Pretty Poison (10 page)

Wade yanked one hand up. Fingers scrabbling and failing to get a grip on Noah’s hair, he palmed Noah’s scalp, drawing Noah in. He brought Noah’s mouth down to his, and then there was nothing for Noah except Wade’s lapping tongue and the stiff dick invading him. Pleasure like lightning bolts coursed through him, searing every part of him, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Gentleness gone, the kiss assaulted him. Hard lips. Twining tongues. The taste of blood, power, and sex swamped Noah, and he had never been this eager to be pulled under. He shivered with wanton excitement when Wade’s cock stabbed inside him and the alpha’s groin slapped against his ass cheeks.

Groaning his lust, Wade rocked into him.

After a stinging swat at Noah’s butt cheek, Noah thrust, too. He rose up, his ass climbing Wade’s cock and shuddering, he descended. Wade licked into his mouth and the untamed ecstasy of that magnified the pleasure of the alpha’s fat dick sliding over Noah’s prostate.

They moved, groaning, sweating, grinding together so flawlessly that the sudden stab of pain when Noah’s overtaxed knee finally let go slapped all the more fiercely. Noah screamed, the ache flaring bright and hot. Wade stiffened, tearing his lips away, and Noah yelped again, as much from the loss of his mate’s kiss as the hurt resounding through tormented cartilage. Wade panted beneath him, the grip on the base of Noah’s skull gentling to soothing if clumsy strokes. “Shh, it’s all right,” he said, chest heaving.

Noah shook his head. The pain wasn’t bad, just the first brief flash, though he knew from bitter experience the low throb would worsen fast. “My knee,” he said on a gasp, the scramble of desire and torment a confusing whirl.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Wade lifted up to skate a chaste kiss over Noah’s parted lips. “I should have guessed this would be too much after...” The hand that had swatted Noah’s rear end to urge him to ride Wade rose to Noah’s abdomen, steadying Noah. “You’re going to roll, okay? Slowly. To the left.”

Wrecked knee really starting to sing, Noah shut his eyes. “I don’t think I can.”

“I’ll help.”

Shit, he couldn’t even do this right. How was he supposed to convince city shifters that he wasn’t useless if he couldn’t even make love to his mate? Noah knew damn well what they’d think, what they’d always thought. What good was a shifter who couldn’t shift? A wolf that couldn’t walk? A mate who couldn’t—

“Ready? Lean. Let me take your weight.”

Fighting to relax, because the pain was always hardest when he tensed up, Noah struggled to obey, hissing when the alpha’s still rigid dick slipped from his ass. Damn it, he wanted that cock! Wanted the orgasm that had tightened his balls, which tingled despite the burst of misery from his knee when Noah indeed eased to the left.

“Take your time,” Wade reminded him.

“I’m crippled, not stupid,” Noah snarled.

“Hush. I’ve got you.” And Wade
did
have him. When Noah would have collapsed to the mattress, too sore to manage the awkward maneuver, Wade accepted his weight and slowed the rapid descent that would’ve likely torn a ligament. Noah whimpered. He couldn’t smother that if he’d tried. It fucking
hurt
. His knee pulsed in time with his sprinting heartbeat, the ache white hot, but Wade’s upper body strength was staggering. He lowered Noah to the mattress, carefully, tenderly.

Swinging his forearm up to cover his eyes, Noah cursed long and fluently. He fisted his other hand and pounded the bed in frustration.

“Relax,” Wade said and the mattress shifted as the alpha rose. Noah flinched from the warm touch at his knee. “Let me check it.”

“I’ll be fine. The joint locks under stress.” Noah bit his lip, more humiliated and dejected than ever. “It does that sometimes, but I didn’t hyperextend it.” He laughed, a bitter hopeless sound. “A bag of ice will cut down the swelling. Maybe some ibuprofen for the pain.” He groaned when Wade probed the knee with gentle fingers. “I said I’m okay,” Noah growled, foul temper at the weakness overshadowing even his embarrassment, if not his arousal. His stupid dick thumped against his stomach, hard as ever.

When Noah peered under his arm, Wade’s dark bulk stretched to reach toward the nightstand. His phone lit up as he drew it to his ear. “I need a bag of ice,” he said, hunching his shoulders to press the cell to his ear, freeing both hands. “Immediately.”

“And ibuprofen,” Noah said.

“Send up the pot of arnica ointment Trudy left, too.” His caress returned to Noah’s ruined knee, rubbing more tenderly than Noah had believed the alpha capable, but he sighed in relief because the massage dulled the throb. “Arnica will be more effective than ibuprofen,” he told Noah once he let the phone slip to the mattress beneath them. “Natural medicines work best on shifters.”

