Porpoiseful Intent [Placida Pod 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (13 page)

She shook her head. “No. We haven’t slept together. We’ve only kissed. We felt it the very first time we did. I thought a mate-bond was just a myth. I never knew anyone who really had one before. Not even my parents.” She laced her fingers through Carter’s. Sean watched as he squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Where’ve I heard
that
before?” Sean didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until he noticed everyone’s eyes were suddenly on him, including Emery.

Fuck it.
He stepped around the counter into the living room. “You know what? I’ve never seen a more uncommunicative bunch of people in my whole damn life.” He pointed at Emery. “You know very well what he and I have, yet you all wanted to not believe it at first until that fucktard Erik nearly killed me. Why don’t y’all try talking to each other once in a while? Instead of this bullshit ‘oh, it’s not proper to talk about it’ garbage? What the hell is your problem, people?”

Everyone continued to mutely stare at him. He didn’t care. He walked over to Olivia and Brad. Brad had been part of the search team, and Olivia had arrived at dinner to eat and pick him up.

“Can you read each other’s minds?” Sean asked them. When they didn’t respond, he leaned in, raising his voice. “That wasn’t a hypothetical question. Can you read. Each other’s. Minds?”

Olivia and Brad looked at each other. Finally, Olivia gave a little shake of her head.

Sean wheeled on Joseph. “And she’s pregnant with his baby. You and your own wife don’t even have this ‘magical mate-bond.’” He used air quotes around the phrase. “You both admitted it, and you have five children together. So knowing that Emery and I do have it, knowing your own pregnant daughter and her husband do not have it, and now seeing these two claim they have it, why are you acting like such a jerk? Yeah, it’s sucky timing, sure, but being a douche and cheating with a pregnant, married woman, or leaving your husband when you’re pregnant with his baby, isn’t the same as causing your husband’s disappearance.”

Wyatt, who’d gone out with the search party that day, sat in the far corner with his arms crossed and a wry smile on his face as he watched the scene play out. Sean turned on him next. “What about you guys, huh? Do you have this same kind of bullshit?” He swept his arm, indicating the dolphins.

Wyatt shook his head. “Naw. Man’s right. Y’all are messed up. And here I thought the wolves were goofy as heck. Chasing their ‘One’ and stuff.”

Sean blinked. “What? Wolves? Wait, never mind.” He wanted to stay on topic and contemplating other shifters when he’d barely managed to wrap his head around dolphins and gators would tax his brain too much. He rounded the sofa and stood next to Emery. “I seriously doubt Alexis and Carter had anything to do with George’s disappearance.”

“And why is that?” Joseph asked, tired derision in his tone.

“Because there’s only one guy I know who’s got a hard-on in a bad way for this pod, and his name’s Erik, and we already know he’s homicidal.”

That seemed to surprise everyone. Sean took the advantage and slammed his point home. “Really?
Really
? Is it that much of a leap in logic? Come on, you people have to be smarter than that. I can’t be the first one to think it. Could I be wrong? Sure. On the other hand, I’d be willing to put money on the cause of all this being Erik and some sort of stupid revenge plot of his than I would on a woman who’d never met this guy before, and who was happily married to her husband and expecting a baby with him up until he disappeared. None of this bullshit started until after Erik went off the deep end. You all are stupid if you don’t stop to consider that little factoid.”

He walked over to Alexis, grabbed her left hand, and held it up. “She’s still wearing her wedding rings. No, that’s not proof positive, but it’s not the actions of a woman who’d been planning this in advance. Why would she even report him missing? Why not just off him and disappear herself?”

He released her hand and stormed over to Joseph. “You’ve already got one dead dolphin. As much as this is going to upset Alexis, I’d be willing to bet you’ve got a second dead dolphin somewhere out there who you just haven’t found yet. And at some point, someone else is going to go missing from another search party. And another. And another. Until Erik gets who he wants.”

“Me,” Emery quietly said.

