STORY EXCERPT

An emergency trip to the doctor told Leon something he never expected. Will was pregnant. Human men, men in general, could only become pregnant if they were penetrated by their mates.

Will was Leon’s mate, and Leon had been treating him like shit. It brought on a slew of new questions. It explained why Leon had been unable to let go of the anger inside him over the boy that broke his heart, but then, if they had been mated, even then, why had Will left him so harshly? Why leave at all?

The answer had floored Leon again. The scar he’d seen on Will’s back when he fucked the man, that deep, terrible-looking thing that had most definitely not been there when they were teenagers, came from his father.

Apparently, the man had gotten wind that his son might be seeing another boy, and he hadn’t taken it well. Acceptance for same sex coupling was on the rise to the point it was almost mundane, but there still were the clusters of people who didn’t accept it, who got violent at the idea of their own children being queer.

It answered why Will had been away for so long, why his windows had been locked, and why he was so determined to avoid Leon after the fact. Hell, if his father had stabbed him for even the suspicion of being gay, then there was no telling what the man would have done if he had the confirmation of it. The fact that Leon was a shifter would’ve likely made things worse, and Will had felt forced to distance himself.

It was for that reason why Leon hated Will’s parents. He hated Will’s father for almost killing his son in a drunken rage, and he hated Will’s mother for having no spine, for not leaving the bastard when Will finally escaped and left the household.

Most of all he hated them for making him hate Will. He hated them for taking ten years from them.

Leon was glad Will’s father was dead. He honestly was. The only thing that hurt him was the fact that it was clearly hurting Will.

When they returned to the house, it was clear Leon wasn’t about to get the sex he desired from his mate. Not with the way Will walked around like a robot. He said he was fine, but obviously Leon didn’t believe him.

He took Will to their bedroom in the pool house.

The main house was too big. Leon only had it for appearance’s sake. He and Will lived in the smaller pool house, their room on the second floor.

“Stay here. I’ll grab you a coffee,” Leon said. Will was allowed to have one a day, and though he didn’t usually partake, Leon thought he needed it right now.

He ran downstairs, put in a cap of Will’s favorite, and brought back upstairs the hot cup when it was ready, using extra sugar, just the way Will liked it.

“Here you go,” Leon said, and Will took the cup, still staring at the wall like he was in another world.

“I can’t believe he’s dead.”

Leon paused. He bit his lips together then sat down beside his mate. Will’s scent was a comfort, even when something stressful like this was going on. He hoped, even though Will was a human, that the other man would find some comfort in Leon’s scent as well.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Will blinked, he looked down at the mug in his hands, and then shook his head before apparently changing his mind.

“He…he fucking stabbed me when I was sleeping. He tried to kill me once. I shouldn’t care. Part of me doesn’t, but now that he’s actually gone…”

“You don’t have to explain a thing,” Leon said. “Maybe it’s just the shock. The guy was still your father. That must do something to a person, to know a parent is gone, even if you didn’t get along with him.”

Will snorted a laugh, and Leon couldn’t help but think that was a good sign. At least he had some of his sense of humanity still intact.

“Not getting along would be the polite way of saying we practically hated each other. I mean, at the very least I never trusted him again.”

Shame and guilt wracked Leon to the core. His mate had been in danger, had been suffering, in real physical pain and probably scared for his life, and instead of doing something to help, Leon had made it worse by walking away angry.

He’d been little more than a kid himself, a teenager who thought he was a man, so logically, Leon knew there wasn’t really anything he could have done to make things easier for his mate.

The alpha inside him, the lion, wouldn’t accept that, however. It didn’t like that there was a time when he’d failed his mate. The animal would be reminding him of this failure for the rest of his life.

ADULT EXCERPT

“Yeah, can I?” Will asked, playing the game they where he asked for permission to touch what he already knew Leon would let him touch.

Leon kept right on smiling at him, going along with the game, making Will’s cock jump, pre-cum forming along the slit and sliding down the thick shaft.

