CHAPTER 2 THE TRESPASSER WHO DOESNT FLEE #2
"What's your name?" Eli asked, because he needed to know. Needed something to call this beautiful, infuriating creature.
"Jace." The hybrid—Jace—smiled up at him. "Now are you going to keep asking questions, or are you going to fuck me?"
Eli's control snapped.
He surged forward, capturing Jace's mouth in a kiss that was more teeth than lips, more claiming than tenderness. Jace opened for him immediately, his tongue sliding against Eli's, those sharp canines catching on Eli's lower lip. The taste of him was intoxicating—wild and sweet and utterly foreign.
Eli's hands moved of their own accord, mapping the planes of Jace's body.
The hybrid form was fascinating—smooth human skin in some places, fine fur in others.
Eli's palms slid down Jace's sides, feeling the shift from skin to pelt and back again.
Jace arched into the touch, a low purr rumbling in his chest that made Eli's cock throb.
"You're still partially shifted," Eli murmured against Jace's mouth, his hands finding the curve of Jace's ass and squeezing. "Why?"
"Because it feels good," Jace gasped as Eli's fingers dug into his flesh. "Because I like the way you're looking at me. Because—fuck—because I want you to see what I am while you're taking me."
Eli groaned, his hips grinding forward. His cock slid against Jace's, and the friction was almost too much.
Jace was hard too, his cock flushed and leaking between them.
The scent of their combined arousal filled the clearing, mixing with that underlying sweetness that seemed to intensify the longer they touched.
"Need to prep you," Eli managed, though his brain was rapidly losing the ability to form coherent thoughts. "Don't want to hurt you."
Jace's laugh was breathless. "I'm a shifter, Eli. I heal fast. And I'm not fragile." His clawed hands slid down Eli's back, pricking lightly against his skin. "But if you want to take your time, I'm not going to complain."
Eli pulled back slightly, enough to look down at Jace properly.
The hybrid was gorgeous—all lean muscle and cat-bright eyes and that infuriating smile.
His cock was hard against his belly, precome glistening at the tip.
Eli wanted to taste him, wanted to map every inch of his body with his tongue, wanted to make him come apart.
But first—
"Do you have—" Eli started, then stopped. They were in the middle of the forest. Of course neither of them had supplies.
Jace seemed to read his mind. "Shifter," he reminded Eli, his voice amused. "Clean. Healthy. And I want to feel you. Just you. No barriers."
Eli's cock jerked at the words. "You're sure?"
"Stop asking me if I'm sure," Jace said, but there was no heat in it. Just affection and exasperation and bone-deep desire. "I'm here. I'm choosing this. I want you inside me, Eli. I want to feel you come in me. I want—" His voice broke slightly. "I want to know what this feels like."
Something in Eli's chest cracked open. This wasn't just physical for Jace. This meant something. This mattered.
"Okay," Eli breathed. "Okay."
He shifted his weight, sliding down Jace's body.
His mouth found the hybrid's throat, teeth scraping over the rapid pulse.
Jace's head fell back, exposing his throat in a gesture of trust that made Eli's wolf rumble with satisfaction.
He kissed and bit his way down Jace's chest, pausing to tongue at one flat nipple.
Jace gasped, his back arching off the moss.
"Sensitive," Eli noted, filing the information away. He lavished attention on the other nipple, sucking and biting until Jace was writhing beneath him, clawed hands fisting in Eli's hair.
"Eli, please—"
"I've got you," Eli promised. He continued his descent, his tongue tracing the line of fine fur that led down Jace's stomach. When he reached Jace's cock, he paused, breathing in the scent of him. Musk and sweetness and pure arousal.
He licked a stripe up the underside of Jace's shaft, and Jace's hips bucked violently.
"Fuck," Jace gasped. "Warn a guy."
Eli smiled against Jace's skin. "Where's the fun in that?"
He took Jace into his mouth, swallowing him down in one smooth motion. Jace's cry echoed through the clearing, his claws pricking against Eli's scalp. Eli worked him slowly, learning what made Jace gasp, what made him moan, what made his thighs tremble.
