Trapp
The mattress beneath his hand was firm enough to give purchase as he supported himself against a single flattened palm, his hips moving in a steady cadence, seeking a singular aim — come hard enough to put Adriana Brunelli out of his mind long enough to get back to work with a clear head.
He hated this. Hated her. Especially hated the way the smell of her was doing something to his brain, rewiring him, ensuring that every time his nose caught the scent of her, an electrical impulse was sent straight to his cock, like a code three emergency dropping at the station.
Lights and sirens, fully erect, on the double.
Every time they sparred over a patient intake, he would go back to his rig throbbing, the inside of his boxer briefs sticky with precum from arguing with her, heedless that he was edging ever closer to professional ruin in doing so. Edging in more ways than one.
She infuriated him, had him stiff twenty-four hours a day, and there was no relief in sight. That his memories had no shortage of personal, first-hand knowledge of how she felt beneath him, astride him, only made it worse.
Her skin had been like silk. Soft and pale with a sallow undertone that sometimes made her look a bit sickly, only ever emphasized by her darting, untrusting eyes.
Pale skin and thick, dark hair, heavy in his hands.
He could still feel the way she’d arched herself beneath him, small and soft, but bucking back against him, unwilling to present herself to him as a pliant bitch, her small teeth snapping at his neck anytime he leaned too close.
The smell of her was all at once strange and foreign and familiar, confusing his wolf, making it jump within his skin.
Trapp closed his eyes against the spinning of the room, tightening his grip around his swollen shaft. His knot was only just beginning to make its presence known this close to the turn — the start of a hot bulb, feverish to the touch, and it would only increase in size and heat.
The first time he’d brought her home to his apartment, after one of those aborted study sessions, Adriana had acted as though it was her first time indoors.
She’d seemed afraid to touch anything, as if the sheets on his bed were made of fine porcelain that she might damage, but it hadn’t mattered once he was climbing over her, her nails raking down his chest.
The sheets had still smelled like her several days later, the taste of her cunt clinging to them, only increasing his infatuation as they continued to meet three times a week.
He increased his speed, pumping into his hand, irritated that she was not there beneath him now, hot and tight, wrapped around him like a glove, urging him to make her come.
Trapp could still feel the way her body tightened around his cock, the little whimpers she made as her muscles spasmed rhythmically, the way she’d arched beneath him again when he pulled out, filling that dip in her back with ropes of white.
He groaned as he came, the release of the pressure he’d carried all afternoon nearly making him black out, coating his own hand instead of her soft, pale skin.
It was ridiculous. Ridiculous and unhealthy, and he knew that.
Humiliating, if he were being honest with himself, because across town, Adriana Brunelli was doing nothing but plotting to make his life miserable.
And here you are, like a fucking simp, jerking your cock to thoughts of her three times a day.
It was a ridiculous waste of his lunch break, Trapp thought to himself rancorously, cleaning himself off, glaring into the mirror of the oversized bathroom he’d selected in his brother’s house.
Particularly when you have work to do. He rearmed the security panel at the door, feeling as though he were leaving five pounds lighter than he’d arrived, but he couldn’t exactly go to the Food Gryphon with a bulge in his pants bigger than the one that was there naturally, not unless he wanted to pour gasoline on the fire of the gossip engine.
He was in the aisle of the grocery store when his phone buzzed. Trapp half-expected it to be from Grayson, calling him out on returning home for lunch to jerk off while he thought of his nemesis, but — thankfully! — it was a number he didn’t know.
Where are you?
Trapp glanced down at the unfamiliar number, brows coming together. He had no idea who was demanding his whereabouts, but saw no point in lying, assuming it was someone from the station with a new number.
At the grocery store?
When there was no immediate answer, he shrugged, continuing down the aisle. As he turned the corner, Trapp immediately noticed the two selkies. Their long, stable hair swung down their backs, their luminous eyes peered at him, one ducking her head quickly to whisper to the other.
He couldn’t remember if either of them had been at the festival that night on Main Street.
At the very least, he knew neither of them was the one he’d gone home with.
