CHAPTER EIGHT

When I woke some hours later it wasn't to find myself aching and sweating as I usually did. The first thing I became aware of before I even opened my eyes was the scent of Embry on the pillow next to me. I opened one eye slowly and found that I was alone, but when I touched the sheet I felt his warmth so it was obvious he had only just left the bed. I guessed he must have gone to the bathroom and I rolled over onto my back, stretching and then tucked my hands behind my head and waited for him.

All was silent until suddenly I heard a muffled sob and I shot upright in shock. Oh God, he was crying and I would have bet anything it was down to me. I felt like the world's biggest piece of shit and I slid out of the bed quickly and walked to the bathroom. The door was almost closed, but not quite and I pushed it wider.

"Embry?"

He was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, his face red and wet with tears and now he grabbed a towel that he had apparently left there earlier and scrubbed it over his face, sniffing.

"Sorry," he said shakily.

"Don't be silly. What's wrong?" I dropped to my knees on the mat in front of him and reached up to put my hands on his arms. "Is this because of me?"

"No, I'm just being a jerk."

"Em, you're hiding in here crying your eyes out, tell me the truth," I pressed, my stomach knotting with worry.

"You have enough to think about."

"I'm thinking about you. You've done so much to help me; let me help you."

"I don't know if I am helping," Embry said almost in a whisper. "You know the Imprint makes me do anything I can for you, but it's not just that. I love you; I always have and it kills me to see you hurting and it makes me feel like shit that I can't make it any better. And I..." He stopped there and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

"Go on," I said softly.

"You don't need this."

"Tell me," I insisted.

"I want to be with you so much and I guess I think it'll never happen. Even when you can move on from Rachel." Fresh tears spilled down his cheeks and he pulled his hands away from mine and covered his face.

Pain filled me and for the first time in a year it wasn't for my own loss; it was for Embry who felt so much for me and was getting absolutely nothing from me except a load of shit that he just took and loved me for in return and he been going through it for years. I pulled him forwards so that he slid off the edge of the bath to the floor and into my arms.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so wrapped up in my own shit, half the time I don't even think about you. You are making things better; you're making me feel like I can move on. I will get there and it will be you I turn to when I'm over it. Em, look at me." I cupped his chin and tipped his head back until he reluctantly met my eyes. "I need you and I want you, I just didn't want to say too much and fuck with your head while I'm still a mess."

"You mean that," he murmured. It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"Yeah." I brushed my lips against his cheek, tasting salt, then another light kiss to the corner of his mouth. His lips parted and curved up just a little at the corners. I drew away slowly, got to my feet and pulled him up, then led him back into the bedroom.

We lay down together and I slid my arms around Embry, pulling him close against me, one hand stroking his silky hair. He nestled against me, one hand on my chest, his breath warm on my throat and I closed my eyes, intending only to rest for a few minutes, but when I opened them again it was hours later and the motel manager was banging on the door asking us to leave.

"Oh, shit!" Embry rolled away from me and sat up quickly, dragging a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, oh shit," I grimaced, realising I had woken with an enormous erection and all my clothes were in the other room. Embry glanced at me and sniggered, blushing slightly. I grinned and hauled myself to my feet, heading for the bathroom.

A few minutes splashing cold water onto my face and upper body made the damned thing subside and I used the toilet and quickly headed back to my own room to gather my things together. We met outside five minutes later, checked out and called a cab to take us to the airport. We still had three hours before the flight back to Seattle, but decided to get there first and then find somewhere to eat.

As we sat in one of the airport diners, munching our way through several sub rolls stuffed with a variety of fillings, I thought about Rachel and realised with a touch of guilt that it was the first time I had thought of her since I woke that morning. I grimaced and put down the remains of the sandwich I was eating, grabbing the large coke I had ordered instead to wash down the mouthful of food before I choked on it.

"Are you ok?" Embry asked immediately.

"Yeah." I reached across the table and took hold of his hand. Focus on him, I told myself. He's your future. I smiled at him. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me too."

The flight home was uneventful and when we returned to La Push we parted reluctantly and went home, me with the intention of telling my Dad exactly what was going on when he returned from work, which would be any time now. I knew he wasn't going to like what I had to tell him, but I had decided it was part of me moving on and if he couldn't accept it, I guessed I could find somewhere else to live - and another job.

"Alright, son. Get everything sorted?" he asked when he walked in the door and found me in the kitchen halfway down my third beer.

"Yeah. The apartment got broken into, so there wasn't much to bring back except my clothes."

"Shit, sorry about that."

"Yeah, well, it's done. It was ok; Embry went with me."

"Oh, did he?" Dad's brows drew together in a frown. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?" I said. "I'm going to be spending a lot of time with him from now on."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Dad said at once. "I know you felt obliged to come back and help him after his accident, but you can't help that he Imprinted on you. You have your own shit to deal with."

"Embry's helping me," I said. "His Imprint is helping me."

