Page 17 of Wolf Lost

Gavin watched Ash with bemusement and headed over to the blankets, pulling them out of their neat folded state and spreading them efficiently across the bed. “You were pretty cold earlier. Maybe all three is a good idea.”

When Ash came back, he pressed the couch blanket into Sawyer’s arms. It still smelled of himself and Dez from earlier on the deck, and he had to hold himself back from burying his face in it and taking a lungful. Ash gave him a knowing smile, but he didn’t call him out.

Dez frowned at him, concern written in his furrowed brow and dark eyes. “Are you sure? I could”—he glanced over at the others self-consciously, but then looked back and continued anyway—“I could stay on the couch.”

Sawyer glanced at the piece of furniture in question. It was more a loveseat than a couch, and not nearly long enough for Dez’s long, heavily built body. The man had to be six feet tall; sleeping on that would be hell on him. Especially his leg.

Sawyer leaned up and planted a tiny kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, but I’ll be okay. Promise. Those two are never coming back.”

Maybe it would get bad again. Maybe he’d live in fear of Mark coming for him, at least to some degree, for the rest of his life. But for now? He hadn’t felt this safe since Mark had issued the challenge. Maybe before that.

The betas were gone, but more than that, he could feel those ghostly pack bonds forming, strengthening, with every moment they were together. He didn’t know if it would work out, but it felt like maybe it could. For tonight, that was enough.

They left him alone, departing one by one, Dez last—and not only because he was moving slowly without his cane. He kept glancing back at Sawyer, as though to assure himself he was still there. Sawyer had news for him: he had no intention of going away unless Dez wanted him to. Maybe not ever.

He pulled the ruined shirt off and tossed it into the trash can, then slid back into the bed. Despite the memory of the beta standing over him, claws out and eyes flashing, he wasn’t the least bit afraid. He pulled the blanket that smelled of Dez around him and slowly drifted back to sleep.

12

Galileo

Dez didn’t sleep again.

He tried, but it had been hard enough the first time with the distracting scent of Sawyer in his bed. Scent had been one of the biggest changes he’d dealt with since being bitten.

The trash had to be taken out every single night because the smell was too much for him to handle. He’d had to ask to switch hospital rooms because the first one had been scrubbed and scrubbed, but still smelled of someone with acute food poisoning. The second one had only been marginally better, but he hadn’t asked again.

It hadn’t occurred to him until he’d climbed into his own bed that night, that the problem could work the other way too: things that smelled good could be difficult to deal with. He hadn’t been overstating it when he said Sawyer smelled sweet; he smelled like an old-fashioned candy shop, all sugar and vanilla and the heavy wooden bins the sweets were stored in. It was like no other person he’d ever met, wolf or human, and it didn’t make any sense.

He’d never been one for sweets, but in this case, he was more than willing to make an exception. All day, he’d been craving something sugary.

He hadn’t offered to sleep on Sawyer’s couch out of some silly, misplaced chivalry—part of him had wanted to stay there. Probably the part of him that was making trying to sleep again incredibly uncomfortable, and it wasn’t his leg. With every breath of that light, sweet scent, his cock throbbed.

He’d managed to sleep the first time because he’d been exhausted and needed the rest.

This time, he’d already gotten three or four hours. His body was more interested in following up on the delicious scent of Sawyer Holt than sleep. The man himself was snoring softly halfway across the house, so at least he’d not been exaggerating about being able to get back to sleep.

There was a buzzing coming from Gavin’s room that meant a light bulb in use, so he wasn’t sleeping. Neither was Ash—Dez could make out the vague sound of one of his video games through his headphones from downstairs. One of those shooting games; Dez didn’t know how he could stomach them after what they’d lived through.

His hand, always happy to remind him of its presence, spasmed against his side. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t shoot imaginary people anymore.

Twitch.

He didn’t want to.

He’d neverreallywanted to shoot anyone, real or imaginary, but at the time he’d taken his sniper training and turned it to its intended use, it had been... not exactly easy, but possible, to tune out the part of his brain that had reminded him of what he was doing. Now it was the first thing that came to mind whenever he thought of a gun.

Twitch.

Oh hell, he’d been better off obsessing about the scent of Sawyer and getting a hard-on he couldn’t do anything about. At least, he couldn’t without both Gavin and Ash knowing exactly what he was up to.

Ash had given him enough knowing looks over the course of the afternoon. He didn’t want any more of them, so he damn well wasn’t going to give Ash an excuse.

So he sat there, in a bed that smelled like Sawyer, sporting an inappropriate erection the likes of which he hadn’t gotten since he was a teenager, and staring at the ceiling.

It was a long time till sunrise.

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