Page 14

14

Jax

M oon above, it was disgraceful how relieved I was to hand Dakota over to Prudence’s care, but I was glad someone was there who knew what the hell they were doing. No, we hadn’t arranged in Dakota’s training time to also learn magic , but this whole situation was my responsibility now.

I’d caused his Awakening, so I couldn’t leave him alone to figure out his new power.

And wasn’t working through this while he was on the clock better than him having to figure everything out on his own? Hell, if he’d come across the wrong group of mages, they might’ve used his inexperience to manipulate him.

Maybe I was just trying to make myself feel better, but I needed to not see myself as the villain in all of this. Of course, that my concern wasn’t first and foremost the well-being of a man we’d hired to work with us, and was instead that he continued to like me, probably meant that I was.

But damn it, I wanted him to like me still. Even if we couldn’t?—

Well, I just wanted to be a bright spot in his memory and someone that he could continue to rely on. Thinking I’d taken advantage of him reminded me too much of the asshole alpha Jillian and I had escaped. I rubbed my hand beneath my collarbone—where my shirt covered the perfectly unblemished skin beneath. My wounds had been terrible—deadly, if I were human—but because I was a wolf, every mark that bastard had put on me had healed. We wolves didn’t often scar, and even our fight hadn’t been vicious enough to leave its marks except on my psyche.

I could still see Jillian’s white, terrified face. We’d been eighteen, and she’d been convinced I was going to lose the eye.

Maybe I would’ve, if I hadn’t been a werewolf. Fuck if I knew. But even one eye down, I’d fought for my life—for all our lives. I’d taken him down, and we left Idaho forever.

I’d sworn to myself that I’d never be anything like him, and by my pack, at least, I thought I’d done all right. By Dakota? I wasn’t so convinced.

So while I normally spent my days walking the halls of Crescent, too impatient to stay stuck behind my desk when I could keep an eye on my people and the day-to-day operations of the company, I hid out, sunk deep in my office chair, for the rest of the day. Nobody even bothered me for long, so I must’ve been putting off some “fuck the hell off” vibes without meaning to.

But Dakota? He wasn’t as sensitive to scents and the subtle body language that shifters relied on as most Crescent employees—who, by and large, were shifters too, even if they weren’t wolves.

Toward the end of the day, he showed up in my office doorway and knocked. “You busy?”

I stared at him, wide eyed and dull after—what had I been doing? Our contract with Prudence was open on my desk. We hadn’t touched it in years, but I’d had the thought of possibly amending it to limit her risk in this deal. She’d signed with us, not Igarashi, and I couldn’t have any growth in Crescent negatively impacting our partners. If we were moving forward, the risk had to be on my shoulders.

Honestly, though? I’d spent most of the afternoon glancing out the window, wondering what Prudence was telling him. She had always been open to working with us, treated us more than decently—more personally and professionally than other mages, but—well, there was a difference between that and knowing that I’d Awakened a mage, wasn’t there?

I was bracing for Dakota to withdraw, to return to the office and look at me with mistrust next time our paths crossed.

Instead, when I stared at him, he smiled. Yeah, he looked a little uncomfortable, but I probably looked wild-eyed and fucking crazy, so that... might not have anything to do with mistrusting me now.

That didn’t make answering him any easier. “Um?—”

I wasn’t busy, actually. Or, if I should have been, I wasn’t managing it.

Dakota shut the door behind him and came over to look across my desk at the open manilla folder with the first sheet of the contract still on top. I hadn’t even delved into it.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Uh huh.” I shut the folder, less because I didn’t want him seeing it than that I needed something to do with my hands other than, well, everything I wanted to do to him.

Even still, I caught his grimace from the corner of my eye. “The kicked puppy thing?—”

“I’m not.”

Dakota’s lips twisted, the left corner lifting wryly. He went on, completely ignoring my feeble protest. “Is that why you’re hiding out in here?”

I sighed, slumping in the world’s most ergonomic office chair enough that the lumbar support dug into the middle of my back. “I’m not hiding .”

