Little Wolf (50 page)

“You did that for me without having ever met me.” Tim could have focused on more important things at that moment, but this fact was apparently all he wanted to think about.

“I told you it was funny.” Nathaniel eyed him as if he didn’t know what to make of Tim’s reaction. Tim’s scent was warm and getting warmer.

“I kind of… unknowingly pushed you into all this.” Tim heard how loud he was getting and tried to calm down. “Is that why you pimp yourself out? Oh my God. No more of that. I will take care of it. But no more of that, not for you. I can’t believe you did that for me.”

“I don’t pimp myself out. I just let them take pictures—that did not sound like I meant it to.” Nathaniel sprang to his feet. He pointed at Tim. “I did it because of the town. Because what he was asking wasn’t right but—No.” Nathaniel studied Tim with wide, alarmed eyes. “I
did
do it for you. You’re right. He must have smelled like you, and my instincts knew even when I didn’t.
Timothy Dirus
.” Nathaniel wiped at his mouth, but his smile kept reappearing. “Timothy Dirus. Of course it was for you. It was for you before I ever knew you.” Nathaniel stepped back without taking his eyes from Tim.

“Now you know me.” Tim flattened his hands over the bed and pushed down, although he had never felt less like running.

Nathaniel didn’t blink. “Still worth it.”

“Oh.” If there were other things to say in response to that, Tim couldn’t think of them. He stared. “Oh,” he said again, even more stupid than the last time. Then he snapped his head up. “You shouldn’t risk a whole town for one person. Don’t give me that crap about ideals either. Ideals are nice, but you are sworn to protect the town. I can take care of myself. I told you that when I first got here and it still applies.” Sooner or later Nathaniel had to stop smiling at Tim like that. Tim glared. “I mean it. Thanks and all, but you shouldn’t have.”

Nathaniel’s smile turned into a wicked grin. Tim flailed at him. “Don’t you dare say it was instinct!” He scraped his hands through his hair. “It could have ruined the town, and this town is pretty… this town is a good place.” He lowered his gaze. “Most of the people in it are good, or
try
to be good, which I like better. It makes me feel less horrible about how selfish I am. Do not tell Carl I said any of that.”

“Do you think I tell anyone what happens between us?” Nathaniel seemed honestly confused.

“This is private time for you. No wonder there’s so much speculation,” Tim realized aloud. “You haven’t told anyone anything, have you? Except for that mark you gave me.” Tim got heated thinking about it but shook his head. “You should be glad I talk about it, then, at least a little. People get nervous about those kinds of things. They want to know their king is laid and happy.”

“I keep telling you I was elected.” That fond tone was as bad as the fond stare. “Your notions of wolf behavior have already proven to be flawed.”

Tim pooh-poohed him despite his blushes. “I’m calling bullshit on that. As your unofficial social secretary and PR rep, leave the rest to me. The town will know you’re getting some now, and that’s all that matters.”

“And happy.” It was unnerving how Nathaniel could carry on a conversation while naked. Then again, he didn’t have to look at himself and continually get distracted by the view. “Laid and happy,” he filled in at Tim’s blank stare. “You said getting laid and happy. I’m happy. They know that too.”

“You are?” Tim kept his voice even with effort. “I mean, do they?”

“Timothy Dirus.” Nathaniel pronounced his name slowly. “I would never hide you away.”

Tim burned with his blushes, so he leaned over and buried his face in a pillow. It smelled perfect; it must have been Nathaniel’s. His heart was fluttering, and in the following silence, he was acutely aware of it. “Are you going to tell everyone who I am?” he mumbled after a while, not raising his head.

“I could. But it should come from you, I think.” Nathaniel meant Tim should tell Carl and Albert and probably Robin’s Egg. Zoe too.

Tim sighed. “Once it’s out, there will be no avoiding my uncle. You’d be daring him to come here.”

“He could already be on his way here,” Nathaniel pointed out, making rustling sounds as he moved around the room. “Either way, it would rouse him, force him to reveal his weak spots.” Tim twitched, but Nathaniel either didn’t notice or was pretending not to. “Although I suspect his biggest weakness is you. You suspect it too.”

Tim peeked at him. Nathaniel had put jeans on but no shoes and no shirt. “You’re forgetting about the pack. Luca.”

“Luca.” Nathaniel met Tim’s eyes. “I haven’t forgotten him.” His tone was low and curious. From Nathaniel that meant a predator on the hunt. “Let’s talk about Luca.”

Tim scrambled up. “He’s probably the one who hit you. Unless my uncle has replaced him by now, Luca should be his right-hand man.”

