Wesley (14 page)

“Sue’s got an idea, I think, but she isn’t saying, at least not around us adults. I’m thinking probably she’s going to see if she can get some of the other kids to help her out, you know? Get a team together, sort of.”

Armando chuckled, the mix of nerves and understatement getting to him. “Sue will have every one of them marching on the place in an organised and well-armed fashion. She’s way older than her years.”

“You know I’m a shifter.” Wes leant forward, those eyes boring a hole through Armando’s soul. “You know who I am, don’t you? That I’m Sully’s brother?”

“I know we need to figure out how to help Sue—and keep the kids from going to juvie—” Armando began, but Wes stood and, in one step, was standing between Armando’s spread legs. Armando’s voice dried up and panic edged along his senses. He jerked his legs up and skittered back before he’d even thought about it. Wes reached for him, saying something Armando couldn’t hear with his heartbeat slamming so loud in his ears. He was moving backwards, then he was falling.

“Shit!”

He heard Wes shout that, right before Armando hit the hard floor. Unprepared for the fall, and panicking over Wes’ nearness, Armando didn’t get his hands down to break his fall. The sound his head made hitting the cement would have made him ill had he heard it happening to someone else. As it was, he was too shocked and stunned to do anything but lie there, gasping as his vision wavered. The ceiling kept dipping and spinning, the white tiles flickering with neon colours. He must have knocked something loose when he fell.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Wes kept saying, or else that word was bouncing around Armando’s jarred brain. Armando blinked and tried to raise his head up but the blurry shape in front of him turned bossy. “Don’t move! Just stay still and— I said,
don’t move.
Let me check you…”

The blurry shape came into focus and Wes was right there, his face only inches from Armando’s, the harsh puffs of his breath washing over Armando’s mouth like a tease or a promise. Armando licked his dry lips, trying not to beg Wes for a kiss. He didn’t kiss, anyway. That had always been his rule.

Armando groaned when Wes cupped his jaw and slowly turned his head. “Thought you said don’t move.”

“Well, duh, unless I’m moving you.” Wes prodded at a spot on the back of his skull that made Armando whimper with pain. If Wes pressed any harder, Armando thought his head would blow up. Apparently that was the detonation button, or the lump from hell.

“Yeah, you’ve got a goose egg back there for sure. Probably should take you to a hospital for X-rays.”

“No way.” Armando started to sit up but Wes snarled and planted a hand right on his chest. Instead of the fear that he’d expected, Armando felt only gratitude at not having to get himself off the floor. He didn’t think he could, honestly, but he’d have tried and made a fool of himself if Wes hadn’t stopped him. “Just call Remus, okay? Or, better yet, let me up and we can figure out how to help Sue and Dyan.”

“I’ll call Remus, and you will stay right here.” Wes kept a hand on Armando’s chest while he plucked a cellphone from his pocket with the other. “I don’t know Remus’ number, but Sully should.”

Armando tried not to flinch on hearing Sully’s name again. Maybe it was the knock to his head, but he found himself talking to Wes about his brother. “Sully, yes, I do know him, and Bobby. Or I used to, rather. Had a big crush on your brother, although I probably shouldn’t tell you that.”

Wes’ eyes positively glowed with irritation. “Yeah, well, you know he’s mated with Bobby.”

Armando rolled his eyes, or started to, only to groan and try to cradle his head when pain shot out from around his eye sockets.

“Don’t move, I said.” Wes caught his hands and pushed them aside before gently rubbing at his temples. When Armando groaned again, it was for a totally different reason than before. Wes’ touch felt so good. “I didn’t know you had crushed on Sully, no. I don’t know if he is aware of it either, but I’m not going to be telling him. Anything you confide in me, even if you don’t mean to and are only talking because you knocked the daylights out of yourself, even so I’ll keep it to myself. Now, let me call that brother of mine and get Remus down here.” Wes grinned and before Armando knew what was what, Wes had brushed his lips in a soft kiss that stole every thought from Armando’s head.

