Authors: Jan Irving
Tags: #Gay, #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotica, #General, #Paranormal
Wylde (13 page)
was waiting when Noah finished his laps. He held out the Egyptian cotton terry robe for him, trying to shove down his feelings. Shit! “We need to talk,” he stated grimly.
“If this is about me moving in with you again,” Noah began, looking pissy, “I’ve already given you my reasons and Josh and I are agreed we want some time in our new home, especially since someone is due here soon to do something about the, uh, purple pool.”
“No, this is about your stalker! How long did you think you’d keep that a secret? Jesus, Noah! Now do you want to talk about it in the house where Josh might overhear, or out here?” Kell hated to push, but this was too important. Hell, he might have completely fucked up his approach to Noah and never known why.
“I—what? You’re crazy!” But Noah was avoiding his gaze, his shoulders hunched as he pulled the towel tightly around himself like a protective cloak.
Kell felt his chest tighten. Someone had frightened Noah. He hadn’t seen it at first, just taken his reserve for shyness, but when he’d come onto him at the theater, he’d sensed a trace of fear vibrating through Noah like a dark note on a tuning fork. He’d taken it for Noah’s inexperience, and he’d gotten hot fast enough, so Kell hadn’t thought twice about it.
“No, I’m not, baby,” Kell said in a low tone, pulling Noah close and seeing heat sizzling in his gray eyes as well as the shadows. “Tell me. I need to know. I want to be your”—he sucked in a deep breath and then said it—“your lover. So I need to know. Do you think I’d ever want to do anything to scare you or turn you off? Jesus Christ!”
“I can’t. I know it’s irresponsible of me, but I can’t talk about it, Kell. Especially not with you!” Noah squeezed his eyes shut. “One of the reasons I like being with you so much is you don’t remind me of
him
.”
When Kell touched Noah’s shoulder, he could feel his skin felt chilly, and not just from the cool dip he’d taken. Shock.
“Why not me?” He forced himself to be gentle.
“Because I’m embarrassed. Because you are so forceful and confident and I want to hold my own with you and never have you consider me… less.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Kell.”
“Noah, I….” Kell stumbled again but made himself go even
“I like you too.” There was a shy happiness in those shadows now, like a ray of light through thick trees.
Kell led Noah over to the private changing room behind the fountain, knowing Noah didn’t want Josh exposed to whatever it was he was hiding. He pushed him onto a lounge chair and sat opposite him, reaching out to touch his face.
Kell’s mouth flattened as he leveled stern eyes on Noah. “Tell me who the son of a bitch was, Noah, so I can fucking rip out his guts!”
took a deep breath, shocked to find himself smiling when Kell growled out his orders like a grumpy bear. He looked like one too: unshaven, rumpled, with worry in his brown eyes as well as a clean kind of stubbornness. His large hand had fallen to his knee, the fingers well-shaped but battered, as if he did some carpentry. Noah could imagine him doing that, taking the time and patience to build something. No matter how hot for him Kell seemed to be, he was waiting on Noah.
“His name was Adam,” Noah confessed in a voice just above a whisper. “He was a security consultant my condo building hired just after my wife’s death. I’d always been attracted to men, and after she died I was so lonely, I thought it didn’t matter anymore what I did, who I… associated with.”
“He frightened you.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck!”
Now Kell looked uncomfortable. “A letter from a private investigator you hired in Seattle to keep track of him. I didn’t mean to read it but—”
wasn’t sure he could listen. He’d listened to other victims before, and it always made him sick, but this was Noah, his Noah. He forced himself to sit and wait. He’d opened this wound, and he had to be man enough for Noah to be there for him, no matter how it made him want to break rock with his bare hands.
“He was charming. Witty. Polished,” Noah went on, and Kell felt a spark of jealousy. Sounded like this Adam had been everything Kell
wasn’t.
Probably the fucker had approved of tofu too. “We attended functions together. Josh didn’t know I was considering taking Adam as a lover, of course, since he was so young, still grieving for his mother. I made Adam wait for months before I would consider….”
“One night I invited him up to our condo. I was considering ending the friendship. He’d grown impatient with what he referred to as my teasing him but increasingly I’d begun to find his intensity a little disconcerting. At first, I was flattered when he called me all the time, wanted to spend as much time as possible with me but… that night he pushed himself against me and I could feel he was hard. He touched my throat and suddenly my heart was… galloping. How could I have made such a mistake, read him wrong?” Noah’s breath was hitching. “I just knew if I saw him again, he’d hurt me and maybe Josh.”
Noah looked at him and Kell hoped he could feel how Kell stood by him. “I didn’t want Josh to know about Adam. I cut him from my life.”
“It wasn’t so bad. He never really did anything to me, but sometimes I’d see him in town and his eyes….”
Kell stroked Noah’s hair. He said in what he thought was a reasonable voice, “I want to kill him. Tell me where he lives.”
Noah choked out a wet laugh, burrowing closer as if he felt safe with hard, warm arms around him. Leaning as he probably rarely let himself lean since he was a single parent. “You can’t protect Josh and me from the ghost if you’re in jail, Chief,” he scolded wryly.
“S
O YOU
got some insight into what’s doing all the bad mojo
around here?” Jade asked Ruth, bringing her a glass of iced tea. She also gave one to Alec, which he took with an amused quirk of one dark brow, as if he’d known she’d been tempted not to offer him anything.
