Vann's Victory (3 page)

“I understand, but I do think they’re truly on our side. Otherwise, why would we be here?”
Kip smiled again.
“Why would they have spent so much money getting their team across the state? People don’t usually throw cash about, you know. And we met Alpha Newart. There’s no way he would allow us to go with the Highgate men if he thought they posed a threat.”

“I keep forgetting he gave his consent for this. But us having been shielded from pack life outside Crossways—hell, Alpha Newart may as well be just as much a stranger as anyone else.”

“Please would you stop that, Sir—tormenting yourself? Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but Alpha Newart is the equivalent of our king. A good man.”

“Kings can also be corrupt.”
Vann raised his hand then brought it down, thumping his thigh.
“Shit, I don’t think I’ll ever fully trust anyone other than you, Mom, Dad and Terena.”

The mention of Vann’s sister had Kip wondering how she was faring without her brother. They were close, and Vann had hated leaving her behind. Finding out from Bennett when he’d been caught at Highgate that Vann’s mother was ill from food poisoning—deliberate poisoning on Bennett’s part—had been a particularly harsh blow. But if Vann was going out of his mind with worry about her, he was doing a good job of outwardly hiding it from Kip.

“Talk to me, Sir? Out loud? It’s so good to be able to do that now. We forget we’re not at Crossways half the time and chat inside our heads, but we don’t have to now you’ve checked for devices. I love hearing your voice.”

Vann plonked himself down on the bed beside Kip, and Kip sensed he was remembering how it had been in the past. To touch in public had been dangerous. They’d snatched hurried moments, and their true mating had occurred in the middle of the night after Bennett had consumed too much rum and had been snoring in his room.

The wine cellar had been the safest place—somewhere others didn’t go, because it was cold and dark and harbored cobwebs and the spiders that had created them. Fucking in such a place wasn’t Kip’s idea of romantic—it wasn’t a clean, homely venue—but it hadn’t mattered. To Kip it had been a sumptuous hotel room. In his mind the damp walls were papered with glossy images of movie stars from a bygone age. The wooden pallets they’d made into a bed was a four-poster covered in a fluffy quilt made of velvet, matching curtains hanging all around, giving them the privacy they craved. The stench of mold was spring flowers, the first blooms of the season, their scent pretty and comforting.

To be alone on their journey across Texas was one of the highlights of Kip’s life. Yes, it had been more like an arduous trek than a lazy, enjoyable walk in the park, but at least they’d had one another—and they’d finally been free. They might have slept rough, but they had been together. And at Highgate they’d shared a proper bed in the main pack house. All right, the walls hadn’t been adorned with film stars, the quilt hadn’t been velvet but it had felt just as soft. And now, here they were in a hotel room with an hour or so of quality time and Vann was worrying about the coming mission. That was understandable, but if Kip could take Vann’s mind off it for just a moment, he’d be happy.

His mother had brought Kip up to be a gentleman, something she said his father had never been. To please Vann was Kip’s main objective, and he’d do it as often as he could or die trying.

I might die trying too.

He shoved that thought away, focusing instead on how he could switch Vann’s mood from fretful to happy. But Vann’s thoughts leached into his head, corrupting Kip’s and dominating his mind. Kip frowned. He could have shut the images out, but how could he fix things if he did that? Vann was feeling guilty about Kip’s mother. She’d been killed after Bennett had forced her to mate with a lion shifter. How he’d found one to participate in such a thing Kip didn’t know. Lion shifters were notorious for hiding out. They didn’t have compounds, instead choosing to live among fulls as humans, their need to keep their shifter status a secret their top priority. Kip supposed there were warped and twisted people in all walks of life. Why would lions be any different? And to mix breeds like that? God Almighty, Bennett had been playing with fire.

Vann sighed, his mind going to the cubs that Kip’s mother had birthed. Kip was twenty-two—his mother had had him when she’d been nineteen—and although she hadn’t been old in human terms to have more children when she’d had the mixed-breed cubs, she’d been old for a shifter. She had been lucky that she hadn’t died while in labor, but that was a moot point. She’d died anyway, after they’d been born and at Bennett’s order. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, so she’d been surplus to requirements. And she might have escaped, opened her mouth and let the world know what Bennett had made her do. There was no way he’d have allowed that.