Wes sat up and started punching a number on his cell, but Armando couldn’t move. Silly reaction considering the kiss was barely even that. Wes’ lips had hardly touched his at all, and yet Armando’s lips tingled as if he’d been kissed with a passion he’d only thought others experienced. He lay on the floor, stunned more now by that one kiss than by the fall he’d taken. Armando didn’t pay any attention to what Wes was saying, and at some point he must have raised his hand to his lips, because he was touching them now, lightly, but it didn’t feel the same.

“Here, let me do that.”

Armando opened his eyes.
When did I close them?
Wes gently took his wrist and stroked his thumb over Armando’s pulse. At the same time, Wes lowered his head, his body, Armando didn’t know. He couldn’t look away from the wine-red lips descending for his own. Armando licked his, and Wes moaned quietly before pressing his mouth to Armando’s.

This kiss wasn’t the gentle sweep the first had been. Armando jolted as Wes’ torso came down on his, not fully, but the contact was unexpected and Armando didn’t know if he cared for it. Then Wes’ tongue swept into his mouth, teasing Armando’s, sliding over and around it until Armando forgot to be afraid or angry or any of the other bad things he’d felt for years now. Instead he moaned and wrapped his arms around Wes’ shoulders, grabbing his nape with one hand and a fistful of soft, thick hair with the other.

Armando opened his mouth wider and canted his head as he twined his tongue with Wes’. He felt Wes shudder, then there were hands on his cheeks, holding him still as Wes mastered his mouth. Armando curled his fingers, holding tighter, some part of him dimly aware that he might be hurting Wes.

Except Wes wasn’t acting like it hurt to be scratched or to have his hair pulled. Instead he was making needy sounds as he kissed Armando, and there was the long, hard press of his lower body against Armando’s.

Years.
It had been years since another man’s body had covered his, and never had it felt anything like this. Armando clung desperately to Wes and thrust against Wes’ heavy thigh when it parted his legs. Exquisite pleasure spread from his balls as he rubbed, shooting up to his cock and back to his hole.

Armando ran his hands down to grab the firm swells of Wes’ ass. He moaned happily when his hands slid easily beneath Wes’ waistband, grateful that the man had worn loose jeans.

And no underwear, holy fucking shit!
There was nothing but glorious, hair-covered skin and muscle under Wes’ jeans. Armando pinched and kneaded, pulled and scratched as he humped and kissed Wes back.

For his part, Wes growled and purred and never once let up on the kissing, although he did occasionally let up on the pressure so they could breathe. Armando’s lips ached, as did his jaw, and he wanted—no, needed—to come, but it was too enjoyable, rutting and frotting and kissing. Armando had never done this, and it was unbearably sweet and stimulating.

Then Wes shifted his weight and settled his lower body between Armando’s thighs. The position brought their dicks into alignment through their clothes. Wes ground against him and Armando almost embarrassed himself then and there. Wes raised his head finally and nibbled on Armando’s lips. They moved small, bare glides and thrusts, and Armando opened his eyes to stare into Wes’ gorgeous golden ones. The green was all but gone, and Armando didn’t think he’d ever seen such a lovely colour before.

“Yours are like the finest dark chocolate,” Wes gritted out before dipping down for another kiss.

It stung, and Armando’s lips felt raw and chapped, but he didn’t want the kiss to ever end. When it did, Wes thrust again and Armando clawed at him, marking that firm ass. He wanted to see it, to bite it and make sure Wes knew whom it belonged to.

A cacophony of warning bleated in him but Armando ignored it. He’d never been possessive, except maybe over Sully, but that had been different and nothing like what he felt for Wes.

Wes pushed his hips forward again, rubbing his cock alongside Armando’s. Armando arched everywhere he could, and was rewarded with a hard suck on his neck as Wes marked him.

“Yes,” he hissed, letting go of one ass cheek to go back to threading fingers through Wes’ hair. “Oh hell yes, harder.”

