Romance: Gay Paranormal Romance: Shiftr book 1(MM Paranormal Mpreg Romance) (Gay Biker Shifter Romance) (135 page)

Arthur had lost track of time by now. They could have been driving for two minutes, or two hours, or two days, he couldn’t tell and he couldn’t keep track. All he could think of was his arms wrapped around Blake and the Alpha Bear scent filling his nostrils and making his mind trail into dangerous regions.

They turned into a housing area and slowed down significantly, so Arthur was able to fully open his eyes and glance around. It was a rather pleasant-looking neighbourhood, aside from the fact that it could possibly be the set of any suburban horror movie with its white picket fences, neatly kept lawns, and smiling citizens.

“Where are we going?” Arthur asked.

“You’ll see,” Blake replied, and Arthur almost rolled his eyes at the unnecessarily added-in mystery.

Blake brought the motorcycle to a halt outside the only house in the neighbourhood that wasn’t the perfect picture of suburban bliss. The small compound was covered in steadily lengthening grass that was uneven and unusually tall in many places, with the only semi-clear path being the one leading up to the front door. The fence’s white paint was yellowing and peeling off in stripes, and the mailbox was badly dented.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Blake said as Arthur unsteadily hopped off the bike.

“It’s very in tune with nature,” Arthur said. “Why are we here?”

“I want to talk to you about something,” Blake replied. “About Mates.”

“And we have to do it in your house because…?”

“Do you want humans hearing us talking about Shifting?” Blake asked, smirking.

“There have to be better ways.”

Blake flashed Arthur another ridiculously attractive smirk. “None of them would be this fun.” He leaped over the deteriorating fence led the way up the pathway to the door.

Arthur refrained from rolling his eyes, then pushed open the gate and followed.

The inside of the house was in better condition than the outside, but only marginally so. The floor was clean and the surfaces didn’t look very dusty, but there were books littering the floor and some articles of clothing strewn near the entrance, as though Blake usually decided to remove his clothes unceremoniously upon entering the house. A rush of blood pooling at his crotch made Arthur realise that thinking about Blake being in any state of undress was a decidedly bad idea. Luckily, Blake had disappeared somewhere in the house.

Arthur wandered further in and quickly discovered the living room, which had an old-looking flat screen TV and an overstuffed sofa in front of it. There was little else in the room apart from a square glass table in between the sofa and TV and a fireplace which had a few photos on its mantelpiece. Arthur approached them and peered closely at the pictures. Most of them were of Blake in full military garb, posing next to some of his army buddies. Cropped hair suited him quite well. There was one photograph in the far corner of Blake and a taller man who he bore a striking resemblance to.

“So what is it about mates that you couldn’t just tell me in the diner?” Arthur called out.

Blake reappeared from behind him, holding two bottles of beer. “Straight to the point. I like it,” he said, tossing one bottle at Arthur, who was thankful for his animal reflexes as he caught it. Blake plopped himself down onto the puffy sofa, and stuffing started pouring out of a torn seam. He didn’t invite Arthur to sit down, but Arthur got the impression that Blake would be fine with him doing whatever he pleased.

“I’m waiting,” Arthur said, still standing.

“Bears, contrary to popular belief, actually Mate for life,” Blake said as he flicked off the cap of his beer. “Not the animals, of course, but the Shifters.”

“Pretty sure that’s not true,” Arthur said, remembering Jeb and his string of hook-ups with the human girls in his college, and the ex-boyfriends of his mom that used to come around sometimes.

“I’m not saying they can’t date whoever the fuck they want,” Blake replied, taking a long swig. “It’s a free country. Bears can do whatever, just like any other Shifter.” He took another drag, then set down his bottle down. “But when they meet their Mate, they stick with them.”

“There are statistics proving this?” Arthur asked sceptically.

