Page 20 of Hidden Pain

Hunter found his jeans and pulled them back on over his slender hips. Kingsley did the same with his shorts.

“Let’s go to your room. Allow her to rest.” Hunter motioned to the door. Kingsley agreed with a nod of his head and left the room. Hunter took one last look at Lily curled up peacefully in his bed and wondered if he was getting into something he really shouldn’t.

Chapter Eleven

“Is this the part where you tell me to leave before Lily wakes?” Kingsley asked as he entered his bedroom and went straight to the bag of belongings he’d been packing. Hunter had followed him in and was now standing with his strong arms folded over his chest in the usual sign of dominance he portrayed to all.

“You didn’t hit Ebony?” Hunter confirmed again.

“No.” Kingsley threw the bag on his bed and grabbed a t-shirt and shorts from it. He was in desperate need of a shower. Not waiting for Hunter’s response, he went into the ensuite bathroom and splashed some water on his face. Hunter appeared at the door, watching him with his dark brown eyes. “Are you going to give me a straight answer, Hunter, so I can shower? Or do you want to watch?”

The wolf shifter growled.

“I believe you, and I’ll talk to Ebony. She can’t spread lies like that. It could lead to trouble.”

“Thank you.”

Kingsley turned around to face Hunter and leaned against the sink unit behind him.

“Do you want to stay?” Hunter asked him.

“Yes,” Kingsley replied instantly.

“Ok, nothing changes,” Hunter confirmed as he turned to leave.

“I think what happened with Lily changed a lot of things,” Kingsley challenged.

Hunter stopped, lowered his head into his hands, and turned back to face him.

“We shared her. We can continue to do so. That’s all that has changed. Nothing else.”

“You can believe that, but I don’t,” Kingsley said as he stormed across the room. He was standing right in front of Hunter now. He could hear the wolf shifter taking deep breaths to control himself, but Kingsley refused to back down. He forced his lips onto Hunter’s. Rugged facial hair prickled his lips, and the smell of a heady masculine spice filled his nostrils. Lily was soft, but Hunter was hard and all man. Kingsley’s dick hardened for the third time in the space of a few hours.

At first, Hunter joined with him in the kiss, but eventually Kingsley felt himself being pushed away, and he knew the alpha side of Hunter’s nature had overruled his emotions.

“No!” Hunter shouted at him, his entire body rigid and shaking. “You’re mistaken. I’m not like that. We’ll sleep with Lily at the same time, share her, and love her. But you and I will never touch. Get that into your head, Kingsley. Try what you just did with me again, and I’ll send you back to Montana.”

Kingsley wasn’t going to back down, though. Hunter was fighting against the inevitable. The sexual tension in the room was palpable between them.

“Why?” he demanded with his hands clenched tightly together in frustrated anger.

“I’m alpha. That is all you need to know.”

“If you’re alpha, why can’t you make the rules?”

“As alpha, I must breed for the future of the pack. You and I can’t have a relationship, because it isn’t natural for an alpha in the shifter world.”

Kingsley shook his head.

“I never thought shifters would be homophobic.”

“We aren’t. There are male members of the pack who are together. It’s just not possible for me.”

This time Kingsley laughed.

“Not possible for you to be happy?”

“Enough.” Hunter slammed down his foot.

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