Bitten By Mistake (18 page)

“Not really, no.” He held Jared close.

Nathan’s warm, naked body was a comforting blanket that made Jared feel safe.

Christ.

Far from panicking about sleeping with a shifter, Jared was already thinking about doing it again. “Judging by the way I don’t want you to let me go anytime soon, I’m guessing it has a similar effect.”

“I couldn’t ask Luke too much without giving us away, but I know enough about bonds to recognise that what I’m feeling is pretty close. Not the same, exactly—but close.” He changed position, his half-hard cock rubbing against Jared’s, and God, that felt good.

Jared pushed back, rolling his hips, and smiled when he felt Nathan’s erection thicken.

“Jared….” Nathan sounded strained, and he shuddered when Jared ground against him again. “We need to talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Jared’s heart rate ramped up, his focus already narrowing to the feel of Nathan’s hard body pressed on top of him. “You bit me, we fucked, we bonded.” Any anger he’d felt about the situation disappeared with each rub of Nathan’s cock against his own. “I don’t care about anything else.” He wanted Nathan inside him again; the need to feel him come was the only thing on Jared’s mind. He spread his legs and hooked an ankle on Nathan’s thigh. “Come
on
. I can tell you want to.”

“Oh
God
.” Nathan moaned, low and feral, and between one hitched breath and the next, he had his mouth fastened to Jared’s neck again, sucking on his bite.

“
Yes
.” Jared arched up, clinging to Nathan’s shoulders and holding him in place—not that he showed any signs of moving away. That was all he needed: Nathan hot and hard, pinning him down and claiming him with each thrust of his hips and every lap of his tongue. “Fuck me.” Sharp teeth skimmed his skin, making him cry out. “
Please
.”

A growl was all the answer he got, but then Nathan drew back to look down at him; his lips were wet with a trickle of Jared’s blood. “Gonna fuck you so hard.”

God yes.

Jared grabbed a handful of Nathan’s hair and pulled him back down for a kiss. “Do it.”

In a blur of movement, Nathan shoved Jared’s thighs up and back, lined himself up, and pushed inside. No easing him into it, no giving him time to adjust, just the relentless thrust of his hips as he fucked Jared just like he promised.

The room blurred at the edges. Nathan’s face was the only thing he saw as he bottomed out again and again. He bit his lip and dug his nails into Nathan’s shoulders, needing something to anchor him in the moment. Jared had never done drugs, but he wondered if this was what it felt like to get high—this glorious feeling surging through him, taking over his body as though he had no control.

Pleasure coiled deep inside him, spreading out towards the tips of fingers and toes. Jared cried out and came, his body clenching tight, and Nathan growled, sending a shiver up Jared’s spine. When Nathan followed after him, the wave of satisfaction took Jared by surprise. He’d done that: made Nathan lose himself so completely that his wolf stirred close enough to surface for the press of sharp teeth and a hint of claw.

Jared closed his eyes and relaxed back into the pillow, basking in the afterglow.

Nathan slumped on top of him, his solid muscle a heavy weight that Jared didn’t want to let go of.

“I should move,” Nathan muttered, his face buried in the pillow next to Jared’s head. “I must be crushing you.”

Jared tightened his grip on Nathan’s shoulders. “You are, but I like it.”

“This is all wrong. You know that, don’t you? You don’t like shifters, remember? You don’t really like me. Well, you said I was growing on you, but… this is a whole new level.”

With Nathan on top of him, his scent filling Jared’s senses every time he took a breath, it was hard to believe he’d ever thought this was a bad idea. But his mind had cleared just enough to know that Nathan was right. “Yeah. I still hate shifters. That’s not changed.” As he said the words, the old familiar distrust and dislike settled in his gut, and Jared sighed in relief to know most of him was still the same. But when he thought of Nathan…. “Not you, though. I don’t hate you.”

Nathan laughed and kissed the tender skin on the side if Jared’s neck. “I don’t hate you either. Not that I ever did. You were annoying, and hot. Annoyingly hot. But I never hated you.” He nuzzled the spot just behind Jared’s ear, and Jared sighed. “You smell so good like this, covered in my scent and sex. I can’t get enough of it.”

