The Love of a Mate (9 page)

“There are other ways you could warm me up, if you wanted to,” Caden offered, doing his best to keep a complete over-abundance of enthusiasm out of his voice.

Alfred was standing almost directly over him. From that angle he was huge and powerful and completely faultless in the more submissive wolf’s eyes.

“Such as?”
Alfred asked.

“I’ve heard that combining body heat can be a lot of fun,” Caden suggested.

“Oh?”

Caden nodded coyly, as if it didn’t really make that much difference to him if Alfred took him up on his invitation or not.

Crouching next to him, Alfred pushed
Caden’s
hair back from his face. His hands were coated with mud. Caden felt dirt smear across his temple. Alfred stilled for a moment, as if something so insignificant could actually be considered a problem, but Caden quickly leaned in to his touch, desperate to make it clear he didn’t mind getting a little bit messy in both a very good and potentially very erotic cause.

A touch to his other wrist caught
Caden’s
attention. Glancing down, he saw Alfred’s fingers trace a line over his skin, leaving a ring of mud around the joint. Lifting his hand, Caden offered his entire arm to Alfred and nodded his acceptance.

The other wolf quickly took hold of him. His other hand immediately copied the action around
Caden’s
other wrist. Success radiated from Alfred’s eyes in the darkness as he leant forward and brought their lips together.

Their balance was precarious to start with. The moment Alfred dipped his head to deepen the kiss, they toppled, their bodies skidding in the wet mud. Caden gasped as his back hit the ground, Alfred landing on top of him and pressing him down into the soft earth.

Clothes made rough and cold with mud rasped against
Caden’s
body, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the friction they provided against his cock. Moaning his complete approval into the kiss, Caden parted his lips and hurriedly gave the other man whatever access he wanted.

Caden tried to reach out and pull the other man down harder against his body, but Alfred wouldn’t allow it. His hands tightened around
Caden’s
wrists, demanding they stay exactly where he wanted them to be.

Temporarily freed from any responsibility to pretend that was anything other than exactly what he wanted, Caden bucked his hips and rubbed their bodies together. Alfred’s erection pressed back against him through the other wolf’s clothes, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted skin against skin.

Alfred growled as he thrust against him. The kiss turned fierce. The younger wolf nipped at
Caden’s
lips and took total possession of his mouth. Shoes kicked against his bare feet as they both sought for any kind of leverage they could find in their slippery surroundings.

“Please?” Caden gasped the plea into the kiss.

Alfred only growled in response.

There was no way he could really be denying him anything in that moment. Even Caden himself didn’t know what he was actually begging the other man for. Even so, the plea merely made the other wolf hold him tighter and made his movements rougher and more perfect. There was no flirting, no prettiness, just raw sex, harsh need and dominance. Caden revelled in it.

Alfred’s denim-clad leg slid between
Caden’s
as he broke the kiss. Tossing back his head, Alfred howled his pleasure as he came inside his jeans. The slight change in angle was all Caden needed to fall into his own personal spiral of bliss. He was vaguely aware of his cum spilling between them and mixing with the mud, but the sensation was damn near drowned out by the way Alfred filled his senses and his world.

The other wolf’s scent, his touch, the sight and the sound of him, all blended together and somehow managed to make
Caden’s
pleasure deeper than anything he had ever known. Any desire he had to retain control and keep himself safe died in that moment.

As they fell still, Alfred remained on top of him, pinning him to the ground with his weight as well as his strength as they both fought for breath. Caden made no complaint.

Eventually, as his body recovered, Caden was able to lift his head a fraction. He lapped gently at Alfred’s neck—the only part of his lover he was able to reach. The fact that the little patch of skin was just as muddy as the rest of him wasn’t important. He could still taste the wolf beneath it all.

Alfred murmured his approval before slowly dragging himself upright. Reaching down, he helped Caden up, too. Of all the stupid things in the world, Caden found
himself
feeling silly and shy in front of the other wolf.

There was no need for that. It wasn’t as if the other man could really know how little control Caden had over himself—how much control he’d given away to Alfred in that brief encounter.

Swallowing rapidly, Caden pushed a hand through his hair. His fingers got stuck halfway. The mud was drying and matting the blond strands together. Caden winced and wrinkled his nose as he imagined how he must have looked right then. It was a wonder Alfred had even bothered with him while he was in that state.

“You’re beautiful.”

Caden met Alfred’s eyes for a moment. It was hardly the first compliment he’d ever received, but as they stood there on the half-formed river bank, it hit Caden harder than any flowery-worded statement ever had. A blush made its way to his cheeks, although he doubted it was visible under all the dirt.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he managed to whisper in return.

Alfred put his arm around his shoulders in a protective little gesture as he turned them towards the house without ever asking his lover’s opinion on the idea. Caden merely smiled and accepted that as the other man’s right that night.

* * * *

“Did you see Alfred and Caden when they got home last night?”

Alfred stopped at the top of the stairs. The door leading into the
alphas‘ bedroom
was open just the tiniest crack. No doubt both men had been ‘resting’ there, the way they often did in the middle of quiet days. Or at least days that were quiet until Marsdon and Bennett’s howls of pleasure filled the air. They’d probably been in far too much of a rush to make sure the door was sealed behind them.

Marsdon
laughed,
a deep relaxed sound that indicated all was well in his world. “Yeah, I saw. They looked like they’d crawled out of the bottom of the
river,
there was that much mud on them!”

“And?”
Bennett prompted.

