Porpoisefully Yours

  Emery mumbled.

  Sean poked him again. “Wake up, Unca Emwee.”

  That seemed to get his attention. He forced an eye open. “Huh?”

  “Your sister’s about to make a special delivery. Mom’s on her way over. We’ve been given our marching orders. So get up and get dressed.”

  They arrived at the hospital two hours later. Emery’s parents were already there, and the other siblings were still en route.

  Sean and Emery opted to sit out in the waiting room with Joseph and Christopher, who also had no desire to see what happened south of the border during the birthing process. Not to mention the birthing suite was already crowded enough with Brad and the family’s women in attendance.

  It was nearly two in the afternoon when Helen emerged from the birthing suite, a beaming grin on her face and Brad’s iPhone in hand. She held up the phone, which displayed a picture of Olivia holding the two newborns cradled to her chest. “Presenting Sofia and Julian,” she said as everyone crowded around to get a look.

  The rest of the contingency, minus Brad, soon followed. Giving the new parents some privacy, everyone else went downstairs to the cafeteria to eat and stare at the pictures on the iPhone.

  Emery wore a silly grin as he looked at the pictures. “Isla’s got two cousins to play with.” He poked Christopher in the shoulder. “You guys will be next.”

  “Not until June,” his wife, Suzanne, said, patting her baby bump. “So we get a few more months to practice.”

  Joseph took the phone again to stare at the pictures. “They’re gorgeous. I can’t wait for the recognition ceremony. It’ll be nice having one for our own family for a change.” He passed the phone on to one of the others. “The last Nadel baby we welcomed was Laura.” He turned his focus back to Emery. “We will be including Isla in the recognition ceremony, won’t we? Since you haven’t bothered to have one for her yet?”

  Sean snickered over the way Emery’s face reddened. “Sorry, Dad,” Emery mumbled. “We’ve been busy getting used to being parents.”

  Joseph curtly nodded. “Well, I know that, and I didn’t want to rush you, but it’s high time Isla was also officially recognized by the pod. I know it’s been a cold winter, but you can bring her out on the boat.”

  Emery looked down at his plate. “Okay, fine, Dad. I get it.”

  Louise smiled. “Don’t be too hard on him, Joseph,” she said. “If you’ll recall, Emery was eight months old before you held his recognition ceremony.”

  Joseph puffed up a little in indignation. “Yes, but that’s because we kept having bad weather. We couldn’t do a recognition ceremony in the middle of a storm, could we?”

  “My point being,” Louise continued, “it doesn’t matter when we have it, as long as we have it.” She poked her husband in the shoulder. “So back off, Grandpa. All that matters is that they’re here and healthy, even if they are a couple of weeks early.”

  “We’ll do it before we go out to Yellowstone,” Emery said. “Happy? They’ll be almost two months old then. Okay?”

  Joseph smiled. “That sounds good, Uncle Alpha.”

  Emery stuck his tongue out at his father.

  * * * *

  Emery and Sean finally headed home from the hospital. Sean’s dad had volunteered to take Isla home overnight, giving the men an evening of well-needed, child-free privacy.

  They undressed and grabbed a shower, not speaking, taking their time and letting all their tension wash away. Once they were dried off and in bed, Sean rolled onto his side. “We’re uncles,” Sean said as he grabbed Emery and kissed him, deeply and fiercely.

  “Yep.”

  “We almost have enough kids in the family for our own water polo team,” he joked.

  “Almost.”

  “We have the entire house to ourselves.”

  Emery nibbled along the line of Sean’s jaw, to his earlobe. “Yep.”

  “Please tell me you’re going to fuck my brains out tonight.”

  Emery rolled on top of him. He grabbed Sean’s hands and held them pinned against the mattress over his head. “Oooh, yeah. I was thinking Alpha bull style.”

  Sean let out a soft moan. “Oh, dude, what are you waiting for?”

  Emery crushed Sean’s mouth with his, a bruising, passionate kiss that stole their breaths away. “I’m not waiting. I’m savoring the moment.” He nipped the side of Sean’s neck. “I’ve been fantasizing about bending you over our bed with my fat Alpha bull cock stuffed inside your sweet, tight ass.