Sean looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. Or me. Any fucker crazy enough to try to kill me is crazy enough to stoop to actually killing another dolphin. Erik knows if he can stay out of the way of anyone else, he’s home free. What are you going to do, go to the police and tell them dolphin shifters are getting murdered? No.”

“And he knows that,” Emery grimly said.

Joseph rubbed his face. “Christ, you’re right.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with George’s disappearance,” Alexis insisted again. “I want him found safely. He’s the father of my child, and I do love him.” She looked up at Carter, then to Joseph. “I’ll take whatever punishment you want to give me for being a lousy wife, but I didn’t have anything to do with him going missing.”

“Normally,” Sean said, “like the rest of you, I’d be willing to have a healthy dose of skepticism and say y’all’d be stupid not to make her the prime suspect. But she’s a dolphin. She knows damn well what would happen to her if she had anything to do with her husband’s disappearance. Why wouldn’t she just divorce him if she wanted out?” He pointed at Louise. “You told me yourself that happens. That’s what normal people do, they get divorced. Okay, yeah, some people are nutjobs, but those kinds of people aren’t worried about their own extended family doing them in, either.”

Louise spoke up. “For what it’s worth, Joseph, I believe her. I know for a fact she had never met Carter before.” She looked at the couple. “I also know he’s engaged to a shifter from the St. Augustine pod. The daughter of the pod’s Alpha. I seriously doubt he would jeopardize his pod relations over a fling with a pregnant, married woman whose husband has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.”

Joseph turned to her. “Where’d you find that out?”

She shrugged. “I made some phone calls today. You aren’t the only one with connections, husband.” She nodded toward her son in law. “Besides that, I spent some time talking to Brad, since they’re from the same pod. Duh.”

Wyatt’s phone went off. He answered after looking at the display. Everyone watched as his expression turned grim. “Okay. Thanks.” He hung up and directed his comment to Alexis. “One of my cousins just found him. I’m sorry.”

Joseph looked enraged. “Where?”

“In the mangroves in Placida. Close to where we found Barry.” He coughed and glanced at Emery. “And in nearly the same condition.”

* * * *

Louise insisted on going with them. Sean opted to wait at the boat ramp with her while Joseph, Wyatt, and Emery went to retrieve the body.

“Thank you for speaking up,” Louise said.

“What?”

“Back at your place. For saying what’s been on my mind for years about this stupid code of silence we have.”

He felt his face heat in the darkness. “Just telling the truth. It’s dumb to have this kind of secrecy.”

“I know. And if it were women running the show, there likely wouldn’t be any. But pod Alphas are always men.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Before, it was always the men fighting for control. As the world moved on and shifters had to integrate with human society, they couldn’t afford to have territory wars any longer. The common enemy, so to speak, was humans. We still haven’t progressed to the point of a woman running a pod, though.”

Another car drove up. Carter and Alexis got out and walked over.

“You don’t have to be here,” Louise gently said.

“I want to be. I…I still love him.”

They waited in silence. Twenty minutes later, the man that had accompanied Joseph to pick up Barry’s body arrived in his pickup truck to join the vigil.

No one spoke when they returned with George’s body. Wyatt shifted back to human form and helped Emery carry the plastic-shrouded form to the pickup truck.

Alexis stepped forward before the tailgate and topper hatch were shut, but Joseph put a staying hand on her arm. “You don’t want to see,” he gently told her.

No one moved, no one spoke while she stood there staring at the shape that used to be her husband. “Do you think he suffered?” she softly asked. “I feel so guilty. What if I could have done something more?”

Louise took over. She slipped her arm around Alexis’ waist and led her away from the truck, Carter flanking the widow’s other side. “Don’t ask yourself those questions,” Louise told her. “He was helping his pod. He died loving you. He would want you to be happy. If you hadn’t met Carter, you would be alone now. What happened was horrible, but you didn’t cause it. Nothing you did could have changed the course of what happened. It is a tragedy, but the Goddess reached down and touched you, blessing you at the same time.”

She leaned against Louise and sobbed.

