Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
F or the second day in a row, Kade woke to find himself grinding against Liam, against an ass that felt like it was made for him to do just that. The desire to sink into Liam burned through him, some ghost of a scent haunting him from his dreams.
It took effort to still his hips, to stop the slow roll of his body, to release the iron-tight grip of his arm wrapped around Liam’s chest, and flop onto his side of the bed.
“God, I wish I could fuck you. Not fucking you for three weeks while you’re in my bed should be a miracle that gets me canonized,” he grumbled. His dick throbbed in protest.
Liam rolled onto his back as well. “I don’t know. Your self-control feels more evil than saintly. I’ve never been so wound up in my life.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. There was a tent in the blanket draped over him, and Kade’s gaze fixated on it.
He wet his lips and swallowed. He couldn’t taste anything, but fuck, Liam looked delicious.
“I can’t tell what you’re thinking,” Liam said. “But you’re staring at my dick and thinking something , and I’m smart enough to put two and two together.”
Kade forced himself to stare at the ceiling. “Should I sleep on the floor?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure it’d matter. Besides, your dick is like an alarm clock with how regularly it wakes me up.”
Liam didn’t seem like he’d appreciate an alarm cock joke, so instead, Kade said, “Alright. Talk to me. Tell me the least sexy parts of your job.”
“You want to hear about ancient library books?” Liam eyed him doubtfully.
“It’s better than obsessing over how much fun it’d be to pin you down and fuck you. So yeah. Please bore me?”
“You’re not helping when you talk like that. How is this not you at your horniest?”
“We all have our talents. You have your researching and multiple language speaking and spell creating, and I have the ability to turn the mundane dirty.” Kade leered to emphasize the point.
“You and Aran both. But okay. What would you like to know?”
“Anything. What about this archiving project of yours? How does it work? Give me the most boring minutia you can think of.”
“Oh.” Liam lit up. “No, that’s not boring, not even close. There was so much I got to learn!”
He launched into a detailed explanation of how he’d set up the project, his eyes shining as he described consulting with a tech mage to develop a magically enhanced scanning program.
Kade wasn’t able to follow the more technical aspects—something about mining information, even from books in languages that weren’t commonly spoken anymore, and putting it into a searchable database that Liam hoped would be automatically translated someday—but Kade didn’t need to understand the details to know how passionate Liam was about his project.
Liam’s hands moved constantly as he spoke, his gestures animated. In Kade’s mind, his presence glittered with excitement. His morning-rough voice washed over Kade, relaxing him, making him want to listen to anything and everything Liam cared to say.
This project of his was something he’d dreamed of doing since he was a teenager. He’d done extra work during his apprenticeship to make it happen. Kade couldn’t relate. He still wasn’t certain what he wanted to do with his life. Or rather, what he could do while he was Victor’s second. It had never been said officially, but he’d always felt like taking that position had been expected of him from the day Victor was born. Trying to imagine a different path… Well, there was no real point to it.
Instead, he focused on Liam. On how he’d roped his friends into helping him by sending them crates of books to scan, on how the elderly librarians were supportive, if a bit baffled by the magic he was using. How it’d take years to get the library archived, but he knew the effort would be worth it.
Eventually, it was enough for Kade to cool down, though his wolf made it known it was not pleased with this situation.
They got up and got ready, heading downstairs for breakfast before driving to the shop. It was only the fourth day, but Kade felt it becoming routine. It would be so easy to make this a habit, for the rest of his life to look like these mornings.
Ideally with less sexual frustration.
But that wasn’t happening. Liam had an entire library of books waiting to be archived. There was no happily ever after here.
With the full moon approaching, Kade’s wolf was rising closer to the surface, unhappy that they hadn’t truly staked their claim on Liam, hadn’t proven to him how good they could be for him. How much he’d enjoy belonging to them, how much they needed him to claim them in return.
That restlessness made his attempts at research more difficult, especially now Liam had decided it was a bad idea for them to practice magic, and Kade was going insane.