Will’s mouth actually watered.

“I don’t know. I thought you wanted me inside you first?”

Will would take whatever he could get at this point, but giving Leon pleasure, having the man’s cock in his mouth, and making Leon feel good seemed like the top priority, considering how good Leon was being to him.

Especially after what happened in the limo.

Maybe it made no sense, but Will really wanted to make it up to the other man. That was all he wanted to do.

“Please?” Will said again, begging. He wasn’t putting on an act. He really was begging to have Leon’s cock in his mouth.

Luckily, Leon didn’t seem to be in a mood to tease Will for too long. He nodded then leaned forward, pressing the softest of kisses to Will’s mouth. Will closed his eyes and leaned back. He allowed Leon to push him back down onto the bed. At first, he thought Leon wasn’t going to let him do it, that he was going to gently push Will onto his side, spread his legs, and fuck him.

No, Leon didn’t do that. He crawled up onto the bed, but then, instead of settling himself behind Will or between his legs, he hooked his knee over Will’s shoulders.

“Gonna try to not sit on your chest, but this is the best position I can think of for this.”

It was great all right, mostly because it put Leon’s cock right in front of Will’s face. He could smell the musk of his mate, and his pulse jumped with desire as he thought about licking and sucking on his mate’s gorgeous cock.

“Can you hold that position?” Will asked, looking around the heavy erection in front of his face to the man it was attached to.

Leon was squatting a little, holding himself up with the strength of his thighs. That looked like a position that would get pretty tiring very fast, but Leon didn’t seem to mind it so much.

He smiled and nodded. “Trust me, for you, I can. God, you have no idea how much of a turn-on it is seeing you like this. You should see it.”

“Maybe I’ll do it to you one day,” Will half joked, though he was curious about what this must look like to the other man.

He didn’t manage to keep that thought in his head for too long. Not when the object of his desire was right there in front of his face, and Will wanted it so much.

He leaned forward, holding onto Leon’s thighs to give himself something to grip and pull up with.

The guttural moan and sigh that came from Leon when Will’s tongue touched his cock was everything Will wanted to hear, and that noise sent a pleasant shiver through his body that he couldn’t ignore.

The urge to reach down and grab his cock was there, as strong as ever, but he couldn’t. He could only hold onto Leon and try to keep himself from completely coming undone. Still, he couldn’t stop his hips from thrusting forward. It was as if they had a mind of their own as they searched for something, anything that would give his dick the friction he needed.

“Oh, yeah, baby,” Leon said, his hands petting through Will’s hair, his nails pleasantly scratching at his scalp in a way he liked. Will especially liked it when Leon began to slowly thrust his hips, fucking into his mouth. God, Will couldn’t see what they looked like, but he could imagine it, and it was getting him off almost as well as any hand on his erection could.

“That’s it, sweetheart. You look so good with your mouth around my cock like that.”

Leon said other encouraging things to him, things that made Will hot and bothered. The fact that Leon was on top of him like this made that heat almost unbearable, but so good at the same time.

He bobbed his head back and forth, creating an offbeat rhythm as Leon thrust back and forth, a little harder and faster this time. That was what Will wanted. He hollowed his cheeks and swirled his tongue, desperate to feel his mate coming, to taste him and have him. He wanted it so badly it shocked him with how much he ached for it.

Leon finally threw his head back. “Oh, baby, that’s so good. I’m gonna come.”

Good. Will liked it when Leon was in control of him, bossy in bed, all of that. But Will absolutely loved the sense of power that he got when he was in control like this, when he was the one making his big bad alpha come undone. It made him feel powerful, that he really was Leon’s one and only, and that no matter the baggage Will brought to the relationship he could still please his mate, show his worth, and show Leon how much Will loved him and wanted to be with him.

Will didn’t pull back, despite the warning. He kept on with what he was doing, and when Leon jerked his hips, a rumbling moan leaving his throat, Will swallowed everything down that was given to him.