Chapter 4

As we pulled out down the narrow lane heading away from Wilde's house, with my headlights picking out the faded ruts marking the drive, Rob said, "How often did I tell you to check your Alpha privilege? You see what you get for leaving your keys in the damned truck? We're in another fucking pack."

I started laughing and couldn't stop, but then I had to pull over and cling to the wheel as the laughter became something else. Rob rubbed my shoulder and stayed silent. My breaths rasped through my throat. After a few moments, I sat up and wiped my streaming eyes. "Dammit, Robin."

"And there you are, Davey." He grinned almost believably. "Let's get back to that motel."

Wolves have a great sense of direction, so I found the place with only one wrong turn. Rob monitored my phone, reporting that we now had contacts for Phillip and Wilde. Asher didn't have one, of course. Asher had nothing, but that was another problem for tomorrow.

We both casually scouted around the motel a bit before going inside, making sure no wolf was lurking and no humans occupied the next several units. Then we took our bags into the room and I locked the door, double-checked the latch, and closed the curtains tight.

"Not sure how the owner's staying in business with almost no customers." Rob pulled off his shirt. "But it works for us."

"You're getting naked?" My mouth had gone dry. I licked my lips.

"This shirt reeks. But I can stop if you prefer." He cocked his head.

"No, you're right. We're far from fresh." I yanked my shirt over my head and was pleased to see Rob swallow and look down. Only fair, given what you do to me.

We stopped at underwear by unspoken agreement and Rob raised an eyebrow. "Showers?"

Putting off the inevitable had been my MO for years. Decades. "Sure. Good thought. You go first." Maybe while he was out of the room, I'd figure out what I wanted to say.

Rob took fresh boxers in with him and came out wearing them, so I did the same in my turn. When I emerged, my hair damp and my stupid cock chubbing up, he was sitting on the bed, his back against the padded headboard, his damp hair a shade darker than its usual straw-streaked amber. He patted the bed beside him, but I went and sat on the foot, facing him. I needed to see Rob's eyes for this.

He looked me over, including an intent stare at my lap that was clearly deliberate and did nothing for my unruly dick problem. "Remember the first time?" he murmured.

"Of course." Seventeen, my head reeling with way too many conflicting emotions, and I lost control of the thing I'd shoved down for years. Or maybe he meant earlier. "You were eight, this freckled, skinny kid who looked at me and said, ‘What do you think lives in that burrow down by the bridge?' That was the first time you got me in trouble."

"Who got who? I said to go look, not dig a tunnel to China and unbalance the post. That was all your idea."

"I wanted to impress you," I admitted. "You were, I don't know, this lightning bolt to my system. A friend when I'd never been close to the other pack boys." I knew even then that something was different about me. "More than a friend."

"Yeah." He closed his hands on his knees as if not wanting to reach out. "But I meant the other first time."

"When we…"

"Yeah. That one. When I sucked your dick and you fucked me."

I coughed. "You always were the brave one."

"Pretty stupid to be chickenshit about using the real words. We're not seventeen now."

"Not even close." For a silent minute, we looked at each other. I let myself really look, as I hadn't for so many years. Skinny, freckled, wiry Robin had become this man, still lean but solid as a rock, sculpted thighs, curved biceps, chest barely dusted with tawny hairs. You were even more hairless then, when I licked you for the first time and the taste of your skin burst on my tongue. We'd been so damned young. "You left me." The pain of that, thirty-six years later, clamped down on my throat.

"I had to. You know that. You weren't going to leave the pack. Not with your mom just remarried to the Alpha, and your little brother now in Alpha Kane's household. Not with how obsessed he was with building you up into his successor."

"I never wanted him to."

"I know." Rob stretched a leg to nudge my knee with his shin. "Davey, I did know that, then and now. You were nothing like him. Kane was a hard, hard man, and cruel because he didn't care about anything but his power. He saw the strength in you and figured he could mold you into his little puppet, his mini-me."

I gagged in the back of my throat, remembering. "I went along with him."

"As much as you had to for survival. As much as it took to have access to your mom, your baby brother. You walked a line, and I don't think there's anything I admire you for more than managing to rise in that pack without becoming a cruel man too."

