STORY EXCERPT

The one thing Tim had learned about Ivan was that, before they had realized they were mated, Ivan had seemed to be under the false impression that Tim was a brave individual. All because he’d pushed Taylor out of the way of a charging bear shifter.

Brave. Not really. He could act bravely, pretend when it was a life or death situation. Or he just didn’t think about what he was doing before he jumped in and did it. Which was how he’d managed to get away from the bears with Taylor and Odette the first time.

Tim had been so scared Ivan would look at him and realize he wasn’t the brave guy Ivan thought he was, and that he would realize there had been some mistake.

But no. He was still here. He didn’t hold it against Tim whenever he let his nerves get the better of him.

But that didn’t mean Tim wanted to push his luck, either.

There was another five minutes or so they had before they were back home, and Tim couldn’t stand the silence.

“We haven’t seen any of the bears in a while. You think they might have given up?”

He could only hope.

Ivan didn’t answer right away, and the look on his face suggested he kind of doubted it. Tim figured as much, just as he figured that Ivan didn’t want the bears to give up.

Because there was one bear in particular Ivan wanted to kill.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s all right. Don’t—”

Ivan slammed on the breaks. Tim hadn’t been paying attention to the front of the road since he wasn’t the one driving, and so it had been a shock as he was suddenly slammed against his seat belt, his hands reaching out and grabbing onto the dashboard as the tires screeched to a halt.

And directly in front of them was a small brown bear with one eye missing.

The bear Ivan wanted to kill most of all, and his former mate.

Walter.

* * * *

Tim’s insides froze up. Walter wasn’t the bear who gave him the scars he had on his body, but he was the one to try giving him a whole new set of them, and very recently, too.

“Holy shit.”

How the fuck did he always know? It was beyond creepy how the guy always seemed to know where they were going to be before they went there.

Granted, there were only so many roads leading into Garrett’s pack where Tim and Ivan lived, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that this was insane, and he couldn’t believe he saw that bear again already.

“You buckled in, Tim?”

“Uh, yeah, are you going to run him over?”

Ivan clenched the steering wheel of the truck, looking very much like he wanted to. “No. We’re going around.”

Tim was grateful for that. He didn’t want to find out if this truck even could run over a bear shifter.

Walter was an omega, so he wasn’t as big as the alphas or betas of his own species, or even the wolves. They got huge. Larger than horses. The omegas of any shifter species were typically the size of the normal animals, which made it harder to identify them when out in the wild. Unless you happened to have one eye, like Walter did. Then it was incredibly easy to point him out in the wild.

Still, even at the size of a regular brown bear, it would be difficult to run over a natural bear. Tim wasn’t sure it was even possible.

“What… what does he want?”

Walter was just standing there. Looking at them. Tim wasn’t the best at reading the body language of shifters when in their animal shapes. It all looked the same to him, but he could tell that Ivan was picking something up.

“I don’t know.”

Something rose up inside of Tim and stood up straight. Something he didn’t like.

The knowledge that Ivan was lying to him.

ADULT EXCERPT

Ivan didn’t fight him when Tim kissed him. He gave in quickly, actually, as though he’d been hoping for this. That was good, because now that he was home, Tim needed this more than ever.

Though he liked that Ivan had lately been going out to hunt and shift without his clothes on, Tim missed the pleasures of stripping his mate out of his shirt and pants. Something to talk to him about later, but according to Garrett, shifting without clothes on was more comfortable and took less focus.

Tim reached down, his fingers finding and curling around the heavy base of Ivan’s cock. Ivan inhaled a deep breath, his dick jumping in Tim’s hand, making him feel all kinds of powerful.

Right, maybe it was a good thing Ivan had chosen to shift and hunt without wearing clothes. It meant he was going to have a lot more energy for what Tim wanted to do to him.

Tim held tightly to the back of his head, pulling him closer. Ivan was strong enough that anything Tim did, he basically did with Ivan’s blessing. But it was nice to know that he could still boss the other man around in bed, and Ivan would allow it.

Tim pushed Ivan against the nearest hard surface, which were the kitchen counters. He felt Ivan’s smile through their kissing, and though he couldn’t sense his heartbeat, he knew how he was affecting him. All Tim had to do was put his hand back down around Ivan’s cock, and he could feel the pulsing there, could feel the impact he was having.

And it made him feel powerful. It made him feel as though he and Ivan weren’t so helpless to everything going on around them.

They had control. If not over what happened outside their door, then what happened in here. Walter didn’t matter in here. Their rocky beginnings didn’t matter either.

Tim sank to his knees with a gasp. Ivan growled, spreading his thighs apart as Tim made himself comfortable.

“We might have to bring this into our rooms,” Tim said, grinning up at the man. “I mean, I’ll try my best, but I can’t make any guarantees for how long I’m going to last here.”

Ivan wet his lips, his fingers gently pushing through Tim’s hair. “Whatever you can give me is going to be more than enough. It’ll be perfect.”

Tim always loved to be encouraged by his mate, and since he didn’t need to say anything else to get this particular party started, he got right to it.

Tim leaned in, his lips and tongue finding the base of Ivan’s cock, right above his testicles.

The heavy gasp for breath and the shiver that rippled through Ivan’s body made Tim feel even more powerful than before.

He loved that he could make an alpha werewolf feel this way. He loved that he was the only one who could make Ivan moan and shiver like this.

“Oh, yeah, baby,” Ivan moaned, gently thrusting his hips, looking down and watching as his cock vanished in and out of Tim’s mouth. “That feels so good.”

That was exactly what Tim wanted to hear. He tightened his cheeks and bobbed his head back and forth, up and down, all the while swirling his tongue around the base of Ivan’s cock.

He held tightly to Ivan’s waist, bracing himself as he started to feel the pain in his knees. He was not done yet. He could handle it. Hearing Ivan gasping softly for breath and moaning his name was reward enough.

But that didn’t stop him from adjusting his weight from knee to knee, trying to hold off that pain before it got to be too much.

It was too perfect. He didn’t want to stop now just because his knees were hurting.

Ivan’s hips pumped a little faster. The sound he made became deeper. Tim felt the way his dick jumped and sputtered on his tongue as Ivan fucked his mouth.

God, that made him so excited.

The pain in his knees be damned. Tim was going to do this. He was going to keep his mouth moving around Ivan cock until the man came.