Bailey Bradford - Southwestern Shifters 06 - Reverence (14 page)

“I guess.” Harley glanced at a door then shuddered. “He’s right, about the bedroom, I mean. I haven’t even been in here. Will you…will you come with me?”
“Of course,” Val answered. He took Harley’s hand and opened the door. What he saw took his breath away. Harley gasped beside him, and Val looked at him. “Hadn’t you even seen it?”
“I tried not to. I just shut the door and ignored it, but wow,” Harley said as he turned his head, taking in the entire room. “This doesn’t even look like my old room. It’s gorgeous!”
“It is.” Val edged them into the room. The colour theme was predominantly white— thick, soft white carpet, white blankets, white curtains, furniture stained an aged white—but there were hints of colour spread all around. Blues and creams, greens and burgundies, even a bit of golden yellow. Pictures were hung on the walls, and paintings, all celebrations of the beauty of the Southwest. Pottery and sculptures decorated the two nightstands and the table in the nook by a large window. Pillows in a variety of colours littered the bed. All in all, the room exuded a rich warmth that Val found comforting.
“Man, I can’t associate this with the other. It just doesn’t fit.” Harley bounced up on his toes and grinned. “Whoever designed this deserves a big hug. Oh! Let’s check out the master bath!”
And, as simple as that, Harley was pulling him farther into the room. Val basked in Harley’s delight, thrilled to see his mate leaping another hurdle on his way to being whole again.

It hadn’t been as easy as he’d hoped, falling asleep in the big bed he now owned, but Harley had managed, with Val’s help. Waking up to a warm, wet mouth sucking his dick, that helped, too. A lot. “Ungh, yes,” Harley rasped as he reached down to tug at the short strands of Val’s hair. “Damn, your mouth is amazing.”

Val hummed around his length and tongued the bundle of nerves under his cockhead, and Harley whimpered as he tried to thrust up. Val had his hips, damn him, holding Harley still as he continued the sensuous torment. He speared the tip of his tongue into Harley’s slit and Harley’s thighs quivered, his asshole clenching as desire pooled low in his gut. He wanted, but he wasn’t sure if he could.

Val pushed at his slit again, then he sucked the entire length of Harley’s cock down, swallowing and driving a shout from Harley with those fluttering throat muscles. But before Harley could come, Val released his dick with a lewd slurp and lapped instead at his balls.

Harley didn’t even try to speak, because he was pretty sure his tongue was hanging out and he was panting like a dog as his balls were laved, suckled, nibbled. When Val fitted the entire sac into his mouth, Harley moaned and fisted his hands in the blankets, trying not to come. He needed more, and soon enough Val gave it to him, rolling Harley’s ass up by pushing on the backs of his thighs.

Just my mouth, my tongue. Nothing more.”
“Please,” Harley whimpered, his cock releasing a spurt of pre-cum. He wanted to feel
Val’s mouth on him, his tongue fucking into him. Harley could count on his hand the
number of times he’d been rimmed, and still have fingers left over. He’d loved it, but most
one-offs weren’t into that and he wouldn’t have wanted them to do it anyway. But when Val lowered his mouth to seal it around Harley’s hole, when he sucked that
tender skin, Harley’s heart just about stopped as pleasure washed over him. “Oh fuck!” he
rasped, letting go of the blanket with one hand to grab at the base of his dick. No way did he
want to come already. “Val, please, don’t ever, ever stop doing that!”
He felt Val’s chuckle more than heard it, but before Harley could savour that, the scrape
of teeth over his wrinkled folds sent flames of want licking up all the way to his nipples. The
little nubs ached, and Val seemed to know it, because he reached up to pinch at Harley’s
right tit.
Harley bucked and moaned, then he keened as Val thrust his tongue past his tight ring.