"If I hadn't had Alpha Michael leading us for the first thirteen years of my life…"

We shared a moment of silence, mourning the old man who'd guided the pack of our childhood, but who couldn't stand up to Kane's challenge. I'd missed Alpha Michael fiercely for years, but I'd had his voice in my head, countering Kane's philosophy of taking power wherever you could, and to hell with those you took it from.

I sucked a breath through my nostrils. "And then you left me too. Without a word. Alpha Michael was killed when I was thirteen, and when I was fifteen, my dad died, and then at seventeen, you left."

Rob scooted closer and set a hand on my knee. "I'd been trying so hard not to let anyone see how I felt about you. You at least liked girls. You could pop a boner for a pretty woman going by, enthuse about tits and pussy. For me, it was only you. I could watch the rest of the pack naked till the cows came home, but not you, and someone was going to notice. Then we had our night."

"I wouldn't have fucked you if I'd known you'd leave."

"I was leaving anyway. I hadn't decided when. But you were so devastated by your mom deciding to marry that bastard—"

"I couldn't believe she didn't see what he was."

"She knew, at least partly. But he was her ticket back into the pack, not just as a mom of two wolf cubs, but as a wife and mate, and this time to the Alpha. She liked security, liked being told what to do. She was lost without your dad."

"There were other single wolves." I let the thought go. I'd made peace with Mom's bad choices years back, mostly. As much as I could.

"You were shaken that night and so angry, and I was worried you'd do something stupid like Challenge Kane and get yourself beat to hell. You clung to me and cried and I wanted to distract you, keep you safe."

"Was that just a distraction?"

"Hell, no. You know what that was." Rob raised blue eyes to mine. "That was what I'd wanted since we were thirteen. That was need and desire, and love."

That word sat between us for the first time, uttered out loud.

I gathered my courage and said, "Yeah. Me too."

His fingers tightened on my knee. "I couldn't stay. Kane was distracted on his honeymoon night, but he'd have known, if I'd stayed. You were no kind of actor, and I couldn't pretend we were impossible anymore. So, while he wasn't paying much attention, I ran."

"And left me a fucking note." I'd ripped the page up, then taped the bits back together and hidden it well. The creases had begun falling apart by the time I finally tossed it.

"If you'd had the chance to ask me to stay, I might've, and killed us both."

I bowed my head because he was right. Back then, at our age, in a pack run by Kane, we'd have outed ourselves sooner or later and paid the price. A price that centuries of the packs' virulent homophobia insisted had to be death. "I might've gone with you. Did you ever think of that?"

Rob set a hand under my chin and tipped my face up so our eyes met. "Really?"

That honest blue of his gaze made it impossible to fool myself. "No. Not and leave Noah behind in Kane's household, and we couldn't take him."

"Yeah." Rob dropped his hand. "I knew that. Shit, I argued with myself back and forth, up and down. First, I thought I had to ask you, give you the choice. Then I thought that would be the cruelest thing I could do." He heaved a sigh. "Water under the bridge. I did come back, eventually."

When I was married, lying in bed with my pregnant bondmated wife. I'd heard that yip at my window, a sound so familiar it arrowed to my bones despite seventeen silent years. I'd slipped away from Melody's sleeping body and gone downstairs, shifted, and let myself out into the night. Then followed Rob, mile after mile, till he finally stopped somewhere safe to talk.

I glared at him. "And the first thing you said to me wasn't, ‘Sorry I left,' it was, ‘What the fuck are you waiting for?'"

Rob laughed damply. "Well, it was a good question. Alpha Kane had to go, for the life of the pack. You were Fourth, had been for several years. The Third and Second were his toadies. It was your job, or no one's, and with Kane poisoning the pack, it was falling apart."

I remembered that moment in the abandoned shack, both of us naked, breathing hard from running and shifting. Both of us thirty-four, a long way from the boys we'd been, but that man was still my Robin and all the changes didn't matter. I'd kept my eyes on his, and off his body, been ready to hug him, maybe kiss him, bonded wife be damned. Also ready to shake him, beat him up, to demand answers. Instead, he asked the one question I'd been trying not to think about, and changed our lives again.

"I still resent that you were talking to Tommy all that time. All those years. But never to me."

"Tommy was safe. I needed news, needed to know how you were and how the pack was, without risking too much." Rob gave me his best crooked grin. "Anyhow, I made up for it the next night, right?"