Despair flooded him as readily as pain engulfed his knee. He swallowed around the knot forming in his throat. “Nothing works.”

“This will.”

Fletcher arrived, bare chested and wearing only ragged pajamas. Noah twitched a corner of the twisted sheets over his throbbing erection to at least salvage that much dignity while the beta passed a squat ceramic jar to Wade, as well as the ice. “More tea?” Fletcher asked. “Trudy said we should call if—”

“This isn’t from before. He reinjured the leg,” Wade said.

Noah sucked in his breath when Wade’s touch withdrew, replaced by icy coldness.

“No, the arnica first,” Fletcher said. When Noah glanced under the shield of his raised forearm again, Fletcher’s phone lit up. “I’ll wake Trudy.”

“No!” Noah sat up, wincing at the flash of pain that streaked up his leg. “Ice and a general painkiller are fine. I’m no martyr and I know my body. I don’t need a doctor for this.” He sucked air into his lungs at the thick wetness on his knee as Wade slathered on a dollop from the jar and trembled in relief as Wade rubbed it in. The ointment began to work immediately, easing the sore muscle. Noah gaped at it. “Jesus. What’s in that goop?”

“Arnica is a blend of dried sunflowers that tends to perform exceptionally well on shifters. Humans have pill bottles. We have arnica.” Wade stared at him, eyebrow arched. “Since you’ve never had it or any of the other standard shifter treatments, you haven’t built up a tolerance for the ointment, which is performing fantastically just as Trudy said.”

Fletcher shifted his attention to Wade. “He
is
going to the medical center with our healers tomorrow. Maybe waking Trudy isn’t necessary?”

“He knows his knee better than any person alive, human doctors and Trudy included. If he says this is working, we should trust his judgment.” Wade smiled when Noah moaned in equal measures of surprise and relief. “I’m sorry I woke you. I...panicked. Go back to bed, Fletcher.”

The beta strode silently toward the door, agile and quick despite the darkness.

“Fletcher?” Wade called.

He stopped, looking over his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Wade said.

“Any time,” the beta said, voice low. Tired. “More than your mate is at stake.” He exhaled a long breath. “Whatever he needs, I’ll help. You know I will.” Nodding once, the beta left.

Noah’s knee hurt, but the pain was manageable. Less intense. “What did he mean? More than—” Noah yelped when the bag of ice returned to his knee, as cold as the arctic tundra.

“The pain is lessening?” Wade turned to screw the lid on the arnica pot and rested it on the night table. He wiped his glistening fingers on a towel by the jar. “If not, I can make more tea.”

“Doping me won’t shut me up forever.” He shook from cold instead of arousal, though unsated need and the orgasm that had been stolen from Noah still taunted him. “What did he mean, that more than I am at stake?”

“Not tonight.” Wade shook his head.

Wade was alpha. Everything that happened in the pack was his business, his choice to share...or not share...with his mate. “Was there another accident? Did somebody else get hurt?”

“No.” When Wade settled back on the bed, the mattress dipped. “There was no accident.”

“Then what’s going on? What happ—”

“Not now,” Wade said on a growl.

Noah scowled. The combination of arnica and ice had tamped down the ache considerably, but that wasn’t the point. Neither was Wade’s fingers brushing the crease between Noah’s thigh and groin, though his dick tingled at Wade’s touch so tantalizingly close.

“You need them, don’t you? Human doctors. Something went wrong and that’s when you remembered me.” His breath caught when Wade gently cupped his balls. “Oh, fuck.”

“Dr. Phares should be jailed for poisoning you.” Wade bent on the bed, sliding between Noah’s thighs. With a nudge, he repositioned the bag of ice and Noah’s knee to spread him wider. “If he’d treated a
human
patient’s safety with such callous disregard, he would be in prison.”

“He was instrumental in getting me out of my wheelchair.”

“That was before.” Wade’s breath heated Noah’s cock, wringing another gasp from Noah. “And the only reason he’s still alive.”

When Noah parted his lips to argue, Wade sank down and over the head of Noah’s dick. Noah’s toes curled. The trill of Wade’s tongue on his dick drove him out of his mind and rekindled his frustrated desire. Wade sucked him, the gentle pressure liquefying Noah’s bones and erasing every thought in his skull.

