Chapter Six #2
“Historically? No. But I’ll try.”
He took a breath. I watched his chest expand, watched something flicker behind his eyes—and for a split second, I swore they caught the lamplight wrong. Too bright. Almost amber.
“I’m a wolf shifter.”
The words hung in the air between us.
“There’s a whole world most humans never see. Packs, shifters, all of it. My club, the guys I ride with, we’re a pack. Have been my whole life.”
His jaw worked. “And my wolf...shifters have this thing. A mate. One person the wolf recognizes as ours. It doesn’t happen for everyone. Some of us wait our whole lives and never—” He stopped.
Started again. “Mine chose you, Ollie. And I’ve been trying to figure out how the hell to tell you, because I couldn’t take you to bed with that secret sitting between us. You deserved to know what you’re getting into before we—”
“Okay,” I said.
He blinked. “Okay?”
“Okay. I mean—yes. Okay. I know about shifters.”
Diesel went so still I could feel his heartbeat through his chest, hammering against mine. His eyes narrowed, searching my face like he was waiting for the punchline. “You...know.”
“I dated one. A wolf. Well, dated is generous. We went out for four months before I found out he was a condescending jerk who treated me like an idiot because I dropped out of high school. The shifter part was actually the least of his problems.”
I shrugged against the pillows, which was harder than it sounds when you’re pinned under two hundred and forty pounds of stunned biker.
“Jesse. He told me about a month in. Showed me, actually, in his backyard. Scared the absolute hell out of me for about ten minutes, and then I asked if I could touch his ears, and he got offended, which honestly should’ve been my first red flag. Who gets offended about ears?
They were very good ears. Objectively.”
Diesel stared at me.
“He also told me about mates,” I continued, because apparently my mouth had decided this was the moment to unload everything.
“Kind of bitterly, actually. His wolf never chose me. He made sure I knew that. Like it was my fault. Like I’d failed some kind of cosmic entrance exam.”
The old sting flared up, small and stupid, and I hated that it still lived in me somewhere.
“So when we broke up—when I threw a vase at his head, which he deserved—part of me figured that was that. Shifters were real, mates were real, and I wasn’t anybody’s.”
“Ollie.” His voice came out wrecked.
“So you’re telling me,” I said, and my own voice had gone embarrassingly thin, “that your wolf—the wolf belonging to the hottest man I have ever seen in my life, who came to senior bingo and lost on purpose—that wolf chose me.”
“The flyer’s on my wall,” he admitted. “The bingo card too.”
“Oh my God, you’re a scrapbooker.”
“Ollie.”
“You’re a giant tattooed biker scrapbooker and your wolf picked me.”
“Yeah.” His thumb traced my cheekbone, and his eyes weren’t playing tricks this time—they were glowing, a warm amber ring burning around the blue. “He picked you. I picked you. Same thing. We’ve never disagreed about anything in my life the way we agree about you.”
My throat closed up. I lay there under him, staring up at this impossible man with his impossible glowing eyes, and every anxious, overthinking part of my brain—the part that had spent thirty minutes on shirt selection, the part that ranked worst-case scenarios,
the part that had believed Jesse when he’d implied I wasn’t mate material—all of it went quiet at once.
“I want it,” I said.
Diesel’s breath caught. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight. There’s a lot to it. The bond, the bite, the pack—I planned to give you time, court you properly, let you meet everyone before—”
“Diesel.”
“I’m serious. This isn’t like agreeing to a second date. A mate bond is permanent. It’s forever. My wolf will never let you go, and I need you to understand what forever means to a shifter before you—”
“Diesel.” I grabbed his face with both hands, forcing him to look at me.
“I have spent six months eating dinner alone. My family doesn’t speak to me. The closest thing I have to people who love me is five senior citizens who keep trying to get me arrested via matchmaking. And then you showed up, and you remembered Edith’s tuna,
and you carried me out of a paint class like an angry cat before I could ruin my own life, and you framed a flyer.”
My eyes were burning. Great. Crying naked.
