Instead, he gets a hard slap on the ass for his trouble and a firm hand on his neck, forcing his cheek more firmly in the scrubby grass.
His heart is beating out Gideon’s name in a fast staccato, and the adrenaline is a fucking rush. “Come on, alpha, fuck me. You caught me, now make me sorry I ran.”
It earns him another harsh smack, this time to his balls and taint above the fastening of the cage, the sound reverberating off the trees.
He shrieks as it burns so sweetly, and combined with his abraded hands and knees, it has his belly on fire and his cock leaking like someone turned on a faucet.
“Again, goddess. Please, alpha.”
Instead of doing it again, Gideon puts two fingers against Luca’s wet hole (It’s wet because Luca put half a bottle of lube up there before plugging himself up at the house, and now it’s leaking out and running down the inside of his thighs).
He pushes them inside before pulling them out and adding a third. Gideon groans at the squelching sound, and he pumps his fingers faster. It’s tight; Luca feels the pinch of those knuckles on his rim, and the referred heat shoots into his cock.
“Fuck me, alpha. Come on. Need it.” Again, he’s close. It wouldn’t take much for him to come like this, and even if he doesn’t have express permission, he thinks it would be worth it.
Gideon slows his ministrations instead, and it triggers something in Luca’s hindbrain. When his alpha lets go of his hip, Luca scrambles into a run, taking off again. This time, Gideon’s roar is right on his heels, and Luca takes a moment to turn around, because until this point, he hasn’t set eyes on his mate.
It’s a tactical error because he stops still at the sight, and Gideon takes him down at a full run, this time onto his back. He’s careful to cushion Luca’s head, but nothing else, and his back scrapes along the clearing floor.
Gideon looks…feral. It’s not hyperbole or anything, despite Luca’s tendency toward overly dramatic adjectives, because there is no better word than feral.
Luca’s alpha is naked, without his shoes. His muscles look bigger than normal and carved from stone. The hands that push Luca’s legs open are tipped in razor-sharp claws, and his long fangs are bared in a snarl. This is the first time Luca has seen his soulmate wolfed out, and he hopes it isn’t the last. It stimulates a matching response in Luca, and he tilts his head to show his mate Gideon’s bite.
The wolf yanks Luca’s hands over his head with such force that his wrist bones painfully grind together, but Luca doesn’t look away. Gideon’s red eyes bore holes into Luca’s as he impales Luca on his cock with one brutal stroke.
“Mine.”
Luca lets a punched-out gasp past his lips, arching up against his mate’s grip. He struggles against his iron hold while Gideon fucks him hard and fast. It’s primal, and with every stroke, the head of Gideon’s cock rides his prostate, pushing Luca closer to coming his brains out.
Piercing hot pleasure laced with pain unmakes him, and he lets go of time and space. He sinks deeply into subspace, where he only exists because of the sensation Gideon gives him. Both grounding him and setting him free. It’s easy to go lax then, submitting completely.
Gideon growls deeper in his chest, fucking into Luca’s hole with enough force to push them across the clearing, and knocking the breath out of him with every thrust.
A scream builds in his chest. Every thrust is an agony of fire in his belly, with an answering fire between his legs.
Watching Gideon throw back in a feral roar as he comes, forcing his knot past Luca’s burning rim. It sends Luca into an orgasm, his eyes rolling back, and it’s lights out.
He comes to, tied to the bed in the cabin. It’s dark outside, and Gideon is lying beside him, hand on his belly and nose in his armpit. Luca is still feeling a low-grade arousal that doesn’t supersede his bone-deep sense of safety and contentment. A quiet timer beeps somewhere, and there’s a zing of vibration around the base of his cock and up against his prostate.
“Gideon,” he whimpers as the sensations build, but Gideon doesn’t move or respond. “Alpha.”
“Sleep. I’m not done with you yet,” he growls, and there’s a perfect sting when Gideon sinks his “human” teeth into his pec.
Luca has enough brainpower left to hope Gideon never is.
III
Seventh Inning Strip (Prequel)
This story takes place just before the pack finds Nix. You might remember the dollar Grayson keeps in his wallet—the only cash they had to give Jay to hire Nix’s legal representation. This is how it found its way there.
Thank you to Caitlin for making sure all the baseball players and plays were in the right place at the right time.
Content Warnings
Erotic Dancing
Voyeurism
