Jacks, Marcy - Mason Returns to His Mate [DeWitt's Pack 8] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (7 page)

Derek didn’t stop frowning, and when he looked like he was getting ready to argue some more, Mason cut him off.

“I was shamed, Derek. I challenged my brother for the right to lead the pack, and I failed. The loser in a challenge like that is

46
                          
Marcy Jacks

required to leave.”

Derek’s face was wide open with stunned revelation, but it was  clear he still didn’t understand. “Why leave?”

Mason shrugged. “To teach humility. Can’t have an alpha who’s  sore from losing around the pack. They can leave and either start a  pack of their own, or come back after the shame is lifted.”

Mason just left out the part where he was only required to leave  for twelve months. He wasn’t quite ready to tell Derek about that.

Derek, instead of being relieved or grateful for the explanation,  got up from his chair, the legs scratching against the hardwood floor  before he paced around the kitchen.

“You fuck…you complete fucking idiot.”

“For what?” Mason asked.

“For not telling me!” Derek exploded, rounding on him. “You  were gone for ten years, you stupid shit! You could’ve told me you  were leaving or where you were going. You could’ve called, written,
 
anything
.”

“I wasn’t aware that a three-day fling required that kind of

commitment,” Mason deadpanned.

Derek’s face drained of all color. He grabbed both the mugs in the  table and dumped the contents down the sink, then gripped the  counter edges hard. “Get out of here, now.”

Mason didn’t move, and Derek didn’t turn back to look at him.

This was wrong. This was not the right reason for Derek to be angry with him, and Mason purposely embarrassing and pissing the man off was the coward’s way out.

He got up from his chair and moved to where Derek was standing.  When he put his hands on the other man’s shoulder’s, Derek rounded on him and pushed him away.

“Don’t touch me!” he yelled.

Like Mason could obey a command like that. He surged forward and wrapped his arms around Derek’s shoulders, holding on tight even when he struggled in his grasp.

Mason Returns to His Mate
                    
47

Derek was more muscled and stronger now, but he could never get out of a full-fledged wolf-hug.

After a solid minute, he stopped fighting, but he didn’t hold  Mason back. He did let his head rest on Mason’s shoulder, however.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” Mason said.

“Yes, you did. Dick,” Derek muttered.

Mason sighed, but Derek spoke first.

“You’re right, though. We weren’t together long for me to have waited for you like this. I don’t want to come off as a stalker or anything. I don’t know why I never let you go.”

Mason knew why, because they were mated. He wouldn’t burden  Derek with that information, however. Not when he was going to

have let Derek go so soon.

Never mind Derek letting him go. Derek was never going to want  to see Mason’s face when his memories of that night returned.

“Derek, there’s something I need to ask you.”

Derek pulled away and looked at him.

“I need to ask if you remember―”

He didn’t get the chance to finish when Derek reached his hands  up, holding on tightly to Mason’s shoulders, and then pressed his  mouth to Mason’s.

The touch of Derek’s lips on his was like having a really strong alcohol in his system for the first time. It was like a tiny, pleasurable jolt sizzled through his body that he couldn’t contain.

No. No. This was all fucked up. He knew what Derek was doing, and if he allowed it to go on, the other man was going to hate him even more after  he found out the truth.

It nearly killed him to do it, but he pushed Derek away from him.

“We can’t do this.”

Derek’s eyes turned into kicked-puppy sad. “Why not?”

“Because …because of what I did to you.”

Derek’s eyes squinted in the way that people’s eyes  did when they were thinking. “What did you do? Leave?”

48
                          
Marcy Jacks

“No. I… ” God, he didn’t even want to say the word. “What do  you remember about that last night we were together?”

Derek shook his head. He didn’t get it.

“Derek, you won’t want to be with me if you remember that.  What I did…and I’m so sorry that I did it. I didn’t mean to, I swear to  God I didn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I … ” Mason had to extract himself from Derek’s arms. He

couldn’t admit to something like this when Derek held onto him for  dear life. “I raped you.”

He whispered the words, but Derek’s head flew back like he’d  been punched. “You
 
what
?”

His yelled words made Mason cringe. He could face down  hunters, take out a fully grown moose with his claws and teeth alone,  but the emotional stuff, terrible confessions, he apparently couldn’t

do.

That was why he looked away from Derek’s face and stared at the

counter and sink behind him instead.

“It was right after I’d lost the challenge to James. My wolf was  still mostly in my head, and we were both angry for the loss. I went to  you to take it out on, and I knew what I was doing, but I just couldn’t  make myself stop. It didn’t seem to matter. When I came back to my  regular self, you were unconscious beneath me.”

Then there had been the way Derek’s rented house had been  trashed and the blood between his legs, which was enough to tell  Mason just how rough he’d been.

“I know none of that’s an excuse, but I just thought you should  know.”

“Why?”

Why? Why did he do it? Why was he coming clean? “I don’t―”

“Why come to me with this now? After all these years? I  remember what happened that night, Mason. I’m starting to think that  you don’t.”

Mason Returns to His Mate
                    
49

Every image he could remember was fuzzy, but there was no

mistaking what it had been. At least not to him.

“Derek  ”—

“Mason,” Derek cut him off, mocking his voice. “I wasn’t exactly  fighting to get away. I remember you coming to me that day,  practically knocking down my door before I could answer it. The  second you  saw me, you picked me up and tossed me on the couch,  and I’ve never been fucked so good in my life.”

