Little Wolf (23 page)

The truck didn’t screech to a stop, but it did bump and slow as Nathaniel tapped the brake in surprise. Tim felt his face get hot. That must have sounded incredibly stupid, not to mention presumptuous. “That was bad. Like you’ve been dying to kiss me. Of course you haven’t. What I meant was—”

“Little Wolf.” Nathaniel’s voice was thunder. “You should stop talking.”

Tim waved Nathaniel off and chewed his bottom lip before going on. “I know I shouldn’t be doing my experimenting with you. You are the big leagues, and I should be playing T-ball.”

“T-ball?” Nathaniel pulled up in front of the sheriff’s station and parked, stirring up dust and startling someone jogging by. He yanked up on the parking brake. Tim watched him breathe, in and out, in and out, fast and hard.

“Not even Luca ever tried to kiss me.” Which Tim was grateful for, really, though it wasn’t helping him in the experience category. “The book was full of kissing, and it doesn’t seem like too much to ask. It shouldn’t be a violation of any town custom if you gave me my first kiss. I figure, go for the best. I grew up accustomed to having the best. It’s my right.”

Nathaniel kept one hand on the steering wheel, but only for another moment; then he unbuckled his seat belt and stared at Tim. He was very still. Tim, on the other hand, could not seem to stop twitching. His heart was kicking hard against his ribs; his fingers were pulling at his jeans. The only part of him not moving was his eyes, which stayed locked onto Nathaniel’s. He felt like a small creature who lived on the forest floor, or maybe that deer from last night.

He finally slid back. “Or not,” he continued after a few more moments of silence. “T-ball it is.” At least his voice didn’t shake too much. He swung open the truck door, trying not to fall as he listened to Nathaniel get out on the driver’s side. He turned to slam his door closed, turned around again, and Nathaniel was in front of him. Nathaniel’s gaze was exactly the same as before. Tim licked his lips. Nathaniel’s eyes went to his mouth.

Tim’s body understood before his mind did. He inhaled as his blood pooled and his dick swelled. “Oh sweet fuck, you’re really going to do it,” he realized out loud, his thoughts swimming at the sparkling heat. Then Nathaniel put one of his big hands along Tim’s throat. Tim tilted his head up, reckless and eager already.

“
T-ball
?” Nathaniel was pissed off, alluringly so. The animal heaviness of his breathing sent a frisson down Tim’s spine, but his cock remained hard and aching. Nathaniel’s mouth was over his. Over, not on, his lips parted but out of reach.

“Yeah,” Tim shot back breathlessly, “if you’re too scared or something.” The challenge didn’t last long. Nathaniel was still slowly stroking his fingertips over Tim’s throat. That wasn’t part of kissing, technically, but the sound of his own panting made him squirm. Nathaniel had him gasping for air and he hadn’t done anything yet. Tim flicked a furious glance upward. “What are you waiting for?”

Nathaniel’s grip tightened, not enough to be painful or even threatening, but enough for Tim to feel it, really feel it. He imagined that hand at the back of his neck to hold him down as Nathaniel pushed into him, and jerked forward helplessly. His heart began to pound. He was so hard, so very hard, and Nathaniel still hadn’t kissed him. He bit his bottom lip, and Nathaniel inched closer, indicating without a word that he’d prefer Tim not do that.

Tim released his lip with only a slight drag of his teeth. A whine escaped with it.

Nathaniel let out a heavy breath, and then words, trying to convince someone of something. “This isn’t how we do things. There are
reasons
.”

Like Tim gave half a fuck when this was a possibility. He angled his head back, hoping it was right, and made a noise when their lips brushed together.

Nathaniel remained deathly serious, despite how he used his thumb to tip Tim’s chin higher. “It could overwhelm you.”

Tim would have made a joke about Nathaniel’s high opinion of his skills, but then Nathaniel did it. Nathaniel kissed him, and Tim couldn’t think.

The kiss was gentle, lips barely parted, the pressure light. Tim shivered for the tease of it. He forgot he was hard and pressed forward onto his toes to kiss back, just as gentle, barely breathing. Nathaniel’s hair was between his fingers, though he wasn’t sure how his hand had ended up at Nathaniel’s nape, or when exactly Nathaniel had stepped in to urge Tim against the truck door.

