Page 30 of Wolf Found

The first night, Graham had tried to take him a plate, but Gavin had stopped him. “I understand you want to take care of people,” he had said, “but in this case, he needs to take responsibility for himself. If he can’t bring himself to be around the pack and bond with us, it’s better to know sooner than later, so we can help him find somewhere he does belong.”

Joseph had not bonded with the pack. It seemed to Graham that he’d hardly tried, and Graham was a little annoyed with him over it. Hannah and Graham had done fine, and not because the Martingales had taught them how to deal with people better than they’d taught Joseph. If anything, omegas at the enclave had always been taught that outsiders were to be avoided and never spoken to.

Graham refused to let himself dwell on it. He tried a bit of everyone’s pizza, and they were all amazing, so he made mental notes about how everything interacted with the tomato sauce. He would learn to make pizza. Eventually. First, he needed to learn more about things for the shop: muffins and pastries and cookies and all the indulgent sweets he had little or no experience making.

“You could make Mom’s chocolate chip cookies,” Ash suggested as Graham paged through the recipe book looking for good choices.

Graham scooted back against him, leaning against his shoulder. “You just want more cookies for yourself.”

“Look at that,” Dez chuckled. “He’s got your number, Ash.”

“He’s had it all along,” Sawyer agreed.

Could it really be that simple? Graham looked up from his book and found the whole pack, including Hannah, looking at them, pleased. Indulgent, even. He looked up at Ash, smiling down at him.

He decided to test the theory and leaned up to give Ash a peck on the lips. He needed everyone to know this wasn’t just about comfort or familiarity. That he and Ash were together, were something more than just old packmates made new packmates.

That if the old wolf scriptures about mates were right, then Ash was his. His mate. He shivered and leaned into the kiss for a moment before breaking it again.

“Thank fuck,” Sawyer groaned. “The tension was about to kill me. Took you two long enough.”

“It was like two weeks,” Ash defended.

Sawyer waved him off. “You’re Ash. If there’s one guy in this pack who’s the love-at-first-sight type, it’s you. Captain Perfect, Mr. America, fairy-tale prince, that’s you. You’re the guy who gets married to his high-school sweetheart and settles down to have one-point-eight babies and a white picket fence or whatever.”

Ash didn’t answer, just flushed and buried his nose against Graham’s neck, and Graham found that he liked that fine. “Leave him alone,” he told Sawyer matter-of-factly.

Everyone chuckled and went back to their pizza, and Sawyer did as Graham ordered.

* * *

Ash’s gameroom was swift becoming Graham’s favorite place in the house. The couch smelled of pack and Ash and all good things, sure, but now it was more the fact that Ash was sitting on it with Graham straddling his lap.

In that position, it was impossible to convince himself that Ash didn’t want to be there. The erection pressing against his ass didn’t allow that kind of negativity.

They sat there like that for hours, Graham’s arms around Ash’s neck, just kissing, and kissing, and kissing.

Graham could barely feel his lips anymore, but he didn’t want to stop anyway. It was utter perfection. Ash sitting under him, smelling of muffins and coffee and alpha, so willing to just stay there like that, hands on his hips and letting Graham take everything he wanted. Graham hadn’t ever realized just how much he wanted before.

Ash’s beautiful eyes fluttered open when Graham pulled away, and he gave a lazy smile. “Done?”

“Never.”

“Wanna go to bed?” Ash’s eyes flew open as soon as the sentence left his mouth, and he shook his head. “I didn’t mean—not—that is—” So Graham leaned in to kiss him again.

He had to make him stop worrying somehow, after all.

After a moment, he pulled back and rested his forehead against Ash’s. “I’d love to. Even if you did mean it like it sounded.”

“But you’re—”

“Twenty years old,” Graham pointed out. “And we—” He broke off and bit his lip, unsure of how to ask if Ash wanted a real relationship. Was it too pushy? Was it selling himself short to ask, implying that there was a chance the answer was no?

What if he asked, and that made Ash realize he had the option to just have a fling with Graham, and—

Ash leaned in and kissed him again, then prompted, “We?”

“We’re something, aren’t we?”

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