Wolf Tales 12 (2 page)

Their secret was still safe. With Nick and Beth Barden continuing as private security for the First Family—at least until the president’s second term ended—they certainly had powerful friends in high places.

“So, what’s the problem? It’s not like you to go searching for trouble.” Stefan planted both hands on Anton’s shoulders and stared solemnly at him. There was no teasing now, no sense of humor. Merely concern. Loving concern.

Feeling a little foolish, Anton slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe things are too good, too settled. I have a strong sense of change in the air, as if something is going to happen. No reason for it. We’re all healthy, our children are growing.” He smiled. “Our numbers are growing, that’s for sure. I never once imagined myself as a husband, much less a father of four.”

“You’re not the only one. I never thought of myself as a father. At least Xandi’s content with our three. I hope.”

Anton raised an eyebrow. “I believe Ariel counts as two.”

“That’s sort of what Xandi and I think. Ariel’s made Alex look like the world’s easiest baby.” Stefan chuckled. “So why the dissatisfaction? Our once cozy foursome of known Chanku, counting Eve, even though she’s our goddess, now numbers fifty-five, a number that will be growing quickly with Liana, Jazzy, Tala, and Daci expecting. No one’s tried to kill us in the past five years.” He raised one expressive eyebrow. “In case you’re wondering, that’s a good thing. You’ve completed the purchase of over half a million acres adjoining this property, the economy’s strong, and our business ventures are all showing a profit. Anton, my friend, only you could find something wrong with so much that’s good.”

Again Anton shrugged. He wished the sense of foreboding would leave him, but he’d learned to listen to his premonitions. Still, he hated to worry Stefan. He wasn’t about to let Keisha in on his fears, either, not until or unless they actually proved valid.

“You know me,” he said, feeling just a little bit foolish. “I’m never happy unless I’m worried about something.” He laughed. “I imagine it has to do with control issues. If I can’t identify it, I can’t be in charge.”

Stefan chuckled, but he kept his comments to himself. That alone got him a raised eyebrow from Anton. Damn. He hated a sense of something waiting when he didn’t know what to expect. “It’s odd. Nothing I can put a finger on, but I have the strangest sense that things are about to change. I can’t explain it, but I’m afraid to ignore it.”

Stefan leaned his forehead against Anton’s. “Aren’t you the one who told me change is good?”

“I may have said something stupid like that at some point. I don’t know, Stef. . . .” Anton took a deep breath, inhaling Stefan’s scent, feeling the warmth from his body, sensing as much as hearing the rush of blood in his veins, the steady beat of his heart. He tangled his fingers in the thick fall of hair at Stefan’s nape, angled his head just right, and kissed him.

This at least he understood. This he could control.

There was no hesitation in Stefan’s response. His lips were firm. Cool at first from the night air, and then warming as they pressed close to Anton’s, as they parted beneath the gentle probing of his tongue.

Heads tilting for easier access, tongues tangling, they stood perfectly still as they kissed—longtime lovers and friends, as familiar to one another as the face in the mirror, as emotionally linked as if they were bonded mates.

As they explored the intimate recesses of one another’s mouths, their hearts found their perfect rhythm and fell into a synchronicity never explained, yet never doubted or questioned.

Some things, my friend, are better because they don’t change. Because they’re familiar and beloved.
Anton ended the kiss and leaned back enough to peer into Stef’s dark amber eyes.

Stef nodded.
This is true. C’mon. Follow me.
He took Anton’s hand and tugged lightly.

Smiling, Anton allowed himself to be led, following the narrow trail through the tangled willows until there was nothing but soft, dry grass beneath his bare feet, and the musical notes of water dancing in the shadows.

He tilted his head, listening to the soothing sound of the small waterfall. “I’m surprised the water’s still falling this late in the season. Most years it’s barely a trickle by now.”

Stef’s low chuckle sent a wave of gooseflesh down his arms, across his chest. “Why are you whispering, oh exalted leader?”

Anton laughed out loud. “Not sure. Habit, I guess. Afraid of waking the babies?”

“They can’t hear us here, and personally, I fully intend to make a lot of noise.” Stef plopped down on a blanket he’d obviously laid out in advance. Again, he tugged Anton’s hand. “You coming?”