  He’d only fucked Sean a couple of times using the partial shift. Sean knew Emery had to be in the right mental place to do it without risking slipping and ending up a fully shifted dolphin in their bed.

  And it’d been a while since the last time. Since before Isla joined their family.

  Emery’s lips feathered across Sean’s flesh, tasting and teasing his mate, nipping and sucking, wanting to make it last. Sean flexed his hips and arched his back, trying to get friction against his cock, which was pinned between their bodies.

  Emery let his full weight pin Sean to the bed. “Slow down, baby,” he hoarsely whispered. “We’ve got all night.”

  “Maybe you have all night, but I’m about to bust a nut. I need your cock, man. It’s been too long since you’ve fucked me like that.”

  “I know.” Emery finally sat up and retrieved a towel from the bathroom, and a tube of lube and the large butt plug from their child-proof hiding places. He returned to the bed. “Roll over. Ass in the air.”

  Sean complied. Emery lightly slapped Sean’s tight ass cheeks before kneeling between his legs. “Reach back and hold yourself open for me.”

  Sean did, his face buried in the pillow.

  Emery reached between his lover’s legs to find Sean’s cock rigid and already dripping pre-cum from the slit. “Wow, you are horny.”

  “Yes, goddammit,” came Sean’s muffled reply. “I thought that was obvious.”

  Emery drizzled lube down the seam of Sean’s ass and began working it into his puckered rim. One, then two fingers, and finally a third. Once he knew Sean was loosened enough, he squirted lube all over the butt plug and began working that inside his lover’s ass.

  A long, low moan rolled from Sean.

  “Don’t you dare fucking come yet,” Emery said. Not until my cock is deep inside you.

  Sean’s moan turned to a plaintive whine. But Sean knew he would no more be able to refuse that order than he could refuse to come on command when Emery was in full-on Alpha bull mode.

  A very horny, deliciously handsome Alpha bull ready to fuck his mate.

  After the butt plug slid inside his ass past the widest part, Sean’s body eagerly sucked it the rest of the way in, the flared base seating between Sean’s ass cheeks. Emery teased him, pressing on the base and alternating that with gently tugging on it, enjoying the passionate, primal noises Sean made when he did.

  “You like that, don’t you?”

  “I’ll like it better when it’s your cock, dude.”

  Emery slapped Sean’s ass again. “Patience.” He reached between Sean’s legs and palmed his sac. It felt tight, heavy, hot, full and ready to explode at Emery’s command. He gently rolled Sean’s balls in his hand. Sean propped himself up on his elbows, turning his head so he could watch while Emery grabbed his own cock and took a couple of strokes. Not that he needed fluffing, because his cock was already hard and throbbing.

  Emery changed position, moving to the head of the bed, where Sean could reach his cock with his mouth. He buried his hands in Sean’s hair and pulled his head up. “Open wide, baby.”

  Sean did, softly moaning again as the engorged head of Emery’s cock passed through his lips and over his tongue. He lapped at the slit, where drops of pre-cum had already pearled there.

  Emery slowly fucked his mouth, taking complete charge and holding Sean’s head right where he wanted it. “That’s it, baby,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse, strained with the effort of holding back.
“Make sure I’m nice and hard before I fuck your ass with it.”

  The sound of Emery’s voice, even more than his words, turned Sean’s insides into a gooey mush. They were so good together in bed like this, everything feeling so right, way more intense than it had ever felt with anyone he’d known before Emery.

  After a few minutes, Emery pulled his cock from Sean’s mouth and moved behind him again. “I need my cock in your ass,” he hoarsely said.

  “Who’s stopping you?”

  Emery played with the butt plug again, fucking Sean with it and making him moan even louder. Finally, he carefully withdrew it from him and then slathered his cock with lube.

  Emery knelt between Sean’s legs, and Sean thought he might just sob with relief. Then Emery positioned his knob against Sean’s ass and pressed forward.

  When Sean tried to rock back and impale himself, Emery anticipated it. He grabbed Sean’s hips and held him in place. “No you don’t,” he said. “I’m driving.”

