Justice (5 page)

What the hell is happening? I want…
Paul refused to admit what he wanted. Going there wasn’t an option. He was never letting anyone that close to him again.

Which didn’t explain why he slowed his steps. Preston and Nischal were waiting in the truck.
Shit.
Paul realised belatedly that he should have scrubbed off in the restroom. Nischal would smell the cum on him.
Damned shifter. God damn it!

Shame burned in him, leaching out to warm his cheeks uncomfortably. Paul stumbled and would have fallen had he not been grabbed by the shoulder from behind.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Oh God,” Paul rasped before he could bite his tongue. That deep, rumbly voice almost made him come in his jeans. He jerked away from the man’s hold.

“Sorry. I was just trying—”

“Let go of him!”

Paul groaned and closed his eyes the second he heard Preston shout. He was released instantly.

“I was just trying to keep him from falling.”

Paul glanced behind him to see the man holding both hands up in the air, chest-height. He turned back in time to see Nischal jogging after Preston. Paul closed his eyes and groaned.
This is about to become a real clusterfuck.
Opening his eyes, he tried to think up an explanation, but really, short of ‘I jumped this big, sexy stud as soon as I could’, there wasn’t much he could say.

“Paul, come on.”

Paul cringed at the pity in his brother’s voice. Maybe that wasn’t what Preston intended, but it was what Paul heard.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Let’s go.”

But Preston had other ideas as he walked over. “Hey, are you related to the Travis family?”

Oh shit.
Paul swung around and gaped at the man he’d got off with—that he’d helped to get off. For the first time in ages, Paul had touched someone else and enjoyed it.

He didn’t hear the words the man spoke. Instead he took in the long nose, the high cheekbones and the firm, square chin. That hair that had looked almost black inside was a dark auburn in the sunlight. And his build…

“Fuck,” Paul spat, disgust trying to rear up over what he’d just done, and who he’d done it with. “Go back to the truck, Nischal.”

“I smell…” Nischal began. Paul bumped him hard as he strode quickly towards the truck. Nischal’s grunt didn’t quite muddle his words. “Cum. Did you fuck Paul?”

Paul was pretty sure he’d just fucked himself.

* * * *

Justice had known he’d fucked up, but it was quickly sinking in just how badly he’d done so as he answered Nischal’s question.

“No,” Justice said, watching the way Paul’s ass flexed beneath his jeans as he all but ran off.

“Bullshit,” Nischal growled. “I don’t care that you’re related to me somehow, you can’t have Paul!”

Those words caused an uproar with Justice’s leopard. The beast raged in him, demanding a chance to gnaw some manners into Nischal. Justice narrowed his eyes at the man as Preston took off after his brother.

“You would do well to shut up about now,” Justice warned. Normally he was more patient, less of a dick, but he was barely refraining from shifting and going after Nischal’s throat. No one was going to tell him he couldn’t have Paul—“Fuck.”

Justice barely missed the fist coming at his face. He grabbed Nischal’s wrist and with a jerk, had the man in a hold that he wouldn’t get out of without shifting.

“Cut it out, idiot,” Justice snarled as Nischal jerked and squirmed. “I think he’s my mate!”

Nischal stopped struggling. “What? Paul?”

The reality of those words, of the situation itself, hit Justice hard. He let go of Nischal. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

Nischal turned and glared at him. “You
think
so? How can you not know?”

Justice glanced towards the truck, where Preston and Paul were now sitting inside, their heads close together as they spoke.

“I never felt anything like I did even right before I saw him,” Justice murmured, watching Paul and wishing he could touch him. “Everything inside of me came to life, and I never knew it had been dormant until then. When he looked at me, I couldn’t do anything but follow him. Even now, after coming not ten minutes ago, I crave the chance to touch him, to—”

“I get it,” Nischal said as he waved a hand at him. “Stop, okay?”

Justice did, glad that he was able to cut off the too-personal confession.

Nischal moved to stand beside him. “I’m guessing you’re the guy whose sister is going to be Paul’s therapist?”

“Justice Chalmers.” Justice held out a hand to shake.

“Nischal. No last name.” They shook and Nischal sighed. “Man, what a mess. Did you know who he was?”

