Out Of The Shadows (8 page)

“Bed?”

Dane nipped Jai’s lower lip between his teeth and grinned. “Hell, yes.”

“Want you to fuck me, Jai,” Dane murmured, pressing a kiss to the curve of Jai’s neck. “I need you inside me.”

Jai smiled happily; how could he refuse such a request?

The intention to make this tender and lasting didn’t make it beyond the doorway. By the time they reached the bedroom, they were both down to jeans and nothing else. Boots, jackets, and shirts had been abandoned on the way here like a trail of breadcrumbs to the bedroom. It had been a challenge to undress whist still touching and kissing, but they made it. Jai separated them long enough to unfasten Dane’s jeans, stripping him out of them before kicking off his own. Dane snaked an arm around Jai’s waist and they both tumbled onto the bed.

“’Wanted to take it slowly this time,” Jai said, hissing in a breath as Dane’s fingers found their way between their bodies and closed around his cock.

“Later. I want you now,” Dane told him, his voice rough with desire. “Please.”

Jai’s breath caught at the need in Dane’s voice, the knowledge that his mate wanted him as much as he wanted Dane. He broke away so that they could move fully onto the bed, reaching for the items he bought from the hotel shop. He wasn’t sure that the “necessities” the pack had in mind included what he’d bought, but it was necessary to him. He pulled out a tube of lubricant and squeezed a little out. Dane let out an anticipatory whimper, the sound becoming a groan as Jai slicked his fingers and traced one down Dane’s crease. He reached the puckered hole and began to slip the digit inside, slowly, and the muscles contracted instinctively, closing around him.

“More,” Dane breathed, spreading his legs wide, opening himself up to Jai.

Jai eased a second in, his other hand going to Dane’s cock. Wrapping his slick palm around the hard shaft, he pulled lightly, making Dane gasp. Dane pushed down onto his fingers and thrust into his grasp as Jai stretched him, making sure he was open enough.

* * * *

“Jai, now.”

He mourned the loss as Jai slipped his fingers out, spreading more lube on himself. Then Dane felt the head of Jai’s cock pressing into him, filling him. As Jai began to move, Dane wrapped his legs around his mate, ankles hooked behind Jai’s back.

“Fuck, Dane, you feel so good,” Jai murmured.

He closed his hand back around Dane’s erect dick, moving in the same rhythm as he pumped into Dane’s arse.

Dane pulled him in closer with each thrust, fingers digging into the flesh of Jai’s buttocks. He wasn’t going to last long this time, but it didn’t matter as he knew that Jai wouldn’t, either. They could take it slow next time. He loved that about Jai, that he wanted to make this about Dane, not just himself. His past lovers, if he could call them that, had mainly been concerned with getting themselves off. Not many of them had given a damn whether or not Dane had. Jai wasn’t like them, not in the slightest, and that was the thing he treasured most about him.

“Close, Dane, so close.”

He felt Jai’s body tense, throwing his head back as he came. Just watching him nudged Dane over the edge and his own cock pulsed, shooting semen over his stomach and Jai’s hand. Jai slipped his cock free so that he lay beside Dane, pulling him in for another hearty kiss.

“That was…wow.”

* * * *

Jai nodded, knowing he had a stupid smile on his face, but he was too satisfied to care. “Definitely.”

He eventually dragged himself out of bed to get a cloth from the bathroom. He cleaned himself up and found a fresh cloth, going back to Dane.

“What are you doing?”

Ignoring him, Jai continued to wipe away the stickiness on his stomach and cock.

“You don’t have to—”

Jai silenced him with a kiss. “I know I don’t. I want to, so just stop arguing and let me look after you for a bit.”

Dane let him, parting his legs as Jai wiped away the semen now seeping back out of his arse. When he was done, Jai tossed the cloth on the floor and dragged the covers over them both, snuggling into Dane’s side.

* * * *

“Thank you,” he said, tilting his head up to look into Dane’s face, “for trusting me. I know it isn’t easy for you.” Dane hadn’t a clue how to respond to that, he could see it in his eyes, but it didn’t matter. He could see all he needed in the way his mate looked at him. “You don’t have to say anything; I just wanted you to hear it.”

