Scorch: M/M Gay Shifter Mpreg Romance (Dragon's Destiny: Fated Mates Book 2) (5 page)

You’re mine
, I almost blurted out. But no. That would be too much. Be human, for now.

“I know—I mean, I
think
that we’d be a good… fit.” There. That didn’t sound too weird, did it? Devin was still looking at me strangely though, so I groped for something more. Fuck it. I was no good at this. A version of the truth would have to do. The man was my mate, after all. “The first time I saw you, Devin, I knew. There isn’t going to be anyone else for me. I want
you
. I don’t know what’s going on with your marriage, but I need you. I need… to be with you. I need to—”

I stopped myself and took a breath.

I was starting to feel out of control again, and I wasn’t sure how to handle that. How could my mate not want me? I couldn’t lose this man. It would kill me. I needed to find the right words, but I had no idea what those might be.

“I know,” Devin said, saving me. “I mean, I don’t understand it, but I… kind of feel like that, too.” He turned his hand over, palm to palm with mine. Now I was the one that shivered. “That’s good. That you feel it too, I mean.” He gave a little laugh, pushing his long bangs out of his face and blushing again. “Because I was starting to wonder if I was going a little crazy.”

I was smiling again, and I couldn’t seem to stop. As much as I wanted this man, in the carnal sense, for now just being with him was enough.

I could have happily stayed right there, forever. Instead, I got an hour—eating lunch and holding hands and finding out a hundred little details about the man who, someday, I would find a way to make my own.

W
hen I got
home from work, I heard a man’s voice that I didn’t recognize coming from the living room, talking with Sarah. I headed in to join them.

“Hi, honey,” Sarah said, a squirming Holly in her arms. “Do you remember Ty? He’s Elise’s uncle.”

“Holly play!
Down
, mama!” Holly insisted, reaching for the other little girl who stood shakily by the couch, clutching her uncle’s knee for support.

“No, Holly. Elise has to go bye-bye,” Sarah said to her daughter. “And
you
need a nap, missy.”

“Noooooo! No! NOOOOOO!”

I bit back a smile. My step-daughter definitely had a set of lungs on her, but I could see that Sarah was right. Holly was struggling to keep her eyes open.

“Ty, I’m sorry, do you mind if I leave you and go put Holly down? I don’t mean to rush out, but she’s not going to last much longer,” Sarah said.

“No prob. The girls wore themselves out. I’m sure Elise will be out like a light once we start driving.”

“Dev, would you mind showing Ty out, honey?” Sarah threw over her shoulder as she headed out of the room with an unhappy Holly still protesting loudly in her arms.

“The girls were having so much fun that I think we let it go too long,” Ty said after they left. He rubbed the back of his neck with a rueful grin. “I’m not very good at saying no to Ellie.”

“You’re babysitting today?” I asked.

“Yeah. Dane wanted to take Wes away for the weekend, so I’m it.” He shook his head as he said his brother’s name. “Those two still act like they can’t keep their hands off each other. You’d think their whole fated— er, that by now the honeymoon would have worn off.”

Ty seemed to stumble over his words, and he stood up abruptly and started fumbling with Elise’s diaper bag. He pushed some of his niece’s things into it without meeting my eyes. It was odd.

“Has your brother been married long?” I asked him, trying to figure out what had put the other man on edge.

“A little more than a year.”

“Oh! So they adopted Elise right away? Or is one of them her biological father?”

“Uh, yeah. Something like that,” Ty mumbled.

It was obvious that the conversation was making him uncomfortable, but for some reason I didn’t want to let it go. I settled on the arm of the couch, subtly blocking the exit.

“Tell me about it,” I invited Ty.

He stopped fussing with Elise’s jacket and looked up at me intently. “Tell me about
this
,” he said instead, waving a hand around the room. “This marriage thing. No offense, dude, but I think we both know this isn’t the real deal.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my stomach suddenly cramping with nerves as he turned the tables on me. “What do you mean?” I asked tightly. What had Sarah told him?

“Look,” Ty said. “I know it’s not my business, but you should be with Maks. Sarah and Holly are great, but you’re his… uh, you’re—” He stopped, clearly floundering. “You and Maks could be like Dane and Wes,” he finally said. “You’re like, meant to be. I would think that you’d be able to feel it.”

I swallowed, trying to will away the ache I felt at hearing Ty’s words. They were an echo of what Maks had said to me the first time he’d come over. I had no idea what made Ty think it was true, too, but I
did
feel it.