Justice shook his head. “No. Not until Preston banged on the bathroom door. With the bleached hair, I didn’t put it together.”

“And the makeup. Paul’s gone back to trying to cover up his freckles.”

“He looks like your Preston?” Justice asked. “When he’s not dying his hair and covering his skin?”

Nischal hitched a shoulder in a shrug. “Well, he does to a point. I can tell them apart, which is no surprise, considering Preston is my mate. Paul used to be a lot thinner, way too thin, but he’s bulked up. Even more so since the last attack on him.”

Justice cocked his head and told his leopard to calm the fuck down. There was no one to kill and punish for Paul’s suffering just then. “Last attack?”

Nischal gave him a sideways look. “How much do you know about Paul? About what’s happened to him?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Justice contemplated the info he had. “I know he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in a human trafficking ring here in the US. There were shifters involved, wolf ones. I know he was hurt, probably very badly, and sexually abused.” His stomach turned as he forced himself to continue. “I know now that what just happened between me and him was likely some need on his part to control his sexual needs, to—” He stopped.

Paul had touched him, there at the end. Now that he thought about it, there’d been something tentative in Paul’s grip the first few strokes, then Paul had made a sweet, wanton sound as he’d tightened his hand around Justice’s cock.

Nischal grunted and they stood there for another moment, two men in the middle of a parking lot that wasn’t, thankfully, busy at that time. Still, they were lucky they hadn’t been run over.

“You should go, get him back to Grandma’s.” Justice forced his gaze away from Paul. “He’s going to hate me.” Shifters had abused him. Justice couldn’t imagine even a mate-bond getting Paul past that fact.

“I don’t think so, but he will probably be pissed off.” Nischal uncrossed his arms. “He was probably just as drawn to you as you were to him.” He looked at Justice. “The desire for our mate is unfathomable to someone who has never experienced it. Once it hits, it controls us even as it demolishes our restraint. Paul won’t be able to stay away.”

“And he’ll hate me for that,” Justice whispered, aching at the knowledge of that truth. “This is going to make his life so much more difficult.”

Nischal smacked him on the arm, hard enough to make Justice shuffle aside.

“What the fuck, asshole!”

Nischal wrinkled his nose at Justice. “Your grandma Marybeth is going to be twisting your ear and popping your nose a lot with that potty mouth you have.”

Justice bit his lips and glared. Nischal was right, though.

“Anyway, that was for being a big emo dummy. You and Paul wouldn’t be mates if it wasn’t going to work. You two need each other. It just might take you both a while to figure it out. Have some faith in yourself.” And with that, Nischal jogged over to the truck.

Justice turned away and went to his own vehicle. He was kind of glad he wasn’t in the truck with Paul. When Nischal opened the door, raised voices spilt out. Justice hadn’t heard them when he’d been speaking to Nischal, probably because he’d been so focused on himself and the conversation. Maybe, too, Paul and Preston hadn’t been yelling then.

Justice wished he could revel in the joy of having found his mate, but it wasn’t that simple. Maybe Nischal was right, and the Fates hadn’t fucked up by pairing him with Paul. But it still wouldn’t be easy. Paul had problems, justifiably so. Justice didn’t want to do anything to make them worse.

Even then as he sat in his car contemplating what had happened in such a short period of time, Justice yearned for Paul. Not just sexually, though his dick was still trying to poke a hole in his jeans. No, he wanted to hold Paul, to comfort him and be there for him. To help him through the healing process.

He had a feeling that them being mates was going to test the mate bond in ways that might never have occurred before.

Justice thought about his cousins, many of whom had found their mate in the past couple of years. It was like once they knew about the possibility of it, they began finding that one special person. Not all of his cousins, of course, because damn, he had dozens of them. They were a large, prolific family. But still, it’d started with Levi, then several of the male cousins had got their happily ever after.

That was something Justice had thought about on occasion, but the closer he got to thirty, the more he’d dwelled on it. And moped, too, if he were honest. He’d come home from the military and missed the camaraderie of it. Ten years—it was all he knew, really, in his adult life. Then he’d moved back to Phoenix and got an apartment with Viv, determined to help her out in any way he could.