§ §

The pack was gathered around a campfire on our big northern property, far from prying eyes, the first night of a weekend of running and hunting. Kane and his two lieutenants lounged on blankets, relaxed at the center of the loose circle of men, eating, drinking, self-content. Then Rob walked in from the perimeter like he belonged there, like there hadn't been seventeen years since the last time he was at a meet. Walked right up to our Second, while everyone gaped at him, and said, "I Challenge you."

§ §

I didn't manage to grin back. "My heart stopped. I thought Kane would have you tossed out and put down."

"He couldn't. I was still pack, no matter how thin those bonds, and the rules of our Challenges are as ancient as they come. Kane was losing his grip on some of the pack traditionalists, knew he'd lose more if he interfered with a Challenge. The moment of danger was between when he realized I was there and when I got the words out. He was too slow." Rob's grin went feral. "He was always a bit too slow."

"Thank God for that," I muttered.

"Hell, yeah."

§ §

Our pack Second rose, smirking, and looked Rob over head to toe. Rob was several inches shorter and lighter built, and I'm sure our Second expected an easy fight. I'm sure Kane figured his Second would quickly take care of the troublesome youngster, and they could go back to using and exploiting the rest of us. Neither of them recognized that while our Second had been slacking off and indulging his human side, letting his wolf do all the work of staying fit, Rob had been training as man and wolf. When our Second said, "In skin, then," I saw surprising confidence in Rob's face. Didn't keep me from nearly breaking my teeth, clenching them to keep from interfering.

§ §

"You only won because of Melody's special brownies," I tweaked him now. The gooey treats had been a favorite of the Second's, and probably contributed a couple of pounds around his waist from how often he "requested" that she make them, but it was Rob's obsessive Krav Maga training that actually won that fight for him. "Well, that high kick had something to do with it."

§ §

The Second beckoned to Rob, arms wide, as we all fell back to clear fighting room. Without hesitation, the moment Kane said, "Go," Rob launched himself across the circle, leaped, and landed a flying kick to the Second's head. The bastard's wolf-swift reflexes let him dodge some, but we heard the crack of a broken jaw, and that was the beginning of the end.

§ §

"Gee, thanks. If only I'd known, I could've sat back and sent the bastard chocolate cake instead of training like a sonofabitch all those years."

I laughed. "Might've taken another decade or two."

Rob shook his head, sobering. "The pack didn't have another decade."

"No. True."

§ §

The night in the hut, I'd told Rob my excuse for standing back silent, hanging out as Fourth while Kane used and abused the people around him. "I'm not sure, if I was winning a Challenge battle against Kane, that our Second wouldn't join the fight, illegal or no. If he steps in to help, I'm dead and the pack is screwed. I'll only get one chance."

Rob looked at me and said, "I'll fix that."

We'd argued a long time, but he was a grown man, his own wolf, and as he said, "Once you're my Alpha, I'll have to listen to you. Right now, I don't."

And the next night, standing over the body of our Second, he turned to me and said, "Your turn."

Kane roared in anger and lunged for Rob, shouting he'd kill him, pouring fury and abuse down Rob's reawakened Alpha bond till he drove Rob to his knees. I stepped between them and said the words that had been on my lips for the last three years. "I Challenge you, Alpha."

§ §

Rob said, "I did like the way he gaped like a fish when you Challenged. Like a moray who was attacked by his own pet guppy."

"Oh, thanks."

"You know what I mean. He was grooming you to be his eventual successor, but he thought of you as this negligible kid. He had no clue who you were or what you could do."

"And he was too slow. Again."

"Thank God for that." Rob grabbed my hand, his fingers crushing mine. Our eyes met, and I knew we were both remembering…

§ §

Kane laughed, after that first shock, and told me to sit down. "Don't be a fool, boy." His flat, dead gaze was as confident as ever. He didn't take me seriously, but I heard a jumble of sounds from the gathered pack— indrawn breaths, "Yes," and "Fuck," and "No," some of them clearly with me, some not, in a mix I had to tune out.

Fixing my attention on Kane, I told him, "I'm not a boy, and if you're too scared to accept the Challenge, I win by default."

"I don't want to kill you, boy ." He emphasized the repeated word. "If only for your mother's sake."

