Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Six weeks since they’d arrived at the pack land, and Fergal had discovered that happiness was a thing that could sneak up on you when you weren’t looking.
It had crept in through the small things—the weight of a pitchfork in his hands, the sound of laughter in the communal kitchen, the way Gregor’s arm tightened around him in sleep as if even his unconscious mind refused to let go.
It had settled into the cabin’s walls, into the routine they’d built together—Gregor’s tea and Fergal’s coffee, Gregor’s military corners on the bed and Fergal’s books scattered across every horizontal surface, Gregor’s weapons on the nightstand and Fergal’s reading glasses beside them.
Home.
They should’ve left already. They had no reason to stay.
Rhene was back, the omegas they’d accompanied were settling in, and even though Valerie was reporting everything was stable back on the compound, they couldn’t stay away much longer.
But oh, how Fergal hated the thought of returning to the cold, both literally and metaphorically. So he kept postponing their return.
Tonight, the cabin was warm and smelled like the stew Gregor had made.
Gregor was the better cook, obviously, because the man did everything with infuriating competence, including things as mundane as chopping onions.
Fergal had been banned from cooking after the Garlic Incident two weeks ago, which had resulted in a stew so aggressively seasoned that even the dragon shifters, who ran hot and liked strong flavors, had complained.
They’d eaten on the couch, bowls balanced on their laps, Fergal’s feet tucked under Gregor’s thigh.
The man radiated heat like a furnace, and Fergal’s toes ran cold in the evenings.
They’d talked about nothing consequential—the new chicken coop Fergal had helped build that morning, Gregor’s observations about the pack’s security protocols, whether the pie Yitro had sent over was pecan or walnut.
The kind of conversation that meant nothing and everything, the verbal equivalent of two people breathing the same air and being content with it.
Now the dishes were done—Gregor washing, Fergal drying, their nightly choreography—and they were in the bedroom, and Fergal wanted his hands on the man he loved.
He didn’t overthink it. He’d spent years overthinking every interaction with Gregor, strategizing and calculating and planning his approach like a military campaign. Here, in this cabin, in this bed, he didn’t need a strategy. He just needed to reach for him.
Gregor was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling off his boots, and Fergal came up behind him, slid his arms around Gregor’s shoulders, and pressed his mouth to the place where his neck met his shoulder.
Gregor’s hands stilled on his boot laces. “Fergal.”
“Mm.” He kissed higher, finding the spot below Gregor’s ear that always made his breathing change. “Take your boots off.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Work faster.”
The boot hit the floor. Then the other. Then Gregor twisted, caught Fergal by the waist, and pulled him around and onto his lap in one fluid motion that demonstrated exactly how much strength the man contained in that deceptively controlled frame.
Fergal grinned down at him, knees bracketing Gregor’s hips, hands on his shoulders. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Gregor’s hands settled on Fergal’s waist, thumbs tracing slow circles through the fabric of his shirt.
His gray eyes were soft in the lamplight, the commander stripped away, and what remained was the man underneath—warm, focused, looking at Fergal with an expression that made his chest ache with how much it held.
Fergal kissed him, his mouth opening against Gregor’s, his tongue sliding past his lips with the confident familiarity of a man who had mapped this territory thoroughly and knew exactly which routes led to the most rewarding destinations.
Gregor groaned into his mouth and pulled him closer, hands sliding from his waist to his lower back, pressing their bodies together.
Fergal could feel him hardening beneath the thin fabric of his trousers, the evidence of Gregor’s want pressing against his ass with an urgency that sent sparks cascading up his spine.
He rolled his hips slowly, deliberately, grinding against Gregor’s iron cock, and was rewarded with a sharp inhale and a tightening of the hands on his back that bordered on bruising.
Good. He loved it when Gregor’s control slipped, loved the evidence that beneath three centuries of discipline was a man who wanted him badly enough to leave marks.
“Clothes off,” Fergal demanded between kisses. “Now.”
Gregor’s hand found the back of his neck—the grip that meant I have you now and you’re going to do what I say—and Fergal’s entire body responded, the fight draining out of him like water.
His spine softened. His breathing slowed.