Kip had accepted her death as gracefully as she would have expected him to. It didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting—he was—but he forced himself to stay positive in her memory. She’d have hated him to sink into grief so deep he couldn’t find his way out.

Vann’s mind drifted, bringing an image of Vann’s father into Kip’s head. Kip had known that would come next. It was inevitable. Vann’s father, Aaron, and Kip’s mother were linked in the most horrific of ways. Aaron was a scientist, and Bennett had made him perform experiments prior to the wolf-lion mating. Aaron had discovered that although cats and dogs wouldn’t ordinarily produce viable fetuses, wolves and lions would. Aaron could have said what Bennett wanted wasn’t possible, but the man had been afraid of Bennett as much as they all were at Crossways. And Bennett had had a knack of spotting a lie a mile off. Aaron hadn’t taken the risk.

Kip didn’t often speak without permission, but this time it was warranted. They were, as far as he was concerned, still in a conversation he’d been given consent to engage in. “I don’t blame your father, Sir. You know that, so why should you feel bad for what he’s done? If he could turn back the clock, he would.”

“I know, but… Fuck, I can’t get it all out of my head. It keeps coming back after I think it’s gone. It’ll always be there.”

“Maybe Sergeant will know how to help you put it all to rest. Maybe this mission will help. Maybe I can. Sir, I hate to see you like this. Please let me make it better?”

Vann pulled Kip to his side, holding him there with his arm around his back. The contact was welcome—so much that Kip sagged against him. Vann didn’t offer anything more verbally, and Kip decided to give him time. His mate always tended to stew on something for a while then suddenly snap out of it, as though he couldn’t bear to think anymore. Kip would then take over, kissing Vann senseless so nothing danced in his head except for erotic images of them together.

While he waited for Vann to pull out of his fugue, Kip sorted through his own worries. How would Vann feel when he stepped foot on Crossways again? He’d been incarcerated there his whole life, wishing every day that he could escape. Then he had, and now they were going back. It sounded insane, their return to such a nasty place, but Vann wasn’t the kind of man to leave his family and the rest of the pack to suffer under Wickland’s rule.

This is all such a horrible, tragic mess.

Vann got up. He went to the window and peered out. “When you arrived at Crossways, it was the best day of my life. Tell me about it again.”

Kip smiled, remembering how frightened he’d been. “Again? All right. Bennett grabbed me and Mom off the street. We hadn’t belonged to a pack since leaving my dad, living as fulls and hiding who and what we really were. At first, I thought Dad had found us, but Bennett had just guessed lucky that we were shifters and his use for Mom was quickly made apparent on the car journey to Crossways.”

Kip shivered at the memory. Vann tended to ask him to repeat what Kip had already told him because he said it had given him light at the end of the tunnel when they’d been at Crossways. Perhaps it was a habit, wanting to know the story remained consistent with every telling. Kip indulged him, understanding that Bennett had done the same to Vann all his life and that such a procedure was natural for him.

“You were the first shifter I saw on our arrival, and I instantly fell for you, big man, Sir. The rest is history… Something we must pick over in the future when we have more time to reminisce.”

“I love that memory. As you know, I fell hard for you that day too and I’ve been falling harder every day since.”

“I love you so much, Sir.”

“I know that.”

“Won’t you let me make everything go away? We have a little while before we have to meet Dillon and the others for dinner.”

“Only if you really want to. You must be tired. We walked a long way. We ought to rest up as much as we can.”

“I can handle whatever you want to dish out, Sir. And I’m not tired. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. And at the moment, I’d rather be fucked by you.”

Chapter Three

Vann should have felt too tired, too wired up to fuck, but Christ, Kip always knew exactly what he needed and when.

“Get your clothes off,” Vann said, rising to go and stand with his back to the wall opposite the foot of the bed. “And take them off slowly. We’ve always been so rushed in the past. And I’ll give talking out loud a go. Because you want that, don’t you?” He paused. “Permission to speak throughout this scene.”