"And I do want to kill you , for all our sakes."

He blinked, once, a tiny shred of uncertainty that he shook off an instant later. "Pack law—"

Rob said, "As Second, it's my job to enforce pack law. Every lawful Challenge must be met or forfeited."

"You? Second?" Kane turned his way, scowling, but took one step back from Rob who'd risen to stand over the man Kane had counted on to back him up. His "Hah," came out weaker than he no doubt intended.

Pack law was clear there, too— beat a wolf, and take his rank in the pack. Rob was now Second, and there was nothing Kane could do about it. Rob didn't bother to reply, just crossed his arms and stared Kane in the face.

I said, "As the Challenged, you have your choice of skin or fur."

"Fur, then," Kane snapped. "And it's your fault your mother won't have a body for a funeral. Maybe she can have you cremated and we'll keep you in an urn on my mantelpiece."

I don't know if he thought that would bother me, but I laughed. "When you die in fur, we'll bury you in the local pet cemetery. Put down for unprovoked aggression."

He almost rushed me then. I could see the temptation in his eyes. But fighting to the death was easier and more certain in fur. "Shift," he snapped and whipped off his shirt.

When I'd dressed for the meet, I'd prepared for this moment. My loose T-shirt and sweats took barely two seconds to remove, then I dropped to the ground. I grabbed for shift energy, forcing skin and bones, muscles and sinews, to wolf form as fast as I could, but we were equally matched. We both staggered up off the ground in fur at the same time.

I lunged before my feet were steady, drawing the first blood in a slash that scored Kane's flank, at the price of a snap that tore the skin over my hip. We separated and circled, watching each other, feinting and withdrawing, assessing strength, assessing speed. I saw the moment Kane's head came up, his eyes subtly widened, and he took one step back. The moment he realized I was as big as he was, at least as fast, and younger, and knew he was fighting for his life.

He tried to rush me, to overwhelm me with his bulk. I ducked away, tasting blood as I opened a shallow wound on his neck. The fight became a slog— slash and parry, dodge and snap. Kane's teeth were hot pokers in my thigh, my ear, my ruff, my flank, as I returned bite for bite. Blood from my torn scalp dripped in my eyes and I shook my head. Kane limped, his right front leg weak where I'd ripped a muscle.

There would be no surrender, no quarter.

Pain didn't matter. Blood didn't matter. Breath and teeth were all I needed. He caught my tail, I tore his nose. My back leg went, but Kane was on three by then. I crashed into him and we both fell, my broken bones grating in a white-hot flash as we each went for the throat. I was faster— only slightly, but enough, as my teeth found his life-blood at last.

Fur choked my nostrils, every inch of my body screamed, but I hung on until the nightmare of my childhood died. Then collapsed, half dead, beside him…

§ §

Rob shook his head, as if clearing that same memory, and looked down at my hand where his grip had tightened painfully, then let go of my bloodless fingers and rubbed the circulation back into them. "Sorry. That fight was hell to watch. All these years, and it's still too vivid."

I figured I knew how hard that'd been for him. His brief fight with our Second had been hell enough for me to stand by and do nothing. If I'd had to see Rob ripped to shreds, bleeding and broken, not knowing if he'd win… I pulled my fingers from his before I did something foolish like kiss his hand. "Wasn't fun from my end either," I said mildly.

"It helped that most of the pack wasn't behind him. They didn't give their Alpha the benefit of their will and support, didn't lend their energy to his. I kept looking around at the others, reminding myself they were mostly holding back, hoping that'd be enough."

"It definitely helped." When the last rattle of breath left Kane's throat, and the howl of Alpha-bond-loss went up from the pack, when I shifted back and claimed victory, Rob was first to kneel and put his hands between my bleeding and battered ones.

§ §

I had just enough strength to claw my way back into skin, and pushed up to sitting, blood loss slowing once my body transformed but still half-blinding me from the gash above my eyes. I wanted nothing more than to collapse, close my eyes, and breathe through the pain— no, wrong, I wanted one thing more. I looked around, found Rob hovering, and held up both hands. He dropped to his knees so fast I winced at the thud, and set his bruised hands between my bloody palms.