“I certainly hope to.” He’d grown hard from the first touch of Stefan’s lips against his, but now, knowing what his friend had planned, Anton’s heart raced and the breath strained his lungs. He stretched out on the soft blanket beside Stefan, trying to look calmer than he actually felt. It had been a long time since they’d done this.
Too damned long.
He ran his fingers across the sharp ridge of Stef’s collarbone. “How did you know I’d follow you?”

“When have you not?” Stefan’s voice sounded hoarse, as if it were an effort to form the words, but it was obvious he had other things on his mind. He ran his hand over Anton’s shoulder, followed the muscular curve of his arm, trailed across the sharp jut of hipbone, and then cupped the rounded curve of his butt.

Anton’s buttocks clenched involuntarily, tightening around Stefan’s fingers as they slipped along the valley between his cheeks and paused over his puckered sphincter. He groaned and forced his muscles to relax. Stefan never said a word. With his eyes focused on Anton’s, he stroked intimately and probed lightly—not enough pressure to penetrate, but more than enough to tease.

Damn, but he’d missed this. What had once occurred nightly was now too rare—this intimate time alone. Time to explore one another’s bodies, to wallow in the pure sensuality of taste and scent and touch, of fucking until their legs trembled and their overwhelming Chanku sex drives were—for the moment, at least—sated.

When had their lives grown so complicated that their time together had almost disappeared? Was this what was missing? These private moments? Did this alone explain Anton’s absurd dissatisfaction with what should otherwise be a perfect life?

Stefan leaned close and caught Anton’s left nipple between the sharp edges of his teeth and bit down. Hard.

Holy hell!
Anton groaned a soft expletive. “Oh, shit. Stef.” The curse felt like a prayer, escaping on a hiss of pleasure. He’d worry about all his dissatisfaction crap later. For now there were better things to occupy his mind—and his body. At this moment, in this place, Stefan Aragat was quickly becoming the center of his world. Stefan and the soft breezes and seductive scents of man and sweat and arousal, of forest and night and the two of them.

Just the two of them.

Anton sat up and countered Stefan’s painful nip, running his fingers through dark hair laced with silver on Stef’s chest, trailing slowly down and down farther, through the silky strands. Stefan stretched out on his side and propped himself up on one elbow, moving slowly while Anton paused to twirl a fingertip in the dip of his navel. He moaned softly when Anton spread his fingers wide to push through the thick hair covering Stef’s groin.

So perfect, that smooth, sleek feel of hair that had, at one time, been coarse and curly. Shifting had changed that. Years of shifting from human to wolf and back again, until the coarse curls had eventually relaxed and now lay sleek and smooth like the fine undercoat of a wolf. Even his beloved Keisha’s once tightly kinked hair—long the bane of her existence—now fell past her shoulders in shimmering waves of midnight silk.

So many changes over the years to both bodies and lives, but the best change of all was this—this amazing sexual need that always culminated in such exquisite pleasure, such absolute fulfillment. When Anton clasped the thick root of Stefan’s erection, both of them groaned. The sensation of that hot length of hard flesh sliding across his palm made a connection like nothing else. He squeezed tighter. Stef groaned again and arched into his grasp.

Anton nudged Stef’s shoulder with his forehead, toppling him from his side to his back. He sat there for a long moment, studying the perfect body, the powerful stretch and pull of taut muscle and sleek flesh. Anton’s breath caught in his throat and his entire body thrummed with arousal.

Straddling Stef’s legs, he leaned over and, cupping Stef’s heavy sac in one hand and the thick length of his cock in the other, drew damp circles around the crown of his erection with the tip of his tongue.

He spent long minutes exploring. Licking, tasting, nipping at the silky skin covering such hard, quivering muscle. He sucked the rounded glans between his lips and found the narrow slit, sucking first, and then dipping his tongue into it, tasting the first salty, bittersweet drops of semen that appeared as Stef’s arousal grew. He circled Stef’s growing erection, using his tongue and lips, nibbling with the sharp edges of his teeth as he worked his way up and then down the thick shaft.

Opening his thoughts to Stefan’s swirling impressions, he felt the hot press of his own tongue, the sharp nips, the exquisite pressure when he locked his lips around the broad crown and sucked hard, when he stretched the small opening with the tip of his tongue, forcing entry to the point of pain.

