Available [Marked 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (10 page)

“Thanks, Kira,” Ryan said. As she walked away, he turned his attention back to Bradley. “The thing is called a crop. I’ll show you when you come over. I have all kinds of goodies for you to go through. If something strikes your fancy, just let me know and we’ll give it a try.”

“Oh and I just remembered something I was reading about in one of the forums I found today in class about erotic asphyxiation. It sounded hot—”

Ryan’s face turned to stone. “No.”

“But—”

“No fucking ‘buts.’ It’s dangerous, and I won’t do it,” Ryan snapped. Bradley felt like he’d been slapped. His cheeks heated, and he felt like every single person in the bar was now staring at them.

“Fine,” he muttered. “It was just an idea.” They fell into an awkward silence as they ate. Bradley pushed the green beans around on his plate, not hungry anymore. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know that it was off-limits.” He swallowed. “I’m seriously just throwing ideas out there.”

Ryan sighed. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just a trigger for me. I had a friend who really enjoyed it. He nearly died, and ever since I’ve been more than a little touchy about breath play.” The whole thing was said in a rush as if Ryan felt the need to explain but wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Bradley said. “We don’t have to do it.”

Their eyes met. “Thank you for understanding.” Ryan waved to the food. “Eat. You were starving a second ago.”

Bradley did, settled now that he knew it hadn’t been his freakish fantasy that had made Ryan lose it on him. “So are all wolves into BDSM?” He bit into the chicken and starbursts of flavor invaded his mouth. It was a little spicy like some Cajun food he’d had in the past but it had the rich taste of BBQ sauce under it. Delicious.

Ryan nodded. “Any born wolf is raised in the lifestyle. Dominants take care of the submissives, and submissives nurture the pack. It’s just the way things are done. That’s why I said to relax in here. Everyone who works for Mac is pack, and the few humans that come in here are mostly availables anyway.” He took a swig of water before he continued. “I’m not an easy Dom. I’m rough and have a short temper. I wouldn’t have chosen me for your first Dominant.”

“So why did you?” Bradley asked, already knowing the answer. The more he knew about werewolves, shifters, whatever, the more he realized he’d been right. Ryan was his mate and was just being overly stubborn about it.

Instead of the denial he’d been expecting, the wolf just winked. “Like you said, smartass, you’re irresistible.” Bradley laughed. “So tell me about this infamous book of yours. Was it
S&M 101
?”

“No. It was called
Under a Blood Red Moon
by Emily McShayne,” Bradley said, grinning at Ryan’s instantly confused expression.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a BDSM romance novel featuring a vampire Dom, Chris, and his pet werewolf, Shane.” Bradley pretended to swoon. “It was…awesome.”

“
Pet
werewolf?” Ryan asked, wrinkling his nose. “That sounds god awful.”

“No way!” Bradley said, feigning outrage. “It was fucking hot. Especially when Shane was naughty and Chris spanked him and called him a bad dog.”

Ryan sputtered. “What the hell kind of trash do they produce nowadays? Jeez. No wonder you know next to nothing.” He harrumphed and took a drink of his water. “Now if I wrote a novel on the lifestyle and werewolves, it sure as hell wouldn’t be some cheesy rendition. ‘Bad dog’ my ass.”

Bradley giggled. “Oh come on! You haven’t even read it. Are you saying that if you turned me into a werewolf you wouldn’t spank me and call me a bad dog?”

“Hell no,” Ryan rumbled, his eyes sparkling with a heady mixture of amusement and seriousness. “I’d call you my bad pup.”

Bradley couldn’t help but shudder at the tone in Ryan’s voice. The tone of the conversation shifted, and the lighthearted joviality of the moment was lost to heavier things. He shifted, uncertain of what he was supposed to do as the tension rose. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to slip into Ryan’s side of the booth and climb into the other man’s lap. It was so easy between them. What complicated matters was Ryan’s denial of their connection.