“And who’d have thought that pretty little Caden could succeed where our big strong beta failed?” Marsdon
asked,
his tone still rich with humour and satisfaction.

Alfred frowned as he crept closer, careful that his shadow shouldn’t be seen by any wolf on the other side of the door.

“They do seem to be well suited,” Bennett
said,
his voice soft and sleepy—like a wolf who had
really
enjoyed his rest.

“More to the point, Caden seems to have brought the little brat to heel better than I ever hoped for.”

“Marsdon…” There was just a touch of chiding in Bennett’s tone.

“Well, someone has to. We couldn’t have let him run riot forever, pup. We can’t bring a mating pair into the pack until everything is stable, and we can’t put that off much longer, can we? Little baby wolves have to come from somewhere, you know.”

“I know, sir. I just…”

“You just want every wolf in your pack to be happy and content no matter what it takes?” Marsdon finished for him.

“Like you don’t,” Bennett replied.

Alfred could practically hear the smile in the other wolf’s voice, but he couldn’t bring a smile to his own lips in response. His frown deepened instead. He stared at the door until the sound of rustling clothing warned him that he’d be risking certain discovery if he lingered there any longer.

He’d already heard enough anyway. Turning away, Alfred quickly strode down the stairs, but the sound of his footsteps completely failed to drown out the echoes of the alphas’ words.

It almost sounded like it was all their idea—like they had been as much behind Caden approaching him as they had been instrumental in bringing Gunnar and Caden to the pack in the first place.

Alfred shook his head as his steps sped up. It wasn’t like that between him and Caden. With Gunnar it had been obvious he wasn’t really interested in being his mate, that he was just ticking the boxes of appropriate behaviour.

But Caden was different. He was only doing what he wanted to do. He wasn’t simply playing along and going through the motions because his alphas ordered him to. He couldn’t be.

Even as he wrote it off, a bitter taste filled the back of Alfred’s mouth at the possibility. The idea of Caden feeling like he had to trade his mouth and his arse to a mate he had no real desire for, just to please his alphas…

Alfred’s hand tightened into a fist at his side. It wasn’t like that…was it?

Memories scrolled through his brain far too quickly for him to make any sense of them. Caden had certainly seemed enthusiastic. He’d really seemed to want Alfred as much as Alfred had wanted him last night. And he’d said he loved him and…

And he’d been very serious about the whole going slow thing. He’d been incredibly quick to make excuses for them not to have sex straight away…

And what kind of idiot could really believe that a wolf as perfect as Caden could actually want anything to do with a screw-up like me?
a
little voice from the back of Alfred’s psyche piped up.

Striding quickly through the kitchen, Alfred peered around the courtyard, searching for any sign of Caden. The vague memory of someone saying they were going to work in the barn had him striding quickly across to the huge wooden doors, but, once again, he found himself slowing as he reached a small opening, just big enough to allow a conversation between other wolves to reach him as he stood on the outside peering in.

“It won’t actually make any difference to you if I point out you’re acting like a whore, will it?” Gunnar’s growl was instantly recognisable.

“Do you think that’s what Talbot is doing when you mate with him?”
Caden’s
softer lilt asked in return.

“Not the same thing!” Gunnar barked.

Alfred peeked cautiously through the crack between the door and the old oak frame of the barn, hoping he wouldn’t be spotted. Gunnar was pacing back and forth across the big dusty space, the same way he always did when he was pissed off with the world.

He kept disappearing and reappearing in the thin slice of the other wolves’ world that Alfred was able to glimpse. Further back into the barn, Caden seemed to have given up trying to keep track of his brother and was resting back in the hay, staring up at the barn roof.

He was as gorgeous as ever, with the sunlight from a high window shining on his hair and his legs sprawled out in the hay. His whole body was an invitation for another wolf to pounce on him.
If only Gunnar would stop walking about and blocking the damn view, it might have been a perfect sight.

“Not the same thing at all,” Gunnar repeated.

“It’s exactly the same thing,” Caden said, twirling a piece of hay between his fingers as he smiled at his brother’s obvious discomfort.

“Are you telling me that you’re not trading sex for good behaviour from him?” Gunnar demanded, stopping to loom over his little brother.

Alfred’s hand tightened into a fist as the urge to leap between them and protect Caden suddenly made
itself
known inside him, but the muscles lost all their strength as the beta’s words sank in.

It couldn’t be true. Alfred waited for Caden to speak up and tell the beta that, but Caden merely shrugged, his smile never faltering.

The breath caught in Alfred’s throat as his faith in the unfairness of the accusation faltered, but even after everything he’d heard both there and at the alphas’ bedroom door, some little part of him refused to believe it could actually be true.

“We all have our strengths,” Caden told his brother, mildly. “Yours may be growling orders and bossing everyone around. Mine are…”

“Bending over for brats?” Gunnar suggested.

“Ever heard the phrase: you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar?” Caden asked. “I can vouch for its accuracy.”

“Unbelievable,” Gunnar muttered, shaking his head as he returned to his pacing.

Caden sat up and brushed a few loose ends of straw from his shirt. “Where’s the harm?” he asked. “If Alfred needs a little extra motivation to take a step in the right direction and become the sort of wolf his pack wants him to be, then is it really so terrible for me to use some less-than-innocent methods to nudge him in the right direction?”

Alfred didn’t wait to hear Gunnar’s answer. He couldn’t listen to another word, couldn’t stay there a moment longer.

Caden had… He and Caden had…

Alfred’s feet carried him one step back, then another. His hand came up to cover his mouth as he fought back the conflicting desires to
either howl
, scream or throw up.