“And your uncle would order him to kill me?” If Nathaniel was going to get dressed, Tim should as well. But he didn’t budge.

“On the one hand, my uncle would be convinced of the strategy of striking at an enemy and having no mercy, taking what advantage you can.” Tim licked his lips and tried to picture Silas ordering the attack. He shook his head. “On the other hand, he admires warriors, leaders. If Luca, or whoever, had been injured in the crash too, as he probably was, and had gotten out to fight you, he might have allowed it. Instead the person who hit you didn’t even stay to make sure you were dead. I’d say he doesn’t know. Anyway, Silas has no reason to want you killed. Humiliated maybe, but not killed. He’s a businessman too, not just a legend. He doesn’t need the bad press.”

“But?” Nathaniel was motionless.

Tim swung his feet and assessed the threat. “You put me under your personal protection and haven’t left my side much since. Luca, and it’s safer to assume Luca, since I can guess his motives, had to get you out of the picture, get me alone.” Then he hadn’t come for Tim in the cabin, but he could have been injured too, or perhaps he’d thought Tim would stay in town and had looked for him there. “He couldn’t attract the attention of the town without risking himself. For him, it wasn’t a bad decision.”

“You think that’s why?” Nathaniel softened his tone, amused and exasperated. “Weres are possessive, Little Wolf. You said he touched you.” Tension crept in with the words. “It was this Luca you were scared of when you met me, wasn’t it?”

Tim jutted his chin out. “I don’t belong to Luca. Not even a little bit. Not even if my uncle had promised me to him the way Luca used to imply he had.”
Shit
. Once again Tim’s mouth betrayed him around Nathaniel. He lowered his head and put his hand up. “You are going to draw all sorts of conclusions from that, but I was, like, a kid, and even I knew Luca was probably lying. Whatever my uncle intended for me, it wasn’t offering me up to Luca. I can see Silas throwing me at some prominent were from another old family, if he was desperate, hoping I’d cooperate or infiltrate their family and take it over from the inside. But not Luca. Luca was an underling who tried to copy my uncle’s look and yet never got a suit that fit right. Silas used him for strength, not for anything else. If Silas had wanted me to consider Luca, Luca wouldn’t have only come near me when Silas wasn’t around. He definitely would have left more bruises, not small ones that healed before Silas would see them.”

The silence across the room was ominous.

Tim lowered his gaze. His stomach muscles tightened to a painful degree. “I never think I’m fucked-up until I hear myself when I tell you things,” he admitted, then raised his head when Nathaniel knelt down in front of him. “They weren’t like your bruises.” Tim gulped and flushed at the stupidity of his explanation. “I asked for those. You don’t do it to hurt or to try to shut me up. When I bare my neck, you don’t”—he looked away again—“laugh or anything. You kiss me, and you get quiet and rumbly, and your scent curls around me and it makes me want to keep going. It feels good. There’s no shame is what I—I don’t mean anything. Nathaniel, make me stop talking now. I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“Do you think your uncle would have wanted you to consider me?” That question from Nathaniel was a surprise to say the least. Nathaniel picked up one of Tim’s feet, rubbed the heel with his thumb in a way that would have made a cougar try to purr like a house cat, then set it gently down on the floor.

“Uh, before or after you told him off?” Tim shook his head and held up his other foot for similar treatment. He thought it was kind of messed-up to have Nathaniel caring for him when Nathaniel was the one who’d almost died, but Nathaniel didn’t seem pissed about it. It probably helped him feel better in some touchy-feely werewolf way. “My uncle might have liked you telling him off, actually. It’s the sort of thing he’d expect from someone like you. The kind of thing he would have wanted me to do. He wouldn’t….” The rest was harder to say, even with Nathaniel kneeling before Tim to massage his foot. “He wouldn’t like this, though. Me wearing your mark. Me on the bottom.”

“You don’t have to be on the bottom.” Nathaniel released Tim’s foot in order to tug at the damp towel across Tim’s lap. The moment it hit the floor, Tim started breathing heavier.

“But I like it, being under you.” Tim spread his legs. He couldn’t help it. Nathaniel moved forward and put his hands on Tim’s hips. He offered Tim a smile before moving one sure hand to cup Tim’s balls and bending down to take his cock in his mouth. “Oh my God.” Tim curved his body forward and dug his fingers into the bed in a vain attempt to control himself. Nathaniel’s wet mouth on his dick was enough to get him hard and leave him panting. “Oh fuck.”