"I, Rob Kerrigan, do solemnly swear on my life and breath…" As the bond took hold, my heart leaped. There in my head, now empty other than my mate-bond to Melody, formed a deep river of gold, full of worry for me and love and support, that was Rob. For a moment, I had just the two of them in my mind, as Rob shoved energy down our bond for strength, for healing. Pain faded, exhaustion faded. I floated in that moment, linked to them both. Then the pack Third came and knelt, however begrudgingly. Rob moved aside, and I had the Third's hands in mine and his bond forming in my head as well. And then all the rest.

§ §

I pushed away the memory and said matter-of-factly, "I was lucky that Kane had alienated so many of his people."

"The pack was lucky to have you and they knew it. Most of them."

"And now they've driven me out in my turn." I expected that thought to bring an onslaught of devastation, the heart-shredding pain that had kept me at the wheel of my truck hour after hour. The pain was still there, but its bite felt muted from just hours before.

Rob said, "They didn't drive you. You left. For the good of the pack, same as when you claimed it. Because you were grieving so hard for so long over Melody and the last baby, on top of the others she miscarried, that you lost your touch, lost your place."

I met his gaze then, cleared my clogged throat, and said, "And because no pack, even the one we built, is ready for a bisexual Alpha with a male mate."

"Oh!" Rob pressed a fist to his lips, staring at me.

"You know it's true. You know that's the other half of why I've been so messed up since Melody passed."

"I didn't expect you to say it out loud."

That stabbed me with a shaft of pain, because his doubts were my fault, and he wasn't wrong. "I was chickenshit, not willing to say anything out loud for all these years."

"I understood." Rob rubbed my knee. "You were balancing the pack and Melody and the two of us, all that time. I knew when Tommy wrote that you were married and mated that I'd have to come second to your new wife. I made the choice to go back to you anyway, knowing I'd be your Second, but never your first priority."

"You were my first, you know. At seventeen."

"Seriously?" A small smile curved Rob's lips. "Despite all that big talk about girls and tits?"

"Just talk. I mean, yeah, I thought about it a lot, but I thought about you more." I had to add, "There were lots of girls after you, though, before Melody."

"I had a few guys, if it comes to that."

I'd deliberately never asked him about his sex life, before he rejoined the pack or after. I hadn't wanted to know. A red-hot flash of jealousy went through me, as unjustified as it was. I made myself say, "I'm glad you weren't alone."

"Sadly, I figured out pretty fast that sex was just boring and messy and uncomfortable when it wasn't with you." I clearly failed at hiding my grin, because he added, "Yeah, smirk away. I think I imprinted on you like those ducks that think they're humans. One fuck at a young age and my body said, ‘That's what fucking should be, and no one else will do.' I can get off with a guy, physically, but it's not worth the bother."

"Seriously?" As much as I loved hearing no one else compared for him, it'd been thirty-six years since we'd turned to each other that awful night. "Don't you want to, I dunno, get some relief?"

"No worries. I'm in a deeply committed relationship with my right hand and a whole bunch of fantasies I'm never telling you about."

"Never?" About me? "What if I asked nicely?"

Instead of my clumsy flirting attracting him toward me, he eased back. "We need to talk."

"Isn't that what we're doing?"

"We're hauling out old memories, and there's something to be said for that, but we're not talking about the future. Yet."

"All right." I straightened my shoulders and folded my arms. "Tell me about the future."

He mirrored my posture, and I missed his hand on my knee. "It's complicated, isn't it? I wish you hadn't had to bring Asher into our pack when we'd had zero time to figure things out."

I didn't point out it was his idea. "I couldn't just kill him."

"I know. I don't want an Alpha who could. But are we back to Alpha and Second for a bunch more years? Is there any chance for something different between us?" He clenched his hands to white-knuckled fists against his folded arms. "I've been standing back and supporting you a long time, but I'm not a saint. I can't step into the shadows again."

"Melody was my bonded mate. I loved her. The pack loved her."

"And she conceived and lost four children for you. I know. I was there, helping hold the pack together each time you grieved with her. And then for her."

"You've always been the rock at my back." I gathered my courage and admitted, "There wasn't a moment of the last nineteen years when I didn't wish the world and the packs let a man have two mates."

"But now she's gone a year and you're still alive. What will you let yourself have?"

