Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Trey
T rey rolled over the bed and buried his head into a pillow, blocking out the sounds of someone pounding on his front door. Didn’t they know they were playing Russian roulette, waking him before he was ready to get up?
Taking a deep inhale, his head popped up, and his blurry eyes opened at the aromatic scent of Cassidy. The night before flooded his mind with such clarity, a heat of arousal flowed through him. He mated Cassidy.
We did.
I don’t need a fucking reminder.
He didn’t, because the second Cassidy had confessed to them being the only one to touch him, nothing on this planet could have stopped him from claiming his little chick.
More banging came, which he ignored as he rolled to sit up and flick on the lamp beside the bed so he could get a better look at the messy—empty—bed. Where was Cassidy? The blackout curtains didn’t give Trey any clue to the time of day, but if someone was hammering on his door—and unless they wanted to die—it had to mean it was after eleven.
“Get your ugly ass out of bed,” Kendrick called from outside.
“Fuck off,” he shouted back, his hand going to the tingling skin at his throat while his wolf pranced about his mind giddily, ready to give chase after Cassidy.
What’s with you?
Didn’t you scent him?
What?
The sound of the door rattling and Kendrick using his key got Trey to roll, naked and pissed, off the bed. He quickly looked for something to cover up his neck, not ready to have this conversation until he spoke to Cassidy. What was important right then was getting rid of his friend, who was now in his space, moving around in his kitchen.
“What part of fuck off don’t you get?” he called out, rummaging through the pile of clothes on a seat.
He sniffed at a sweater and threw it on before finding a pair of sweats to slip on. Barefoot and grumpy, as Cassidy had left without a word while he was sleeping and didn’t seem to have left a note, he stomped to where Kendrick was filling his coffee machine.
“You better have brought breakfast.” He glanced out the window behind Kendrick, trying to figure out the time of day.
“It’s nearly lunchtime, you ass.” Kendrick measured out coffee beans while Trey went to the cupboard where he kept his cereal. He dragged out the box and grabbed a bowl, milk and a spoon.
Bowl filled, he leaned against the counter and ate to keep himself occupied, watching Kendrick.
“You’re pissed,” he observed.
Kendrick didn’t even bother to glance in his direction. “I shut the bar down last night when you did a disappearing act. I was hoping to get a fucking lie in only Des rang me ‘cause you hadn’t shown up to set up for opening.”
Chewing on the cereal that was supposed to be cinnamon but tasted more like vanilla, assessing the situation and his friend's mood, Trey eyed Kendrick with interest. “You had company.”
“I did, and thanks to your lazy ass, I had to leave when things were just getting interesting.” What he meant by that, Trey didn’t want to think about. Kendrick preferred more than one man in his bed at a time and liked to direct them so he could watch before he got involved.
“Sorry.”
Kendrick pointed a stirrer at him, looking at him for the first time. His lips parted in what Trey suspected was going to be another tirade, only his eyes dropped to the collar of his sweater. He could hear the wind whistling through Kendrick’s blown mind. Trey didn’t need to be top of the class to know that Kendrick had noticed his claiming bite.
When, seconds later, he took a step towards him, his lips remained parted. Eyes stretching wide, he let out a strangled noise. Trey had to resist tugging the sweater higher to cover himself.
Don’t you dare cover it.
“What the ever loving fuck! Did hell freeze over? Did fancy pants at the bar last night steal your fucking sanity?” Kendrick rasped, sounding winded as he continued to stare, making Trey battle the urge to squirm.
“Just stop?—”
“Stop what? You let Cassidy claim you!”
Trey was sure that every person within a one-mile radius heard Kendrick as he shouted at him.
“That’s none of your business,” he snapped, but Kendrick had already walked off in the direction of Trey’s bedroom to glance inside.
“Where is he?” He looked back at Trey, his nose wrinkling, possibly from the heavy scent of sex, looking more than a little worried. “Tell me it was consensual?”
“How fucking long have you known me?” Trey fired back angrily, his throat clogging at his friend thinking he’d mate with someone without consent. “He fucking bit me first!”
And okay, he’d kind of asked for it—sort of. Not that he wanted to change a thing, because once he and his wolf had decided they wanted Cassidy, it was a done deal. In the cold light of day, maybe he should have talked about it and not done it in the heat of passion. Especially with how riled Trey was at Jupiter touching Cassidy. How sexy Cassidy looked dancing on the floor, shirtless, his chest glistening under the lights.
If Trey thought hard, he could still feel the lingering rage at seeing the other man’s hands on what was his. It was an asshole thing to think. To believe. But fuck, if it wasn’t the truth. Cassidy was his, just as much as he belonged to Cassidy.
“He did?” Kendrick questioned, coming back to the counter, not sounding in the least convinced.
“Yes, he did.” Trey plonked his spoon into his half full bowl of cereal, having lost his appetite, and placed it on the counter. All he could think about was going to find Cassidy so they could talk, and ask why he left without so much as a ‘goodbye’. “Now, if you’ve finished havin’ a go, you can leave.”
The coffee machine started to spit and bubble as the scent filled the kitchen. Kendrick went back to the pot, shaking his head. “Nope, I’m not going anywhere until you explain how you went from never wanting a mate—only last week—to being mated.”
Trey groaned and took the doctored coffee Kendrick offered him. Seeing his friend’s concern was the only thing stopping him from throwing him out. “What’s to say? You know I was interested in Cassidy?—”
“Fucking is what you kept saying you were doin’.”
He ground his teeth together. “That might be so. But I ain’t fucked anyone else in more than a year.” Or two. Trey had tried to fuck a dude that hit on him after the first time he’d touched Cassidy, only he couldn’t get hard. His wolf did not like the guy's scent at all. He should have known then the writing was on the wall.
You did, you’re just real good at pretending is all.
Thanks for the update.
You’re welcome.
Asshole.
Sometimes, his wolf was a real asshat!
He had told no one, not even Kendrick, about what was going on, despite the conversation they’d had after the lack of a condom. Instead, he had led Kendrick to believe that he was still hooking up with other guys, so he got why his friend was acting this way—kind of.
Kendrick sipped the dark brew and eyed Trey. “You ain’t had sex with anyone since Cassidy”—his eyes narrowed over the mug—“have you?”
He sagged against the counter, seeing it was pointless to pretend when Kendrick knew him better than anyone. “No, I tried once, and I just couldn’t…”
“Get it up,” Kendrick finished, smirking.
Trey gave him the finger. “Smug asshole.”
“Always. So what you gonna do now?”
“What do you mean?” Trey asked, unsure what Kendrick was getting at.
Kendrick sighed and rolled his eyes at him over his coffee mug. “The mating bit is easy. But Cassidy lives up at the ranch. You live in town above the bar. He works at the ranch. Early mornings mostly, from what I see. You work here, late nights typically. So how is all that gonna work?”
Kendrick laid out all the things that said life was about to get real tricky and raised the concerns about why Trey had stayed with hook-ups for so long. “We’ll figure it out.”
They would… wouldn’t they ?