Page 10 of Off Limits
Jesus christ, he was beautiful. Not pretty—Gabriel would never be pretty—but beautiful in the way dangerous things were beautiful. All that controlled power finally unleashed, silver hair wild, muscles shifting under skin like he was barely containing something that wanted out.
Asher swallowed hard, his whole body going rigid against the stone wall. His mouth had gone dry, pulse hammering so loud he was sure Gabriel would hear it. Every rational thought evaporated, leaving only want so intense it felt like drowning.
This was so fucked up. So incredibly wrong. Here Asher was, twenty one years old, watching his dead father's best friend jerk off like some kind of stalker.
Add it to the list of things that would disappoint Ray if he knew. Though honestly, at this point, the list was so long this probably wouldn't even make the top ten.
Gabriel's pace was intense, hips lifting off the bed with each stroke. The sounds he was making—fuck, Asher had heard a lot of men get off, but nothing like this. Raw and desperate and almost pained, like the pleasure was being torn from him.
His own cock was painfully hard, pressing against his zipper with demands he absolutely was not going to acknowledge.
"Asher..."
The name hung in the air between them, impossible and undeniable.
Asher's brain short-circuited.
He must have misheard. There was no way Gabriel had just—while he was?—
But there was no mistaking the way Asher's name had sounded in his mouth—reverent and hungry and destroyed all at once.
Holy fuck. Gabriel was thinking about him. Getting off to thoughts ofhim?!
The revelation should have sent Asher running. Should have made him realize how completely fucked this situation was. It needed a clear head, sober blood.
Instead, he pressed closer to the window, his own breath coming too fast, too loud in the quiet night, and watched Gabriel's face contort with pleasure, watched his powerful body strain toward release with Asher's name caught behind his teeth.
Then Gabriel’s pace slowed, his brow furrowing in… confusion?
And his eyes snapped open as his head turned toward the window.
For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other through that gap in the curtains—Gabriel's hand still wrapped around his cock, Asher caught red-handed like the creeper he was.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck ohfuck.
Time stopped. Asher's brain went completely offline.
This was bad. This was so fucking bad. He'd just been caught perving on his dead dad's best friend. There was no coming back from this. No excuse that would make this okay. He was going to have to change his name and move to another country.
"Fuck," Asher gasped, stumbling backward, mouth running on autopilot while his brain screamed. "I'm sorry, I didn't—I wasn't?—"
But Gabriel was already moving, rising from the bed with inhuman fluidity. Completely naked, completely unashamed, and the look on his face wasn't embarrassment or anger—it was something too wild for Asher to process.
Asher stood frozen, torn between the urge to apologize more and the inability to form coherent words. His feet seemed rooted to the spot even as his brain screamed at him to do something, anything, to make this less catastrophically awkward.
The door burst open before he could decide. Gabriel stood in the doorway, all naked skin and barely controlled power in the moonlight.
There was something different about him. Something wrong. His movements were too fluid, too precise. His eyes caught the light like an animal's.
What the fuck. What the actual fuck.
That's when Asher’s body, smarter than his brain, started to run.
He spun and bolted for the cabin, pure terror overriding everything else. But he'd barely made it three steps before Gabriel moved with a speed that shouldn't exist. Asher didn't even have time to scream before Gabriel was on him, bearing him down to the forest floor with controlled violence.
Pine needles scraped his palms as he tried to scramble away, but strong hands—too strong, impossibly strong—flipped him onto his back.
Gabriel loomed over him, and in the moonlight filtering through the trees, Asher could finally see what he was. Not fully transformed but something in between—elongated canines, eyes gone full gold, body vibrating with barely-leashed power.