Liam was right though. Practicing magic was too seductive. This close to the full moon, it was playing with fire, and not in the casual, ‘tossing a ball of it around’ way they’d been doing. He could easily see it getting out of control—neither of them remembering they weren’t supposed to be doing what they were doing, that they shouldn’t be grinding against each other and trading kisses until they came, Liam hot and hard under him, his hands exploring every inch of Liam’s body.
Across the small table, Liam’s head hit the book open in front of him. He groaned. “Could you stop that? I can’t concentrate.”
He lifted his head and thunked it onto the book again. He was a jumble of frustrated desire, and that made Kade’s wolf want to growl. Their mate needed to get off. They should give him that, give him everything he could ever ask for.
Liam let out another groan. “The full moon is going to kill me, isn’t it? Death by someone else’s blue balls. The first death of its kind.”
Kade snorted. “Sorry. Can’t help it.”
“Okay.” Liam sighed, standing up. “This isn’t working. What’s there to do around here?”
“Nothing.”
“There has to be something. Tour-guide me. Show me the sights.”
“There is literally nothing.”
“Pretend you’re on the local tourism council. What would they suggest I do?”
“Go elsewhere?”
Liam rolled his eyes and grabbed his backpack, putting a few books inside. “Nowhere has nothing. There’s always something. Even if the residents think it’s nothing. So take me there. Show me all the nothing this area’s got.”
“There’s a touristy ghost town about an hour and a half from here with a bunch of preserved buildings? We could get there by lunch, wander around for a while, and be home in time for dinner.”
“Perfect. You’re less horny when you’re driving. Hopefully getting up and being active will help you, and I can get some reading done on the way.”
That was… better than nothing. He’d rather be driving than researching any day of the week, and this late in the year, it was unlikely there’d be many people there, so his protective instincts shouldn’t get triggered. This might work. If he couldn’t run, driving was the next best thing.
Liam spent the journey immersed in a book, relaxing more as he was able to get work done. His phone buzzed a few times, and he made the sigils, then immediately went back to reading.
They were down to the smaller spirits, and it was taking them longer to find and identify them, which meant longer between Liam getting requests for sigils. That had to indicate this was almost over.
Liam’s contentment helped ease Kade’s nerves, his presence soothing.
Kade was sensing more of his emotions. Even without having sex, the bond was deepening. It wasn’t the same as a true bond would be. It was more of a general impression than anything, but it seemed like it could go so much deeper, and Kade was having difficulty remembering why he didn’t want that.
He reminded himself Liam wasn’t his mage. That was a shame. They could have had fun together, but Liam would never be happy out there. He had his archiving project to finish.
The parking lot near the ghost town was thankfully empty when they arrived, no tourists in sight. Kade had been to this place several times and never found it impressive. While it was well-preserved, there was nothing special about it. There were dozens of these gold rush towns scattered throughout the mountains, and Kade had visited them all. Liam was fascinated by it though, and it was impossible not to view it in a new light.
The air was brisk with the promise of winter, and the hills surrounding the town gave it a rugged beauty. Being outside in the cool weather took the worst of the edge off, and Kade breathed easier.
“During summer, they have guided tours and do re-enactments,” Kade said. “There are a lot more people.”
Liam shook his head. “I prefer it this way, with no one else here, like we’re in some frozen moment in time. It’s nice they’re keeping it preserved. This snapshot of a few years of history. Besides, I have you to show me around, don’t I?”
“In that case, are you ready to get on your knees and see god?” Kade smirked, his eyes raking down Liam’s body.
Liam gave him a flat look.
“There’s a church,” Kade explained.
“I figured.”
“I’m just saying, if you’d like to receive the body of Christ—”
“Nope.”
“What if I lay hands on—”
“Pass.”
“But it’d be a religious experience.”
“I’m sure it would.”
“This is the kind of commentary you’d never get on an official guided tour.”