Val licked him inside, Harley could feel it, the slick rasp of tongue inside his rim. Then
Harley couldn’t do anything but feel as Val began fucking him with that firm bit of flesh,
growling and rumbling as he did it, the bed jostling as Val humped it, his fingers pinching
harder, driving Harley out of his mind as pleasure built and built and built. But Harley couldn’t come, he needed more. He writhed and panted, rutting between
Val’s tongue and his own hand on his dick. He was so close, so very close, but Val’s tongue,
wonderful as it was, couldn’t reach that spot inside him, and Harley desperately wanted to
feel a touch there, wanted his orgasm rubbed right out of him with that little gland. “Please, Val, please, touch me. More, touch me more,” Harley babbled, unable to
articulate just what he meant.
Val, however, understood him, because something longer, harder, thicker than Val’s
tongue pushed into his ass, and Harley whined as his gland was finally, finally caressed. It
felt so good, and right, not dirty, not like a violation. Harley shook and moaned, he pressed
his legs farther apart, his body needing what he couldn’t say.
“I’ve got you. I won’t hurt you, Harley. I promised you and I meant it.” Val pushed a
second digit in, and Harley howled, sounding almost like a wolf as he came, cum splattering
his belly, his hand, even his chest.
“Fuck yes,” Val grunted, and, with his fingers still inside Harley, still touching that spot
that made him go off like he’d not come in ages, Val got to his knees and jerked himself off.
He was gorgeous, patch in place, gaze on Harley, a fierce expression emphasised by the way
he gritted his teeth, panting around them as his strokes went from fast to rapid-fire. “Can I—
” He knee-walked a little closer, looking now at Harley’s groin and ass. “I want to come—” “All over me, babe,” Harley got out, his cock trying to harden again at the words.
“Shoot it all over my ass, my balls, my dick. Cover me in it, Val. Come on, do it!” “Fuck!” Val’s eyelid fluttered but he didn’t close it as he tilted his cock so the first jet of
spunk hit Harley’s balls. “Fuck!” Which seemed to be all Val could say, because he yelled it every time he shared his semen, shooting it onto Harley’s ass and cock just as he’d
demanded.
Harley hunched his shoulders so he could reach better, then he started smearing the
warm sticky come around his hole. He refused to be afraid, refused to let Dobson intrude on
this. Harley pushed the tips of three fingers into his ass, wanting Val’s cum in there, too, and
Val shook so hard Harley was worried he’d had a seizure, but it wasn’t that. The lust
apparent in Val’s eye made it clear that desire was the cause of his shaking. “I want to fuck you, Harley. Want to so bad.” Val kept pumping his cock, which didn’t
look any less hard than it had before he came moments ago. “Won’t rush you, but you need
to know. I want you.”
“Then take me,” Harley said. “Take me, fuck me, hold me and make me yours instead
of
his
.” Harley hated it, admitting Dobson’s hold over him out loud, but Val knew. Harley
stopped fingering himself so he could point at the lube he’d found in the bedside table when
he’d been snooping around before they slept. “Lube. Get it.”
Val grunted and left off jacking his cock to grab the tube. He unscrewed the cap and
poured some into his palm then dabbed two fingers in it while he looked at Harley. “You’re
sure? I need to get you ready. I’m not going to fuck you without stretching you first—this
time.”
The moan started in Harley’s belly and flowed up at the idea of Val coming in and
turning him over, just taking him, all strength and power, grace and sex. “Next time,
maybe,” Harley got out as he wiggled, hoping to speed Val along.
Val traced the outside of his pucker, never looking away from Harley’s face. Harley had
no doubt he’d stop at the first sign of discomfort, but that wasn’t going to happen. This was
Val touching him, not for any other reason than because they both wanted him to. “I’m going to push in now,” Val whispered, suiting actions to words.
Harley sighed, going limp everywhere but his dick as he was stretched. When Val
found his gland again, Harley sobbed as need clawed at him. He ached for Val, his body and
mind recognising him as Harley’s mate, acknowledging his willingness to become part of the
shifter world.
“Now,” Val told him, pulling his fingers out. “Now, I’m going to take you.” “Yes,” Harley agreed, his lids closing as the thick spike of Val’s cock began breaching
him. “Oh fuck yeah.” Harley grabbed his legs, held them up, open, offering Val everything
he had.