It was so different from Tim’s clumsy efforts. Nathaniel waited a few seconds, using his tongue to make Tim gasp, then easing off to lick his lips. Tim stared at the thin trail of spit on the head of his cock in fascination and yanked a hand from the bed so he could wrap it around his dick. He wondered distantly if what Zoe had warned him about panic applied to sex too. If he would keep reacting to Nathaniel’s pleasure and Nathaniel would keep reacting to his until they were both exhausted. He hoped so.

“You like it?” Nathaniel licked slowly upward from Tim’s fingers to the crown, pausing to suck lightly over the vein and make Tim squirm. “Being under me?”

“Yeah, I….” Tim squeezed his dick and arched up in a not-subtle hint for Nathaniel to continue. “Yeah, you know I do. You make me feel good when you hold me down.”

Nathaniel slid his hands to Tim’s thighs to spread them wider, almost unbearably hot as he moved in closer. Tim leaned back, raising his knees reflexively, and then somehow wound up flat on the bed with his knees bent and Nathaniel sucking him off. Unlike Tim, Nathaniel knew exactly what he was doing, and the firm pressure of his hands at Tim’s hip and stomach only proved everything Tim had said. Tim grasped at Nathaniel’s hair and pushed up against Nathaniel’s hands and moaned when Nathaniel made him stay still while he blew him. Pleasured him, that’s what Ramona would have said, and that was what it was, slow and wet, as if Tim weren’t practically crying for it. Nathaniel took Tim’s cock deep into his throat for a hot, aching second, and then let it slide out until Tim was shivering.

If Tim had been a real Dirus, he would have demanded this every night when he didn’t want Nathaniel fucking him. Then again, he couldn’t imagine ever not wanting Nathaniel to fuck him.

“At my side.” Tim watched Nathaniel’s head going up and down. “That’s where I’d keep you.”

Nathaniel’s hand was heavy on the soft skin of Tim’s lower belly, unrelenting pressure against muscles that flexed whenever he sucked the head of Tim’s cock onto his tongue. Tim grabbed at his hand to pry it free, but then brought it up to his mouth. He blushed at the sound he made when he got Nathaniel’s fingertips against his teeth, but the answering rumble from Nathaniel pulled something from him. He arched up, hot, restless, and sucked on Nathaniel’s fingers as best he could while everything in him coiled tighter, lower. Sweat and salt and arousal, warm feeling and need all mingled together. He labeled the scent
Nathaniel going down on me
/
fuck yes
, and groaned at the thought of what he must have smelled like last night when pleasuring Nathaniel. He hoped it was somewhere close to this good, and scraped his teeth over Nathaniel’s wrist before lapping at whatever flavor he could find that wasn’t soap.

“Nathaniel.” He panted against Nathaniel’s fingers and shook for the second rumble, how pleased it was. It said Nathaniel loved every second of Tim’s cock in his mouth. He should blow Tim forever if it made him that happy.

Nathaniel leaned in, finally, finally getting faster, letting Tim fuck into his mouth a little, until Tim was kissing his fingertips without thought and shivering tensely. Nathaniel curled a hand under Tim’s ass to pull him up as if he wanted every last drop, so Tim gave it to him, holding Nathaniel’s hand over his mouth when he shouted and came. Nathaniel swallowed, but Tim still felt the rush of his spunk in Nathaniel’s mouth and pushed up. Nathaniel’s tongue accepting it made him groan. Nathaniel
would
take it like that, eyes closed, his hand drawing more from Tim with rising, slow pressure, his cheeks hollowed.

Tim’s chest was heaving, but he kept his head up to watch as Nathaniel finally pulled off. He swallowed a few times before he opened his eyes. His flushed face and the shiny, wet curve of his lips made Tim feel empty.

Tim dropped his head to the bed and dragged in air without relinquishing his hold on Nathaniel’s other hand. It was his now. He tugged it up to kiss each finger. He didn’t think it would feel the same as Nathaniel kissing each of his freckles, but he thought he should try, and he liked the noises Nathaniel made when he did it. Nathaniel had fingers worth kissing.

He slid Nathaniel’s fingers into his mouth next. Nathaniel was speaking, his voice a used growl, but Tim had to take a moment before he could focus on the words.

“Do you still feel ashamed?” Nathaniel shouldn’t ask that with Tim’s taste in his mouth, but Tim shook his head mutely, and Nathaniel exhaled. Tim had the passing thought that all of that had been for him. That it had always been for him. That everything about Nathaniel had been years in the making so he would be perfect and right here waiting for Tim to come into town. Then he shook his head again, because that could never be true. The only things that were true were that Tim’s time in town was limited and Nathaniel had said he loved him.