Liam cracked a smile like he couldn’t help it. “I mean, you did give me a nice long ride, so horny tour-guide me to your heart’s content.”
He led Liam through the church and the schoolhouse, its rows of weathered desks waiting for students who’d never return, then showed him the old hotel, with its wooden facade and now-empty rooms. They wandered through the abandoned buildings that lined the dusty main street. A few were locked, their contents kept behind glass, but most they could enter. The occasional sign explained the town’s history in bits and pieces. Liam was drawn to those, nodding thoughtfully as he read.
After they’d been through the buildings, they stopped by the meandering creek that ran along the length of the town and stood there for a few minutes, listening to the babbling of the water.
A car door slammed in the parking area, followed by the boisterous voices of a family, and Kade twitched.
Liam laughed. “I take it that’s our sign to leave.”
It was ridiculous, but Kade couldn’t handle strangers around Liam right then. His pack was bad enough.
They walked back and got into Kade’s car.
“Ready for another long ride?” Kade asked.
Liam pulled out a book from the bag he’d packed, grinning. “Absolutely.”
The drive home was filled with a companionable silence. Anytime Kade had gone on a road trip with Victor, he’d gotten the impression Victor was counting down the minutes until he could return to the pack. With Liam, it wasn’t like that. It seemed as if he’d be content to curl up in the passenger seat and let Kade drive anywhere he wanted to go, as long as he had a few good books with him. If someone like Liam had been in their pack, maybe the extent of Kade’s travels wouldn’t have been measured in the distance he could drive in one day. That would have been nice.
The moment Kade opened his bedroom door after dinner, he knew someone else had been in there. He couldn’t smell it, but somehow he knew . It was merely a feeling, a certainty that someone had been in his space.
He stood and sensed the room, letting his awareness touch everything, checking if anything had been disturbed. He’d been paranoid when they’d arrived at the shop, expecting some sort of surprise from Liam, but nothing had come of it.
Apparently he’d just needed to wait a little longer.
On instinct, he walked over to his dresser and paused. Anticipation shivered through their bond, telling him he was getting warmer.
He placed his hands on the top drawer and hesitated again. Liam was bright and shimmering, and Kade could sense him holding his breath. Part of Kade wanted to make him wait, but he didn’t have the self-control or patience for that. After the last few days, his already limited supply was at an all-time low.
He slid the drawer open and willed himself not to react.
What should have been a drawer full of his underwear had transformed into something quite different. A dozen slips of silk and lace had replaced the usual cotton. From shiny black to fire red and a few deeper jewel tones, the underwear was artfully placed in his drawer, laid out like a display in a high-end lingerie shop.
He had to keep from raising his eyebrows at the sight. So this was what he got for ordering Liam those candles. Liam must have had them delivered to the house so his friends could switch them out while Kade and Liam were away. Kade wondered what they’d done with his regular underwear, but he wasn’t about to ask. There was no fun in that.
He grabbed a red pair, more string than fabric, then glanced at Liam.
Liam was watching him, waiting for his reaction. He must have felt Kade’s surprise, but Kade wasn’t giving him more than that.
He gestured toward the bathroom with the hand holding the underwear. Liam’s eyes followed its vibrant arc through the air. “I’m going to shower, unless you need to get in there.”
Liam’s expression was the epitome of disbelief and shock. “No? I’m good?”
Kade stepped inside the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Only then did he give the lingerie a proper look.
It was designed for men, but for all it purported to be underwear, it would not be covering much. The sheer fabric would leave little to the imagination. And, he realized, it would technically be classified as a jockstrap. Damn if that didn’t give him mental images of men’s locker rooms that were significantly more interesting than normal.
This had not been expected. Not at all.
He stripped off his clothes, started the shower, and got in, brainstorming ideas for payback. It was a welcome distraction from how turned on Liam felt in his mind. Something to focus on instead of storming out of the bathroom and doing a whole list of things that would not even remotely qualify as playing nice.