He moved past them with his basket, mouth hovering between the flat line it had been in and what might’ve been a smile.
It was an unthinkable situation, or at least, it would have been only a few weeks earlier.
Trapp Hemming, not knowing his line, without a smile at the ready.
The moon was approaching and already his senses had begun sharpening, the keen instincts of his other form snuffling to the surface. He was able to smell the selkies — clean and watery, a hint of apple blossom and lily — and he was able to hear them.
"Sila got lucky only spending one night with him. Can you even imagine?! Having to run into him all these years later?"
Their conversation grew indistinct as they continued up the aisle, but the words at the library! made him spin, eyes narrowing.
What had they heard? What was being talked about now?
He was out of the loop entirely.
If he couldn’t get in front of the problem, Trapp had decided, he would simply remove himself as a target, hoping that an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach would speed up the duration of the city-wide assassination of his character.
Avoiding the coffee shop had been easy with Grayson’s ridiculous home setup, and they had stayed in the night they usually went to the Pickled Pig, his brother not even mentioning the Thursday night tradition. Instead, Gray had suggested going for a run.
Trapp had scowled. “You don’t run. You can’t run, we’ve both seen you try. I’m pretty sure if you had to run across the yard, your ankles would shatter on impact.”
“I’ve never skipped leg day a week in my life.”
“I didn’t say anything about your legs, dipshit,” Trapp had laughed.
“But your ankle bones are functionally unaware of how big the rest of you is. You’re going to get married in a permanent walking cast. Why don’t you call your girlfriend if you’re bored.
” Vanessa still stayed at the apartment she and Grayson shared in the city for the majority of the week, Grayson joining her there when his own work took him out of his Cambric Creek office.
“Jackson and Owen go running.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?! Do you think we’ve missed out on a core bonding experience or something? I’m not convinced Owen could lift a bag of flour over his head, so I don’t think our differing fitness objectives should be a point of competition.”
In the end, Grayson had left the house determinedly without a backward glance, confident that Trapp would follow, as he’d followed their whole lives.
Sure enough, they’d barely made it off the long, snaking street before Grayson was claiming he was going to die.
“Anyone who thinks this is a fun hobby is a fucking idiot,” he’d snarled, heedless of the pair of sylvans running together, passing them at the curb. “Starting with Jackson.”
“Shhhhh! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Trapp, you still don’t get it. Who the fuck cares. I can’t do this; we need to go home. You’re right, my ankle is about to snap like a twig. You’re going to have to carry me.”
He’d flung his arms around Trapp’s neck two yards later, attempting to force himself on Trapp’s back, dragging them both down to the lawn belonging to a gaping moth couple, as evidenced by the way they came to the front door in concern, once they heard two noisy werewolves rolling around on their grass.
“What kind of fireman are you? What if this was a burning building? Are you just leaving me to die?”
“I wouldn’t need to, because your big fucking mouth would put out the blaze with all of its bullshit. Who needs a hose when there’s a lawyer around?”
Rolling around on the neighbor’s lawn and becoming a different kind of spectacle hadn’t been what he’d expected from the night, but it was still better than the stares he would have earned at the Pig, and he was grateful for the momentary distraction from his life, once they were home.
Now he had no choice but to be back in public, and wished he was still dragging Grayson home.
Why aren’t you at the field?!
The second text wasn’t any clearer than the first had been, and he’d been about to swipe it away when his phone vibrated again.
The game is THIS weekend Hemming
You haven’t been to a single practice!
Coach. Trapp rolled his eyes. The PE coach from the high school, the Chamber of Commerce charity game.
He waited for another text to come through, and when it didn’t, Trapp muted the conversation, swiping it away into obscurity forever.
He didn’t sit on the Chamber of Commerce, and there were more than enough employees at City Hall to populate a team.
Daronda eyed him warily as she rang him out, the entire interaction silent.
Who was he, if not the Hemming everyone liked?
Trapp had no idea. Contemplating it gave him a headache.
He held his smartwatch to the credit card reader before the troll could say his total, turning away before his receipt had printed, negating speaking at all. His lips had never so much as quirked.