Val’s groan seemed to ricochet off the walls as he slid in to the root, his balls pressing to
Harley’s ass. “God, honey, you feel so…so good.” Val undulated, the base of his cock
stretching Harley’s ring even more. “Fuck, don’t think this will take long.”
“S’good ’cause I’m not gonna last long,” Harley warned.
Val chuckled and settled himself between Harley’s legs so that Harley let go of them to
wind his legs around Val’s hips instead. Val kept his weight mostly on his elbows as he
began to thrust, short, hard jabs as he licked Harley’s lips.
Harley opened for him, and Val plundered his mouth like a starved man. He
whimpered as Val mastered him, then Val was kissing his chin, his jaw, fucking him harder,
deeper at the same time. Harley clung with hands and legs, holding onto Val’s shoulders. Val
found a spot at the base of Harley’s neck that made him shiver from head to toe. Val moaned again and began ramming into him, Val’s breaths harsh gusts against
Harley’s skin. “I need—” Val began, then he licked at that spot, scraped it with his teeth, and
Harley’s shivering went internal, making him warm and quivery inside.
“Do it,” Harley said, not sure what he was agreeing to but damn well meaning it.
“Whatever you need, do it. Fuck me, bite me—”
“Yes,” Val growled right before a sharp pain seared out from the join of neck and
shoulder. Harley arched into it, because it hurt like a bitch but damn, he was coming, his
cock not even getting a stroke this time as ecstasy shot through him. Val slammed into
Harley’s ass over and over until finally, his big body going taut, he jerked and snarled,
sucked and bit while he came.
Harley scratched at Val, curling his fingers into hard muscles and sweat-slicked skin.
He wanted to mark Val, to claim him and make sure everyone who saw him would know he
belonged to Harley. But, as their orgasms began to ebb, leaving Harley as pliant as a soaked
sheet of paper, he began to think he couldn’t mark Val like Val had done to him, because he
was fairly certain he didn’t have the same size teeth a shifter did. And Val, repressed wolf or
not, had some damn long teeth, because they were still in Harley.
“Val, leggo.” Harley tried to tug at Val’s short hair, but it was slick with sweat and he
wasn’t coordinated enough to get his fingers to do what he wanted, besides. “Stop biting me,” he said, because it was beginning to be a little painful. Harley knew, he
knew
it was going to hurt like a mother sometime soon, but he was almost looking forward to it. He’d
think of Val fucking him every time the wound ached.
“Sorry,” Val said once he’d released Harley’s flesh. “Fuck, honey, I didn’t mean to—” “Don’t,” Harley interrupted. “Just don’t. I asked you to. Is that a mate-thing, the biting
like that?”
“Yeah.” Val raised his head up and frowned as he looked, Harley thought, at the bite
mark. “Wow. I’ve seen them on other mated pairs before, but seeing it on you is different. I
want to feel bad for it, but I just feel horny all over again.”
Well. Maybe the bite was worth the pain.
Okay, it is, but maybe it’s more worth it than I
thought!
“I liked it,” Harley admitted. “Want to do it to you, too, but I don’t have wolfyteeth.”
Val ran his tongue over his teeth, looking thoughtful. “Didn’t think I did, either. I’ve not
been able to shift, and the canines dropping, that’s part of shifting, even if it’s a small part.”
Val’s smile was brilliant, huge, and it made Harley want to capture it to save forever. “That
must mean that my wolf is coming out of whatever trauma-induced state it’s been in.” “Val?”
“Yeah?” He peppered Harley’s face with kisses. “What’s the matter?” Harley squirmed a little but he forced the question out. “You said there’s another way
to become a shifter?” Val went perfectly still, once his mouth dropped open. Harley rolled
his eyes. “Come on. I don’t mean right now. I just—I don’t know. If I ever decide I want to, I
mean. And the other thing we talked about? I need to find out if the clinic is open today. I
didn’t let anyone fuck me, but I can’t assume I was safe doing other stuff.”
Val scowled so that one side of his lip curled up. “Can we not talk about any other
lovers after this? I’m feeling more and more of the mating bond, and right now I want to find
anyone who’s ever had you and break them.”
