Page 5 of Legally Mated
“Diditwork?”
“Pretty low bar, to be honest.” Garrick stepped into his embrace, hands gently cupping the curve of Laine’s skull. “Missed this.” And he pressed his mouth to Laine’s and made Laine’sheartsoar.
Chapter4
Iknewhe’d been married before, knew I was also the first guy he’d done more than kiss. Didn’t matter, or maybe it was the reason why, but everywhere he touched me lit up like a full moon bonfire. We found our way upstairs, leaning on walls, the banister, each other, until we fell onto the bed. I missed the light switch as we caromed through the door and when I tried to go back to turn it off, he whispered things in my ear that made me forget for a moment why I only made love in the dark, and then it was too late and he was pulling me onto the bed and I was going to have to figure out some other way to keep mysecret.
His lovemaking was a study in weird contrasts. Up until the clothes came off, he was as assured as any alpha. Afterward, he became cautious--even now, with two years of access to my body to guide him. It was like he didn’t trust his instincts here in bed with me. With a man. But up until we were naked though, a guy could be forgiven for not realizing that he’d come to my bed essentially as virgin as I had been. And even after, he showed a lot of natural talent forthejob.
His teeth scraped over my earlobe, one hand working at my shirt to pull it out of the waistband of my jeans. It gave way easily before him and he kissed my neck before saying, “You’ve lost weightagain.”
“Been busy,” I said, which had been part of it. Not all, but I’d never told him my secret and he’d never figured it out himself, thank Lysoonka. The pills I took to keep it just that—a secret—made me sick to my stomach sometimes. Since Jason had arrived in Mercy Hills, I'd started taking them in the spring too, and into the first part of summer, which meant I was sick now twice a year instead of just once, on the off chance that having a True Omega around triggered something unexpected in me too. I was only just getting my appetite back now that we were in late May, which had been a relief when he’d presented me with those vegetable blobs made barely edible with well-seasoned tomatosauce.
“I’m going to feed you every chance I get,” he promised as he worked my t-shirt up my torso. “You’re hovering right on the border between skinny and needs to see adoctor.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped and sat up to pull my t-shirt off myself. “If you don’t like it, I can go stay at the pack house.” In complete opposition to my words, I threw the t-shirt on the floor and reached for the button at my waist, though I knew in my gut it wasn’t a good idea. Not with the lights on. But we were here, on the bed, and I missed him and my body missed him, and if I was quick enough, I could pull off the concealing layers and hide myself against the duvet.Right?
“I didn’t say that.” Laine sat up as well and began to strip. “What I said was I’m worried about you. Are you sure things are okay in the pack? You guys aren’t running short of food, are you? I can probably send something, and I might know someone who could access some program money for you.” He reached for my face and turned me to him, watching me with a concern that still astonished me. “You don’t have to hide from me if things are getting difficult,”hesaid.
I felt a pang of guilt, quickly extinguished, and raised a hand to lay it over his. “No, we’re fine. Quin would starve himself before he’d let anyone else go without.” I turned my head and pressed a kiss to the center of his palm, warm and scented vaguely with the orange hand soap he kept in the kitchen. “I’ve been helping Cas with the taxes, is all. And we’re so much busier now, I seem to spend most of my days at the enclave researching processing regulations and interstate trading restrictions. Some days, I sit down in the morning and when I look up again, it’s dark. That’s it.” I rubbed my cheek against his hand, then followed the pulse up his arm with my mouth, licking and biting along the pale blue traces of his veins until I found his lips and stopped all his questions. He made a sound deep in his throat and raised his hands to stroke down the bare skin of my back, making my flesh break out in goosebumps of pleasurable anticipation. “Let’s not talk about the pack,” I whispered against his lips, and opened my mouthtohis.
He bore me down onto the mattress, shoving our pants down to our knees, mine no more than cheap jeans, his the bottom half of his fine woolen suit, with the warmth of our bellies pressed flat together. “You’ll come to court tomorrow?” he asked, his lips tracingmyjaw.
“Why? It doesn’t help yourcaseany.”
“Take notes. Come to lunch with me after. I’m meeting a new client.” He moved down my body, an agony of sensation that forced me to bite back awhimper.
“That’s not going to help your practice.” I gripped his arm where his bicep, lean and toned like the rest of him, bulged and stretched beneath my palm. “No work talk,either. ‘Kay?”
“Stubborn.” But he didn’t seem to mind, though I doubted that this would be the end of the topic. He just knew well enough that, sex-deprived or not, I’d get out of this bed and walk if he pushed me. He wasn’t my Alpha and therefore I had no problemdoingso.