If my desires answered that question, I'd jump on Rob and kiss the shit out of him. I tried to be practical. "It's dangerous. Blake and Phillip are okay, or at least in the same boat we are. Maybe worse, if Blake's spilling any secrets to that human of his." I hoped it wouldn't be my duty to find out. "Wilde seems to know about Blake, so I assume he's not going to run to the nearest Alpha screaming ‘Queer wolves!' But Asher's an unknown, and we haven't even met Julian."

"You top Asher, though. Worst comes to worst, we can run again. We don't have an Alpha to drag us back, which, having had Kane try to yank my bond when I was seventeen, I can say thank God for that. If I'd been a hundred miles closer when he noticed I was gone, I'd have been screwed. But in our case, no one owns us, we've got no other plans, no goal, no home. Right?"

"Right," I admitted.

"So, what do we lose if we try?"

Rob's question echoed in my head. What do we lose? Here in this remote place where I was the strongest wolf around, where there were no innocents to get caught in my fallout— no vulnerable pack, no little brother, now safely mated back home, no pack pups, no wife? What do I have to lose? The answer I came up with was Rob, if I don't finally get my head out of my ass .

He was watching me, his head tilted, his pupils blown so wide his blue eyes looked dark. He hugged himself now, crossed arms turned into self-comfort. I ached to the marrow of my bones, realizing how long he'd had to care for himself while I closed the door of my house between us and reached for my loving wife.

"I'm sorry." I realized he'd misunderstood when his eyes filled, and despite a hard-clenched jaw, his lips trembled. "Oh, hell! God, I'm not saying no. I'm sorry it took me so long to say yes." I reached for him, and he tumbled my way, so I fell back on the bed, clutching Rob to my chest. His weight on me as he kissed me kept me from flying apart. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back the very best I could.

The taste and feel of his mouth woke something sleeping inside me, memories, echoes, a moment when my wolf had stirred and said, Him , and I knew I'd found my match. Thirty-six years and this kiss felt like coming home. My wolf rose now to whisper, Mate? New mate? A pang hit me for Melody, my sweetheart, my darling girl . I'd always kept my bond to Rob closed so he wouldn't be exposed to my feelings for my wife, and I tried to push grief down in the back of my head, to focus on Rob the way he deserved. I kissed him harder, but he noticed something and pushed up enough to look me in the face.

"Something wrong?"

"No." I smiled, feeling my lips wobble. "Just overwhelmed, I think. At having you right now and at…"

"At missing her?"

"You could tell? I shouldn't—"

"Shush." He put a finger on my mouth, the tip broad and rough and masculine. "I expect you to miss her. She was your bondmate. A year gone is nothing. You'll miss her forever."

"I don't want Melody coming between us. She wouldn't want that either."

He puffed a laugh. "Might be a bit of rose-colored glasses there."

"Not really." I raised a hand to his cheek. "The third pregnancy, when it went bad, she said, ‘When I die before you, because odds are real high even if I live a normal span, I want you to find someone. I don't want you to be lonely.'"

"I doubt she meant someone like me."

"I'm sure she did." I ran my thumb over his lower lip. "Not male, necessarily, although she always pushed back against homophobia around her, to the point I sometimes wondered if she'd guessed I was bi. But someone who loves me. And no one's ever put me first in their life like you have, not even Melody."

"I'm no saint. I almost left again after Kane was dead."

"Except you didn't. You stuck around and helped me bring the pack back to life. You were my best friend when you had no real hope of becoming more."

"Your Second."

That reminder sobered me. "I've been thinking, I should cut our bond."

"What! Why?"

"Because it's not fair to you. I'm your Alpha, when I want to be your lover. If I tried, I could command you in ways you'd find very hard to resist. I can make you do what I want."

"David, that's always been kinda true, Alpha or not. From the moment we met, I've followed you. No command needed."

"That's not the same thing. That's your choice."

Rob tilted his head, peering down into my eyes. "If I ask you to stop doing something, are you going to ignore me and keep on going?"

"What? No, of course not."

"Will you order me to do something that you know's against my will?"

"I hope not." I wanted to say never , but I wasn't a saint either. "I almost ordered you to stay back with the pack when I left."