Jared grinned as a thought occurred to him. “Enough for your lot to believe we’re serious about each other?”

“Oh yeah.” Nathan shook with laughter, and his cock slipped out a little, making Jared dig his fingers deeper in Nathan’s shoulders. “Hey.”

Nathan pushed up onto his elbows, and Jared reluctantly eased back on his grip.

Ten angry red crescent shapes marred Nathan’s skin. Jared eyed them proudly—that was his mark on Nathan’s shoulders. He rubbed the pads of his fingers over them, feeling the dips in the skin.

Nathan pulled all the way out, and Jared winced.

“Sore?” Nathan leaned down to kiss him softly.

Jared hummed in answer. “Not used to doing it twice in such a short time.” Come to think of it, he hadn’t done that in a
long
while. “Is that a shifter thing?”

“Not sure.” Nathan kissed him again, slow and lazy, and slipped his fingers into Jared’s hair. “I don’t usually stay for round two.”

The thought of Nathan with anyone else sent a stab of jealousy through Jared’s chest, and he tensed. He’d known him for just over four days; feelings that intense took time to develop. Yet even though Jared knew it was crazy, the emotions didn’t go away. “We need to talk about what’s happening between us.”

Nathan smiled against his lips. “That’s what I tried to do earlier, but you were all ‘nooo… there’s nothing to talk about… let’s fuck.’” He looked down at Jared, his blue eyes sparkling with happiness.

Jared couldn’t do anything but grin back. “I don’t think any talking will happen while we’re naked. We should get dressed.” He put his hands on Nathan’s shoulders and pushed him back.

Nathan whined, a low desperate sound, and Jared looked at him wide-eyed.

“Nathan?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I don’t know what the fuck that was.
Shit
.”

His worried expression made Jared want to haul him back into his arms, and
Christ
, they’d never leave the bed at this rate.

Closing his eyes, Jared fought the protective feelings whirling inside him. His body didn’t usually have this much sway over his mind, but his emotions were so strong where Nathan was concerned that he struggled to think straight. “You go and shower, then wait in the living room. Don’t come back in here, or we’ll never get anywhere.”

Jared lay there, not daring to open his eyes in case his willpower failed him again, and eventually Nathan sat up and moved away.

As soon as they were no longer in physical contact, Jared’s mind cleared and the overpowering urge to have his hands all over Nathan lessened considerably. Deeming it safe to look, he opened his eyes to see Nathan standing in front of his open wardrobe. Naked.

Nathan’s broad muscular back tapered down to the most perfect arse. Jared might not be under whatever weird shifter magic he’d been under moments before, but he still wanted to crawl over and sink his teeth into each firm, round arse cheek. “Hurry up,” he rasped.

Nathan glanced over his shoulder and winked. Clearly he was feeling more like his old self, too, but thankfully for both of them, Nathan quickly picked out a T-shirt and jeans and left for the shower.

Jared collapsed back onto the bed and covered his face in his hands. This was so fucked-up, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to be all that bothered.

Fucking shifters.

Thirty minutes later, they were showered and dressed and sitting at opposite ends of Nathan’s sofa.

Jared felt more like himself than he had since Nathan had come home, and now that he did, he had a boatload of questions bursting to get out. “So tell me again what Luke said. I’m not sure I was paying all that much attention to you earlier.”

Nathan smirked, and Jared welcomed the spark of irritation it caused. Good to know he wasn’t totally under Nathan’s spell with all this bond crap. “You’re feeling more like your old self, aren’t you?”

Jared frowned; it was as though Nathan had read his mind. Was that a bond thing? Jesus, he hoped not, but he had to ask. “Yeah, I am. How can you tell? Is that because we’re….” He waved his hand in the air, unable to actually say the word out loud now they weren’t in the bedroom.

“Bonded?”

“Yes, that.”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Nathan shrugged. “I know you want answers, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have them.”

“Well you better fucking find some. Soon.”

“Who am I going to ask?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and hissed out, “I can’t exactly walk up to any of my pack and go, ‘Oh hey, by the way, I bit this human and then I fucked him. Any idea what happens now?’”