  Even in this Emery took his time, almost deriving sadistic pleasure in how Sean begged for Emery to fuck him faster, harder, deeper, and not the achingly slow progress he was currently making.

  Only when he was fully buried inside his lover did Emery let out a breath. “Okay.” He reached around Sean and grabbed his cock. “Hold still.” He slicked Sean’s own juices up and down his shaft a few times, Sean trying his best not to rock his hips in time with Emery’s hand.

  That was when he felt Emery’s cock swell inside his ass.

  “Fuck, yeah!” he gasped.

  Emery’s hand moved harder, faster. “Come!” he barked as he squeezed Sean’s cock.

  It felt like Sean’s balls were trying to turn themselves inside out as his climax ripped through him. His hands balled the sheets, tightly fisted. Unable to keep still, he let out a cry and rocked back, wanting that thick cock as deep inside him as he could take it.

  And still, it grew.

  “That’s it,” Emery said, his tone sounding low and growly. “Take my cock, baby.” He fell forward onto Sean and began fucking him, pounding him into the mattress, his huge Alpha bull cock deeply plowing his ass.

  Sean wished he could say something sexy or witty to Emery in response to how great it felt, but all that came out of his mouth was a series of moans that reminded him of a drunken pig happily looking for goodies at a truffle farm. He clutched at the sheets, arching his back as much as he could under Emery’s weight, fucking him back as much as he could.

  Emery’s fingers wrapped around Sean’s and he squeezed. He bit down on Sean’s shoulder.

  As if a direct line to his balls, Sean felt his cock immediately grow hard again.

  “I’m almost there, babe,” Emery silently said through their mate-bond. “Get ready.”

  Aching, hard, throbbing, despite just having come, Sean knew as soon as Emery gave the word, his cock would immediately, obediently obey.

  “Now! Come for me.”

  Explosions soared behind Sean’s closed eyelids as his balls once again emptied, not as much this time, but the force of his climax hit him as strongly as the first one.

  The feeling every bit as intense.

  Inside his ass, he felt Emery’s cock swell even more as the dolphin shifter bit down harder on his shoulder. Then it pulsed as hot cum filled his ass and Emery let out a loud, deep groan of his own that coaxed a pleasant shiver from Sean.

  Sean went limp under Emery, his pulse slowing, a fine sheen of sweat coating both their skins.

  Emery gave Sean’s hands one last squeeze before his grip slackened. His breath blew across the nape of Sean’s neck as he kissed him, tenderly, gently.

  “Fuck,” Sean muttered. “That is so. Fucking. Good.”

  Emery chuckled. “Yes, it is.” He slowly pushed himself up and off of Sean, carefully withdrawing his rapidly wilting cock from Sean’s ass.

  Sean winced a little, but then chuckled.

  “What?”

  He slowly rolled onto his side so he could look Emery in the eye. “I’m kind of glad you didn’t spring that superpower on me our first day together. It might have scared the crap out of me.”

  Emery leaned in and kissed him. “I didn’t even know it was a superpower I had until I met you.”

  “Aww, you big sweet-talking thang, you.”

  Emery captured Sean’s hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed it, feathering his lips over Sean’s fingers. “I love you, babe.”

  Sean leaned in and kissed him. “Love you, too. Forever and ever, big daddy.”

  Emery laughed. “Oh, sooo don’t say that during sex. Please?”

  “Roger-dodger.”

  Chapter Ten

  It was easy to stay hidden around the Florida Keys throughout the winter. Plenty of calm mangrove backwaters, the water temp stayed warmer than more northern climes, and food was plentiful. Not to mention, with all the little out-of-the-way canals and vacation houses, it was easy to shift late at night and hobble up docks to break in and find things.

  It was during just such a break-in one evening, at a rundown trailer on Big Pine Key, which had been vacant for weeks, that Erik stumbled upon a possible way to get his revenge. He’d kept his eye on the trailer, watched, shifted and from a distance, as a guy next door mowed the lawn.

  Every night, a light looking like a nightlight came on in a high, small window with frosted glass. Likely a bathroom. The vintage trailer, that looked to be from the early 1970s or so, was obviously not a rich man’s holding. Nobody came or went from the trailer.

