“So-o?” Lee managed to keep his face expressionless, but his voice shook.
I licked my lips.You coward, you knew already.A lifetime of hints cascaded over me, of times I’d turned away from that knowledge. I hadn’t ignored that soldier I’d met in peacetime out of embarrassment for a moment of weakness, but in recognition of how alike we were, and how unsafe that felt. “I guess I’m a little bent too.”
“How little?”
Recklessness hit me, a sudden need to understand where this was taking me. “Your room has a bed and curtains that close tightly, yes?”
“Not a very big bed, but yes.”
“Let’s test out the answer to your question.” My stomach quivered with fear but something in me also sang with hope. I stood and headed toward his room. In the doorway, I paused and looked back. Lee still knelt on his rag rug, watching me. I cleared my dry throat. “Coming?”
A sudden grin lit his face. “I hope so.” He pushed to his feet and stalked toward me.
His posture reminded me that he was bigger than me, stronger and, in truth, probably more dominant, if he ever Challenged me. I backed into the room. Lee pulled the door shut behind him, closed the drapes over the windows, and turned to me in the dim light. He seemed to hunch, drawing his shoulders in as if to look smaller. “You’re in charge here, Micah. Never doubt that. We won’t do anything you don’t want.”
“I don’t know what I want.” The words came out thinner than I intended.
“We’re gonna figure that out.” Lee looked me over. Even in human form, our wolf eyes helped us see in dim light. I could make out the little groove of uncertainty between his brows, a hint of worry about me that I wanted to erase.
“Shall we undress?” I asked. “If I remember that night, we shed the clothes pretty early.”Stripped off the sweaty, whiskey-soaked fabric and touched…
“It was hot as Satan’s armpit that day, but yeah, good idea.” Lee unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off his arms, baring those biceps. Then he hauled his undershirt over his head and exposed his wide, furry chest. His nipples crinkled in the cool air, fat brown nubs on the planes of muscle, bigger and more notable than when we were boys. He unbuttoned the waistband of his chinos and frowned at me. “This feels a bit one-sided.”
A flush heated my cheeks, which I hoped he couldn’t see in that light. I tugged off my borrowed T-shirt and stripped down to my skivvies. By the time I’d fully kicked my Levis off my feet, Lee was down to his underwear too. “Bed,” I suggested, to get past the awkward staring.
“Sure.” The bed was a single, but Lee stretched out against the wall, propped up on one elbow, leaving the lion’s share of the mattress to me.
I lay down facing him. “Now—?”
Lee cut off my question by kissing me.
It turned out this part I was good at. Other than his size, kissing Lee was no different than kissing a woman. Well, his size plus the hunger that drove us both to wet roughness, his hand fisted in the back of my hair, mine cupping his neck. When we ran out of breath, I pulled away, covering my shaken exhilaration with a quip. “That went okay.”
“I have an idea.” Lee pushed me onto my back and leaned over me.
“What?” Arousal and anxiety warred in me.
“Lie back and let me taste you. All of you.”
Twenty-year-old Lee knelt at my feet and licked my stomach, his tongue wet and wicked on my bare skin, as theroom spun…“Okay, I don’t hate that idea.” I folded his pillow to support my head so I could see better.
Lee kissed me under my jaw, then licked my neck, a damp, tickly drag across my skin. I almost laughed till he gave a soft moan. “Jesus God, the taste of your skin.” My breath went short instead and my cock jumped.
He licked and nipped his way down my chest, then sucked my nipple into his mouth. I grunted, the pull tugging something down low, as if my tit had a direct line to my dick. I’d had women lick me there, but usually softer, teasing, not this hungry suction that made my back arch.
“You like that?” Lee asked. “I play with mine when I jerk off.”
The image of Lee with his dick in his hand turned my erection to steel, straining against my undershorts. “Yeah. That’s good. You could go lower, though.”
“All right.” He grazed his teeth down my stomach, and I shivered as he reached my waistband.
“Here.” I sat up enough to slide my underwear off my hips and kicked them down past my feet. My dick bobbed hopefully, undaunted by being naked in front of my best friend. For a second I faltered, but the hungry look on Lee’s face gave me courage. “Okay, go for it.”
Lee swung a leg over me to straddle my thighs and sat peering down at me. His own shorts sported a visible tent. A moment passed, and then another. “You’re not flipping out about this?” Lee’s fingers gripped his thick thighs, digging in as if he was trying not to touch me.
I closed my eyes, trying to figure out what I felt, other than horny as hell.I’m a wolf. I should be having a crisis here.My wolf yawned in my face and curled up in contentment, rumbling softly about pack and closeness.
A man is about to suck my dick.If that empty space in my head had contained an Alpha bond, I’d have been terrified.But I’d spent a lot of years alone, and each flash of memory from twenty-five years ago made me ache with what I’d missed, instead of scaring me.