“I’m supposed to be honest, right?” Bradley asked, his hands playing nervously with the edge of his napkin.

“Yes,” Ryan said, his eyes thoughtful.

Bradley breathed. “Then I can honestly say that I want to be close to you in a very naked way right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“We were going to wait.”

“
You
were going to wait. I was going to masturbate a lot.”

Ryan’s booming laugh startled him. “You are trouble. What if I forbade you from jerking off until I got you off?”

Bradley grinned. “Then I’d have some pretty blue balls by tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?” Ryan sputtered. He dug in his pocket and got out a couple of bills to pay for their food. “We’ll pay for the Howlers’ orders at the register. You think I’m easy, huh?”

“I do not think you’re easy,” Bradley murmured. “You are many things, Ryan, but easy isn’t one of them.” But he liked it that way. He liked that his soon-to-be mate wasn’t just some sweet paper-pusher. Ryan was a good man, but he was also an edgy, tattooed Dom. As an artist, Bradley tended to be a difficult person to live with which was why he lived alone now. His tiny studio apartment was over a hardware store within walking distance of his job and the college. So he didn’t have to bring his bike with him everywhere if he didn’t want to. He loved the accessibility of the place.

Ryan slid out of the booth and waited for Bradley to do the same. “I want to take you home, Bradley. I just don’t want you to start picking out our mating tuxes. Until I’m ready to let you have me, how about I lay down some rules to heighten the anticipation?”

The idea appealed. Bradley got out of the booth and twined their hands. “A test run, huh?”

Ryan grinned and nodded as they walked from the table to the front register. “Yeah. A test run until Friday.”

“All right. I’m game.”

Kira appeared at the register a second before they got there. She must’ve come from the kitchens, but he hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than how good Ryan looked in a tight pair of blue jeans. “I put the rest of your orders in a grocery bag, Ryan. You bring cutey back with you when you come.”

“I can’t promise he’ll want to come back, but I guarantee if he does, we’ll stop in,” Ryan said, handing over a credit card. “I forgot Mustang’s card in the car, so just use mine for all of it. We’ll even it out later.”

She swiped his card and handed him the slip to sign, and Bradley waited patiently for him to finish. In no time Ryan had the two grocery bags of food in hand and was ushering Bradley back out the door and to the truck, the advertisement for the tattoo shop blazing along the side of the black vehicle in bright green-and-yellow font. He really needed to design them a new logo. That one was a bit hard on the eyes.

When they were ensconced once more in the comfort of the truck, Ryan looked over at him and cranked the engine. “Your first task will be to deliver these bags of food to the shop and to tell Regan to reschedule my appointments for tomorrow or to take my clients. When you get back, I’ll give you three rules to follow until Friday, and if you disobey them, there will be consequences.”

Bradley resisted the urge to squirm happily. “Okay.”

“You’ll want to start tacking on the honorifics so you’ll get used to using it. Most Dominant wolves will want a ‘Sir’ at least. If he’s a particularly large asshole, he’ll demand a ‘Master.’ I would suggest that you avoid any wolf who doesn’t get to know you first and demands to be called ‘Master,’” Ryan lectured. “You won’t have to worry about submitting to other wolves for a while, but when we go out and you meet other Dominants you’ll be expected to ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ them appropriately. Our hierarchy is a little rigid, so it’ll take some getting used to.”

Not as much as it should be
. “Then I’ll use the honorifics, Sir.”
Oh that felt fantastic
. It was just right.

Ryan visibly shuddered. “Good boy.”

Bradley relaxed back into the seat, and Ryan cranked the radio up to a mild roar, and the classic rock station was actually playing something decent for once. He smiled softly to himself. He was finally exactly where he needed to be.

* * * *

“Don’t forget to give Mustang the keys,” Ryan said, tossing the keys at the eager boy as he all but vibrated with the need to carry out his first task for his Dominant.

He caught them with his free hand. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Sorry what?” Ryan asked.