"First, bullshit. You wanted me with you so bad I could taste it. And second, if you had, I'd have followed you anyway. I'm not some little twink Fourteenth who can't stand up to you. I'm your Second. If you need keeping in line, I'm the one who'll do it." He dropped lower over me, keeping his gaze fixed on mine. His blue eyes glowed.

My wolf felt the strength of his, but my growl felt more like a purr than a challenge. New mate.

"Don't you touch that bond." Rob pressed a bruising kiss to my lips. "I was so jealous of Melody's deeper mate bond. She could tell what you were feeling when I often had to guess. And you comforted her when she needed it, knowing instantly how she felt."

And didn't comfort you, not enough. I realized what I'd missed by holding my bond to Rob shut as tight as I could for a long, long time. I focused inwardly. The two bonds in my head made themselves known— Asher's blue, as locked down as I could make it, but leaking a little fatigue and fear. Sleeping? I hoped so. The first twenty-four hours of a bond were intense, but he'd been exhausted. I pushed sleep down the bond as best I could and took another try at closing it tighter. If he sensed something tonight… no second thoughts, not now.

Because Rob— a pang of regret hit me as I looked at that gold link, shining with warmth, but narrow, tight, compacted on itself. We'd had one moment nineteen years ago, reeling from that dominance fight, when he swore to me and the connection between us roared into being, pure and wide and true and so, so strong. I'd clamped down on it then, unable to afford that much feeling in my head. I'd never opened it again.

Time to give him everything.

I opened our bond wide, and the force of his emotions rolled down that link like a tsunami. Need, desire, a little exasperation, impatience, and over it all, love so deep I could drown in the warmth of his heart. I tried to take it in and give him the same back— my honest, unhidden self. My doubts and loss, and yet my certainty that I'd found what I wanted most, in him. The ache of closing one door, and the rush of hope and desire with opening another. And, looking up at his eyes and his mouth, feeling the way his thighs caged mine and his weight pressed over me, lust that shook me and made me gasp and arch up toward another kiss.

When our mouths met, the connection echoed over our bond, his lips and tongue and need wrapped around mine, spiraling higher. I'd forgotten, in a year of pretending I didn't have a body, how incredible that felt. A tight throb marked where my cock was rock hard for him, and every press of his skin on mine sank heat into me. I wanted more, now, right now, but didn't want to stop kissing. I worked my legs free and wrapped them around his thighs, driving my cotton-trapped cockhead along his skin.

He groaned into my mouth. "Gonna come too damned quick."

I grabbed him around the shoulders, plastering him down on me, humping against him. "We'll just go again."

"Fuck." He held my face between his hands and drove his tongue into my mouth, thrusting down against me with the force of his lean body.

His dick drove roughly between us, bumping mine through our boxers with each shove and retreat. Over the bond, I felt the sensations from his side, the rough friction annoyingly imperfect and yet his climax so close, our need climbing together. I'd meant to offer to suck him off, but now I just clamped tighter with arms and legs and bucked underneath him, both of us racing to that orgasm cliff.

Rob groaned first, and I smelled his cum as he ground his hips into me, the motion sticky and then slick as his shorts slipped low and he came hard against my hairy stomach. Sound and scent fueled the brilliant fireworks of orgasm over his bond. His tidal wave drowned me.

I clung to his shoulders as my balls emptied into my shorts, lust-blind with the rush and the light, shaking, gasping. Every inch of me was on fire and I wanted it to last forever. Through the roaring darkness that tunneled the edges of my vision, I saw Rob's wide eyes looking deep into mine. Then he kissed me, sloppy and gasping, our breaths huffing through the kiss. Every part of him and me became us with the touch of his mouth on mine.

"Well, shit." I came back to awareness at the rumble of Rob's voice against my temple. "I'm screwed if you don't want me forever, 'cause I've dry-humped a few guys, even fucked and been fucked, and it never felt like that." Sweat and sticky cum plastered his body to mine. The smell of him filled my nose like oxygen flooding an airless room. I sucked in deep, long breaths.

"Of course I want you forever." I clutched him so tight I couldn't squeeze harder and turned to press a kiss to the nearest random spot on his jaw. "Are you kidding?"

"A bit." But he didn't lift his weight, just hid his face deeper into the pillows. "I've imagined this for so long, it's hard to believe I'll keep you."

