Wolf Tales VIII. Kate Douglas
and plaster cast. Back in his own reality, he felt Logan’s consciousness slip away from his and blinked himself back to full awareness.
The first thing he saw was Logan. The shocked look on the man’s face was priceless. “Amazing,” he said. “Absolutely amazing.”
“Not bad for your average auto mechanic, eh, Doc?” Adam laughed. “How do you feel, Deacon? Is the pain better?”
Deacon shook his head. “There’s no pain at all. It felt warm when you were both spaced out, but the pain’s completely gone.”
“Spaced out? I guess that’s a good way of putting it. Or spaced in. I think we can take the cast off. Shifting seems to promote healing, too, from what we’ve seen. There’s going to be some swelling. I haven’t figured out how to deal with that, but it’s not going to interfere with the bone’s healing. As long as you take it easy tonight, you should be able to run with everyone else.”
Adam stood up to leave. Logan grabbed his arm. “I need to learn that. Can you teach me?”
“I can.” Adam gazed steadily into Logan’s eyes. Eyes exactly like his own. “I know you’re new, that you’ve not been Chanku long enough to really understand that much about yourself, about all of us, but the easiest way for you to learn is to link at a deeper level.”
“How?” Logan lurched to his feet, still holding tightly to Adam’s arm. There was a desperate look in his eyes.
“A deep link during sex.” Adam shrugged. “How else? Maybe tonight after we run?” He touched Deacon’s shoulder. “I’d offer to saw the cast off, but it’ll fall off when you shift. A lot easier on all of us, don’t you think?”
Deacon blinked, his eyes going from Logan to Adam and back to his friend. “You mean it’s not broken anymore? Just like that? I can try shifting tonight?”
Adam shrugged. “Just like that. And yeah, you should be fine shifting.” He grinned at Logan. “What do you think, Doc? Can he shift?”
“I saw what you did, but I still don’t believe it. Yeah, Deac. It looked totally fine.” Logan stood up and grabbed Deacon’s empty beer can. “I’m going to get us a refill. I don’t know about you, but I could really use another beer. As far as your leg, I’ll check it after you shift, but I think it’s good to go.”
They gathered in the great room after dinner. Logan glanced away from his conversation with Jazzy and Deacon as Anton stepped out of the kitchen. He had a stained, once-white dish towel wrapped around his waist and the front of his otherwise immaculate white shirt was spattered with water.
Logan snapped his attention back to his packmates. He’s doing dishes?
Jazzy shrugged and Deacon just stared, but he’d been acting a little spaced out all afternoon, ever since Adam had repaired his broken leg and told him he’d be shifting tonight.
That had to have been a shock. Logan was still sorting through the unreal experience of actually taking a mental trip inside Deacon’s leg.
“Anyone who plans to run tonight, be here in the great room in ten minutes.” Anton tugged the towel off and dried his hands on it. “And yes, Logan. I’ve been doing dishes.” He grinned. “Don’t worry. It’s a democracy. You’ll get your turn.”
He went back into the kitchen where Mei and Oliver were loading the dishwasher.
Logan watched until he disappeared through the doorway. “How’d he hear me? I wasn’t broadcasting.”
“He hears everything.” Tala flopped down on the couch next to Logan and in a deep, mysterious voice, said, “Hears all, knows all, sees all…” Smiling, she added, “And he’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever known. However, he used to scare the shit out of me.”
Mik flopped his huge frame down beside Tala on the big leather couch and kissed her on the nose. “For what it’s worth, he still scares the shit out of me. Deacon, you ready for tonight?”
Deacon shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been waiting so long, been ready for so long. How come I’m such a nervous wreck?”
Jazzy leaned over the back of the couch and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Because you know we’re all going to be watching you when you take your clothes off.” She laughed and rubbed the top of his head like he was a little kid. “S’okay, though. You’ll be great. And Deacon…” She leaned even closer and pressed her breasts against his shoulder. “After we run, I think Logan’s going to spend a little quality time with Adam, so you’re all mine.”
“Oh, shit.” Deacon looked at her wide-eyed. “Now I’ll definitely screw up.”
Quality time. Logan’s stomach clenched into a tight knot. No way in hell would he admit it, but he was as nervous as Deacon. Not about shifting. Never about that—at least not anymore, but sex with Adam? He’d never done it with just a guy before. It was different when he and Jazzy brought another man into bed with them. She was the buffer, the one who made it all okay.
Would he ever get over his hang-ups? Hell, just thinking of that first time with Mik still made him hot, but he’d had Jazzy there too. Sort of as a “guy on guy” shock absorber. And since then, Deacon had joined them on a lot of nights and it was cool, but Deacon was a buddy and definitely not alpha.
Deacon and Matt were a lot alike in that respect. Both really great guys, but quiet and not at all aggressive. Logan wondered how Matt was doing with Nick and Beth. The three of them had flown back to Colorado to work on that wolf sanctuary with another group of Chanku. It couldn’t be anything like it was here, not with all these different packmates, all of whom seemed to be pure alphas. It was amazing they got along so well.
Matt and Deacon were different. They accepted their Chanku birthright without any overt issues at all, but they hadn’t even tried to get either of the women to pay attention to them. It was like the competition and aggression that most of the Chanku males accepted as their due didn’t exist with the two of them.
But Adam? Adam was definitely alpha. Even Anton Cheval, the one everybody treated as the uber-alpha of the pack seemed to defer to Adam. It had to be the guy’s amazing abilities.
Logan’s stomach practically tied into knots just thinking about the fact Adam wanted to have sex with him tonight. Except it wasn’t so much for the sex, it was to give Logan the knowledge he wanted. Knowledge he craved, information that would help him be a better doctor, better prepared to help his patients in a manner he had never dreamed existed.
So, if he wanted to think about it, it wasn’t just sex for sex, it was sex for the sake of the link. For learning. Yeah, he could handle it easier so long as he thought about it as…
“You okay? You’re a million miles away, and your barriers feel like a brick wall around your brain.”
Jazzy’s soft words in his ear dragged Logan out of his mired thoughts. “Yeah,” he said. He turned his head just enough to plant a kiss on her full lips. Damn. He’d been so lucky to find her. So damned lucky. Everything about her seemed to fit him perfectly. “I’m just thinking about everything that’s happened. Hoping it goes okay for Deacon tonight.”
Jazzy slid over the edge of the couch, squeezed in between Logan and Tala and snuggled up close against him. “It will, now. That was so cool, how Adam fixed his leg.” She ran a finger along his shoulder. Logan was convinced he felt the heat through his shirt. “I’ll be thinking of you tonight. You and Adam. It makes me hot, imagining the two of you together.”
Hearing Jazzy say the words sent a shaft of lightning from Logan’s balls to his cock. He wasn’t sure if it was her voice or the image of Adam and what they’d be doing in a very short time.
He’d never before been so anxious for a run to be over. Never been so apprehensive about his own sexual skills, his control…or lack of it. What if he…?
“Everyone here?”
Anton’s