He raised his eyebrows high.

“Okay, I’m kind of hiding.” I sighed, pushing my chair away from my desk so I could look up at him easier. “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to force myself on you.”

“So your solution is to avoid me forever?”

“No!” I sat up again, couldn’t stay still. “You don’t have to keep your distance, but I don’t want to get in your way while you’re figuring this all out. And you, ah, might want to keep your distance. You should have that option.”

“I don’t want to keep my distance.” He came around my desk, and I turned my chair to face him. Then, his knee was sliding up the leather beside me, and I didn’t stop him. I was too weak to, when he was there and warm and looking at me like that.

“You don’t know that.” There was so much he didn’t know yet.

Still, Dakota rolled his eyes, and his other leg slipped up. He lowered himself until he was sitting in my lap, and my hands fell instinctively to his hips. I tugged him closer, and he rolled his body, and this—this was dangerous.

“I do,” he said, dragging his hand through my hair before he made a fist. He tugged my head back and kissed me clumsily. Even when he pulled away, I left my eyes shut and just enjoyed the scent of him, the feel of having him so close again.

This was a mess. I wasn’t this quick to fall for anyone, but something about him drew me in, made it impossible to push him back.

“I do,” he repeated, nuzzling the bridge of his nose along my jawline in a move that was way too close to scent marking for my wolfish brain to handle. “Prudence said it might help if I—well, sex, in the aftermath of Awakening, can, uh, stabilize things a little. And I thought you might want to help me.”

My jaw flexed as I swallowed. “You want me to help you?”

I opened my eyes—needed to gauge the truth of his words for myself.

There was nothing but sweetness in his smile. “Yeah. That okay?”

The wolf in my head was practically howling. Dakota wanted me. Not only that, but he’d asked me to help him. Pride swelled in my chest and before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in.

I claimed his lips, parting them with my tongue, and his moan sounded in his chest and resonated in mine and my head swam with need for him and?—

Fuck .

“Proposition,” I rasped against his lips.

“What?”

“Come home with me. I want to fuck you again, feel you from the inside. Make it good.”

He bit his lip, already nodding.

“I’ll buy you pizza,” I promised.

Dakota snorted. “You don’t have to bribe me.”

I shook my head. “No, but let me provide. Alphas like that kind of thing, and Prudence said you’d need to keep your energy up while you adjust to your new magic.”

Plus, I meant to wear him out.

“That’s fucking crazy.” Still, his stomach rumbled even as he ground his hips on my lap. “What kind of pizza?”

I thought that was a spark of interest in his eyes, and even my wolf was pleased that it was for more than just my cock. He’d let us take care of him, just like we should.

“Any kind you want.”

“Pineapple,” he said.

I laughed. “Done.”

His brow puckered for a moment. “No, veggie supreme.”

“We’re getting both.”

His little smile at that was worth buying a whole damn pizza chain. He looped his arms around my neck and leaned in for another clumsy kiss. When he broke it, he sighed and looked down between us.

“Are you telling me I’ve got to walk out of here like this?” His cock strained beneath his sleek gray pants.

“Hell no. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you wanting.” I rubbed him through his pants while he bucked into the touch, and his moans turned sharp and needy before I undid his belt and slipped my hand down his briefs.

The warm, musky scent of him washed over me as I jerked him off. He clung to me, his elbows on my shoulders, his breath ragged against my ear.

When his dick pulsed, I tilted my palm against the tip so he shot into my hand. I withdrew it, and he shook while he watched me open my palm and drag the flat of my tongue through his spend, flaring my nose as I breathed in deep.

“You’re weird,” he whispered, his face bright red.

I grinned, a predatory curve of my lips. “I can’t get enough of you.”

For my own part, I didn’t mind waiting till we got home. When I came, I wanted to be buried balls deep in his hole, driving him wild.

I ordered pizza on the way back to my place, and it was waiting there on the porch when we arrived. Though I brought it inside, Dakota was the first to snatch it out of my hands and put it on the counter.