“Things are out of balance,” Ruth mused, sipping the tea calmly. “They have been for a long time, since that boy went running off into the forest. Maybe I should have done something back then… maybe the whole town should have. We’ve all had plenty of opportunities, but now he is… hunted.”
“Out of balance?” Jade wasn’t sure exactly what the old woman meant, but it was true that things had felt off, though she had no idea who the old woman meant by the boy, unless it was… the ghost? Jade chewed her lip, remembering the cookies she habitually left outside. Was that the act of kindness the old woman had referred to?
The woman looked at Alec and pressed her lips together, as if she wanted to say more but thought better of it. She sighed and pulled a small pouch out from her pocket. “Stuff in there to help you find your lost dog, even though he’s not really lost… but wait until Alec can go with you. There is something you two must do together. You are the ones who will help restore balance to our town.”
NEED
you to trust me to do something for you,” Kell said. Noah
was in his arms, and he kissed his damp curls, feeling that burning need to take and own but harnessing it because now he understood the ugly black roots of Noah’s fears.
“What?”
Kell stood and pulled Noah to his feet along with him, turning him around to face the change room floor-to-ceiling mirror. He slowly pulled the robe off Noah’s slim, muscled shoulders so it puddled at his feet, leaving the other man in his damp swim trunks.
Kell clasped him warmly from behind, feeling the lean body tense and then relax when Kell didn’t push. He kissed the side of Noah’s neck and watched Noah follow the movement in the mirror.
“Baby, I want to give you a good time. I want to make you come and I want you to see me do it.” Kell’s big hand ran gently over the vulnerable crease between Noah’s sex and his thigh.
“
Kell!
” Noah’s face flushed as wide gray eyes held Kell’s dark ones.
“Don’t worry. I locked the change room door.” Kell waited, rubbing patiently until he felt Noah’s sex stiffen and grow from the tender almost-touching. “That’s it, baby, so fucking beautiful.” He kissed Noah’s cheek, cradling Noah’s body but making no effort to conceal his own aching erection, which he knew Noah must feel prodding him from behind. “Let me touch you now. Make you feel so good.”
Noah’s head fell back in surrender, and Kell tugged down his swimming trunks, freeing the pale, thick erection, which spilled into Kell’s eager fist. “Look at that! Nice and long. Elegant like a fine racehorse,” Kell praised.
Kell could see this was hard for him, but he wanted to awaken Noah to how it should really be between two men, two lovers.
“The kind that’s way too good for a rough mustang like me, yeah,” Kell admitted ruefully. He snagged some baby oil that was handily available on the shelf with his free hand and squirted it generously onto his palm before working the warmed emollient over Noah’s balls, squeezing them appreciatively. “Jesus, look at you. So smooth, baby. I like how you’re shaved down there.” His slick hand moved over the shaft, and Noah shuddered, his nipples hard pointing stars as Kell worked him.
God.
” Noah couldn’t keep from thrusting. This! This is
what he’d ached to feel for so long. Kell made him so hot, so fast, reducing Noah from his civilized self into a sensual, wanton creature, watching Kell’s hands on him, taking control, but in an easy way, in a way that never made Noah feel afraid.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Noah growled, already on the verge and cranky at the idea of stopping. The oil magnified every sensation, so it felt like a velvet glove moving over him, taking him over.
Noah’s arms slid up and back, winding around Kell’s neck as he held his reflected gaze with heavy-lidded eyes before he studied himself, this slutty stranger, his lips flushed and his cheeks stung with color, panting helplessly as Kell jerked him, whimpering at the feel of Kell’s experienced touch.
“Come on, baby, cream for me. You’re so fucking gorgeous. You want to be my good boy, don’t you? Come for me, I want to own you, want to know that only I can make you cream,” Kell whispered directly into Noah’s ear.
Noah shot, his come spilling lustily over Kell’s fist as the big man continued to work him, making him whimper as he creamed again… and again….
“It’s okay, baby. I got you. Knew you’d come like that. Just for me, your master, your lover, baby. So fucking beautiful,” Kell praised, and Noah ate it up, hungry for praise. Hungry to feel a man.
Noah’s wide eyes watched in the mirror as Kell put his hand to his lips and licked the taste of Noah from his fingers. “In my whole life, you’re the most gorgeous thing I ever saw,” Kell breathed.
shoved his phone into the leather knapsack he’d brought with him into town so it rested like an unpleasant reminder amid the wild blackberries, goat’s cheese, and Seattle-imported coffee he’d purchased. He’d even bought free-range eggs, since the next time he made Kell breakfast, he’d been willing to prepare something other than tofu for him.
The snake.
“Dad?”
He flinched and then took a deep breath, seeing from Josh’s wide eyes that he’d worried him.
“Who was that on the phone?”
“No one.” Oh, God. His son was so perceptive, and Noah never wanted him to know about this. “Do you want me to drop you off at the library?”
“Yeah, I should make sure the Chief returned my books.” Josh’s eyes twinkled. “From the way you guys were acting, I figured he’d done
some
reading.”
Noah flushed, remembering Kell making him watch himself in the mirror. The rise of desire, the release. He’d felt a bit like a barbaric slave, performing for his master. So why had it turned him on so much? His mouth flattened, thinking of Kell now. “I have to see him.”
“Uh oh. What did he do now?” Josh’s eyes were a little cloudy with tension, reminding Noah that his son was new to his Dad dating at all, never mind another man.