When Jace was panting and begging, Eli pulled off with an obscene pop. "Need to open you up," he said, wrecked. "But I don't have—"
Jace's hand shot out, grabbing Eli's wrist. He guided Eli's fingers to his mouth, taking two of them between his lips and sucking. His tongue swirled around the digits, coating them thoroughly with saliva. The sight was so erotic that Eli nearly came on the spot.
When Jace released his fingers, they were slick and wet. "That'll work," Jace rasped. "Now touch me."
Eli's hand slid down Jace's body, between his spread thighs. He circled Jace's entrance with one slick finger, feeling the muscle flutter beneath his touch. Jace's breath hitched, his body tensing slightly.
"Relax," Eli murmured, his free hand stroking Jace's thigh. "I've got you."
He pressed forward slowly, his finger breaching Jace's body. The hybrid gasped, his back arching. Eli paused, giving him time to adjust, then began to move. Slow, shallow thrusts, working Jace open carefully.
"More," Jace demanded after a moment. "I can take it."
Eli added a second finger, scissoring them gently. Jace's body opened for him beautifully, accepting the intrusion with only a slight burn. Eli crooked his fingers, searching, and when Jace's entire body jerked and he let out a strangled moan, Eli knew he'd found what he was looking for.
He worked that spot mercilessly, his fingers stroking over Jace's prostate again and again until the hybrid was a writhing, begging mess beneath him.
"Eli, please, I need—I need—"
"What do you need?" Eli asked, though he knew. God, he knew.
"You," Jace gasped. "Inside me. Now. Please."
Eli withdrew his fingers, and Jace whimpered at the loss. But then Eli was positioning himself, the head of his cock pressing against Jace's entrance, and Jace's eyes flew open.
"Look at me," Eli commanded softly. "I want to see you."
Jace's gold gaze locked with his, and Eli began to push forward.
The sensation was overwhelming. Jace's body was tight and hot, gripping Eli's cock like a vice. Eli had to force himself to go slow, to give Jace time to adjust, when every instinct screamed at him to thrust forward and claim.
"Breathe," Eli murmured, one hand stroking Jace's flank. "Just breathe."
Jace's chest heaved, his body slowly relaxing around Eli's intrusion. "Move," he finally gasped. "Please, Eli, move."
Eli pulled back slightly, then thrust forward again. Jace's moan was music to his ears. He set a slow, steady rhythm, each thrust deliberate and controlled. Jace's legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, and Eli groaned at the sensation.
"Harder," Jace demanded, his claws pricking against Eli's shoulders. "I'm not going to break."
Eli's control frayed. He snapped his hips forward, driving into Jace with more force. Jace cried out, his head falling back, and Eli took advantage of the exposed throat to bite down—not hard enough to break skin, but enough to mark.
"Yes," Jace hissed. "Like that. Fuck, Eli, just like that."
Eli lost himself in the rhythm, in the slide of skin against skin, in the sounds Jace was making.
The hybrid was vocal, unashamed, telling Eli exactly what he wanted and how good it felt.
His claws raked down Eli's back, leaving shallow scratches that would heal within minutes but sent sparks of pleasure-pain racing through Eli's nervous system.
"Touch yourself," Eli commanded, the words scraping out of him. "Want to see you come."
Jace's hand flew to his cock, wrapping around the shaft and stroking in time with Eli's thrusts. The sight was obscene and beautiful—Jace spread out beneath him, partially shifted, bright eyes glazed with pleasure, working his own cock while Eli fucked into him.
"Close," Jace gasped. "Eli, I'm so close—"
"Come for me," Eli growled. He angled his hips, nailing Jace's prostate with every thrust. "Let me see you."
Jace's entire body went rigid, his back arching off the moss.
His cock pulsed in his hand, come striping across his stomach and chest. The sight and the feeling of Jace's body clenching around him pushed Eli over the edge.
He thrust forward one last time, burying himself as deep as he could go, and came with a roar that echoed through the forest.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Eli's arms trembled with the effort of holding himself up, not crushing Jace beneath his weight. Jace's legs were still wrapped around his waist, his body still fluttering around Eli's softening cock.