Harley bit his lips for a second. He had to ask. “You do know I ended up in this mess—
not that it’s a mess now, exactly, but you know what I mean—because I had sex with—” “Alex, yeah, I know,” Val huffed. “And he has a mate, did you know that? Dobson’s
younger brother, Sean.”
“What?” Harley sat up, pulling himself off Val’s cock, his heart fluttering as he
reconsidered the whole shifter thing. “How did that happen? Are they at the pack where I
was? How—”
“Harley, please, just a sec, okay?” Val moved over to sit beside him. “Thought you were
going to pull my dick off, honey.”
“Sorry.” Harley snorted and shook his head. “You’re distracting me.”
“Sorry,” Val said right back. “But, about Sean. He isn’t anything like Joshua. Sean is a
sweet kid, well, young man, he’s legal and all that. He’d been abused by Joshua almost all his
life, I think. I don’t know the whole story, just what I heard. Joshua left him staked out in the
desert not too far from here. Left a couple of women with him too, all of them by or on those
red ant mounds. He used them as bait to get Alex off his trail. Sean was in bad shape, beaten
and covered in ants. It was bad, so maybe you should meet him before you decide he’s like
Joshua.”
Harley wasn’t tall by any means, but now he felt very, very small. He couldn’t imagine
what cruelties Sean Dobson had suffered. Harley had been held for days by Joshua—Sean
had been his brother. God, now Harley felt like an utter shit.
“Yeah, I can see from your expression that you feel bad. Don’t keep beating yourself up
over it.” Val took his hand, kissed his knuckles. “Alex didn’t want him for a mate, but we
don’t get to choose. Our mates are our other halves, that’s all there is to it. Fate, destiny, they
wouldn’t give us an evil mate if we were good men, you know? Because we don’t need that.
We need another good man to share our life with. So I know that Sean is a great guy, because
Alex is, even if it pisses me off that he and you had sex.”
“It wasn’t as good,” Harley shared, trying to be helpful.
“Okay, but can we just never talk about it again?” Val asked, raising his right eyebrow.
“Please?”
Harley chuckled and nodded. “Sure. I don’t want to know who you banged in the past
either.”
“Banged?” Val quoted. “How old are you?”
“Shut up, I’m old enough.” Harley poked Val in the ribs and was absolutely delighted
to see the man jump and suck in a sharp breath. “Oh ho, ticklish, are we?”
“No,” Val squeaked, rolling away.
Harley tackled him and started counting his ribs. Firmly. “One, two, three—” “Stop,” Val rasped right before he giggled.
Giggled? Val giggled!
Harley dug in for the gold, and Val squealed on top of giggling.
Harley thought his heart was in imminent danger of falling for Val. He stopped when he was
able to lie on top of Val, and he traced the elastic of the eye patch where it ran over his brow. “Can I?” he asked once Val stopped heaving for breath.
Val caught his hand, kissed his knuckles again in what seemed to be a favourite move
of Val’s. “It’s ugly, Harley. I mean, the eye is there, but it’s misshapen, and the pupil is huge,
stays that way, Shania said. I won’t hide it from you, but I do want you to be prepared.” Harley shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what it looks like, really, but I don’t want you to
ever think you have to hide anything of yourself from me.” He freed his hand and gently
lifted the patch up and off. Thick lashes framed Val’s left eye, except in a thin little spot
where no hair grew. His eye was a little odd shaped, as if a chunk was missing, but it wasn’t
too noticeable. As Val had said, the pupil was blown, chasing away all but a thin ring of
brown around it.
“You can’t see out of it at all?” he asked, because the eye moved, but maybe not… He
leant back a little. No, it didn’t move the same as the right did.
“Not at all.” Val touched the skin beneath his left eye. “There is some kind of nerve
damage that makes it jumpy, I guess you’d call it. Shania isn’t sure what all is ruined in there,
and it doesn’t really matter. The end result is the same. I’m blind in that eye.” He said it so matter-of-factly Harley almost missed the pain in his voice. “It doesn’t
make you any less of anything, you know. Not less a man, or less a shifter.” “Actually, it does,” Val scoffed. “Less a shifter. There are no others fucked up like me.