Warders, Volume One Read online

  “Who cares?” he said, shrugging, lacing his fingers into mine. “They think I’m some twink, but you know I’m not. They think you’re too old for me, but we both know we’re probably about the same age emotionally.”

  “What?”

  He was laughing at me.

  “God, you’re a pain in my ass.”

  His smile was out of control. “C’mon, Malic, you know I’m serious and into you, and that if you let me I could make you so happy… if you just fuckin’ let me already.”

  “Already,” I muttered, “you don’t even know me.”

  “Pay the bill, and let’s go home.”

  Home? “Dylan, you and I don’t live at the same––”

  “We will,” he assured me. “But c’mon, take me home, Malic.”

  “You mean let’s go to my house,” I corrected him.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “That’s what I said. Let’s go home.”

  “Dyl––”

  “Just stop fighting with me.” His eyes settled on mine. “God, aren’t you tired of fighting? Malic? Aren’t you?”

  I just looked at him. It was like he could read my mind. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Take me home with you. We’ll figure everything out in bed.”

  I shook my head.

  “Pay the bill, I wanna go.”

  I was waiting at the front door for him to catch up—he had to run to the bathroom—when Graham stepped in front of me.

  “You’re making a fool of yourself with that little boy,” he said before I could even get a word out of greeting.

  I released a deep breath. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think?” he asked snidely.

  “That I’m screwing him.”

  “And you’re not.”

  “No,” I sighed wistfully, “I’m not.”

  The smug look on his face changed as he stared at me. “You’re really not, are you? You’re not fucking that boy.”

  “Not yet,” Dylan said cheerfully, walking up beside me and slipping his hand in mine. “C’mon, I wanna see your bed.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but the daring grin I got back made me mute. “Gotta go,” I told Graham, squeezing Dylan’s hand and yanking him after me to a lusty squeal of delight. It was an extremely uncouth exit that made everyone around us smile. Except Graham. Graham’s look should have killed me. Fortunately for me, warders were made sturdy.

  I LIVED in Pacific Heights, close to the Presidio. My place was small in comparison to most of the others on the hill, but I loved it and it was comfortable. I liked quiet; it was a sanctuary away from the noise and crazy of my business. If I wanted, I could drive down the hill and be in the Marina District, which I liked to walk around at night. Mostly I stayed home, sat out on my deck, and had a drink. There was no way a nineteen-year-old would like it there even for a night.

  “Oh my God, I love your house,” he said with a smile, looking around, his eyes wide, dropping his things everywhere like it was understood. Like he lived there too.

  “You––”

  “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “Come over here, lemme talk to you.”

  He moved fast and leaped at me. Even unprepared, I was bigger than him, stronger, so I easily caught him and sat down on the couch with him in my lap, straddling my thighs.

  “See?” He beamed at me, tightening his legs on either side of my hips. “Man.”

  I chuckled, hands on his face, pushing his hair—and there was so much of it, big wild unruly curls—back from his face. “What’re you talking about now?”

  “You’re a big strong man, Malic, and I don’t wanna be in bed with skinny, scrawny guys like me anymore. I wanna be loved hard and held tight after. That’s what I want.”

  But I was a cold, miserable…. I could not be the warm man he wanted, craved. “Dylan, honey, listen to me. You need––”

  “I know what I need,” he said, scrambling off my lap to walk over to where he had dumped his courier bag onto a chair.

  He bounced back over to me, and I was smiling, I couldn’t help it, when he sank back down into my lap. I was passed a brand-new tube of lubricant.

  “I have this in my nightstand,” I told him.

  “Yeah, but it would be just like you to tell me that you didn’t have any so that’s why we couldn’t do it,” he said, squirming in my lap until I had to clench my jaw to fight the urge to devour him.

  “You’re driving me nuts,” I told him, swallowing hard.

  “Good,” he said, passing me a box of condoms.

  I let out a snort of laugher. “This I most certainly have as well.”

  “Same reason,” he said, and then he coughed so that when he spoke his voice was low. “No, Dylan, we cannot have sex without protection. Step away from the penis.”

  I glared up at him, and he dissolved into peals of laughter.

  “That’s it,” I said, dumping him off me, down onto the couch. “I’m takin’ your ass home.”

  Before I could get up, he was back in my lap, arms wrapped around my neck, legs pressing against my hips, his lips on the side of my neck, nibbling up the side, kissing and licking his way to my ear.

  “Knock it off,” I grumbled as I put my hands on his ass and shoved his groin against mine. I couldn’t help it; he was like candy. He felt so good in my arms, and a lot of it was simply the fact that he was young and hot, but that wasn’t all. He wasn’t afraid of me even a little, and because of my size, my strength, just for a moment, sometimes I instilled fear in others. Most of the men I took to bed were apprehensive about relinquishing their control, worried about what I could do if I wanted. And I could hurt Dylan if I wanted, but that thought didn’t even enter his mind. “Hey.”

  We were eye to eye, and again I pushed the unruly curls back from the face I was so crazy about.

  “You should be more careful, you know. If you’re into big scary men, then one of these days, one of them might hurt you.”