“Bed,” he demanded, reaching for me. When I wrapped my arms around the small of his back, he hopped up and wrapped his thighs around my waist.

I carried him to my room, kissing his neck the whole time. Against my front, he stretched and squirmed and fumbled with the buttons of my shirt.

No sooner than I’d tipped him onto the bed did he crawl back to me, tugging at my clothes and casting them aside until we were both naked. His skin stretched over his muscles, beautiful and golden, his lashes dark against his cheeks when he glanced up at me through them.

My breath caught. His hands wrapped around my hips, and my cock jerked.

I wasn’t going to make it like this, not with his eyes on me like he was a starving man and I was a wagyu steak.

“Face down, ass up,” I commanded.

Dakota drew in a sharp, short breath. His eyes widened, pupils large and dark as he stared up at me. There were dusty pink spots high on his perfect cheekbones. Then, he turned, and I watched the graceful curve of his back as he crawled languorously up my bed.

He was deceptively tall—his youth and litheness made him appear smaller than he was, but his skin stretched on for miles, perfect. He tucked his knees up, his thighs spread beautifully. His skin darkened around his balls, and fuck I wanted to suck them in my mouth, leaving him hanging like this all night while I played with every part of him.

I poured lube down his crack while my fingers swirled his entrance, and he arched his back in response. So needy and gorgeous, my Dakota.

“Can I use a toy on you?”

I sank a finger into him, and he keened before he managed an answer. When I pulled out, he shivered.

His cheek pressed the mattress so he could look back at me, and I’d swear his eyes went even darker. “Like a plug?”

I laughed, swiping the tip of my middle finger across his ass in a way that made his breath catch again. “No, baby. The only thing going in this hole tonight is me. But it’s magic.” I gripped his hips and leaned over to kiss his ass cheek, firm and round with the sweetest give beneath my soft bite. “I’ll show you how good it can be.”

“Nothing that’ll hurt?”

I shook my head. “Never wanna hurt you.”

His next inhale shook. “Okay.”

I went for the fleshlight in my bedside table—something we sold on the adult section of the site. I wasn’t a product tester, but I’d been curious, and yeah, maybe wanted a piece of magic for myself.

I held it before his mouth. “Breathe on this.”

That was how it worked. It’d take the shape of the last person to breathe directly on it.

So yeah, I’d fucked my own ass, and I was happy to say it stacked up.

But Dakota? He was so much better.

He pulled away after he breathed on it, frowning in confusion.

“It’s shaped like you now,” I whispered in his ear. “I want you to feel how perfect you are, how good you make me feel.”

With plenty of lube, I put the toy against the tip of his leaky cock and lined mine up with his asshole. He shook, the heels of his palms pressing into the mattress to wiggle himself back.

As I worked my cock into him, his hips pressed forward, sinking deeper, inch by inch, into the fleshlight. Dakota was stuck there, pinned between my cock and his own hole, and he whined into a wet spot on the bed beneath his cheek.

“Okay, baby?”

With a whimper, he nodded. “It’s so tight.”

I grinned, feral and sharp. “I know. You feel so fucking good.”

I pulled back, and when I thrust in again, he cried out. His asshole clenched, and I leaned over him, pressing my teeth against the back of his shoulder. Couldn’t bite him, wouldn’t, but damn did I want to.

With deep, long thrusts, I drove him toward the edge, pulling the light back in time with my movements until his thighs trembled against mine. He arched his back, and when he came, his perfect ass squeezed me hard, he flexed his hips, driving into the light, and just the sound of his broken moan sent me over the edge.

Each breath shaky, he stretched out under me, and I couldn’t help it—his legs were splayed, stretched out, and I pressed my weight forward to stay buried in his ass. I liked the thought of making him mine, my come filling his wanton body, feeding the magic within him.

Nuzzling him, I licked his shoulder. I hadn’t broken his skin, but my teeth left little indents against his flesh that my wolf needed to soothe.

And when I glanced up, I saw the corner of Dakota’s lips twitch into a smile, and my heart soared.