Slowly, carefully, Eli pulled out. Jace whimpered at the loss, and Eli felt an answering pang in his chest. He collapsed onto the moss beside Jace, pulling the hybrid against his chest.
Jace shifted fully human then, the fur receding, the pointed ears rounding out. He was beautiful in this form too—all smooth tan skin and dark hair and those devastating eyes. He pressed his face against Eli's chest, and Eli felt the rapid flutter of his heartbeat beginning to slow.
"So," Jace finally said against Eli's skin, "that was..."
"Insane," Eli finished. His arm tightened around Jace's waist. "Yeah. Definitely insane."
Jace shifted slightly, and Eli could feel him grinning. "Want to do it again?"
Eli laughed—a real laugh, something he hadn't done in three years. The sound felt foreign in his throat, rusty from disuse, but genuine. "Give me five minutes."
They lay there in the moonlight, the reality of what just happened slowly sinking in. Eli could feel his come leaking out of Jace's body, could smell their combined scent saturating the clearing. This changed everything. Both of them knew it.
Neither could quite bring themselves to care.
Jace's hand traced idle patterns on Eli's chest, his touch gentle now, exploratory. "I should probably tell you," he said after a moment, "that I didn't just stumble across your territory by accident."
"I figured," Eli said dryly. "The whole 'I've been watching you for weeks' thing kind of gave it away."
Jace huffed a laugh. "My mother sent me. Scouting mission. She wanted intelligence on the lone wolf who claimed this territory three years ago." He paused. "I wasn't supposed to make contact."
Eli's hand stilled on Jace's back. "But you did anyway."
"Yeah." Jace lifted his head, meeting Eli's gaze. "Because I smelled you one day while I was patrolling the boundary, and I couldn't get it out of my head. That scent. Your scent. It was..." He trailed off, searching for words.
"Intoxicating," Eli supplied. "Maddening. Like nothing else in the world mattered except finding the source."
"Yes." Jace's eyes widened slightly. "You felt it too."
"From the moment I caught your scent in my den," Eli admitted. "I was... I was touching myself, actually. Trying to deal with three years of isolation. And then your scent hit me, and I went from half-hard to fully erect in about two seconds."
Jace's grin was wicked. "Good to know I have that effect on you."
Eli rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "You're trouble."
"Probably," Jace agreed. He settled back against Eli's chest, his ear pressed over Eli's heart. "But you like it."
Eli couldn't argue with that. His hand resumed its gentle stroking along Jace's spine, and he felt the hybrid relax into the touch. The silence between them was comfortable now, the post-orgasmic haze making everything feel soft and distant.
But reality was creeping back in. Eli could feel it at the edges of his awareness—all the reasons this was complicated, dangerous, potentially catastrophic.
Cross-species bonds were taboo for a reason.
Territory law existed to prevent exactly this kind of entanglement.
And Jace's mother had sent him here on a scouting mission, which meant the cougar pride was aware of Eli's presence and potentially concerned about it.
"We should talk," Eli said reluctantly. "About what this means. About—"
"Tomorrow," Jace interrupted. He lifted his head, pressing a kiss to Eli's jaw. "We'll talk tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to lie here with you and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist."
Eli wanted to argue. Wanted to insist they address the complications now, before they got any deeper into whatever this was.
But Jace's body was warm against his, and the scent of them together was still thick in the air, and Eli was so fucking tired of being alone.
"Tomorrow," he agreed.
Jace smiled and settled back against his chest. Within minutes, his breathing had evened out into the steady rhythm of sleep.
Eli lay awake longer, staring up at the stars visible through the canopy of the ancient oak. His territory. His clearing. His solitude.
All of it felt different now. Changed by the presence of the man sleeping in his arms.
Eli's wolf stirred, content in a way it hadn't been in three years. Mine, it whispered, but the word felt different now. Not possessive. Not claiming.
Just... true.
Eli closed his eyes and let himself drift, Jace's heartbeat a steady counterpoint to his own.
Tomorrow they'd deal with reality. Tonight, they had this.
For now, it held.