I rolled over onto my stomach and wondered if I could make a quick dash over to the doorway to turn the lights off, or even down—he had a dimmer switch for his bedroom, which he’d made corny jokes about when he’d given me my first tour of the place, then had found himself trying to explain it to me because it was a human culture sex joke. Except when I glanced over my shoulder to judge my likelihood of even temporary escape, I caught a glimpse of him in that light. This was the first time I’d everseenhim naked, though I’d touched every part of him. Something—maybe all the pent-up longing of the past month, the stress of trying to balance this with my relationship with the pack—made it impossible for me to do anything more than drink in the sightofhim.
Laine had musician’s hands, to go with the piano in that front room, long fingers and a broad palm, and they worked magic as he played them up and down over my body. The mattress tilted and creaked as he straddled my hips and bent to touch his mouth to the nape of my neck, then farther down, fingers laying the groundwork for tender kisses that made me cry out and bite the pillow crushed in my fists, while my hips thrust backwards at him in abject pleading. He licked along my spine, down, down, to the tender spot where my tail would emerge when I shifted, then further to mouth the cheeks of my ass in mock threat. I lifted my hips again and spread my thighs to allow him to slide a hand beneath me, happily encouraging the torture he was about to wreakuponme.
Those long fingers handled my balls and my cock like precious artwork, like the delicate filigreed egg he displayed on the fireplace mantle in his living room. While one hand stroked over my hips, my thighs, the straining muscles of my back, the other touched and teased between my legs, rolling my balls with a musician’s delicacy, soft touches on the length of me that somehow were still firm enough to arch my back against the feeling. He could make my body dance to his tune and when he ran his fingers up onto my belly, tracing the thin dimpled line just above the base of my cock, I yelled and bit the pillow and then reached behind me to grab for him. It had been too long, and now that I’d finally taken someone into my bed, I couldn’t bear to wasteanytime.
He laughed behind me, not his courtroom laugh, sarcastic and cynical, but something as filled with joy as a summer day. And then I felt the pressure, asking entry because he never demanded, and I rocked backwards until he’d filled me entirely. I huffed my pleasure and laughed as he groaned and his hands skated up my hips to close around the sides of mywaist.
“I’m taking you out for ice cream after this,” hemuttered.
“You’re planning on my being able to walk after this? That’s a disappointment.” I dropped my head and closed my eyes as his hips bumped forward in reproof, still laughing, and then lost my breath when he kissed the middle of my back. “Do thatagain.”
He chuckled and rubbed his cheek across my spine, the bristles barely noticeable even at the end of his work day, and kissed meoncemore.
Why couldn’t you have been born a shifter?But no, I wouldn’t wish that on him. I had gone to watch him in court a couple of times—it was like watching a stooping hawk, or a wolf stalking a wary deer. Long moments of apparent indifference, while he tracked every word, every expression. Sometimes he let you make your own den and came in for the kill just when you thought you’d escaped. Sometimes he was like a rush of tooth and claw, no escape, his victim hardly aware even of what had destroyed them. If he were a shifter, he could neverhavethat.
Maybe I wished I washuman.
Laine moved, settling himself more securely on the cushiony mattress, his cock shifting inside in a way that left me near frenzied with need. I bumped back against him again and braced my hands on the bed and, when he began to thrust, I met him halfway. He was as eager as I was and I knew we’d have time in the morning for another bout because court didn’t start until nine-thirty, so I growled and thrust myself back at him every time he pushed forward until his breath came as ragged as mine and his hands slipped in the sweat coating our bodies. It never stopped him, though, and his thrusts picked up in both force and speed, his breath coming in short gasps and grunts, nearly as short as mine as the world began to slip away from me and the only thing left was my body and his. As the pleasure built up in my groin, my balls drawing up ready to explode, I could feel it in him too, behind me, as his hands tightened almost to pain onmyhips.
“Garrick!” he whispered with the force of a shout, and then he pushed me down onto the bed, his hips hard against my ass, over and over, until he fell limp on top of me. “Shit.” I didn’t want him to get off me, but I was still hard and squirming for that final touch that would send me over the edge and I made no protest when he lifted himself away, until it was too late and he’d rolled me over onto my back, exposing mecompletely.
“Laine, no!” I shouted, but it wastoolate.
He gazed at the narrow dimpled line running from one hip to the other, then bent his head to my cock and licked the tip. “I’m not going to leave you in this state,” he said firmly, and then he used his mouth in ways that made me forget the horror of discovery, until I couldn’t wait any longer and I came for him, falling entirely sated back onto the bed, resigned to the exposure of the secret I’d kept allmylife.
Except, he didn’t seem to realize… He gave my cock one last kiss, then climbed up the bed to pull me against him. “I’m just going to rest here for a minute, then I’ll get you that ice cream.” He pulled me against him, and never said a word about that damning line on mybelly.
