Ash leaned back on his hands, grin languid but eyes steady. “Monsters don’t scare me. It’s those who pretend they’re normal you need to look out for.”
Rick had no answer. Only the silence, thick as the haze. He let his head tip against the headboard, gaze roaming over the fit, lean body sprawled before him. Ash stretched with lazy, feline grace and crawled forward. Rick’s gut twisted, heat and hunger mingling with something rawer. On reflex, he spread his legs wider in answer. Invitation, or surrender. Ash pulled closer, palms gliding up the hard muscle of his thighs, deliberate and claiming, until they rested at the crease of his groin.
Rick’s voice came out rough. “What are you doing?”
Ash cupped him—balls heavy in one palm, shaft in the other—stroking him back to hardness with slow, unhurried pulls. “I’m hungry,” he murmured, lips curling as he watched Rick’s cock swell to its full, monstrous size. He tugged the foreskin back, then eased it forward again, coaxing precum to bead at the slit. Leaning down, he rubbed his mouth over the flushed crown, tongue stealing a first taste. “And I like to start my day with a healthy dose of protein.”
A quip hovered on Rick’s tongue, but dissolved the moment Ash’s lips closed around him, wet heat sliding down his length. His breath hissed out, spine peeling off the headboard. He buried a hand in the mess of Ash’s hair, tugging, guiding, urging him lower. “We’re…ah… not done talking yet,” he managed to rasp. There was the matter of Ash’s own mystery still waiting in the dark.
Ash withdrew long enough to say, “Later.” Then he dove again, mouth sealing over him, and Rick’s mind went white at the edges. It was impossible to argue when someone used arguments like this. But just as Rick began to thrust into that slick heat, Ash pulled off. He stroked Rick’s throbbing erection, studying it with hungry fascination. “You have the biggest, fattest, most perfect cock I’ve ever seen,” he said, thumb smearing precum across the head. “Feels like a fist inside me. And it’s intact, too.”
“Actually, I was cut at birth,” Rick said softly, watching him through half-lidded eyes. “When the foreskin grew back, my parents figured out I’d inherited the gene. One of the wolf perks.”
“Mm,” Ash hummed, amused. “No one bothered to take a knife to me. By the time I was adopted, it was too late, I guess.” The tone was wry, a shrug wrapped in a smirk.
Rick brushed a thumb along his mouth, tracing that ripe lower lip, the faint curve of defiance. “Lucky me,” he murmured.
Ash nipped at it playfully. “Thank fuck for small mercies, eh?”
Rick’s hips jerked upward, a tremor of need tightening inside him, his cock twitching and slick in Ash’s hand. As much as he’d like to discuss the finer points of tradition, his mind was too far gone for philosophy. “You always this chatty,” he rasped, “when a man’s dying in front of you?”
Ash’s grin turned wicked. “Guess I just like to hear you beg.”
“So why don’t you shut up and make me?” Rick said.
Ash’s laugh was a low, dangerous thing. “I’m kind of enjoying watching you fall apart.”
Rick’s patience snapped. He caught Ash by the hair with unmistakable intent, his other hand gripping his shaft and guiding it between Ash’s lips.
Fortunately, Ash took the hint. Abandoning words, he worked his mouth around Rick’s cock, jaw straining, neck flexing to take him deeper. Rick was too girthy, too long, and Ash gagged once, then pressed down again, stubborn, eager. Rick groaned, low and wrecked, and held him there, forcing his cock past the tight clutch of his gullet. “Oh God—” he whimpered, undone by the feel of that throat milking him.
Saliva slicked Ash’s chin; one hand fondled Rick’s balls, rolling their heavy weight, squeezing in rhythm with the pull of his mouth. The other slid up Rick’s stomach, combing through the trail of fur until it found a nipple, hard and pink against the dark pelt. He pinched it, twisted it, as his head bobbed over Rick’s thick shaft. The sight of him—lips stretched, cheeks hollowed, neck bulging around every brutal inch—was enough to drive Rick to the edge.
His head tipped back, eyes clamped shut, voice ragged and breaking. Ash sucked harder, throat convulsing tight around him, and Rick’s breath tore out hoarse. As orgasm surged, he fisted Ash’s hair and started fucking his mouth, desperate, merciless. And when it hit, when he spilled hot and heavy down Ash’s windpipe, cock pulsing, a thought cracked through him like lightning:this was it.True happiness.Not money, not victories, not the hollow trophies he’d chased all his life. Justthis: truth, surrender, and a man between his legs who knew the weight of darkness and still wanted him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
(11:04 a.m.)
Ash padded barefoot out of the small bathroom, teeth scrubbed clean, hair damp from splashing water over his face. His body felt wrung-out and strangely alive, nerves aching in ways that were half ruin, half revelation. He should’ve been sore, destroyed, but instead his blood thrummed as if he’d mainlined lightning. His muscles felt stretched and taut, and yet stronger too, like he could run a marathon, fight a war, or climb a mountain and eat the world raw when he got to the top. Supercharged, maybe. Or just delirious.
His jeans, however, were a lost cause. He found what was left of them crumpled by Rick’s bedroom door: shredded denim hanging in ribbons, threads trailing across the carpet. His T-shirt hadn’t fared much better, now little more than a torn rag. Only his jacket and boots had survived intact, tossed under the bed like they’d been spared by chance. Ash bent, gathered up the ruined clothes in his arms, and stared down at the tatters.Oh, that big bastard’s going to pay.
Rick was in the kitchen when he came stalking in, naked as a jaybird, frying bacon and eggs in a battered pan and humming along to John Coltrane on the radio. The scent hit first: grease and smoke, rich and mouthwatering. The sight followed: Rick’s broad back, shoulders squared and powerful, muscles shifting under the slanting morning light as he worked the skillet with unhurried ease. His waist tapered lean and narrow above thick, tree-trunk thighs, his ass firm and round, every inch of him tall, hairy, and solid, built to fill a doorway—or break it down.
Ash needed a second to remember he was supposed to be angry. He dropped the rags onto the counter with a dramatic flourish. “Look what you’ve done with my clothes!”
Rick half-turned, lips curling into a slow smirk. “You wanna barge into a wolf’s den, you gotta pay the price.”
Ash glared at him. “Those were designer jeans, asshole.”
Rick only grunted, eyes glittering in sly amusement, before turning back to the stove. “Guess you’ll have to stay in the buff.”
Ash sighed, pushing past his bare-assed bulk to the sink, surveying the chaos. The basin was stacked with greasy plates, old coffee mugs, and utensils piled like a crime scene. The sight made his hands itch for soap. “Move aside and let me do the dishes,” he muttered.
“Leave ’em,” Rick said, shoulders flexing as he flipped the bacon with the flick of his wrist. “I’ll drop it all in the dishwasher later.”
Ash shot him a skeptical look, but acquiesced. He pulled open the cupboard to set the table, except—nothing. Not a single clean plate, not even a chipped one hiding at the back. He checked the next cupboard, then the base cabinets. Same story: empty shelves, empty drawers, save for an upside-down glass spotted with hard water. He turned to face Rick. “Do you actually own any clean dishes?”