Jared counted to ten in his head. He wanted to yell, and not being able to was so frustrating it made his blood boil. “I’m not suggesting that. There must be other ways to find out? Like books, maybe. Have you tried googling it?”

Nathan looked at him as though he was mad. “You think information like that is going to be on the fucking Internet?”

Jared threw his arms up in the air and raised his voice. “Why the fuck not? Everything else is.”

They both glanced up at the ceiling as though watching the sound escape. “Sorry,” Jared whispered. “But come on, it’s worth a try. Luke only knew what happened if you did it the other way around, yes?”

Nathan relaxed a little and smiled. “So you were listening.”

Jared ignored him. “Wait there. I’m going to fetch my laptop.” He eyed Nathan as he walked back towards the bedroom, but Nathan stayed put on the sofa.

Jared checked his phone while he was in the bedroom, and he had three texts—one from his mum and two from Seb. He fired a couple of quick replies, saying he was fine and he’d call soon. The lure of possibly finding answers was far too appealing to send anything longer right then.

Laptop open, Jared pulled up a new search window. Nathan shuffled closer to see what he was typing, and Jared tried not to notice the warmth of his body in such close proximity. While it was nowhere near as bad as in the bedroom, it was still distracting. Jared went with the obvious and typed “shifter bites human then fuck during change cycle” into the search bar.

Unsurprisingly that returned a whole list of things to check out.

Everything on the first page of results turned out to be useless, and Jared felt the “I told you so” on the tip on Nathan’s tongue. He was in for a surprise if he thought Jared would give up that easily.

Sure enough, halfway down the second page, they hit pay dirt.

“Aha!” Jared elbowed Nathan hard in the ribs. “I fucking told you so.”

Nathan growled, a low rumble that was probably supposed to sound menacing but only reminded Jared of sex. He adjusted himself in his jeans and clicked on the link.

They leaned forward and read the first few paragraphs in silence. The link had taken them to a blog page.

The poster was anonymous, unsurprisingly, but the more Jared read, the more he was convinced it was authentic. From what he could gather, the post was written from the shifter’s perspective, but with comments from the human girl he’d bitten added here and there.

When I bit her we weren’t involved. The bite was officially requested and performed in front of the whole pack. Over the next two weeks we got close and well one thing led to another and we had sex. No one said it was prohibited. I didn’t think it would matter since it was before the full moon and the change hadn’t fully taken effect—and of course we didn’t even know if it would. It was fine at first, the sex was a little rough but nothing out of the ordinary. But then I started to feel off whenever we were apart—snappy, irritable. When I went to see her again, I felt so much better, and that’s when I realised something was wrong. Well, that and the fact we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

K - Yeah, we had a lot of sex those first few days. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.

“See!” Jared pointed at the screen. “That’s us exactly! Apart from the bite being all official, et cetera. But I doubt that matters as far as the after-effects are concerned.”

Nathan didn’t answer, his gaze still fixed on the laptop screen.

I asked my beta, but he was as clueless as me, so he called for a pack meeting. One of the other betas had seen this a couple of times, and as with all humans going through the change, the effects can vary. One couple experienced anxiety when apart, the other developed an awareness of their partner’s emotional state. But in both cases, the effects were intermittent. The feelings would be intense one minute, then barely noticeable the next.

The final paragraph made Jared’s breath catch, and he had to read it twice to make sure he’d read it right.

The most marked difference in the two cases the beta had seen was the outcome after the full moon. Because the bitten human had yet to complete the change, the bond formed wasn’t permanent. For one couple the bond disappeared when the change failed to take. But the other couple’s bond strengthened as the human went through her first full moon.

We assume this means the bond is dependent on whether the bite was successful or not.

Update:

It turned out this wasn’t the case. As our full moon came and my bite took hold, our bond slipped away as dawn approached.

To say the feeling was unpleasant would be an understatement. The loss of having that closeness ripped away lasted for days. Even now I still feel it sometimes. I thought about trying to get it back, but before I could make the suggestion, she’d already bonded with another.