Bradley smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Sir.”

“Good boy. Hurry up.”

Bradley all but ran from the employees’ parking lot and up the steps into the shop. Ryan chuckled. He’d forgotten how exciting it was to newly discover the lifestyle and one’s orientation in it. Bradley was probably flying high right now, and Ryan hoped that he could live up to the high expectations that the submissive had.

Mac had been right in some ways. He didn’t need to keep Bradley at arm’s length in order to save himself from the intimacy of Bradley’s company. At the end of the night, Dom/sub relationships were about intimacy, and halfway engaging the human in play would only lead to Ryan hurting the kid. It was the last thing he wanted. He would let his guard down. Maybe, just maybe, he could walk away from the whole thing in the end with only a small scar to show for it instead of a gaping gash.

His cell phone started ringing in his pocket, and he sighed. He knew it wasn’t Regan because his brother usually gave him a mental heads-up before calling because he knew how much Ryan dreaded unknown phone calls. He frowned as he extricated the cell out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID.

“Hey, Dean, what’s up?” he asked as he engaged the talk button.

“I just got off the phone with Alpha, and he said to call you. I have some interesting news for you.” Dean Lison’s slow drawl came over the line loud and clear.

Ryan’s grip tightened. “So spill. What’s my new sub boy’s deal?”

“It’s not just your sub boy, but we’ll get to that. Your boy was the son of one Mr. Alexander Gage. The mother remarried when he was four, let Bradley keep his last name, but she took her new husband’s. Father had regular visitation until the boy was ten and then relocated to Scotland.

“Now here is the interesting bit, Alexander Gage was beta of the Black Mississippi pack but went MIA after a dispute with his Alpha that left four people dead in Jackson. He shows back up here and applies for admission into the Blackfoot pack with the old Alpha. Mustang’s dad grants a visitor’s pass but doesn’t let him in as a full member. He knocks up a local waitress, buys a two bedroom in South Fork, and settles illegally into the area.

“The old Alpha finds out, and there is a big showdown where, get this, Bradley is
kidnapped
by the old Alpha and spends something like two weeks on the Alpha’s lands as Gage negotiates the return of his son. The wife apparently gets pissed by the time she gets him back and dumps Alexander’s ass. The guy she marries is part of the pack, Ryan,” Dean said.

Ryan frowned, trying to process what Dean was telling him. “Wait, the old Alpha didn’t allow human-wolf pairings any more than Mustang did unless the human was turned. Only pack members could marry. Did he turn her?”

“That’s the thing. There is no record of her turning in the Circle archives. She was a born wolf, Ryan. I don’t know why Bradley isn’t pack. He’s a full-fledged wolf,” Dean said. The words hit Ryan like a freight train.

“
Re
?” Ryan asked through his mind link to his brother.

“
What is it
?”

“
Keep Bradley in there for a minute
.” Aloud he said, “How is that possible?”

He could almost hear Dean’s frustration when he next spoke. The man didn’t like not knowing things. It was one of the things that made Dean such a good PI. “I have a couple theories, but I honestly don’t know if I can give you a straight answer. I’m going to talk to my Circle contacts and see if I can get probable causes. In the meantime, I think it would be a good idea if you keep Bradley with you and yourself from being alone for now.”

Ryan’s brain churned with possibilities. “Why? Bradley and I just started his training. I don’t know if it’s a great idea to shove him so far up my ass he doesn’t see daylight. Plus I don’t want him to think something is up until I have answers to give him.”

“He’s not the only one stalking you.”

Ryan frowned. “What?”

“In my investigation, I also found someone besides Bradley has been tracking your movements. Wolf by the scent,” Dean said.

What, do I have a big sign around my neck that says “Stalk me! I’m loveable!”
? “Why? I may be beta, but I’m nobody. I work at an ink shop and live with my brother in a split level.” He had no assets to speak of really. He lived just like everyone else.

“Old boyfriend maybe?” Dean asked.