Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
CALEB
Sunday dissolved into the kind of lazy, golden afternoon I’d only experienced through movies.
Jesse made brunch, whipping up waffle batter while I sat on a barstool and stared at his ass. He kept four pans going at once, frying eggs and bacon in butter until the kitchen smelled so good the scent should have been classified as a controlled substance.
He made orange juice—actually made it with fresh oranges and a fancy juicer that sounded like a jet engine.
“Good to know I’m getting my daily serving of vitamin C,” I murmured, chin in my hand as I watched his forearms flex beneath his long-sleeve shirt.
His running pants rode low on his hips, boxer briefs peeking above the waistband and doing nothing for my determination to get through breakfast without an erection.
He smiled and moved to the waffle iron. “You need more calories now that you’ll be shifting on a regular basis. A lot more protein.”
I knew my grin was pure evil. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
He shook his head, smile going rueful. “I walked right into that one.”
I winked at him as I grabbed a banana from the bowl in the center of the island and started peeling it.
The waffle iron beeped, and he lifted the lid. Steam billowed up, sending a cloud of vanilla-and-cinnamon-scented air through the kitchen.
“You’re going to ruin your appetite,” he said, using a spatula to dislodge the waffle.
“I’ll risk it,” I said, taking a deliberate bite of the banana while maintaining eye contact.
He grabbed the pan of sizzling eggs and began scooping them onto two plates. “Your smart ass is asking for trouble,” he said in a low, thoughtful rumble that wrapped around my dick.
I swallowed. “Just practicing for later.” I waggled my eyebrows and finished the rest of the banana in two bites.
He pushed one of the plates in front of me, braced his hands on the island, and just fucking looked at me, the expression in his eyes making me suddenly very aware that I wore nothing but a pair of thin sweatpants.
“Clean your plate,” he said, “or we’ll have problems. And Caleb?”
“Yeah?” I rasped, my voice breaking on the end like a pimple-faced middle schooler.
“You won’t come for a very long time. I’ll tie you down and introduce you to that cock cage I told you about.
Then I’ll plug you and keep you hard and moaning.
Since you love running your mouth so much, I’ll straddle your face and put my cock in there.
You’ll keep my dick warm, sweetheart, and I’ll keep you in my cage until I’m convinced you won’t spoil all my hard work in the kitchen. ”
Lust detonated inside me like I’d swallowed a bottle rocket. I reached down and adjusted, my throat dry and most of the blood in my body diverted to my dick, which was a goddamn traitor.
“Fuck,” I muttered, the vision Jesse had painted splashed on the inside of my skull like a slutty Jackson Pollock. Grabbing my fork, I stabbed it into the mound of eggs. “I can’t believe you’re weaponizing breakfast.”
His chuckle traveled straight to my cock as he carried his own plate around the island. “It’s brunch, brat. And you started it.” He sat next to me and bumped my shoulder with his own. “Eat before it gets cold.”
I shoveled eggs into my face, trying to focus on the food instead of the promise in his words.
The first bite melted in my mouth, butter and fluffy eggs seasoned with something that might have been chives.
Whatever it was, I needed more of it, stat, and I took another oversized bite.
“Holy shit, how do you make eggs taste like money?”
Jesse laughed. “That good, huh?”
“My compliments to the goddamn chef.” I pulled the syrup toward me.
He smiled, something warm moving through his eyes as he watched me douse my waffles. “I like feeding you.”
Something lit up inside me, bright and embarrassing and completely out of my control. I didn’t care even a little. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
We ate, the silence as golden and easy as the sunlight streaming through the windows. Everything he’d made was as delicious as the eggs, and I devoured my food and half the leftover eggs on the stove.
After a quick cleanup, we moved to the sofa, and Jesse produced a sleek gaming console that made my setup at my parents’ house look like a Fisher-Price toy. I grabbed a controller, settled in, and prepared to absolutely destroy him at Madden.
Except that did not happen.
Instead, he sprawled on the opposite end of the sofa and spanked my ass game after game.
Long legs propped on the coffee table, he played the way he did everything else: methodical and precise, like some kind of chess grandmaster.
He read my defense before every snap, shifting his players around with quiet confidence until he’d found the weakness I hadn’t realized I’d left open.
Then he’d call an audible at the line, switching the play at the last second.
“You changed the play,” I said, watching my cornerback get torched for the third time.