“Jai? I wanted you to know that I haven’t been back,” Dane said softly.

“Back where, babe?”

Dane’s eyes met Jai’s.

“You asked me to promise not to go to the bars any more, and I never promised you, but I haven’t. I didn’t want to.”

He saw the relief in Jai’s eyes. “I’m glad. I don’t know if I would have been able to handle it if you had. You’re mine, and I don’t like to share,” he joked softly, hugging Dane closer and let himself drift off to sleep.

* * * *

Dane smiled, lying in his lover’s arms, feeling secure and wanted. He dozed a little but he couldn’t sleep. The need to reassure himself that Jai wouldn’t be gone when he opened his eyes kept surfacing—he was half-convinced that it was all a dream. He looked at Jai again, to make sure he was still there. Jai was real, though, and in his heart he knew that they were mated, that Jai wasn’t going to leave him. He lay there for a while, thinking, wishing that Jai would wake up.

Then again, maybe he could amuse himself, he decided as he pushed the covers back. He rose to his knees and took the time to admire the sight before him; he’d seen Jai naked, but he hadn’t really taken the time to look. He had always felt too self-conscious. Now, his eyes took in every tiny detail before he reached out to touch. At the light touch of his fingers Jai shifted in his sleep. Dane kept exploring, moving lower, Jai moaning softly as Dane’s knuckles brushed his dick. He grinned and did it again.

* * * *

Jai awoke a short time later, lying on his back. He didn’t open his eyes straight away, instead relishing in the feeling of a hot, wet mouth closing over the tip of his cock. His breath caught as hands on his thighs moved them further apart, wide shoulders settling between, getting comfortable. His cock was licked base to tip, the tongue curling around it before lips closed over the head again. Dane, it appeared, had grown impatient of waiting for him to wake up and had taken matters into his own hands. Literally. Just a few weeks ago, Dane would never have initiated like this, but he seemed to have gained confidence and decided to let his hair down. Jai thought it figuratively but he also loved the way that Dane’s long hair tickled his inner thighs and groin.

Opening his eyes, he propped himself on his elbows to look down his body at Dane. The other man’s head was buried in his groin he lapped and sucked.

* * * *

Dane looked up and his gaze locked with Jai’s. He smiled as he ran his tongue over the very tip of Jai’s cock, making the other man shudder in delight. Jai’s fingers raked through his hair, toying with him as he continued his ministrations. It gave him a rush of pleasure to see how much Jai appeared to be enjoying this. He continued until Jai began to buck his hips up off the bed, finally shuddering, crying out as he came. He unclenched his fists from Dane’s hair and fell back onto the bed, panting for breath as Dane licked him clean and crawled up his body to drape himself full length over Jai.

“I always wondered what it would be like to wake you that way,” he said. “I didn’t know if you would want me to—you didn’t mind, did you?”

Jai chuckled and pulled him down to kiss him. “You can wake me up like that any time you like.” He slipped a hand between them, closing his hand around Dane’s erection. “Let me take care of that for you, babe.”

Dane rolled onto his back, propped against the pillows, as Jai moved down the bed.

* * * *

When the phone rang the following morning, Jai and Dane had only just fallen asleep.

“Dane, we’re collecting Michael in two hours,” he said after answering his phone.

Seeing that Dane was drifting back to sleep, Jai got out of bed. He needed a shower before he dared go anywhere near Michael; a wolf would smell Dane’s scent on him straight away. They should have cleaned up before dozing off, but it had just been so lovely to laze in his mate’s arms afterwards. 

“If you get up now I’ll let you share my shower,” he said over his shoulder, heading for the ensuite.

Before he even had the shower started, Dane was there. He grinned—bribery, he knew, would get him everywhere.

An hour and a half later, Jai checked them out of the hotel as Dane went to start the car. They drove back to Eric’s house, where Max and Elizabeth were waiting outside.

“It’s a damn good job they know,” Jai commented, noting the dopey grin on Dane’s face and the sated look in his eyes, “Because you look as though you’ve just been thoroughly fucked.”

Dane’s grin widened. “Well whose fault would that be?”

