Chapter Thirteen

Maximus

It was like living on a damn roller-coaster, the ups and downs were enough to make me feel queasy when all I wanted was Tim safe, happy, and in my arms forever.

He twirled around in my mouth and the fuzzies ran amok making it hard to think about anything other than my dick jabbing into the earth from where I hadn’t bothered moving when Tim had shifted. His desperation for me was my own undoing. I wanted to put his needs first.

You have, can’t you feel them?

The giggle was pure naughtiness as he wriggled around going deeper down my throat as if trying to reach my cock from the inside. I coughed and pulled him dripping from my mouth. In the light I could see the indentations on his stalk that were different from before. Is that my mate mark?

He twirled in my fingers, and I laughed at the thought he was trying to look at himself. Shift, I need to give you my own stalk.

Lions don’t have stalks. He tutted. You have monster spiked cocks, he declared as he shifted, and his cock was now in my hand as he kneeled in front of me grinning.

“Monster cock, is that a compliment?” I asked, knowing exactly what he thought but enjoying myself when he flushed so prettily.

Milking the cock I held, he made a sound between a whine and a moan. Using his custard, I ran my fingers under his balls and tickled his already slick hole.

“Ugh… can’t decide what I want more,” he complained, then wiggled out of my hands and twirled his finger. “On your back, my lion, it’s time to ride the stalk.”

“Is there nowhere safe from you two?” Apollo’s voice came from somewhere behind me, sounding pissed.

I rolled and glanced sideways, seeing nothing but the old shed. “We need the garden for Tim as he’s gotta regenerate in the soil.”

“That what we’re calling it now, is it?” Apollo didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.

“Go away,” I shouted back, still not seeing him. Returning my attention to Tim, he crawled through the dirt patch and flicked soil all over me as he straddled me, sinking right down on my cock before I could register his intention.

“Holy fuck me rhubarb!”

“That’s the idea,” said Tim, looking like the rhubarb who’d gotten all the custard.

“Good god, I’m gonna be scarred for life! I am already,” Apollo muttered loudly from wherever he was hiding. The sound of boots hitting the ground was the only clue he was leaving.

“I did warn… oh yeah, that’s it, little stalk,” I cried out as Tim got busy.

He lasted two minutes before he wilted against my chest, puffing and panting. “Your turn. Grind me into the dirt!”

I flipped us over and ground him into the dirt as he requested. He groaned and picked up handfuls of soil, rubbing it over his chest, increasingly frantic sounds pouring out of him. His eyes slitted and I could literally see him regenerating before me.

“This doing it for you?”

“Yeah… fuck… more dirt,” he cried out, rattling the glass in the shed windows.

I had a distant thought about how the neighbors were going to cope. It didn’t stay in my head long as his dirt-covered hands pinched my nipples until they ached, sending tendrils of fire straight down my cock. Spikes growing, Tim wailed and custard cum seeped between our bodies, triggering my release.

With each pump of cum into Tim, his wails got louder, “Fill me up, my lion… Spike me… dirty me up.”

He might have wilted, but his dirty talk hadn’t until I was exhausted and empty. I collapsed on top of him, unsure I could move to stop squishing him.

Tim lasted a minute. “Need to breathe,” he gasped. “We’re not all built like mons…lions.”

I rolled away and flopped onto my back.

“Sorry,” he said.

I turned my head to gaze at him. “It’s okay. It’s a learning curve for both of us.”

He smiled, and we tangled fingers together. I stared at him for longer, just because he was mine.

“You’re bossy, you know that?” I murmured, feeling like a wrung out lion.

“Rhubarbs are kinda dominant,” he agreed.

I wanted to throw a ‘Ya think?’ but I was supposed to be the alpha in this relationship.

Tim rolled over and straddled me. “Who holds the power, baby?” He shimmied on my groin, waking up my dick. “That’s right, it’s your rhubarb,” he cackled.

Oh yeah?

I rolled Tim on his back and suddenly he was faced with my lion, all mane, fangs, and claws.

“Fuck me,” he gasped. “You’re perfect.”

I leaned down, so we were nose to nose. I do the fucking, baby.

I swear I heard Tim whimper.

Perrrrfect…

Was he purring? Was my rhubarb purring at the idea?

I grinned at the noise. He loved the idea as much as I did.

I settled down to curl around him. But Tim shifted too, and I cuddled around his stalk.

Tim?

Tim?

A soft snore came through our connection, and I chuckled. I piled more soil around him, getting one little shimmy before another snore.

Sleep my little stalk.

Sleep.

~/~/~/~

I didn’t realize I’d dozed off until the sound of arguing made me lift my head off the dirt and crack open my eyes to peer around the garden. I’d shifted in my sleep, curled around Tim, and hadn’t realized.

“Someone has to wake him up,” said Randy.

“It’s not gonna be me. Did you hear Tim? He scared half the neighborhood into believing we were murdering him.” This came from Leonidis.

“That’s beside the point. We need Maxi to come and talk to Burke before he loses his shit again.”

Randy’s worry finally got me calling out, “I’m awake.”

I looked at Tim, who didn’t appear to have moved in the soil and figured on my options. Because I had shifted back to human form, I spied the jacket I’d borrowed and reached for it, doing my best to fill it with soil and not wake Tim, while Leonidis and Randy continued to argue about what they might see if they poked their heads around the shed.

I carefully packed Tim into the soil and rose, holding the jacket to my chest, keeping him close, paying attention to any objections he might have for not being actually in the ground. Two steps around the shed, and I stopped in alarm. Randy sported a black eye and Leonidis had a split lip.

“What the hell happened?”

Had the town's folk come and attacked my pride? My anger bristled as I stalked over to them, hating the idea that I was going to have to upset my mate by kicking some rhubarb ass.

“Burke is what happened!” Randy said, reaching up to rub at the edge of his blackened eye.

“What the fuck! Why? What? How?” I asked in complete confusion, coming to a halt next to Randy. Sure, the pride would argue sometimes, but we never actually fought. Not like this.

“You ask him. I like my eyes not to be black, it seriously doesn’t go with pink!”

Whatsup?

Tim’s sleepy voice stopped me from charging inside when it could put him at risk. I don’t know. But something is up with Burke.

He wiggled in the dirt. Am I in a jacket?

I blushed as I looked down at the stalk nestled inside the jacket. Yep.

Oh… is this a kink thing? I’ve never done it this way before.

My answering chuckle got a scowl from Randy.

“That’s right, laugh!”

“I’m not laughing at you… it was something Tim said.”

“Whatever. Are you gonna sort Burke out or what? I ain’t going back in there until he apologizes for going all bull-a-hoe!”