Teeth, tongue, lips, dick—Armando wanted them all, pounding into him, sucking or biting him, driving him crazy with want. He felt the brush of sharp, sharp teeth against the skin of his neck, where it joined his shoulder, felt his skin there give under pointed tips. Terror started to bubble up as reality hit. He had a shifter on top of him, rutting and biting and fixing to really hurt him.

“Get off of me,” Armando said as loud as he dared. He didn’t want to shout and have everyone come running into his office. “Off. Get off of me
now.
”

Wes raised his head and looked at him through lust-glazed eyes. Still gorgeous, but now Armando was scared, of Wes, of himself, of everything, but mostly of himself. He wanted that bite, and now that Wes was moving off him, Armando was regretting his hasty order. Fear was going to cost him what he wanted.

Armando opened his mouth up to tell Wes to stop, to get back on him when something else penetrated his brain. “My eyes. You said—”

Wes scowled and propped up on one elbow. “Jesus Christ, you’re confusing the fuck out of me.”

Armando was pretty confused himself, but he needed an answer, if he could just articulate the right question. “I was thinking about your eyes, how beautiful they are,” and he felt a bit of a fool saying so now, when lust wasn’t shoving the words out of his mouth. “But I didn’t say anything, and you… You said mine were like the finest dark chocolate.” Fear reared its gigantic ugly head again and Armando shrank back against the floor as much as he possibly could. “Why did you say that then, at that moment?”

Even as he asked, Armando was afraid he knew the answer—and hopeful that he knew it, too.

Chapter Nine

Shit.
Wes had scented the arousal first. Then the fear had eventually got through to him. Now Armando was giving off enough mixed signals to derail every one of Wes’ good intentions. Actually, he wasn’t sure which intentions were good anymore. Lying to Armando would be stupid, but telling him the truth sure seemed like a good way to freak him the fuck out. That was the last thing Wes wanted to do. Besides being concerned over the knot Armando had on his head, he wanted to get back to doing what they’d been doing for the past while.

And now he had Armando asking him about a damned stupid mistake he’d made when he’d felt the beginnings of the mental link blossoming between them. It was a sign of destined mates, that link. Some shifters and their mates could hear every thought the other had if they so desired, and some only picked up the bare minimum of feelings, but it was always there. Wes had only learned these things a few years ago himself. He came from a family of snow leopard shifters that didn’t know much about their heritage, but they were learning. Now if he could only learn to keep his mouth shut.

“Wes. Tell me,” Armando urged. There was that mix of fear and hope in Armando’s expression, in those dark, dark eyes that Wes wanted to kiss the worry from. Damn it, he wanted to kiss every inch of Armando’s body.

“I—” Wes began just before there was a loud knock on the door. Wes said a silent prayer of thanks for the timely reprieve as he shot to his feet and pointed at Armando. “Please, just stay there, okay? That should be Remus. Let him look you over first, please.” He’d have begged some more but Armando gave him the tiniest nod of agreement. Wes sighed in relief and darted to the door. He twisted the knob then cursed when it didn’t turn. Armando must have locked the door when he’d shut it, a fact that had Wes wondering just what Armando had thought would go on between them where they would have needed the door locked. Whatever it was, Armando had been right to flick that lock.

Wes turned the knob again and stepped back to let Remus in. “Sir. Remus.” Wes wasn’t really sure how to address Remus. Not in this situation, anyway.

“Remus, please.” He held out his hand and Wes shook it. “I am still the same man as I was yesterday and every day before then.” Remus tugged and the handshake turned into a hearty hug, Wes not thumping the old man’s back nearly as hard as Remus whacked his.

“Uh. Armando. He hit his head pretty hard,” Wes gritted out, relieved when Remus stopped being so affectionate after the first couple of words. They stepped out of their embrace.

“I’m not dead or unconscious,” Armando grumbled. “And I’m getting up.”