His stomach swooped, and a grin stretched his face so much it hurt. Finn was pulled right out of his anxious worrying at the thought of finally seeing him.
Jaime.
You’re all tied up in knots over someone you haven’t even met in person yet, you overbearing creep. He’d probably run for the hills if he knew that you woke up this morning hard, wishing it was his warm, sleep-mussed scent and soft, slick ass that you stuffed your cock into instead of your dry hand, in a bed that smelled like your own sweat and cum.
So, maybe Finn thought about Jaime more than was normal for someone he hadn’t actually had a first date with, yet. But he just couldn’t help it when his wolf went straight forI bet you smell like minethe first time he saw the warmth of the man’s smile.
Jaime had stood out immediately among the sea of mindless swiping. His cute, knowing smirk and teasing eyes that peeked through cinnamon lashes made something inside Finn sit up, alert, and he needed to know who he was.
He had bright, shiny red hair that Finn wanted to gently rake his claws through; the rich color curled around his ears and set off his mossy green eyes and freckled complexion. He looked lithe and toned, and his movements seemed graceful even through a screen; the muscles of his arms flexing in the picture of him holding a paintbrush, standing over an empty canvas.
The way his fingers gripped the brush with a gentle strength drew Finn’s thoughts down all sorts of paths he wasn’t prepared to look at too closely right now.
In short, Jaime had enchanted Finn from the start.
He mused that maybe Jaime was some distant descendant of the woodland fae, the ones that had died out long ago but still lived on in cautionary folktales told during bedtime stories and around the hearth fire.
Finn shook off the thought and adjusted himself, already semi-hard as he pictured Jaime wrapping those painter’s fingers around his cock instead of a brush, and tried not to think about it too much—even when that pulsing thrum of need shot through him again.
Silas pulled him from his wandering thoughts, voice soft, and Finn looked up to meet his gaze. “Oh Finny, you really like him, don’t you?”
He gave a frustrated shake of his head and blew out a breath. “I barely know him, Si. We haven’t even met in person yet. Tonight will be our first date.”
Silas’s look was knowing. “But you’ve talked, yes?”
Finn nodded. He knew Jaime was an artist, and that he laughed at Finn’s jokes and listened when he told him about his toxic mother and how he’d followed his friend into the military to get away from her. He’d told Jaime about Luna, and how sometimes he still expected to hear her padding up to him when he came home.
Would Jaime paint Luna for him, someday?
The hope that came along with that thought frightened him, so fragile and precious, but then Finn remembered the way Jaime looked when he laughed, and the shy way he had suggested that they go on a date, and it bloomed.
Silas smirked. “If you want me to stay out on my run later than usual, leave a sock on the front door.”
Finn’s face heated. “It’s not like that. I really like—” he huffed, “I mean, I want to see where it could go, and don’t want to rush things.”
The look Silas gave him was so understanding he had to turn away.
I really like him and don’t want to ruin it by going too fast.
But of course his brother knew that.
Silas stood, and began clearing up after his dinner. “You’re a catch, Finny. You’re funny, and smart, and handsome. The parts of you that he doesn’t know about yet don’t detract from that.”
The wolfy parts, he meant.
Finn ignored the nervous twist in his gut, and changed the subject. “So, you’re going out for a run this evening?”
Silas regularly ran the perimeter around Silver Rapids in his wolf shift, claiming it eased his mind to know the comings and goings of the paranormal residents in their small town. He wondered if his constant vigilance was because he was a full wolf shifter, where Finn was only half, or from something else. Something that set Silas apart even from the other full-blooded shifters he knew, something that made himother.
Sometimes Finn joined him on his patrols, and while he enjoyed the freedom and strength and release of the wild run with his closest friend and brother, the instinct to claim and protect the land surrounding Silver Rapids was muted for him.
Also, the Salt Creek pack, volatile on the best days and violent on the worst, had set up a new outpost twenty or so miles west of Silver Rapids, and Finn thought that their close proximity had Silas on edge. Especially given that it was the same pack that Silas’s family had fled when he was just a pup—for reasons Silas had never fully explained—claiming he wasn’t sure himself.
“Yeah, I am. That fox shifter came back to town last night, I wonder how long he’ll stay,” Silas said.
Finn could smell that he was thinking about the last time that fox shifter was in town. And in Silas’s bed. He smirked. “Are you going to try and see him again?”
Silas smiled ruefully and shook his head, but Finn clocked the shift in his eyes. The same look he always had whenever he was distancing himself from something—just a fling that would never last. “That’s not happening again, I’m sorry to say.”
