That was a lie. Taylor had never been consistent except when it came to his guns, but now they were gone, and Johnny was in the hospital, and if he’d just been a little bit faster maybe?—
He thumped his head against the tiles, letting the water run over his shoulders and down his chin. “Stop it,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.
Johnny was alive. He was getting the help he needed, so why didn’t that make Taylor feel any better?
Letting out a breath, he opened his eyes and finished washing. After cleaning his teeth he padded to his bedroom without drying himself, leaving wet footprints across the landing. It drove Johnny absolutely insane, but Taylor found he just didn’t have the energy for it as he lay down on top of his sheets.
He stayed there for a few seconds, the feeling of the pillow against his cheek so inexplicably alien. Without even thinking he rolled off the bed, strode to Johnny’s room, yanked open his drawers and pulled out a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt.
He ignored the three vibrators that he already knew were there—Johnny usually pulled them out in the middle of the night when he thought Taylor was asleep—and put the clothes on. Lying on Johnny’s bed, he stared up at the ceiling.
Taylor’s skin itched, making him squirm violently like a bear with fleas. He kicked his feet and pulled Johnny’s T-shirt over his face by the collar. Pressing his nose up into the fabric, he inhaled, long and hard. Groaning, he let the T-shirt slide back down as he turned over and buried his head in the pillow.
The scent of Johnny’s hair was buried in the fabric, and Taylor couldn’t help but rub his face all over it like it was goddamned crack. He opened his mouth, letting his tongue drag over the cotton until it left a wet patch against his cheek.
His hips were already rocking into the bed, and he slipped a hand beneath his stomach to grip his cock. His knot was alreadyhot, pulsing eagerly, making him rut forwards as all his nerve endings crackled to life.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
He pressed the balls of his feet into the mattress, rocking onto his knees to get a better grip on his dick. Swiping his fingers through the fluid gathering at his slit, he dragged the slippery wetness up and down his shaft.
There were some seriously strange noises coming out of his mouth—breathy, needy ones that he didn’t recognise. They were smothered by Johnny’s pillow, and as he worked his cock his other hand slipped to the edge of the mattress. He gripped it, his brain conjuring images of Johnny’s thick thigh against his palm, squeezed and bruised to within an inch of its life as Taylor held it and pushed it open.
He imagined Johnny’s smooth, dark chest rising and falling as he panted, how his lips would be wet as they parted. How his body would feel against Taylor’s,aroundit as Taylor sank his cock inside him over and over again.
Taylor growled as he jerked his cock faster, his balls drawing up against his body as the heat of his knot pulsed through them. He was rutting hard, and somewhere along the way his brain began to get foggy, his imagination taking him places he’d never been. Johnny on top of him, looking down at him with those black eyes that were impossibly warm and full of patience.
Taylor’s legs buckled at the thought of Johnny fucking him. On his back. On his front. Lying on his side with Johnny pushing into him from behind. Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.He was into it. All of it. Alpha, beta, omega, it didn’t fucking matter, because he’d been so fucking stupid to think that anyone other than John-Paul Ephraim Ateba was the man for him.
His mate.
His fuckingmatewho had stayed silent for over a decade just to protect Taylor’s stupid feelings. Hismatewho wasn’t there.
Taylor snarled as he came. It wasn’t pleasurable. How could it be when pure desperation soured his blood? Not being able to talk to Johnny, to see him, to touch him and tell him how fucking sorry he was for making him wait.
Taylor howled, the pillow catching most of the sound but the rest bouncing around the room like it did inside his head every day.
“Fuck!” he cried, thumping the pillow before realising he had ripped it with his fangs.
He lay on his front, breathing heavily. He didn’t need to be told how pathetic he looked, the ripped, wet pillow against his cheek and the cold semen roped across his belly were doing a grand job of that. But as his eyes slowly closed and the tension left his body, he dropped like a stone into sleep.
CHAPTER 21
NO GOING BACK
Taylor
“Oh, piss off,”he said, nearly launching his phone into orbit. He’d been stuck in the never-ending loop that was the National Health Service’s automated admissions line for well over an hour.
If you know the extension for the ward you are trying to reach, please enter it now.
“I’ve entered the extension number five times, you bastard!”
Not that the robot voice cared about his feelings, or that visiting time was still several hours away,orthat he was going to be late for work because he had to wash Johnny’s sheets and hang them on the line.
He was still pissed off when he rolled into the police station nearly an hour late, with toast crumbs on his shirt and a jam stain on his collar.
“Jesus, you’re a mess,” Amil said, handing him a wet wipe. “Why are you here? Isla said you could stay at home today.”
