25. Viktor
Viktor
In theory, I was aware I was attractive.
Just a few days earlier, Evie and Altair had been looking at videos she’d taken of my brothers and me working on the houses, and talking about something called a “thirst trap.” From what I’d gathered, the concept was a good indication of the way in which I was attractive.
I looked good. People found my body impressive, and they liked the way my hair looked, and somehow my laziness about shaving constantly was “sexy.”
If the only part of me they were exposed to was my shirtless body in a video, carrying logs or hammering nails, then I seemed impressive.
Maybe if I’d been a painting rather than a person, people would have liked me more.
But that wasn’t how human—or werewolf—relationships worked.
There were interactions involved. Talking. Sharing. Acting like a person, and not a soldier, or as Evie sometimes joked about me, a robot.
Maybe Evie was one of the few people who liked me for what I was, but she wasn’t wrong.
I didn’t give people what they expected from a person.
No smiling and laughing and chatting for hours about things that didn’t matter, like Leo always did.
My twin? He was the master of people. Everyone liked him, and his very presence made them happy.
I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or ironic that as his twin, I was the opposite.
So it never surprised me when people gave me the same looks he got. We were twins, and while thanks to the different environments we’d had as teenagers, he’d gotten taller and bigger than me, we were still formed around the same base. Tall, dark-haired, and I supposed, handsome.
But I also knew I wasn’t what Daire had wanted.
Maybe he hadn’t told me in so many words, but Daire was .
. . well, he was special. Soft, but without all the negative connotations I’d learned to put next to that word.
He wasn’t weak, just young and untried. Not useless, but the opposite, constantly trying to help the people around him.
He just didn’t have the experience to always know what to do.
It didn’t help that his mother had somehow convinced him that he was always wrong, so he was hesitant to even try anymore.
Not that his mother had anything to do with how he’d leaned back into me, rubbing his ass against my hard cock, making me want things I’d never really cared about before. Making me think that maybe, just maybe, he also wanted those things.
But Daire was soft. He didn’t want a fumble under the covers. He didn’t want rough and gruff and . . . well, me.
And yet, some part of him did want me, clearly, since he was not-so-subtly turning his head to sniff at me, his nose flaring just slightly with the action. Funny, that it was my wolf that gave him the sense of smell to notice things like that.
His eyes were dark with lust when he turned his head to look at me, but also, there was uncertainty there. “I . . . I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—”
I leaned in and pressed my lips to his, and oddly enough, it wasn’t just to shut him up.
It was because I wanted to. Besides, I kind of liked when he rambled.
It wasn’t all pointless like Leo’s babbling about nothing.
There were always useful nuggets of information in Daire’s ramblings.
Things about himself, and what he cared about, and how he’d been raised.
Of course, I supposed Altair thought the same of Leo’s babbling, it was just that I knew Leo. I didn’t need to hear about his past and his favorite foods and how much he loved the color blue.
I blinked at the thought that I was looking at Daire like Altair looked at Leo. They were mates. It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t the same.
“Sorry,” I whispered, my voice a little roughened by sleep. “I didn’t mean to do anything you didn’t want. I just don’t want you to feel like you’ve done anything wrong.”
He flushed pink in a way no one else I knew did.
It was just blushing, sure, but he was so much paler than the wolves I lived with, and Altair was even darker than the rest of us, naturally rather than needing the sun for his golden-brown tan.
It wasn’t that his paleness was better, it was just . . . novel. Different.
And beautiful.
It went perfectly with his auburn hair and freckles and green eyes so bright they almost looked lit from within. Hell, maybe they were lit from within. He was magic, after all.
“I know you’re not interested in rough werewolves or—”
It was Daire’s turn to lean in and kiss me, but he didn’t stop there.
He turned all the way over, and some small, detached part of me was envious of the effortless grace of having one’s own wolf.
Sure, I was still very well in control of my body, but there was something about having a wolf that made everything better and easier.
“Any thoughts I had about werewolves before I knew you were based on ignorance, and no one should pay any attention to them, let alone worry about them.” He was so focused on my face, those green eyes pinning me in place, that I wasn’t sure he even knew what he was doing as he pushed on the side of my chest, shoving me onto my back, and then climbing atop me.
“I’m only worried about them because maybe I made someone feel bad, and I don’t like that.
You’re amazing. You’re all amazing. I didn’t even know these houses were out here, and they’re incredible, and you built them.
With your hands. The coven has never made anything themselves in my whole life. ”
He leaned down and kissed me again, this time lingering, his kiss soft and slow.
So I decided to give back as good as I got, and pressed up into him, pushing past his lax lips and exploring his mouth with my tongue.
He moaned into my mouth, and almost collapsed down onto me, his whole body pressed against mine, his cozy sweater soft against my bare skin.
I reached up to cup his face, to hold him and kiss him so completely that I would never lose it from my mind. Even if he left me to go back to his people when this was done, I would always have it. This moment, and his soft skin and beautiful eyes and clever fingers, running down my sides.
I was out of breath and starting to see black spots when he pulled away from me with a gasp, clearly as air deprived as I was, but not caring terribly much.
No, he just took the opportunity to run his hands all over my chest, spreading his fingers wide through my chest hair as he smiled a tiny little pleased smile to himself, like he had a secret.
It was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen, and it made me share my own not-very-secret thought, pressing up into him. My cock was as hard as a rock, straining against his backside where he sat astride me. The motion made his eyes snap back to meet mine, but his smile didn’t falter a bit.
“You’re also beautiful. I mean, the others are fine, but you?
You’re gorgeous. There’s never been a man so gorgeous, not even in classical art.
Art couldn’t do this justice.” He ran his hands down my chest, thumbs meeting in my belly button and then dipping even lower, to where my cock was peeking out of my underwear beneath him.
He lifted himself slightly, glancing up at me as though there were a chance in hell I would stop him. Who would complain about being touched by this beautiful, incredible, sweet man?
I was fucking lucky he hadn’t had a better choice available when he’d needed to awaken his magic. That was a jarring, awful thought, but it was swept away a moment later when Daire grabbed my cock with surprising confidence.
I sucked in a breath, because that was . . . that was something. Daire, with that look on his face, handling me with confidence. That was perfection.
He paused a moment later, though, frowning, and whispered, “I don’t suppose you have lube.”
I covered my mouth, trying not to laugh because that would make certain the attention of everyone in the house was drawn to us.
That was so strange. I didn’t really . . . laugh. At all.
Still, I shook it off and reached over to the nightstand drawer and slid it open.
All I had was a little bottle of oil, since we didn’t have money to be spending on things like dedicated lube for sex, let alone for my personal solo time.
You’d have thought I’d given Daire jewels, though, because he lit up, grabbing the oil and pouring some into his hand, then going back to my cock, painting it on with his fingers, staring at it like a body part could hold the secrets to the universe.
He pulled back, resting his body near my knees and leaning forward until his face was near my groin, watching my dick pulse and twitch under his deft ministrations, like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
He wanted to put his mouth on me again, and part of me wanted that, but all of me, every single cell, wanted to be inside him again.
And also . . . wondered what it might be like the other way. Would he want that? Or did he think because I was bigger than him, that it could only be one way? Would he think ill of my curiosity?
I banished the thought from my mind for the moment, just letting myself fall into the sensation of Daire’s hot breath on my skin. His avid gaze eating me up. His skin, touching everywhere at once.
He lifted himself up and pushed his briefs down, leaving the sweater so I could slide my hands beneath it to drink in his warm skin. And when he reseated himself right over my cock, then started lowering himself onto me, inch by inch, I stopped thinking at all, and only felt.