“It’s not like a ‘hey I like you, let’s be Mates’ thing,” Blake replied, his voice rising a little. The sudden loudness of his tone made Arthur’s knees shake, but he couldn’t understand why. “It’s a natural thing. Bears are drawn to their Mates. It’s like that human ‘soulmate’ crap, except this is actually real.”

“Sounds like bullshit,” Arthur said. His whole body was getting weaker. He needed to sit down, but pride was stopping him from giving in to that need. “How do you know all Mates end up playing happily ever after? Maybe some of them just don’t work out.”

Blake snorted. “You can’t control it, Arthur,” he said seriously, turning his head to look Arthur dead in the eyes. Arthur felt himself shudder under the scrutiny, but stayed focused as Blake went on, “Mates cannot go away from each other. Once they meet, they can’t not be together. It isn’t possible. The attraction can’t be changed.”

“Still calling bullshit,” Arthur replied.

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it,” Blake snapped.

“Feel what?” Arthur asked blankly.

“You don’t feel that we’re Mates.”

Arthur’s head was starting to spin. There were different emotions coursing through his body, unfamiliar sensations piling on top of each other, and on top of all that was his incredulousness that Blake had even suggested that. “We’ve only just met!” he half-shouted.

“That’s what it’s like when you meet your Mate,” Blake snapped, standing up and walking swiftly towards Arthur. Arthur backed up hurriedly, but pretty soon he was against a wall.

Everything seemed to be fuzzy, and Arthur’s vision was becoming more and more blurry. Heat was flashing through his frame and igniting his skin, but he needed to focus on what Blake was saying, on these ridiculous notions he was proposing. “Look, Blake –” he began.

“No, you look!” Blake snapped. “Don’t downplay the effects that being my Mate has on you. It can’t be only me, that’s not how Mates work.”

“I’m…” Arthur trailed off as his voice became more sluggish. It was impossible to concentrate, and Blake was so, so close to him. He could smell him, smell his anger and frustration, and it was doing crazy things to his body. But Blake was insane. He was fucking insane. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not –”

Blake let out a growl of frustration and started yelling. “Don’t you fucking dare deny it!” He continued to shout, his raised voice sometimes turning into near-roars, but Arthur had stopped listening. He could no longer physically force himself to listen. He had become rather enthralled by how translucent Blake’s ever-metamorphosing eyes seemed. He felt a sudden odd urge to reach up and touch the contours of Blake’s face, the sharp cheekbones and the tanned skin.

“Are you even fucking listening?” Blake growled. His jaw was set, his blue-green-grey eyes ablaze with a fire that contrasted the coolness of their colour. “I’ll show you,” he snarled, and with that, he crushed his lips against Arthur’s.

Arthur’s eyes flew wide open in shock at the feeling of Blake’s lips pressed to his, and his entire body internally combusted, his brain and heart exploding with an incredible passion he didn’t think he could sate. Blake’s lips were warm and soft and chapped and nothing at all like Arthur had ever known lips could be. He tried to remain stiff and aloof, but his body was giving in and he wanted this so, so badly. It was as if his limbs were moving on their own, and suddenly Arthur was kissing back, uncertain and inexperienced. Blake let out a guttural moan that quaked Arthur’s whole being, knotting his fingers in Arthur’s hair. Arthur felt himself gain confidence as he reached up his arms to wrap around Blake’s neck and just melted completely into him. There was no way that a kiss could be more perfect; Arthur’s vocabulary had just been reduced to the word “perfect”.

It took nearly a minute before Arthur became aware of his desperate need for oxygen, and both he and Blake broke apart. Blake’s pupils had dilated so far that they were occupying his entire irises, only a thin ring of indistinguishable, beautiful colour surrounding them. Arthur had never seen anything so wonderful in his whole life, and he really didn’t want to have to look at anything else ever again.

Fuck. Arthur was aroused, his cock hard and throbbing against his chinos. He hadn’t even known that a human body – or a Shifter body – was capable of withstanding this much pressure.

“Was that proof enough for you?” Blake asked. He was smirking again, but he sounded out of breath.