Sean uncomfortably shifted his weight and studied the parking lot’s dark asphalt. Louise helped Alexis into the backseat of the car before turning to Joseph and pointing at the car. Her message was clear.
I’m going with them.
Then she climbed into the backseat with Alexis while Carter got behind the wheel.

When the car’s taillights disappeared down the road, Joseph turned to his friend. “Please make sure this is done as quickly as possible. She will need the closure.”

The man nodded, closed the tailgate and hatch, and drove off.

Sean joined them. “I guess you’re done suspecting her and Carter?”

Joseph looked grim. “Yes. I just don’t know what else to do. I’m afraid to send anyone else out looking for Erik for fear of them meeting the same fate.” He addressed Sean. “Thank you for being so forthright about all of this. For what you said back at your house.” He turned to his son. “You couldn’t have asked for a better mate to help you as the pod Alpha, son.”

Emery nodded. “Thank you, Dad.”

* * * *

Emery and Sean drove Wyatt back to his car. When they returned to their house, Sean thought Emery would want to grab a shower and go to bed, but without a word Emery grabbed him and pulled him into the shower with him.

He grabbed Sean’s hand and pinned his arms above his head against the tile wall. He proceeded to ravage Sean’s mouth with his lips, his tongue plundering. Sean needed no magic to sense Emery’s deep need to put what had happened that evening out of his mind. And what better way to do it than to get his brains fucked out.

Sean thrust his hips against Emery, his cock quickly inflating the longer Emery kept him pinned like that. Emery pulled back, his eyes blazing with a deep, painful hunger Sean longed to quench for him. Sean laced his fingers through Emery’s. Then he stepped away from the wall, turning and pinning Emery against it.

Sean’s teeth grazed the side of Emery’s throat, nipping, teasing. “Tell me what you want,” Sean whispered.

Emery’s eyes dropped closed. “Please, fuck me.”

Sean let go of one of his hands, dropping it into Emery’s hair, where he tightly grabbed hold. He pulled Emery’s head back, exposing his throat. Sean licked a path from the hollow up along the tendons, along his jaw, up to his ear. “I’m going to fuck your brains out, baby,” Sean hoarsely said.

Then, using Emery’s hair as his handhold, he pulled Emery off the wall and bent him forward, under the shower’s spray. Emery braced himself on the tub as Sean probed the seam of his ass with his fingers.

Then the shifter let out a loud moan when Sean found his puckered rim and began pressing, teasing. He pushed back against Sean’s hand.

Sean rewarded him with a swat to his ass. “Be still.”

Emery obediently quit moving.

Sean tormented him for several minutes before grabbing the bottle of lube they kept in the shower and pouring it over him. His own cock screamed to be buried inside his lover’s tight ass, but he didn’t want to rush. Slowly, he fed the throbbing head of his cock into Emery’s channel, pausing to take a deep breath and keep himself under control.

Then he reached under Emery and found his cock, hard and twitching with every move. “You let me do the driving, babe,” Sean said. “I got this. Just relax and enjoy it.” Sean slowly worked his own cock deeper inside Emery’s ass as he stroked the other man’s cock with his hand.

Emery responded with a passionate groan, but he held still as ordered.

Sean let go of Emery’s hair, holding on to his hip for balance while fucking and fisting him. At first he had a little trouble picking up a rhythm, but then he found it and started moving. Slowly at first, as his balls swung against Emery’s tight ass, he knew he wouldn’t last long. He picked up the pace.

“Come for me, Em. Squeeze my cock with that sweet ass of yours.”

Emery moaned in response, his head hanging as he struggled to stay still as ordered. But Sean felt how hot and hard his lover’s cock had grown and knew it wouldn’t take him long to make it.

Sean closed his eyes and tried to hold back, focusing more on the hand job, on Emery’s pleasure, than his own. “Give it to me,” Sean groaned. “Show me how good it feels.”

He didn’t know if he felt it first in Emery’s cock or his ass, but as Emery’s body clamped down on Sean’s cock, he felt Emery’s cock begin to pulse in his hand. His lover let out a loud, deep moan.