“Yes, Sir. I want that. I’ve always wanted that.”

It seemed alien to say the words instead of thinking them. He’d have to make a conscious effort not to slip into thought. His time with Kip was always silent, even grunts and moans were held back. What would it be like to let them loose? And spanking—they’d wanted to try it, but the sound of slaps on bare skin were a risk they hadn’t dared take. Pack members could have heard it and come along to investigate. And if it had been anyone other than those well under Bennett’s thumb, maybe they’d have got away with it, but the risk had been too great to take.

Things were going to be different from now on, but it would take a while to get used to it. Switching from one kind of lifestyle to another wouldn’t be something either of them could do at the drop of a hat. Like Sergeant asking Vann to just call him Sergeant and not sir. It felt wrong somehow, as though he’d get punished for it.

Don’t think of all that, not when you have special time with Kip.

Kip stood and bowed his head. Vann almost asked him to lift it so he could see his face but resisted. His lover was more comfortable showing complete submission, and although that turned Vann on, he couldn’t help but wish that sometimes Kip would make eye contact without being told to. He loved looking into Kip’s eyes, reading the wealth of information there—the emotions, the love.

Kip seemed distracted. Vann connected with him mentally to see whether something was wrong. All he saw inside his head, and felt in his heart, was a galaxy. What did that mean?

“One day, Sir, would you fuck me beneath the stars? Just once, that’s all I want.”

Vann swallowed. So the galaxy was Kip thinking of stars and infinity—of them being together forever?

“We can do that, yes,” Vann said. The idea of outside sex…
Fucking hot
.

“Thank you, Sir.”

Tugging his T-shirt up, Kip revealed his slender belly then his chest. His small pink nipples stood out, the usually hairless skin just starting to show signs of needing to be waxed again. He had a trail of curls going from his navel and down, though. Vann loved pressing his cheek to it, the rough yet soft fuzz tickling his skin. Once, he’d done that for a whole five minutes, the pair of them wedged behind a stack of crates in the storage room. That moment had seemed never-ending, yet at the same time it hadn’t been long enough. Vann could lose himself in Kip and never get lost.

He thought of what was under the rest of Kip’s clothing. Vann’s cock hardened.

Kip dropped the T-shirt onto the bed. He undid his borrowed belt that held up slightly too big jeans then pulled it from the waistband loops. And, God, he raised his head. Stared directly at Vann.

“Sir?”

“Yes.”

That was all Vann had needed to say for Kip to hold the belt out. Vann pushed off the wall. He took the leather strap. Went back to his former position. Kip looked down at the carpet while removing the jeans, then toed off the shoes and socks before sweeping it all away with his foot. There was no underwear—neither of them had wanted to borrow something so intimate—and there was Kip, naked and so very wanted.

His flaccid cock wouldn’t come to life until Vann ordered Kip to let his lust be on display. Kip’s amazing self-control was nothing short of staggering. Vann supposed their time together had seen to that, with Kip keeping a rein on his thoughts to the point that any reaction from his body was stopped before a natural effect could take place. He didn’t understand how it worked, because when Vann was turned on, nothing could stop his dick getting hard.

“How do you do that?” Vann asked.

“Do what, Sir?”

“Not get hard when—” He stopped to think about what he was going to say—
when you’re about to have sex
…
when you’re turned on?

Was
Kip even turned on? Was the act of getting undressed in front of Vann, knowing they were about to fuck, not thrilling? They were wired differently, he knew that, but… He mentally reached out but felt and sensed nothing from Kip—nothing except the need to please.

“I don’t know, Sir, but there are certain things you do, certain things you say,
then
I get hard. I’ve had to hide how I feel, don’t forget. Maybe the idea of being caught by someone at Crossways triggered something in my mind. I just knew that unless I felt completely safe, I couldn’t… Being seen with a hard cock—it would have given everything away and Bennett would have made sure we never saw one another again.”

“No one is here to stop us now. To see us.”
Am I trying to convince him or myself?
“And if they do see us, so what?”

Kip smiled, shrugged.
So what.
“Are you going to hit me with that belt, Sir?”