“I never heard you complaining,” Jai said as he got out. He met Dane at the front of the car, leaning closer to whisper, “Begging, maybe, but not complaining.”

* * * *

Dane smacked him on the arm as his face burned. Jai, the irritating bastard, just laughed and went to talk to Max. When the pair glanced his way, he glared, making Max chuckle as well. He went to join them but Elizabeth came forward and stopped him.

“I want to apologise for my reaction last night,” she told him. “I was embarrassed that I’d made an idiot of myself. I shouldn’t have taken that out on all of you. Anyway, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Dane smiled at her. “You didn’t. I was flattered, really,” he said. “I shouldn’t have led you on, but I’m not exactly out yet. In fact, you and Max are the only people other than my sister that I’ve told.”

“Damn.”

He and Elizabeth followed the others into the house to collect the Alpha. Talking to Elizabeth had made him realise that he really could do this. He
could
tell his friends; the all-consuming fear that usually hit him when he thought about it hadn’t come when he had been talking to her. If he could just find a way to make his family understand that Jai made him happier than he had been in a long time. Maybe he could simply avoid the subject ever coming up, never telling them. No, he couldn’t do that to Jai. He had to make a choice, to decide how he was going to live the rest of his life—was he going to spend it hidden in the shadows or allow himself to actually live? 

By the time he and Jai reached Michael’s home again, safely delivering the Alpha and his wife home, he had almost reached a decision. Funnily enough, it didn’t fill him with dread. In fact, he looked forward to it in some ways, to being free of the cloud of secrecy he had been living under for so long.

When he reached the office, however, he found Sasha waiting for him. She was sitting by Joe’s desk, talking, and she jumped up when he and Jai walked through the door.

“Sasha, what’s wrong? Has something happened?”

Sasha bit her lower lip worriedly and shook her head. “Not exactly,” she said.

He frowned. “How long have you been waiting?”

“A while. I messed up, Dane,” she said, taking him to one side as the others made themselves scarce, giving them privacy. “I got a call from Mum this morning—I hadn’t told her about leaving Nick, not wanting the lecture she was going to give me. I guess she tried to call Nick’s house first and he told her I’d gone, so I had to tell her what happened. She kept talking about me coming home, about how she was worried about me. I told her I was fine, that I’d called you and that I was staying with a friend of yours. I am so sorry, but she kept going on and on, asking me how I could be sure I could trust this friend and I…”

“Sasha, what did you tell her?”

“I told her I could trust your friend, because the friend was also your mate,” she told him in a small voice. “I never said anything else, I promise, but they’re coming here—”

Despite everything that he had decided earlier, Dane felt his heart pound, his breathing becoming harder.

“Mum and Dad are coming here? Sasha, why the bloody hell did you tell her that?” he yelled. “Oh, fuck, this is not happening.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dane’s whole body shook as he slid down the wall, head in his hands. His mind was racing at top speed, wondering if he could get out of town before they arrived. He figured it would be about a four-hour drive; that would give him plenty of time to get some things from home and find somewhere to hole up until they had gone. Then again, that depended on how long ago they had set off. He probably wouldn’t get far.

He was aware of low voices nearby and he glanced up to see Jai and Sasha talking. Sasha was almost in tears, with Jai reassuring her.

“What’s going on?” Ret joined the conversation. “I admit that I overheard about half of that—what is the problem with your parents coming here?”

Dane gave up on his idea of running away. Instead, he took a deep breath and stood up, clenching his fists to stop his hands shaking. He thought back to how easily Sasha, not to mention Max and Elizabeth, had accepted it, and told himself that the guard would be fine with it, too. Maybe if he could come clean to them, then he could also do it with his parents. He got to his feet again. Jai frowned, as though realising what he was about to do, and he nodded.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he began, clearing his throat to find his voice. “I have to do this now before I lose my nerve. I should have done this a while ago.” He paused, steeling himself. “For the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing someone,” he said quickly, casting a smile at the man in question and taking a shaky breath, gripping the hand that Sasha offered for moral support. “He means a lot to me; I love him. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I had to get a few things straight in my own head first and then the longer I left it, the more difficult it was…”