After a few moments, short, aching, moments, where Tim shivered and learned what it meant to share breath and to have lips drag sweetly over his, Nathaniel pulled away to caress the line of Tim’s throat with his fingers. He followed his fingertips with his mouth, and then leaned in to breathe against Tim’s cheek. Tim dug his fingers into the back of Nathaniel’s neck, the top of his spine. “No. Not yet.” Tim only had to extend his claws. With his head down, Nathaniel was vulnerable. Tim could barely stand up his knees were so weak, but he had Nathaniel. He could have ruled the world or traded it for another kiss. Nothing made sense. He whined. “Nathaniel.”

He didn’t know why that made Nathaniel shudder. Maybe Nathaniel understood what Tim meant. Maybe he was inhaling Tim’s desires with every breath and that was why he pushed his other hand against Tim’s stomach. Tim took a breath and held it long enough for flames to build under his skin. That was want. That was
Nathaniel’s
want, blood-heavy and salty as it dissolved on his tongue and filtered into his lungs. Tim licked a stripe up Nathaniel’s cheek and groaned for how fast Nathaniel turned back to him.

Nathaniel’s scent wasn’t enough. Tim tilted his face toward him, and his moan was swallowed up by Nathaniel’s mouth. Tim scraped both hands through Nathaniel’s hair and felt his pulse throb under Nathaniel’s big hand. He jumped, startled, and hit the truck, taking Nathaniel with him.

Air was scarce in his lungs but alive on his skin and rich with musk. He smelled like precome and something far from slick, far from sticky, something that Nathaniel licked from his teeth and growled for. Tim felt like earth, metallic and salted and not enough on its own, but then there was Nathaniel, pushing Tim into the truck, pushing against him as if he liked how hard Tim’s cock was for this and needed to feel Tim’s legs tight around him. Tim clawed at him for more, and Nathaniel took it with a growl and a firmer grip.

It shook through Tim too fast for him to realize he was thrusting against Nathaniel in the street. Nathaniel had a hand at Tim’s throat, and Tim was moaning for him to keep it there. Nathaniel pinned him because Tim wanted him to. That was power, that Tim liked it, that they both did, that all this was because Tim had asked and so Nathaniel gave it to him. Nathaniel kissed hard and growled approval, and Tim came, suddenly and violently, lips parted and wet against Nathaniel’s mouth. He shut his eyes at the force of it, the shuddering, unsatisfying ache at coming so fast, and felt like dying when Nathaniel very carefully relaxed the grip at his throat not long after.

Tim tried not to flinch when Nathaniel straightened. His face had never been so hot. “Overwhelmed,” he said out of nowhere, recalling what Nathaniel had told him and understanding it too late for his pride. A moment later his eyes flew open.

Nathaniel picked him up, threw open the truck door, and deposited Tim on the seat. Tim had about a half a second to process that and offer a croaked protest, and then Nathaniel’s nose was at his throat. Nathaniel’s hands slid down over Tim’s ribs to the truck seat. Tim got the impression of Nathaniel holding tight to the scratched upholstery and then forgot about it because Nathaniel was inhaling over Tim’s pulse and then over his stomach. He was openmouthed and panting at Tim’s crotch a heartbeat after that.

Tim dropped onto his back and closed his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He was trembling and sticky and really didn’t have anything to say that wasn’t about his own humiliation. He could feel Nathaniel’s breath through his jeans. His jizz was still wet against his skin. Tim was blushing enough for three people. He was very, very warm all over, and Nathaniel’s heat wasn’t helping. “So I’m not meant for the big leagues yet,” he exhaled at Nathaniel, hating that Nathaniel had been right, that Nathaniel’s mouth was close to his dick but Tim would only embarrass himself further if he pushed his hips up in a hint for a blowjob. He wanted to slide a hand down his waistband to clean himself up, or beg Nathaniel to do it, but it was bad enough he’d begged Nathaniel to kiss him and then come all over himself after a few seconds.

He licked his mouth and tried again. “I don’t think this counts in my favor for the whole virgin thing. Maybe I won’t mention it if anyone asks me. Hopefully when they kiss me, I won’t cream my jeans.”

Nathaniel stopped and lifted his head. His pupils were big and dark, his expression almost wild.

“Will it be like that when I kiss someone else?” Tim sat up when Nathaniel flinched away. “Don’t worry,” Tim reassured him. “Never mind what I said last night. I’ll stay out of your way until I’m ready.”

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. His scent, Tim belatedly realized as some of his higher thinking skills returned, was no longer aroused. Or rather, the arousal was there, sinking slowly down to mingle with the scent of Tim’s cooling spunk, but it was being replaced with something as sour and bitter as the scent of ground-up juniper. Tim put a hand to his mouth.