"The only way I'll let you go is if you beg me."

"Never happening."

Slowly, moment by moment, our frantic clinch softened. His chin slid from where it was digging into my jaw to settle against my shoulder. I slipped my arms down his back to his sides, resting my fingertips against his hips. His breathing caught, then steadied.

Rob murmured, "We're a mess." I heard the attempt at humor, but another aftershock made him shiver.

"I'll clean you with my tongue some other time."

"You?"

"I'll share if you ask nicely."

He raised himself on one elbow. "I thought you'd be more freaked out about the gay stuff."

"I liked giving oral to my mate. I'm not hung up on ‘Me Alpha, me always top.' I also spent plenty of time in my youth imagining the ‘gay stuff.' Sticking my fingers up my ass and pretending it was you, that you came back and found me and… had me." Despite my bravado, my mouth had gone to euphemisms. "Fucked me," I corrected.

Rob snorted. "Kane would've strung us both up by the balls— Sorry." He kissed words of distaste off my mouth. "Won't mention him again. But damn, dude, you couldn't say that stuff when I haven't just totally come my balls out?"

"I'll say it again later," I promised. "We should shower, if you can peel your sweaty weight off me."

He eased to his knees, then stood, tugging his shorts off and stretching. I looked up, still blown away that I finally had the right. That Rob hadn't given up on me or made me pay for ignoring him all that time. His generosity with his body and his heart put me to shame. And that body. Damn. If I'd been twenty, I would've been hard again just looking at the long, lean lines of him, toned by hard work as man and wolf, and at the generous dick hanging soft above his round balls. I reached a hand toward him, and he dodged.

"Shower first, my Alpha. Then we'll see."

I laughed as I sat up, trying to keep the messy parts of me away from the sheets. "Somewhere in the back of my head, a traditionalist ancestor is having a heart attack about you splooging all over your Alpha."

"They're just jealous." He grinned. "I've never come that hard in my life. And I totally can't wait to see if fucking you is even better."

"Stupid ancestor just keeled over and died. And good riddance." I stood, hiding a little wobble at the image. Melody had been adventurous in bed, but not to the point of pegging. What if I can't actually handle that? My fingers weren't a dick, and I'd never done anything more. What if my wolf doesn't like it? I closed my eyes, looking inward. From my wolf, all I got was a vague impression of contentment. Rob's bond glowed bright as the sun, filling my vision. Asher's seemed quiet, still sleeping. With luck, he'd been too out of it to notice my world shattering in glory.

The motel shower gave us anemic water pressure over a slippery old bathtub. Even so, we lingered under the spray, touching each other. I lathered Rob's chest, noting the way the thin hair caught the suds in bubbly whorls and how his nipples tightened to crinkled nubs when I brushed them with my knuckles. His stomach was flat, not six-pack ridged, but rock-hard muscle lurked beneath the skin. Water ran down his neck from his hair and I licked a drop, tracing it up behind his ear. There, I closed my eyes and nuzzled, inhaling his clean scent from the damp warmth of his skin. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling us together.

Mine. Finally mine.

"Hey. Don't fall asleep here." Rob nudged me upright.

I blinked water out of my eyes. "I'm awake."

"Barely. Come on. Bed. Sleep."

"I thought we had better plans than that."

"I prefer my partners not to be comatose." He turned off the water and stepped onto the mat. "Speaking of comatose, do you think Asher noticed anything?"

I took another peek, opening the dark-blue bond slightly. "I don't sense any alarm or curiosity." Or disgust, luckily. "I think he slept through."

"Poor guy must be exhausted." Rob passed me a towel.

"Might be a good time to take advantage." I tried to dry myself in a sexy way, which ended up with me staggering and whacking my hip on the counter.

Rob set a hand on my cheek and kissed me, much too simply. "We have plenty of time. You're standing crooked."

"It's my hip. I'm fine."

"Get under the covers and say that twenty times, and I might believe you."

The main room had cooled off with the deepening of evening, but not enough to bother us. Still, I got under the sheet and pulled up the blanket. Rob killed the lights and got in beside me, and it felt so right to turn to him, to tug him against me so the curve of his ass pressed against my soft cock. "I'm fine," I murmured, sliding my hips so we rubbed together gently. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm…"