Maks had been courting me, for lack of a better word, for the last couple of weeks, and it was a heady feeling. He seemed to understand that I wasn’t going to do anything to break my marriage vows, and for all the time that we’d spent together, he hadn’t touched me… much. Certainly nothing that wasn’t innocent—no matter how hot the looks he gave me were.

Or what my traitorous body wanted him to do.

But even without that, it had without a doubt been the best two weeks of my life. I knew I was inexperienced when it came to men, but my feelings for Maks felt so real—no matter how many times I reminded myself that I barely knew the man. Hearing Ty say that we were “meant to be” resonated with the unwarranted conviction inside me that it was true.

Maks felt like my destiny, even though that wasn’t an idea I’d ever believed in before… and even if I didn’t see how it could be, given my promises to Sarah.

“I do feel it,” I admitted, pushing my glasses higher on my nose with a nervous laugh. I didn’t know Ty at all, but it felt good to say it out loud to someone. “But it’s not that simple. And—” I forced the last words out past a painful lump in my throat. “—I don’t expect someone like Maks to wait around while I figure it out.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Ty said, his lip quirking up in a little half-smile. “Trust me. You don’t ever need to doubt him.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked, desperately wanting it to be true. Ty seemed to know a lot about Maks, and I wasn’t above pumping him for information. Even if it did make me feel a bit like an infatuated teenager. “Does he, um, talk about me?”

Ty laughed again, sitting back down on the couch and pulling a tired Elise onto his lap. The little girl settled comfortably against him and rested a sleepy head against his shoulder, playing with the zipper on his jacket as her eyes started to drift closed. “Dude, believe me. You have no idea. That man is all about you. But seriously, Dev, what’s the deal with Sarah?”

“He married me so Holly and I would have health insurance,” she said, rubbing a hand across her baby bump as she walked back into the room. “Along with a place to live.”

“Sarah!”

“Calm down, Dev,” she said, sitting across from Ty on the loveseat. “I don’t think he’s going to run and tell the health insurance police. And besides, Ty is on my side, right?” She directed the last part toward the man in question, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“What’s your side?” Ty asked her cautiously.

“I want Dev to be happy, and Maks seems to make him happy,” Sarah said, smiling. “He’s my best friend, Ty. It was always the three of us—me, Dev, and Luke. Luke and I were together…” she swallowed, letting her voice trail off.

I hated seeing her upset, and a part of me wanted to stop her from telling this stranger her personal business, but of course it was her choice. Her story to tell. I missed Luke too, though, and when I sat next to her on the loveseat, reaching for her hand was a comfort to both of us.

She gave me a grateful squeeze, then went on. “Luke was Holly’s father, and the father of this one, too.” She patted her belly. She was about four months pregnant—sweetly rounded, but not huge yet. She was due at the end of August. “I was still in high school when I had Holly, and neither one of our families were happy with our choice to keep her. Luke and I ended up getting a place together because, well, staying at home wasn’t an option for either of us at that point. He was working three different jobs to try to make it work, but it felt like we were always getting behind. And then when I got pregnant again…” she paused, frowning.

I knew that neither pregnancy had been planned, and even though both Luke and Sarah loved Holly and had been genuinely excited about the new baby, too, having the sudden responsibilities of parenthood and adult life thrust upon them at such a young age had been hard on them. Neither of their families had helped, and even though the three of us had been close friends, Luke hadn’t wanted to accept anything from me, either, even though I could easily afford to give it.

“Luke heard about this job,” Sarah continued telling Ty. “It was up in Alaska, on a fishing boat. It was crazy money. Like, really good pay, and no experience required. But it meant he’d be gone for a long time. Months. So Dev invited Holly and I to move in with him while Luke was gone, but then… he’d just got up there. It was a week into it, and we got this call.”

Sarah stopped, gripping my hand painfully tight. I could hear the tears she was holding back in her voice before she went silent, and I jumped in with the rest of the story when I saw that she couldn’t go on.

“There was an accident on the boat,” I told Ty. “Luke didn’t make it. We got the call from one of the other fisherman. Luke and Sarah weren’t married, so the company didn’t even bother to notify her, and of course there were no benefits. Sarah and Holly had nothing, so… we just thought this would be the best answer. If we got married, I could take care of them. Provide for them.”

“For how long?” Ty asked, not unsympathetically.

“For as long as they need me.”

I
had fallen
asleep thinking about the day I’d married Sarah. I knew that the memories had been stirred up by Ty’s earlier visit, and as I’d replayed the simple ceremony in my mind, I hadn’t felt any regrets. Not even my need for Maks could make me doubt my decision to step in and take care of Sarah and Holly when Luke wasn’t around to do so.