Nathaniel took another step back. He tore his gaze from Tim to scan the street. He licked his lips and Tim’s stupid cock twitched. Nathaniel glanced at him. “If you’re all right, I should go.” Tim had expected at least a smirk, a smile, but Nathaniel was short on insults for someone in his position. Nathaniel’s mouth, that mouth that was already getting Tim hard again, was pressed into a flat line. His hair was sticking up where Tim had dragged his fingers through it.

Tim sighed. “Look, I’m really sorry about, uh, that.” He wasn’t going to say premature
anything
if he didn’t have to. “I meant a kiss and that was… that was a kiss.” It sure as hell was, just not what he’d planned for. Tim had lost his mind for a second there and rubbed on Nathaniel in the street, not that anyone would blame him. “You were right. It was overwhelming as fuck when you touched me.” Nathaniel took a long, sharp breath that Tim ignored to continue with his apology. “But really, can you blame me? You smelled that, right? How do you even describe that? That was the sexiest thing I have ever… it was right on my tongue before you even kissed me, and I got so hard—”

“Little Wolf.” Nathaniel cut him off with a show of teeth. “Shut up.”

Tim shut up. His brain recovered from his orgasm in time to stop him from inquiring what had crawled up Nathaniel’s ass.

Nathaniel glanced away and then back at Tim. His jaw was clenched, and Tim huffed in frustration when he couldn’t make anything out of his new, unfamiliar scent.

“Are you okay to go to work?” Nathaniel pushed out in a gruff voice and crossed his arms when Tim slid closer to the door.

Tim froze. Luckily his mouth still worked, and he could still roll his eyes. “Yeah. I can still walk.” If he could get his legs to work again. “Though you know everyone in town is going to smell me until I can get to a bathroom to wash up.”

He’d thought that would appease Nathaniel a bit. There was no were in the world who wouldn’t enjoy the thought of their scent markings all over someone else they had just been with intimately. At least, so Tim thought. He knew he’d be crowing with delight to think of Nathaniel scented with his come for the rest of the morning. He assumed other weres would feel the same.

But it was not delight that Nathaniel was expressing. “Then go.” Nathaniel kept his eyes on the street as if planning to watch and follow Tim to the café but had no intention of walking alongside him or saying another word.

Tim opened his mouth to demand to know what the hell his problem was, then changed it to a more polite question. “Did I get some etiquette wrong again?”

“Ask another T-ball player.” The words were cold, but there was the exact opposite of ice in Nathaniel’s tone.

Tim raised his chin, remembered Nathaniel’s thumb urging it higher for that first kiss, then quickly lowered it. “Obviously their kisses are never going to equal
that
.” How Tim wished he was lying, but he had never been any good at false flattery, or any kind of flattery. Nathaniel cut him a look. Tim nibbled at his lower lip, caught Nathaniel’s stare, stopped, then scowled and licked his lip instead. Nathaniel had pushed him against the truck, put a hand to his throat, and Tim had… been really into it. He couldn’t imagine allowing anyone else to do that to him. “I wasn’t scared at all. I wanted….” It was obvious what he’d wanted. “But I have to try, right?”

The frown that crossed Nathaniel’s face made Tim whimper and practically fall out of the truck onto wobbly legs. He blamed it on his postkiss brain. Nathaniel reached out to catch him and then spent a few moments utterly confusing Tim by holding him against the truck to straighten his clothes and hair. He was so handsome Tim could hardly bear to look at him from so close without kissing him again. He glanced around the street, noting more than one figure who could have seen the entire thing, from kiss to Tim’s ejaculation to Nathaniel grooming him now. He tried to notice if any of them seemed to be watching too closely, but Nathaniel’s touch was distracting.

He didn’t want to think of Luca’s sneer, or the burning rage in his eyes if he’d seen that. Luca thought Tim was his. He thought Tim wanted him. But Tim had never felt anything like what he’d felt with Nathaniel when Luca had touched him. He dared himself forward at the memory, taking advantage of Nathaniel’s obsession with the wrinkles in his T-shirt to press a short, soft kiss to Nathaniel’s mouth, as like their first one as he could make it. “Just in case,” he whispered, when Nathaniel seemed taken aback. Then he smoothed Nathaniel’s hair down.

Nathaniel growled under his breath, then shoved Tim gently out into the street. “Go to work, Little Wolf,” he ordered, with much less heat. “I’ll watch you.”