Fantastic look. “I want to be your mate. I want the wolf. I want the forever. I have never been more sure of anything, and I once committed to a yellow shirt purchase, so I know what doubt feels like.”
He laughed, a broken, rough sound, and then his forehead dropped to mine. His whole body shook slightly, and I realized the shaking wasn’t laughter. Or wasn’t only laughter.
“Say it again,” he rasped.
“I want to be your mate.”
The sound he made wasn’t entirely human.
A low rumble rolled up from his chest, vibrating through me everywhere our skin touched, and something primal in my hindbrain recognized it and melted.
His mouth crashed into mine, and this kiss was different from every kiss before it—deeper, hungrier, edged with something wild that had been held on a leash until this exact moment.
He nipped at my bottom lip, and his eyes blazed amber. “I’m gonna take my mate apart. Slow. So you know exactly what you signed up for.”
“Oh no,” I said faintly. “The consequences of my actions.”
He grinned—all teeth, faintly feral, absolutely devastating—and then his mouth was on my throat, working its way down.
He took his time about it, like he was mapping me.
Collarbone. Chest. He paused at my ribs and dragged his tongue along one like he was tasting me, and the rumble in his chest never fully stopped, this constant low purr of satisfaction that I felt in my bones.
“You smell like mine,” he murmured against my stomach.
“I smell like citrus shampoo and paint fumes.”
“Underneath that.” He looked up the length of my body, chin resting just below my navel, eyes glowing in the lamplight. “Your citrus smell drove me insane in that garage. You standing there eating a Danish, no idea I could hear your heartbeat pick up every time I looked at you.”
“That is a gross invasion of privacy,” I said, breathless. “Tell me more.”
He huffed a laugh against my skin, and then his mouth closed over my cock, and every word in the English language evacuated my skull simultaneously.
“Diesel…” I croaked. “You don’t have to—”
He pulled his mouth back from my cock, lips glistening. “Want to,” he murmured, eyes dark. “Love your taste.”
Then his lips were back on my shaft, sucking fiercely while one hand stroked my balls. With his free hand he grabbed the lube tube; the cap popped off. Cool gel dripped down to my taint before his finger brushed my tight hole.
The clash of his mouth swallowing my cock and his finger easing inside my ass sent my vision swimming. Pulses of heat radiated through me, building until I shook.
“I need more,” I panted.
A second finger slid in beside the first, stretching me wide with slow, methodical thrusts. Diesel tilted his hand just right, grazing that spot inside that made my vision erupt in stars.
“Yes!” I moaned. “Exactly there.”
He drew his lips from my cock with a wet lick and met my gaze. “Feels good?”
“Yeah,” I breathed. “Amazing.”
A third finger nudged past my rim, the stretch almost too intense. “Gonna ease you open nice and slow. Make sure you’re aching for it.”
Aching? I’d been aching since I met him, but Diesel lingered on each stroke, prying me open with skill that had me on edge. Every scissoring motion shot jolts of fire along my spine into my gut.
My hand slipped down to stroke my cock, desperate for relief as pressure swelled low between my thighs. He caught my wrist and squeezed.
“Not yet,” his voice dropped. “I want you craving it.” His fingers kept moving in lazy circles. My knees quivered. “Beg for it.”
“I’m begging,” I choked out. “Please, Diesel. Mountain man. Mr. Biker. Fuck me.”
He paused, pulling his fingers free and leaving me hollow. I felt the blunt head press at my ring of muscle.
He gripped my thighs, hauling them up and apart until I lay fully exposed. Vulnerable and raw, I could barely breathe.
“Look at you,” he whispered, thumb tracing my wet hole. “Needy and ready to get fucked.”
“Then stop teasing me,” I hissed, fists clenched in the sheets. “Fuck me or get off me and I’ll just jerk off.”
“Not a chance in hell I’m leaving this bed.” He angled his hips and drove in with a slow, purposeful thrust that stretched me completely. A sharp burn flared, then I forced my muscles to relax, letting him sink deeper until his pelvis locked against mine.
“Oh, sweet hell!” I cried out.
“Shit,” he rumbled as he settled in. “So tight…so sweet.”