His friends were scattered all over the world, and he had lost touch with many of them. Only Asher and Tuck, his two best buds, were still on his contacts list. He was going to be a pathetic twit if he didn’t watch out.

Justice shook himself like a cat doused with water. He wasn’t a kid, and he’d lived a lot in his twenty-nine years. If he wanted to be what Paul needed, then he had better stop being a whiny shit and man the fuck up.

Viv would laugh at that and tell him if he was going to toughen up, he should woman the fuck up, but whatever. It was time that he put his best foot forward.

Chapter Five

Paul buried his head in his hands. “No!” There wasn’t much else he could shout at Preston then, and even that was futile.

A shifter. A goddamned shifter! And I still want him, so much I want to jump out of the truck and chase him down!
“Fuck!” Paul began rocking, the seatbelt cutting into him as he tried to calm his rising panic.

Except it wasn’t just panic, and he hated to acknowledge that. Desire was burning in him, chasing away everything but the need to feel that big, hard body against his.

“He won’t touch you again—” Preston began.

Nischal slammed his door. “Yeah, he will—”

“He won’t!” Preston yelled, drowning out Nischal’s voice. “I’ll kill him if he tries!”

Paul’s ears rang in the silence that followed that. Preston started the engine and Nischal remained silent, but Paul knew something had passed between them in that weird way they had of reading each other’s mind. It was something that happened between destined mates, Preston had said.

It sounded like hell to Paul, having to share the darkness in his mind with someone else. He couldn’t imagine being so exposed, or forcing the kind of shit he had upstairs onto someone else. If he cared for someone he sure as hell wouldn’t want them seeing the poison in his soul.

But to know someone would be there for me, no matter what, like the couples I’ve seen at Marybeth’s. Like Preston and Nischal…

It was unfathomable, and yet Paul yearned for it so much his eyes stung as tears threatened to fall. Paul pressed harder on his head then forced himself to uncurl. He was acting like a nut. It was no wonder Preston and everybody insisted he get help.

A shifter. I wanted—want, still
—
a shifter. God, I wanna touch him, lick him, do so many things to him.
It wasn’t freaking Paul out now that he had got past the initial panic. His dick was still hard, and there was a pleasant buzz of need humming through his veins.

It’d been so long since he’d felt anything like it. Paul closed his eyes and replayed the few short minutes he’d spent in the restroom with the man. He could still smell the earthy scent of his spunk. Shifter or no, Paul needed to see him again. He just hoped he didn’t freak out and scare the guy off. Jesus, he hoped
he
didn’t freak the fuck out, never mind the tall, built stranger losing it.

“Paul?”

Paul didn’t bother opening his eyes. He didn’t want to see pity directed his way. “Preston?” he replied, the way they used to play when they’d been kids.

Preston’s chuckle sounded good to hear. Paul even smiled a little. “I’m okay,” he even managed. Paul cupped his hands over his groin, hiding his erection. “Just tired.”

“I—” Preston stopped to cough and Paul, knowing his brother as he did, waited for him to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say but feared Paul would hate hearing.

Preston barely held out for thirty seconds. “Justice is one of Marybeth’s grandsons, so I know he isn’t a dick. She wouldn’t tolerate her kids or grandkids being anything less than honourable people. I’ve learnt that much in the time that Nisch and I have been staying there.”

“You should see her go after Sabby,” Nischal added, snickering. “I think he eggs her on just because he likes being scolded. Reminds him of our mama.”

“As often as he’s getting an ass-chewing, he must have been a big mama’s boy then,” Preston said wryly.

“He was. A kiss-up, always getting away with causing trouble.” Nischal sighed. “I never could get away with anything, but that’s okay. Mama loved me too.”

“How could she not have?” Preston asked.

“If y’all get any sweeter I’m going to die from saccharine poisoning,” Paul snarked, though really, he was glad for Preston.

“Is that even possible?”

Paul opened one eye to peek at his brother. “Too much of anything will kill ya.”
Surely. Maybe.

“Huh.” Preston didn’t sound convinced. “Well, if you say so. Anyway.”

“Justice?” Paul said suddenly, the man’s name registering. He sat up and opened both eyes. “His name is
Justice
? Who does that to a kid?”