But not beyond. Sharing the sensations, reacting to Stefan’s internal barometer of what worked, what didn’t, he knew exactly how to please his lover. Anton’s own erection felt hot and heavy, rising slowly to press against his taut belly, and he shared that with Stefan, that sense of hot blood throbbing along his length, accompanied by the perfect ache of arousal. His balls tightened up close between his legs, muscles hardened in response to taste and touch, blood rushed into his cock until he was fully engorged.

And ready. He was so ready to take it further, but delaying satisfaction, teasing . . . the slow build of sensation was a luxury neither of them had indulged in for much too long.

Scent rich with pheromones drifted with the gentle air currents, teasing.

Arousing.

Stef bucked his hips, raising Anton slightly. His breath was choppy and fast, his lips parted on a tight, feral grin. “You gonna play all night, my friend? Or do you know where you’re going with this?”

“Oh, I know, all right.” Anton swept his tongue over Stefan’s leaking crown and once again caught a tiny bubble of cream. The sharp taste stirred his senses. He inhaled, filling his lungs with Stef’s musky scent. His breath hitched in his throat as he wrapped his fist around his lover’s erection and gave him a few hard, fast strokes. “I merely wanted to make sure we’re in agreement. No argument. You’re mine tonight, Stef. All mine, in all ways.”

Stefan’s amber eyes blazed in the pale light of dawn as he nodded. Short, sharp—almost frantic—jerks of his chin. When had the day begun to grow light? How long had they lain here, the two of them touching and tasting?

Keisha might be wondering where he’d gone. Anton pulled his mind out of the moment and sent a brief thought her way, finding only the resting mind of his beloved mate. His wife slept, her body wrapped close around their slumbering three-month-old daughter. He searched wider and found the twins, Gabe and Mac. Almost four now, they sprawled loose-limbed and dreaming in their bunk beds. Then on to the next room where Lily slept peacefully, practically lost among stuffed toys and dolls. He paused a moment, curious about her dreams, but her powerful mind was closed to him. Moving on, he left her dreaming alone in her princess bed with the pink canopy draped all about.

Someday he’d have to ask Lily what she dreamed. He’d loved the way her mind would take him on amazing journeys when she was tiny. Now, though, as she grew older, she wrapped her privacy about her like a warm cloak.

Much as Anton had learned to do. Still, she amazed him, this perfect daughter he and Keisha had created. Already she showed signs of holding more magical power than Anton had ever imagined, even for himself, but that was a worry for another time. For now, all of those he loved were where they belonged.

All of them were safe.

Relieved, Anton crawled off Stef’s legs, shoved them apart, and knelt between them. He sat there a moment, feeling the warmth of Stef’s thighs against his calves, admiring the perfect body lying before him. Goddess, how he loved this man!

So many years now, so much history between them. They’d wasted some, and they’d put each other through hell. But they’d not only survived, they’d come through all of it stronger than ever. Strong enough to withstand anything the Fates might throw at them.

At least Stefan appeared to have given up on arguing that point—he no longer insisted all that had happened was mere coincidence. Happenstance had nothing to do with a love as powerful as theirs—one born of so very many mixed emotions, so many terrible mistakes.

Anton sighed. He really had to quit worrying, but he bit back a grin as his mind whirled with the myriad changes he’d gone through since discovering he wasn’t just a man at all—he was, instead, a powerful shapeshifter who’d barely tapped his magical powers.

Stefan watched him with a small grin on his face. “I’m in your mind, my friend. Stop thinking. We don’t have a lot of time. I insist on being the focus of your attention. You can worry about how we got to this point later.”

Anton laughed. Then he palmed Stef’s knees and pressed them back. Stefan’s amber eyes drifted closed and he sighed his pleasure as Anton slowly bent his legs until they folded tightly against his chest. He ran his palm over Stef’s muscular flank, trailed across his taut buttock, and found the crease between his cheeks. Sliding his fingers slowly along the warm valley, he stroked and circled the tight ring guarding entrance. Using his fingertips and saliva, Anton rubbed lightly over the puckered muscle.

Stefan groaned and raised his hips to Anton’s slight pressure. One finger. Just one, pressing harder until he forced entry. Then two, and it was easier now as he sawed in and out with total concentration. He added a third, drawing a soft curse from Stefan, stretching the tight muscle, preparing him. Stef’s groans turned to sighs as Anton pushed his middle finger deep inside to rub gently over Stef’s small, hard prostate. This time Anton forced a whimper of pleasure from his lover’s lips.