The restless energy that drove him through every waking hour quieted under the weight of Gregor’s palm, and in its place was the sweet, dizzying relief of handing over control to the one person he trusted to carry it.
“Slowly,” Gregor murmured against his mouth. “We’re doing this slowly.”
“I hate slowly.”
“I know.” Gregor’s other hand slid under Fergal’s shirt, palm flat against his stomach, and the skin-on-skin contact made Fergal shiver despite the heat.
He undressed Fergal with an infuriating lack of speed, but then again, he had warned about that, so what else had Fergal expected?
Shirt first, pulled over his head with care, fingers trailing down his arms as the fabric fell away.
Then his mouth followed, tracing the line of Fergal’s collarbone, the hollow of his throat, the curve of his shoulder.
Each kiss was deliberate, purposeful, as if Gregor was cataloging him anew despite knowing every inch by heart.
Fergal let himself be mapped. He closed his eyes and sank into the sensation—Gregor’s mouth on his skin, Gregor’s hands on his body, the scrape of Gregor’s stubble against his chest that sent tiny sparks through his nervous system.
He felt the shift happening, that gradual descent from thinking to feeling, from king to man, from the person who carried the weight to the person who set it down.
Gregor laid him back on the bed and stood to strip off his own clothes—efficient, unselfconscious, as if being naked in front of Fergal was as natural as breathing.
Fergal watched him from the pillows, his mouth going dry despite himself.
Three and a half centuries had built a body that was a testament to discipline—broad shoulders, lean muscle, the scars that tracked across his torso like a map of everywhere he’d been and everything he’d survived.
“You’re staring,” Gregor said.
“I’m appreciating. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“An action can be staring. A person can be appreciated.” Fergal grinned. “The distinction matters.”
Gregor’s mouth twitched—that almost-smile that Fergal counted as a full victory—and then he was on the bed, settling over Fergal, and the full-length contact of their bodies obliterated whatever clever thing Fergal had been planning to say next.
They kissed again, deeper now, unhurried.
Gregor’s hands were in Fergal’s hair, gently tugging to tilt his head back, exposing his throat for the slow drag of teeth that made Fergal’s hips buck upward involuntarily.
His cock was trapped between their stomachs, hard and aching, and every shift of Gregor’s body created friction that was simultaneously not enough and too much.
“Please,” Fergal whispered because, with Gregor, that word was a key that opened every door.
Gregor reached for the nightstand. The click of the lubricant bottle was a sound Fergal’s body had learned to associate with what came next, and his muscles relaxed in anticipation, his legs falling open to accommodate the man settling between them.
Gregor’s slick fingers found him, circling slowly before pressing in, and Fergal exhaled long and shaky, his hands gripping the sheets.
One finger, patient and thorough, working him open with focused precision.
No rushing, no hurrying, no skipping steps.
A second finger joined, stretching him, and Fergal’s breath came in sharp pulls, his body adjusting, accepting, wanting more.
“Another,” Fergal panted. “I can take it.”
Gregor’s version of care was meticulous preparation regardless of Fergal’s impatience, and Fergal loved him for it even as it drove him insane.
The fingers curled, finding the spot that turned Fergal’s vision white, and he cried out—loud enough that the thin cabin walls definitely didn’t contain it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
The pack had heard worse from other cabins.
Hell, half the pack had gotten caught in some kind of public sexual act, even Rhene and Erwan. They could deal.
“Now,” Fergal demanded. “Gregor, now, I need—”
Gregor withdrew his fingers and positioned himself, the blunt press of his cock against Fergal’s entrance making them both hold their breath.
The pause—that suspended moment before everything changed—was one Fergal had come to crave.
The anticipation, the eye contact, the silent conversation between two people who were about to be as close as two people could be.
Gregor pushed in, and Fergal’s world narrowed to the stretch, the fullness, the slow, relentless pressure of being entered by the man he loved.
His hands found Gregor’s shoulders, fingers digging into muscle, anchoring himself as his body opened around the intrusion.
Gregor’s cock was a true alpha cock—long and impossibly thick—so it was always a lot, but never too much.
The initial discomfort had long since become part of the pleasure, the burn and stretch a physical reminder that Gregor was here, inside him, as close as anyone could ever be.