  He squinted at me. “For starters, just to put your mind at rest, I never go to anyone’s house that I don’t know. Those guys that pick people up in bars… like you… and take them home and fuck them and then have to spend the next day doing laundry, washing some stranger’s jizz off their sheets––yeah, that ain’t me. I’ve slept with a total of two other guys in my life, and that’s two too many, if you ask me.”

  “Oh shit,” I groaned, trying to move him out of my lap.

  But his legs held me tight and his wrists were locked behind the back of my neck. “And now you’re worried that I haven’t fucked enough other people to know if fucking you will be enough.” He laughed softly, leaning his forehead against mine. “For crissakes, Malic, could you maybe give me a chance to become disillusioned with you myself instead of thinking up reasons for me to leave you?”

  He was so young, he would leave. And if he actually turned out to be my hearth and then he left… it would destroy me.

  “Here, look,” he said, unfolding a piece of paper he had also retrieved from his courier bag and passing it to me. It was, as far as I could tell from the quick glance I gave it, a printout of some kind. “I had to get shots for school and I thought since I was there I’d get tested, just so you could see that I am free and clear of any and all communicable diseases.”

  “You’re just carrying around a piece of paper from––”

  “The clinic on campus,” he grinned at me, “yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He looked confused. “Because I wanted to make sure I had it when I saw you again.”

  “If you saw me again.”

  “No,” he shook his head, “when.”

  “Oh for Christ’s––”

  “I’m ready for my lovin’ now,” he announced. The brown eyes looking at me were so soft, so warm, and so full of everything anyone could ever hope for that, of course, my first instinct was to growl at him. What the hell was wrong with him?

  “Why the fuck didn’t
you run away that night as soon as you came to?”

  “Why would I run?” he asked, restless hands going to work on the buttons of my shirt.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I’m being nice,” he assured me. “Instead of ripping this off you and ruining a shirt that probably cost more than my rent, I’m being careful, but it needs to come off because I need to touch you.”

  “Dylan,” I said, stilling him, surprised at how much my shirt gaped open—he already had a lot of buttons undone. “I’m a warder. I kill demons.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, shaking my hands off. “Hey, you’re gonna like having my legs wrapped around your hips when you’re buried in my ass.”

  “Dylan,” I groaned, my hands on his thighs, loving the feel of the hard muscles under the denim.

  “Malic.” He sighed out my name, pushing forward. “Tell me, why would I run?”

  “Because you should,” I told him. “You have your whole life to live, and to be burdened with my secrets… it’s not fair, and I don’t wanna do that to––”

  “God,” he grumbled, cutting me off, leaning back to whip his T-shirt off over his head. He wadded it up and threw it at his courier bag. “Is there a reason to not do me that you haven’t thought of, ’cause I’m going with no.”

  I had a moment to look, to see the defined chest, the dark nipples on hard pecs, the flat, cut stomach, before he pressed all his warm, sleek skin to mine.

  I jolted under him, closing my eyes for a second as the sensations roared through me, and when I opened them to look at him, I found his face inches from mine.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “It’s at the top of the stairs on the right,” I lied.

  He rolled his hips forward, put his hands on my face, and stared down into my eyes. “Don’t lie, where is it?”

  “How the fuck do you know I’m lying?”

  “I can read it on your face,” he said, shrugging. “That’s how I know you want me bad but you really, truly, are worried about hurting me.”

  I just gazed back at him, loving the way he was staring at my mouth. He was drunk with the sight of me, and that had never happened to me before. He was the only one who had ever wanted to not only fuck me, but keep me. It was all over him, in every glance, every movement, the desire to stay, to be asked to stay. I had no idea what to do.

  “Even if I’m not your hearth, Malic Sunden, I am something, and, yeah, it’ll fuckin’ kill me if I’m not the guy for you because I wanna belong to you so bad and you want me to be so bad, but if I’m––”

  “I never said I wanted you for more than a night.”

  His snort of laughter made me smile. I couldn’t help it. We both knew I was full of shit. He was laughing at me and he was laughing hard.

  “Shut up,” I muttered, shoving him off me, getting up and walking toward the stairs that led to the second floor. My house wasn’t big—more like a summer cottage in South Florida than anything else. The porch in back—half of it enclosed, half open, the French doors for windows, small fireplace—had an airy feeling with lots of light. At night, in the summer, I left everything open. Now, in fall, it was warm once I got a fire going. Since I had just gotten home, it was a little chilly, but my bed would be cozy under the down comforter.

  I felt him hit my back and wrap arms and legs around me, and I lifted him up, carrying him easily. His lips grazed my ear, and then he sucked the lobe into his hot mouth.

  “Quit,” I said, pinching his ass as he shoved his hardening cock against the small of my back.

  “Malic,” he breathed out, which put goose bumps all over my body. “If you fuck me and I age, you can use that wormhole thing and get me home and away from you before you do any real damage. How long does it take to see if you hurt me?”

  I had told him far too much about the ins and outs of being a warder. It had been a mistake to arm him with knowledge.

  “Answer me.”

