It took five minutes, tops, before I sat back on my heels and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Gods, I never got tired of how he looked after he’d come, those coppery eyelashes fanned out against his skin, freckles decorating his freshly-fucked flush, that big, intimidating body relaxed and at ease. His hand slid down to my shoulder, and he started digging his fingers into my muscles, massaging me without even thinking about it.
“I love you,” I said, and I’d never meant it more. Sleeping as long as I wanted and then getting woken with a hot, eager mouth on my cock had been the best way to ring in a new year I could remember—definitely better than a post-vampire-bar hangover. Ugh. “Now come on, get up. Those mugs aren’t going to write on themselves.”
“You could make them,” Ian mumbled, not moving. “Magic. Why have magic if you have to do shit for yourself?”
Damn it. He’d be asleep in a few seconds. “Get up, or I won’t pretend I’ve never seen an alpha cock before later on when you want to fuck me.”
He moved. We were out the door three minutes later, bundled up against the new-falling snow and crunching through the frost that’d formed on the path to the pack house.
“You have to do the part where you ask me what’s happening when I start to knot you,” he said, juggling the mugs while he tried to finish zipping his jacket. I mean, I couldn’t carry them. I needed my hands in my pockets or I’d freeze, even with my gloves.
“I’ll even beg you to pull out so you can tell me it’s too late for that.” Mmm. That was my favorite part. Ian hummed agreement. Yeah…we wouldn’t need to be at the pack house for long. Just long enough. “I’ll make it worth your while. Besides, you’ll be glad you came along. The joke’s on Arik.”
Ian laughed. “Figures. I’m definitely on board. I’m glad you and Jared are getting along.”
Really? After his attitude ten minutes ago? I had to bite my lip to keep in a laugh and a couple of sarcastic remarks that’d only ruin the mood. What a difference a sucked cock made, right?
Jared met us on the porch, bright-eyed and grinning like an idiot. And walking carefully, as if he’d pulled a muscle.
“So what’d you do last night?” Ian asked, his voice vibrating with mischief. “Anything in particular? What’d Calder get up to? He obviously got it—”
“Shut the fuck up, Ian!” He sounded so cheerful he could explode. “Nate, you bring those mugs?”
I handed them over along with the Sharpie, and he scrawled a few words on each, nodded, and gave me back the pen. We all trooped inside and headed for the kitchen.
“Calder’s making breakfast,” Jared whispered, almost too quietly for me to hear, in an effort to evade the supernatural hearing of nearly everyone else who lived here. That neverstopped being annoying. “You got here just in time. The kettle’s about to boil for Arik’s tea.”
The kitchen held Calder at the stove and Arik rummaging in a cabinet for his box of tea, and also Matthew pouring himself coffee, Jessica sitting at the table with a cup already in front of her like she’d been eating breakfast here for years, the baby next to her in a basket kind of thing that had probably been provided by Amy, and little Jonathan perched on a too-big chair devouring a pile of sliced apples. The back door thumped open as we walked in, and a moment later Paul and Jennifer came through from the mudroom, pink-cheeked from the cold.
Under cover of the ensuing chorus ofHappy New Year, andHow are you feeling?andGood morning, Jared slipped across the room and, with surprising stealth, replaced the mug Arik had gotten out with the one he’d written on. He poured some coffee into his own, kissed Calder, and leaned up against the counter, visibly vibrating with impatience.
Ian got us some coffee, I ruffled Jonathan’s hair, and Jessica smiled up at me. “Nate, Happy New Year,” she said, and it sounded like she really meant it. Thank all the gods. It’d be a long time before I rid myself of the persistent mental image of her still, broken body slumped over the steering wheel.
Deep breath, and that went away, leaving me with only her bright-eyed, very-much-alive face. “Same to you. Sleep okay?”
She told me about how they’d all settled in, and behind me Matthew laughed at something Jennifer had said, and the kitchen filled with coffee steam and the smell of frying bacon and cheerful voices, and I wedged myself in between Jonathan and Potato to hear Jessica better.
“…stay in the big house for now, but Matthew and Arik said they thought Jared and Jennifer would be able to renovatethe cottage nearest to the pack house once the snow stops,” Jessica was saying. “Am I getting everyone’s names right?”
With Jessica and a pair of little ones staying in the house, Arik would need to up his game as far as sound-muffling spells went, that was for sure.
“A-plus student,” I assured her, and she laughed. “Once you get all those—”
“What the ever-loving fuck?” Arik’s voice went up at least a full octave and at least thirty decibels above the buzz of conversation, and I spun around, not wanting to miss a second of the show. He held his mug of tea out in front of him as if it’d been a venomous snake, glaring at it in total bewilderment and dawning fury. “World’s second-best stepdad? What the fuck does that even mean? I’m not even a—oh, my gods, I fuckingam,” he moaned, his eyes going wide. “Why second-best? Nate? The hell!”
“It wasn’t me, it was Jared,” I said quickly. Very quickly. I wasn’t exactly afraid of Arik, but all things being equal, I’d rather he was angry with someone other than me. “All Jared!”
Jared stepped forward, brandishing his own mug. “Second-best, because obviously the first place is already taken,” he crowed.
Arik leaned in and read the mug, and his face went first bone white and then bright, crimson red. “World’s best stepdad,” he said. “World’s. Best. Fuck you, Jared. No way. I’m older than you!”
Calder had turned from the stove to watch, eyebrows all the way up into his hairline. “You fucking didn’t,” he muttered.
“I couldn’t be prouder of my stepson, or of how he’s,” Jared quavered, his voice and his hand both shaking as he started to laugh. Coffee spilled down his wrist. “Fuck, ow! How he’s become one himself—oh, shit!”
Most of the rest of the coffee went on the floor as Jared turned tail and booked it out of the kitchen, howling with laughter while he ran for his life. Arik’s blond hair flew behind him as he followed, and I caught a few snarled words about removing all the internal organs Jared had left.
Calder sighed, put down the spatula, said, “Paul, would you mind?” and jogged after them.