  It was the perfect kind of place for him to hide out in, to get out of the water when a squall line came through, chilly winds and rain lashing the surface of Florida Bay.

  When he finally broke in late one Friday night toward the end of February, easily jimmying open the back door, he found his guess was right. From the vintage decor, he suspected elderly owners, if not deceased ones. The personal belongings told him it definitely wasn’t used as a rental retreat.

  There were some clothes in a closet in the larger of the two bedrooms, nothing stylish, but at least a pair of shorts he could pull on and wear, and a sweatshirt. No food in the fridge, but there was soup and other canned goods in the pantry that hadn’t spoiled yet.

  It was nice to finally be able to eat something warm again.

  And he found a pair of scissors in a drawer in the kitchen with which, after a long, hot shower, he could trim back his scraggly hair and beard to a more acceptable length.

  As he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, in the dim light from the nightlight plugged in by the sink, he didn’t recognize himself.

  Fucking Emery. It was all his fault everything had come to this. If he’d just not picked that fucking human as his mate, they could be having a great life together.

  That goddamned alligator, Wyatt, had taken his foot and part of his leg. His life, at this point, was ruined.

  But he would hurt Emery and the other Nadels however he could.

  Although even he had to admit in his current state, how he’d go about actually doing that seemed dubious.

  As morning waned and enough natural light filtered in through the drawn curtains, he looked for something to distract him. Hobbling one-legged into the living room area, in a neat and tidy stack under the coffee table he found a pile of supermarket tabloid papers. Since he wasn’t stupid enough to turn on the TV and risk noise attracting attention, he stretched out on the couch and satisfied himself with the brain-numbing newspapers.

  None of them were newer than five months old, and they went back over a year.

  One, in particular, caught his attention.

  “Wolfman in Arcadia?” screamed one bold headline.

  The writer, a guy by the name of Jake Castle, wrote about reports of men who turned into wolves being spotted on the outskirts of Arcadia.

  Dipshit. He was closer than he probably suspected. There was a large group of wolves in that area.

  …this reporter is currently inves
tigating several other reports from around the state of unusual activity. Is it possible there are werewolves in Florida? That they do, in fact, exist?

  The guy’s byline included an e-mail address. His brief bio said he was based out of Miami, and ran a website called Strange and Real.

  It also said he paid for valid tips.

  Hmm.

  Erik let the paper fall to his lap as he stared out into space. He didn’t have access to a computer. He couldn’t walk around with one leg. Although law enforcement wouldn’t immediately recognize him in this condition, he had no ID. He damn sure couldn’t tell anyone who he really was.

  I need a fucking artificial leg. But that, he knew, was as far out of reach as Emery, at that moment. Monetarily, as well as he had no way of getting somewhere he could get one, except Cuba, maybe.

  Then again, maybe a crutch. Or a wheelchair. They were easy to get anywhere new, or used at a thrift store.

  Except he had no money.

  He turned it over in his brain for a while until the ringing of a phone somewhere in the kitchen area startled him out of his thoughts and sent his pulse racing. He froze, even though he logically knew no one could tell he was there.

  After four rings, it stopped. As his pulse slowed and evened out, he got up and hobbled over to the kitchen. There, on the wall, an ancient, avocado green, push-button phone. No caller ID screen, no batteries required, but the phone number was helpfully printed in faded type on a small, peeling label stuck to the phone.

  Well, what do you know about that?

  The phone had a dial tone. Rummaging around in the cabinets produced a phone book for the Keys that was two years old.

  There were two big chain drugstores on Big Pine Key. He couldn’t easily get to either of them over land. They were less than a mile away, up near A1A, but one-legged, they might as well be a hundred miles away.

  There was a thrift store, slightly closer.

  That started his search through the entire trailer. In the end, he turned up a whopping dollar and fifteen cents in change.

  Outside, the sound of a boat engine starting up close by got his attention. He carefully peeked out one of the back windows to see the next-door neighbor who mowed the grass preparing to take off in a twenty-foot open fisherman.