“
What?
”

“Then we went into the bathroom, and then the kitchen, and then

my bedroom, and long after I thought I couldn’t come again, you  wrung another one out of me. I remember waking up to my house  trashed, yes. My ass was killing me, but you were gone, Mason. That  was the worst feeling in the world, waking up to find your almostboyfriend had just taken off after spending the night. Then I went to  James, and you have no idea how much I’ve been torturing myself  with this the last ten years.”

Derek’s eyes were swimming, but simply because he was able to  hold back his tears didn’t mean that Mason felt any less shitty for  having caused them.

“Derek, I’m sorry. I―”

Derek grabbed him and held on tight. Mason allowed himself the  luxury of hugging him back.

All these years. All these years of sleepless nights and guilt, and  he hadn’t done what he thought he’d done. Derek had wanted him,  even when he was at his most wild. It made Mason want to sing.

That feeling was sidetracked by the realization that he’d been  unintentionally hurting his mate in other ways, and he held Derek  back as tightly as he was able, allowing himself the freedom to take in  the other man’s scent, to enjoy their bodies pressing together.

“Please don’t leave again,” Derek begged.

“I won’t,” Mason said, pressing his lips to the softness of Derek’s  hair. Then his lips found Derek’s earlobe, then his neck, and when

50
                          
Marcy Jacks

Derek turned into him, their mouths met.

That wonderful electric feeling returned, and Mason’s fingers clenched around the muscles of Derek’s abdomen.

Derek pressed himself against Mason’s body. Their breathing became hitched and raspy incredibly fast.

“I missed you so much,” Derek said.

“Missed you, too,” Mason said, grabbing Derek’s jaw and putting their mouths together again.

It was hard to take it slow enough that their teeth wouldn’t clash while they wanted to keep the frantic pace they’d set for themselves.

When Derek’s tongue touched Mason’s lips, he opened his mouth and allowed that wonderful tongue to slide inside. Derek tasted like coffee. He tasted wonderful.

Mason gripped the fabric of the Spider-Man T-shirt and began pulling at it, stretching the material until Derek took the hint  and lifted his arms above his head, allowing Mason to remove it, exposing his gorgeous chest.

He bent down and took one of those budding nipples into his mouth. Derek gripped his shaved head with one hand and held onto the counter with the other. The gasps he made were the sweetest sound Mason had ever heard.

He was a fool. What an idiot he’d been for all these years, punishing himself for something he hadn’t even done, denying them both this pleasure.

The thought was like a punch in the gut. They’d lost ten years because of him.

He only hoped Derek would forgive him for that as well, but for now, he wasn’t thinking entirely with his brain.

There was only one thing he wanted, and his wolf wanted it, too.

“Fuck me right now, Mason,” Derek demanded. “Right here.”

His mate wouldn’t be denied this time.

Mason Returns to His Mate
                    
51

Chapter Five

Derek dragged Mason down onto the floor with him, putting the other man on top of him, luxuriating in the feel of their bodies pressed together.

They were actually going to do this. Mason wasn’t going to run away from him again, and Derek wasn’t about to let himself get put off.

His jeans were way too tight. He wished he’d been able to borrow a pair from someone a little bigger because right now these ones were way too uncomfortable.

Still felt pretty damn good when Mason humped against him, creating the best kind of friction for the still-clothed swells of their cocks. He did it again, and then again, until Derek thought he would come from that stimulation alone.

“Stop, wait.” He pushed Mason off him and undid the button of  his jeans pulling down his fly. “You need to return the favor first,” he  said, pressing his hand down on Mason’s shoulder.

The man grinned, wolfishly was probably the most appropriate  way to describe it all things considered, and then sank down between  Derek’s legs.

He grabbed him by the base of his heavy cock, stroked it lovingly,  and his too-blue eyes looked up at Derek for every little reaction he  might have. Then he pressed his mouth down on the head of Derek’s  prick, kissing it and then hardening his tongue into a point and  pressing that into the slit.

Derek moaned. “Holy shit! Oh fuck, that’s nice.”

Of the few people who’d given him head since Mason had left,

52
                          
Marcy Jacks

none of them had done that. Derek couldn’t imagine a reason why  they hadn’t or why he hadn’t thought to do it. It was amazing.

He didn’t just want Mason to kiss his dick. He wanted that whole  warm mouth around his cock, sucking it, pulling back and forth with  his lips, and swirling his tongue.

“Suck it, Mason. Put my cock in your mouth, right now.”

“Love the way you talk,” Mason said, and then thankfully, he did  as he was told.

Derek’s body went as tight as a bow string, his head pressing back against the tiled floor of the kitchen as Mason gripped his hips and tightened his mouth around Derek’s penis, and then pulled up and down, sucking back leisurely, like he had all the time in the world.

He supposed that right now he did.

Derek moaned low, trying to keep himself from being too loud as he pressed his hands to his mouth. He tried to pump his hips in time with Mason’s mouth, but Mason’s strong hands on him were too much, and he could barely move. It was a form of sweet torture in of itself.

He suddenly didn’t care if he came with Mason’s cock in his ass or with Derek’s cock in Mason’s mouth. Right now, everything was good so long as he reached the end.

The pulsing in his body grew worse, and Derek reached his hand down to grip the back of Mason’s head, trying to push him farther down, to take all of him in.

Mason let him  do it. He deep-throated Derek easily, and Derek pulled his hands away and gripped his hair. He was losing it, he really

was.

“Fuck, you’re good at that. Your mouth looks so pretty wrapped  around my dick. I love it,” he said.