right away, sir!” He drove us out to the center of the garage, heading for the closed door. “Oops, forgot to open the door.”
“Approach slowly. It’ll open.”
“Oh, yeah?” He drove us closer, and the garage door started sliding upward. “Rich folk…” he said with a shake of his head.
Wiley might like classic cars, but I had a feeling he wasn’t the sort who could afford them.
He’d been cleaner than the other men they’d thrown at me in the lab, but I had to assume they’d never brought anyone people would miss.
I regretted each and every one of them, my soul stained by killing them, and I would never even know their names.
“Which way?” Wiley asked at the top of the drive.
I used my echolocation to see all the way down to the interstate. “Take a right?”
He made the turn. “What was that noise?”
“You can hear it?” I stared at him curiously in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, it’s like a…scream squeak.”
I huffed a laugh at his description. “Echolocation.”
“Oh, cool. So you’re a bat even when you’re not a bat.”
“One of my many skills,” I said with a smirk.
Wiley blushed and drove onward.