“You left the same coverage on the right side three possessions in a row,” he replied, eyes on the screen. “I felt bad not using it.”
“You don’t look like you feel bad.”
“I don’t.”
By the third game I’d stopped being annoyed and allowed myself to be fascinated. He managed the clock like a general running a campaign, controlling possession and never rushing a snap. When I finally scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter of game four, I whooped like I’d won the Super Bowl.
“Good one,” he said dryly. “I’m up thirty-five points.”
“Fifteen-yard penalty for taunting,” I muttered, sinking deeper into the sofa.
Laughing, he stood and stretched, his thin T-shirt riding up to expose his abs and the dark line of hair that disappeared into his waistband.
My mouth watered, all kinds of depravity springing into my head.
“I gotta take a leak,” he said, rounding the coffee table. “You need anything?”
“I’m good,” I said. He left the room, and I rested my head on the back of the cushions and stared at the ceiling, wondering how I could convince him to turn off the game and spank my ass for real.
With his hand this time. The paddle had been fun, but his palm would probably feel better.
Maybe he’d pull down my sweats and force me over his lap.
Or he’d bust out the cock cage and make me regret trying to scheme my way into an orgasm.
My dick twitched, and I tipped my head down and stared at it. Because since when was I into orgasm denial?
Since Jesse, a little voice in my head whispered.
A toilet flushed somewhere, and I grabbed my controller and flipped through the game menu, changing to a different team.
Jesse appeared around the end of the sofa and tossed something at me.
I caught it on reflex. Square. Plastic-wrapped. Chocolate.
A brownie.
“Dessert,” he said, resuming his spot on the sofa.
I injected censure into my tone. “In the middle of the day?”
He picked up his own controller and thumbed through teams. “Figured you worked off a lot of calories squirming on my dick earlier.”
Jesus. The chocolate frosting beckoned, and I tore open the plastic, peeled off a thick strip of processed heaven, and folded it in half. “The mouth on you, Mr. van der Meer.”
He looked at me, a slow smile warming his eyes. “I think you like my mouth just as much as you like my dick.”
Was he…outsmartassing me? Narrowing my eyes, I stuffed the frosting into my mouth and chewed.
He turned back to the game menu. “I checked the news again. Still no missing persons report.”
It took me a second to realize he meant my parents.
I swallowed, the chocolate suddenly tasteless on my tongue.
I’d spent the last twenty-four hours so thoroughly entrenched in Jesse’s world that I’d forgotten about the problems waiting in mine.
I’d forgotten I even had parents, let alone that they might be looking for me.
“That’s good,” I said, digging chocolate from my molar with my tongue. “Guess I’m in the clear.”
Jesse nodded. But the easy warmth drained from his expression, replaced by something somber—almost troubled.
And I was an idiot for not anticipating it. He’d killed Ulfrik and then burned his body. Sure, Jesse had lived a long time, but few people could shrug off decapitating another living being with their teeth.
The memory of Ulfrik’s long blond hair and sightless green eyes swam in my head. “What was Ulfrik’s gift?” I asked.
Jesse looked at me. “What?”
“You said werewolves inherit their gift from the wolf who turns them.” I shifted on the sofa so I faced him. “So what was Ulfrik’s gift? What did he pass on to me?”
For a few seconds, Jesse’s stare was blank. Then he stood and gathered the gaming controllers. “I’m not sure, actually.” He went to the TV cabinet and crouched, his T-shirt stretching across his broad shoulders as he tucked the controllers into bins. “I didn’t know Ulfrik that well.”
Disappointment settled over me. “You said he was a thousand years old. You never heard anyone talk about his gift?”
Jesse straightened the bins, and his voice was brisk as he said, “I think I heard someone mention telekinesis once.”
Telekinesis. I looked at the half-eaten brownie in my hand. Back in Dean Welch’s office, Jesse had shut the door without touching it. He’d sat behind Welch’s desk and locked us in from across the room.
I looked at Jesse, who still crouched in front of the cabinet. “Can a werewolf have more than one gift?” I asked.
“No.”
Confusion swirled through me, and I frowned at his back. “But you have two.”
He stilled. A curious kind of tension snapped into existence. Not the hot, twisting kind that shivered between us when we were trying to get on each other’s dicks. No, this was different. It was cold and brittle, like glass ready to give.
He turned his head a little, giving me a hint of his profile. “What do you mean?”