It had been the right thing to do.

We had done it at the courthouse, just the two of us and Holly. It was practical, and certainly not romantic, but it had still been done out of love—even if only the love of friendship.

The officiant had asked us if we’d written our own vows, and since we hadn’t, he had offered to use simple, traditional wording. Sarah had balked at including the line “until death do us part,” and what we’d settled on had been a good fit, even if the officiant had given us an odd look. When we’d held hands and spoken the words to each other, I’d meant every one of them.

I loved Sarah like a sister, like family, like the constant friend she had been to me for so many years, and I’d vowed to be there for her, forsaking all others, for as long as she needed me.

Which meant saying no to Maks.

But that was real life—waking life—and right now, I knew I was dreaming… and it gave me permission to say yes.

It wasn’t the first time I’d dreamed of Maks, and each time was delicious torture. I had no idea if the reality could ever be as good as my dreams, and they’d become something I’d come to look forward to eagerly… and something I dreaded waking up from.

I wanted Maks, and seeing so much of him lately had been heaven.

I loved his sense of humor, and the way he listened to me as if everything about me was fascinating, and the way he made even the simplest moments fun. I loved the little ways he always found to touch me, and the way he remembered the things that were important to me, and the way he looked at me, hot and tender at the same time, as if I was everything he wanted. And I appreciated that he respected my need to honor my marriage vows. I really did.

But oh, God, I desperately wanted him to fuck me. I wanted him to do things to me that I’d never experienced in real life, but I wasn’t free to ask for those things.

Whenever I closed my eyes, though, he was there… and in my dreams I didn’t have to ask. They always felt so vivid, so real, as if Maks were inside my head, inside my heart—and definitely, in those hot, frantic dreams—inside my body.

Tonight, in the way of dreams, the setting was both familiar and strange. It felt like
my
bedroom,
my
home, but not the one I lived in with Sarah. It was Maks’s home. Our home, together. And Maks was there, behind me, those hot hands that had touched me chastely so many times in the waking world, suddenly not so innocent. Slipping under my shirt, trailing a line of heat up my belly that shot straight down to my cock. Maks was kissing me, tipping my head back so he could suck lightly at the base of my throat as he undressed me. Handling me with a possessive devotion that made me feel cherished and loved and
his
, completely.

I didn’t know if the reality would ever compare to this. How could it?

In the dream, Maks’s lips scorched my skin, lighting it on fire with a fierce, burning need for more. Dream-clothes disappeared, and the feel of Maks’s powerful body, naked and pressed against me from behind, his thick shaft pulsing between us, was almost enough to make me come by itself.

Especially when he reached around and wrapped a hot hand around my own straining erection, stroking up its length with the perfect pressure, and that delicious
heat.
Slicking his hand back down me, again and again, in a rhythm that made everything else disappear. There was only him.

His touch. His heat. His voice.

He whispered in my ear, telling me all the things that I’d never heard him say in waking life, but had seen in his eyes every time we saw each. Things I was scared for him to say out loud since I wasn’t free to act on them… even though I desperately wanted to hear them. Wicked things, and loving things, and things that made me dream of a future that was unlike anything I’d ever let myself imagine before meeting him.

And then, with no transition, dream-Maks was fucking me.

I’d thought about it—constantly—ever since I’d first seen him. I wanted it with an urgency that bordered on desperation, but I was also nervous. In real life, I’d never so much as kissed anyone. The idea of this powerful man taking me both excited and scared me, but in the dream, there was no hesitation. We were joined, connected, a perfect fit, his thick cock deep inside me, filling me in a way that just proved again that it wasn’t real, because I was pretty sure that nothing in the world could possibly feel as good, as right, as perfect as
that.

Maks took me from behind, bending me over and holding me tightly around the waist as he fucked me, hard and fast and—
God—
so fucking good, pumping my cock with his other hand and getting me closer and closer to something so much bigger than anything I’d ever felt when I’d touched myself, alone. It wasn’t just an orgasm, it was an inferno, a blaze that built and built and
built
inside me until it consumed me, consumed us both, exploded in a hot rush that emptied me out completely… and had me waking to sticky sheets and a heart-breaking feeling of loss as I realized the truth.

He wasn’t really here. I was alone.

I rolled over in the empty bed, aching to feel his warm body next to me, longing for it to be real. Willing myself back to sleep, so I could be with him again.