  “What, oh, I dunno, right away,” I said, walking by the first bedroom, the guest one, on the right and passing by my office and the bathroom to move on to my bedroom. Once there, I dumped him down on the mission-style bed and walked through the room to snap on the light.

  “Oh, I love this room,” he said, smiling as the green and brown tones of the room became visible to him. It was still light, but darker than the rest of the house: the colors, the décor. The stained teak furniture, the cherry wood armoire, the large mirror, and the wingback chair in the corner with the matching ottoman. “I would have known this was your room, Malic, it feels like you in here.”

  “Like what?” I asked from the doorway that led from the bedroom to the connecting bathroom.

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “It’s warm, just like you.”

  I strode back to the bed and towered over him. “I am not warm. I have never been––”

  “Yes you are,” he said, lying back down on the bed, unzipping his jeans, and wiggling out of first them and then the underwear underneath.

  My first look at his beautiful penis made my mouth go dry. It jerked as I stared at it.

  “It likes you,” Dylan said huskily, and when my eyes caught his, I saw how heavy-lidded and hot they were. He was turned on just from me looking at him. “Come suck me.”

  “I––”

  He rolled to his knees, looking boneless as he moved, and had one hand on my belt buckle and the other on my hip. “Lemme take this off and suck you, then. I’ve felt you against my ass, but I would love to see your dick, Malic. I bet it’s just as big and gorgeous as the rest of you.”

  He thought I was gorgeous? How? “We should talk about––”

  “I’m sick of talking,” he said hoarsely, moving away from me, giving me a perfect view of his firm, round ass as he crawled back up to the top of my bed and got under the covers. “And it’s cold in here. Get in bed, Malic.”

  I stood beside the bed and kicked off my dress shoes before unzipping my pants. The catch of breath made me look over at him.

  “Christ, Malic, it’s like you’re carved out of granite or something.”

  I was a big, strong, muscular guy. My physique was all I had going for me looks-wise.

  “Come here.”

  Once I had everything off and had thrown my cufflinks and watch on my nightstand, I got under the covers. It was cold for a moment before he wiggled up against me, his thigh sliding up over my hip as his hard cock pressed into my abdomen.

  “You want me out of this bed, you’re gonna have to throw me out.”

  “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t,” he promised me, his hand sliding over my cheek. “God, Malic you have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life. Whaddya call that color, ice-neon blue?”

  “Dylan, fucking you would be––”

  “Is that what we’re gonna do?” he whimpered, pressing into me, hands on my face as he eased me down closer. “Please say that’s what we’re gonna do.”

  My heart was pounding so hard, so fast, and his touch was just making it worse.

  “Malic.” He shivered. “Finally.”

  I felt his hands on my chest under the covers, fingers splayed out, circling my pebbling nipples before he pinched them. A hard throb of desire washed through me.

  “Quit that.”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat. “Malic, I wanna be yours, make me yours.” His hands slid up to my throat. I couldn’t stifle the soft moan of anticipation; his fingers caressing my skin felt so good. “You’re all big and scary, but you love to be touched.”

  Not by everyone, I didn’t.

  “Most of all, you want me to touch you.”

  He was guessing, he couldn’t have simply known. “Dylan, you—”

  “Why’re you fighting me so hard?”

  I couldn’t tell him for the five thousandth time, I just didn’t have it in me. “I think about you all the time,” I confessed to
him; my voice was a raspy, choked whisper.

  “You do?” It was easy to hear the surge of happiness in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Me too,” he said with a smile, letting out a deep sigh.

  I had been looked at a lot of different ways in my life, but never, ever, like I was a goddamned gift. I had him spellbound, and I had no idea how. He was so young and innocent and sweet, and it would kill me to see anything but trust in those big melting eyes.

  “Malic,” he groaned, lifting his mouth to mine at the same moment he eased me down. “Is kissing all right? Could I please… just… kiss you?”

  I could have said no. I could have. But I caught my breath when his lips touched mine. He tasted even sweeter than he looked, and the whimper of need washed heat all over me. My lips parted on instinct.

  His mouth was hot, and I kissed him hard because in that moment, he was mine. I could kiss him all night, kiss him until his lips were raw and swollen, kiss him as he begged me to never stop, kiss him as he writhed under me. When his tongue swept inside, I felt my body shudder. There came the quick tensing, the warmth, and my need for his touch. He tasted so good; I pressed and rubbed against him. I felt his hands roaming all over, sliding down my chest, my abdomen, and finally to my cock. When he fisted me gently and pulled, I moaned into his mouth.

  “Christ,” he gasped, his voice husky and low, “Malic, you’re so strong and there’s so much power in you and heat and… and I could, I want… Malic.”

  I rolled over on top of him, pinning him down to the bed, and ordered him to wrap his legs around me. Tight.

  “Oh Malic… yes….”

  “I’m not gonna be gentle,” I told him, making my voice gruff, hard, trying to scare him. “You’re gonna be fucked and claimed and—”

  “Oh thank God,” he almost cried, climbing me, molding his small body to mine, trying to get closer, to transfer his need to me.

  The heat in his eyes, the darkness, his want… I loved it. All that hunger was directed at me and no one else. I realized that I didn’t want him to look at anyone else that way, ever.