Sex. Mating was about sex, fucking, and pheromones, about hormones zinging out of control. Noah had to remember that. Just because the alpha was smart enough to realize a blowjob would distract Noah...He groaned as Wade slid down farther, taking more of Noah’s cock into the hot welcome of his mouth. Noah’s dick buried in Wade’s throat, Wade’s lips met the bush of hair at Noah’s groin, and Noah couldn’t remember his throbbing knee or the paradox of another shifter needing a human doctor anymore. He couldn’t think at all. He knew only the pleasures of his mate’s lips sealed around his dick, the tight grip of Wade’s fingers at his hips holding Noah still, the wild and wicked lust tightening Noah’s balls.

He didn’t come quickly. Noah hadn’t completely lost his erection when the tendons in his knee had slipped and the joint locked, but his dick had flagged. Wade worked him mercilessly, bobbing over Noah’s groin, lips creating a seal that seemed to suck all the air out of the room and every thought from Noah’s brain. Blood raced to Noah’s cock. He panted. And groaned. Fisting the sheets, Noah held off as long as he could to prolong the incredible sensations streaking through him. He came with a hoarse shout, what felt like gallons of cum spurting from his dick into Wade’s voracious mouth, and Wade drank him in, every pulse of semen, every burst.

After Noah collapsed into the mattress, dazed and spent, Wade rose up on his knees. Gazing up at his mate, Noah parted his lips. Craved his taste. Noah’s orgasm wasn’t the only one interrupted by his damaged knee, but Wade didn’t crawl up the bed to feed his cock to Noah. Instead, he leaned over Noah’s chest. Wade stroked his own slippery dick, Wade’s eyes glinting shifter red in the darkness. A few pumps later, Wade’s musk filled the room as ropes of cum spattered Noah’s pec. Wade’s jaw clenched, his low moan as he came the finest symphony to Noah. Was any other man built as handsomely and with such lethal grace? Noah didn’t believe that possible. With Wade’s dark hair spilling freely around his broad shoulders and his pleasure glittering red in his eyes, with his mate’s semen painting Noah’s chest, Noah knew in his bones that no one, human or shifter, was as beautiful. Or perfect for him. How in the hell had he ever lucked into mating a sexy creature like Wade?

The alpha smiled at him. “You’re thinking too hard.” He released his grip on his softening dick and scooped a trail of cum from Noah’s chest onto his finger.

Noah’s mouth watered.

Wade slid his cum-slick fingertip past Noah’s lips and Noah groaned at the sour, gamey taste. Wanting more. Always more. He sucked and slurped at that finger. It returned to his chest, mopping up additional cum that Wade fed to Noah.

The bag of melting ice shifted on Noah’s wrecked knee.

Wade leaned down to kiss Noah’s sigh away. “We’re going to be okay.”

Noah tried to swim up from the sated lethargy as Wade lay beside him on their bed, struggled to rouse when his mate curled into his body. But Noah couldn’t.

We.
Wade had promised
we
would be fine, not just Noah.
He wasn’t alone anymore.

He finally let his eyelids lower and his satisfaction pull him from his quietly aching knee and the twinges of his well-used body. There hadn’t been another accident, but for the very first time, there
was
another shifter like him, one Wade judged worth saving. The alpha wouldn’t have squandered his choice of mate otherwise. Maybe, just maybe, the years of surgeries, pain, and isolation from other shifters had a purpose beyond the clumsy mend of Noah’s bones and muscle.

No matter how broken and defective shifters believed him to be, maybe one of them finally thought Noah was worth saving, too.

Chapter Six

Fletcher accompanied Noah to the Vanguard Medical and Imaging Center in the hospital complex, where Dr. Phares kept his office suite. The blonde-dreadlocked Trudy came along, as well as four betas acting as guards and a second, barrel-chested healer whose pinched face resembled a squinty mugger rather than a shifter in Noah’s opinion. The extra healer introduced himself as Bast and said not one word to Noah otherwise.

Wade didn’t come with them.

The alpha lingered in their rooms for once when Noah woke that morning. He reapplied arnica ointment to Noah’s sore knee and helped Fletcher strap a full-leg splint onto Noah to immobilize the joint until Trudy could look at the MRI. In the meantime, Noah and Wade shared a hearty breakfast of bacon, bacon, and more bacon. Traitorous heart leaping with joy at a meal with his mate, Noah didn’t balk at the platter mounded with food. He watched Wade alternate working his phone and shoveling breakfast down his gullet. Noah remembered his own plate only when Wade frowned at him. Without complaint, Noah ate every crispy strip, though. A chaser of pulpy orange juice washed down Trudy’s vile tonic, too.