Arthur reached up to smooth down his hair, mussed from Blake tangling his fingers through it. “I guess it was a pretty good kiss.”

“Need more convincing?” Blake said.

Arthur shrugged.

Blake reached forward and gently ran a finger down the side of Arthur’s cheek. Arthur shivered violently and suddenly, toppling forward into Blake’s waiting arms. They felt stronger than he’d envisioned them being.

“You can’t help it,” Blake chuckled. “You’re my Mate.” He pulled Arthur forward and then pushed him onto the sofa in one smooth, fluid movement. Arthur let out a sound of surprise. “I’m going to prove it to you,” Blake smirked, and he lowered himself over Arthur and claimed his lips once more.

Arthur arched upwards into the kiss, parting his lips to let out a moan of pleasure, and Blake took the opportunity to lick at his lips and explore the inside of his mouth. Arthur mimicked his movement, tentatively twining his tongue with Blake’s, taking the liberty of filling his senses with the taste and scent of Blake. Before he knew what was happening, Blake had pulled off both Arthur’s shirt and his own and was kissing a trail down Arthur’s throat. His strong, muscular chest was pressed against Arthur’s, and every inch that they touched was alight.

Blake had reached down to unbutton Arthur’s trousers while he had been distracted by the kiss, so Arthur let out a yelp of surprise when Blake palmed his rather obvious erection through the fabric of his boxers, giving him the friction he hadn’t realised he’d desired. Arthur groaned in response and jerked his hips into the touch, then tried to reach down to do the same for Blake. Before he could, Blake had leaned down abruptly and taken one of his nipples into his mouth and was swirling his tongue around it, and Arthur was reduced to a mewling mess.

Arthur wasn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly he and Blake were completely naked. He was sure he’d been made to sit up for a short while or something, but his mind had been in too much of a whirl to remember how they’d come to this. He was able to see Blake properly now, and he looked like something out of a magazine. His muscles were chiselled all over his body, forming a strong yet lithe frame. There was a peppering of dark hair across his chest, and a dark trail of courser hair leading towards a prominent erection, and Arthur honestly wasn’t surprised at all by its impressive size. A sudden new emotion flooded him: fear.

“I’ve never…” Arthur began.

Blake stopped short. “Never?” he repeated.

“No,” Arthur said.

Blake’s eyes widened, and then he pounced on Arthur again, preventing his apologies at being inexperienced from spilling out with a well-placed kiss. “All mine,” Blake said hungrily, and he began to kiss his way down Arthur’s body. Very tentatively, he began to press open-mouthed kisses to his chest, his stomach, and then, deliberately skipping over the spot Arthur wanted most to be kissed, he moved on to his thighs. Arthur was torn between whining about the teasing and simply appreciating the delightful tingles and sparks that were set off on his skin when receiving the attention.

There was literally no warning before Blake licked a stripe up the underside of Arthur’s cock, then wrapped his lips around it and sucked. Arthur whimpered, reaching downward to thread his fingers through Blake’s hair. Fuck, Blake sure new what he was doing – his tongue was drawing patterns up and down the swollen flesh, occasionally humming to send vibrations up Arthur’s aching cock.

Arthur let out a wanton cry as Blake took more of his cock into his mouth, pumping the rest of it with his hand. Arthur wanted to scream. That hot, filthy tongue was doing things to him that he never could have possibly imagined. He growled in pleasure, canting his hips forward in desperate motions. Blake guided his hips into a more relaxed rhythm with hands that felt so big and strong and powerful against Arthur’s skin. He then reached down and gently stroked Arthur’s entrance, and Arthur hadn’t been prepared for the overload of pleasure that overtook him. He whimpered and writhed against Blake’s mouth, gripping his hair even tighter now in an attempt to hold on for dear life. Then Blake dealt the fatal blow – he looked up at Arthur with lust-stricken eyes, and Arthur made a desperate noise in the back of his throat and came with a wanton cry of Blake’s name.