Page 12 of Bitter Heat
Janus’s tummy fluttered at the tease in Kerry’s voice. He smiled. “Yes.”
It was true, even. A vulnerability he never would have owned up to before his near-death experiences, and Janus owed that willingness now to Caleb and the lessons he’d taught him. “I am very scared of the wild cats.”
The confession obviously startled Kerry. He turned back around before Janus had his pants up, and then he quickly covered his eyes with his hands. “Sorry.”
“No worries, friend. I get the impression you’ve seen it all before.”
Kerry stiffened slightly.
Realizing how that sounded, Janus jumped to clarify. “I mean, I did just stand there in a full-on display a moment ago, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t know I was watching. That’s different.”
Oh? Had Kerry been purposefully spying? The idea sent a thrill of dirty delight whipping through Janus’s veins, but he held it back, stifling the flirty comments the old Janus might have made. “No, but there’s no sense in me being shy now.”
Kerry lowered his hand but kept his eyes on the water. “The lake is my favorite place to be in Hud’s Basin. When I was younger, I spent all my free time here.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“And peaceful,” Kerry added. “The water can wash away anything. Or so I believed as a youngster. There are limits, I find, now that I’m an adult. But it still serves to wash away most things.” He flushed, his complexion darkening in the low light from the moon.
“A healing balm,” Janus said, unwilling to let the man be embarrassed, though Kerry and his pater had certainly taken the piss out of him a few times that evening. “I felt it while I was floating out there.”
“It gets into you,” Kerry said. “Everything about Hud’s Basin does. The water, the lake, the air…it gets into who you are. Heals you. Makes you whole again.”
The poetic intensity was more than Janus knew what to do with. He waited for a moment to see if Kerry backed away from it, but he didn’t. Instead, Kerry said by way of explanation, “It’s mountain ways. This kind of talk. You’ll get used to it.”
“Wolf-god approves of such heretical ideas as healing lakes?”
“Wolf-god made it for us, didn’t he?” Kerry asked with a raised brow. “I imagine he’s glad we don’t think ourselves too good for what he’s blessed.”
Janus rarely heard spiritual discourse like this in the city, and if he did, he’d have written the person off as a religious lunatic. But here, with the stars above and the lake water still drying on his skin, it felt right. Kerry felt right. Which was unfortunate, wasn’t it?
Because that was when it hit him.
The scent of Kerry, the layered berries and musk that was so different from anything he’d ever scented before, making him question everything he’d ever known about the smell of an omega?
It was because Kerry waspregnant.
Janus let his eyes drift closed as ice and fire chased his blood around his body. As he let the realization sink in, he clenched his fists in unwarranted disappointment, wondering where Kerry’s alpha was—the father of this quickly growing blessing from wolf-god—and simultaneously wondering why he cared.
When Janus opened his eyes again, he found that Kerry still studied the lake, moonlight on his face. So pretty. Much prettier than his bird.
Janus released his clenched fists and took a slow breath. “Let’s go,” he said, indicating the trail. “I’m dressed now.”
Kerry turned away without hesitation and took the lead.
Kerry had watchedfrom his window as Janus’s borrowed flashlight bobbed down to the lake. Then he’d taken out his binoculars. Another gift from Wilbet in the early days of their relationship, intended for bird watching and as an apology for some rough sex that had made Kerry cry. But tonight, Kerry had employed them with a different purpose. One for which Wilbet would in no way approve.
Janus had wasted little time stripping down to his skin and nothing else. Kerry focused the binoculars for a better look at the man’s body, aware that he was intruding and not caring half as much as he should.
Muscle definition was lacking, yes, but there was proof it had been there previously. He could tell in the way Janus’s body moved and the remaining lean flesh that spoke of the body’s own desire for regular use. Janus had been an athlete of some kind and been lain low by his illness. His naked flesh carried the indisputable truth like the dark lines on the face of the moon spoke of its battery and bruising from wolf’s unseen claws. Legend had it that even wolf was a rough lover. Though Kerry thought that was only an excuse for alphas to be brutal.
But naked Janus hadn’t looked brutal. He’d looked vulnerable. And like he’d forgotten a towel.
Now, walking up the trail slightly ahead of Janus, Kerry thought about every line of Janus’s body. He would have imagined that he’d already gotten more than his fill when Janus had come out of the water and stood there, naked as new life, and spread his arms with such carefree joy, but he would have been wrong. Janus’s pose had brought a lump to Kerry’s throat, and a sadness spiked with envy because there had been a time when he’d have walked out of the water just like that, too. Open and proud, ready for anything…and now? He could barely stand to be naked for longer than it took to wash off. His body housed the enemy, and he hated himself for it.
“You’re quiet,” Janus said. “Did I say something to offend?”