"The boy's a fag!" Dad exclaimed. "You can't tell me it's normal for a guy to Imprint on another guy. You rejected it anyway."

I cringed and scowled. "Yeah, five years ago. A lot happened since then."

"You can't possibly be thinking of changing your mind," said Dad. "Is there something wrong with you?"

"You mean am I a fag too? Yeah, I guess I must be," I told him. "If I hadn't Imprinted on Rachel, I probably would have been with Embry the last few years. I was going to see him the morning it happened."

"That's ridiculous!" Dad growled. "You don't know what you're saying! Losing Rachel screwed your head up."

"Yeah, it did," I said. "But not so much that I don't know what I want. I'm going to be with Embry whether you like it or not, so I'm sorry, but either you're going to have to get used to it, or I'll find another place to live and work."

"Jesus, Paul," groaned Dad. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes. I'm not a kid any more, Dad, I make my own choices and Embry's the choice I'm making. Right now he's just helping me move on, but it'll be more than that eventually. Soon," I corrected.

"Look, you know what I think about...guys being together," he said with a grimace, but restrained himself from saying 'fag' again or anything else derogatory I noticed, which was a good thing as far as Dad went. "But I'm not going to turn my back on my own son."

My eyebrows rose a touch. I had thought it would be much harder work to get him to even listen to me.

"You got a home and a job as long as you want it, like I said before. I just don't want to see him around here for a while, I don't want it shoving in my face before I get used to the idea," he went on.

"Thanks," I said, even more surprised.

"What's his mother think about this?" Dad asked then.

"She doesn't know yet. She never liked me much though."

Dad snorted suddenly. "Tiffany Call was never very keen on me either."

I grinned. "I think the phrase 'like father like son' has been applied to us a couple of times."

"She might not be using that again any time soon," Dad said wrily, but there wasn't any malice in his words. It actually seemed like he would eventually accept me being with Embry.

Over the next couple of weeks I saw as much of Embry as we had time for. One of us would call the other first thing in the morning and talk on the phone for a while and the minute we finished work we would meet up for the evening, either on the beach or at Sam's. Embry was working again now - the guy who had been working in Jacob's garage with him had quit and Embry had been only too glad to accept the job when it was offered to him.

About half of the time I woke up in pain, gasping as if the air had been sucked out of me along with my heart, but the other half I had begun waking peacefully, my first thought being of Embry. Those days seemed to be getting more and more frequent and I realised my Imprint on Rachel was finally breaking. I was moving on without really being aware of it and it filled me with hope that my suffering was nearing an end.

Another week and I did what I had wanted to be able to do since we got back from New York and what I knew Embry had been wanting me to do for five years. I had gone over to Jacob's place to meet him as he finished work and found Seth hanging around there, a grin a mile wide on his face as he watched Jake put his tools away and clean his hands. They had been getting closer too over the past few weeks and as Embry came to me and we began to walk away, I glanced back briefly just in time to see Jake drop his arm around Seth's shoulders and give him a light kiss.

"Something happening there?" I asked Embry.

"Yeah, neither of them is saying anything, but I get the feeling something happened last night. Seth came over this morning for a little while, all shy and blushing and they disappeared into the office for about ten minutes. Just in the last couple of days Jake seems to have shaken everything off."

"Guess I have too," I said with a grin, grabbing his hand. We held hands a lot and I often kissed him, but even though it made me hard and had me imagining tearing his clothes off and fucking him, I hadn't done anything about it. I didn't want there to be any chance of Rachel jumping into my mind and wrecking things and now it seemed like that wasn't going to happen. I thought of her briefly now and it was the first time in two days, but I wasn't feeling the pain of the loss of an Imprint, only a fleeting sadness that she had been killed and that our life together had been cut short.

"Em, I want to ask you something," I said.

"Ok."

He glanced at me as we headed towards my house. Dad had said the day before that I could bring Embry over if I wanted, so long as he didn't have to see us 'doing anything'. I knew he meant even a peck on the cheek would be too much for him to handle, but the fact that he was willing to accept that my life was with Embry was a huge step forward for Dad. Now I was ready to actually do something about beginning our future and I felt stupidly nervous. It wasn't as if Embry was going to say no, but I felt like I was about to do something momentous, which I suppose it was given what had happened.

"I want to take you out tomorrow night," I said, peeking at him from the corner of my eye. His eyes widened a touch.

"On a date?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure you're ready for that?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm sure. I'm ready to go forward." I stopped walking and pulled him towards me. "So?" His eyes met mine, his eyebrows raised slightly and I smirked. "You're supposed to say yes or no."

"Do you really think I'd say no?" he grinned.

"Well, you might."

"Not a chance. Where are we going?"

"Dinner first. There's a new Mexican restaurant in town. Maybe a movie."

"I love Mexican," Embry smiled.

"Yeah, I know." I slid my arms around his waist, linking my fingers together behind him. I was excited. For the first time in a very long time I was going on a date and I was excited about it. I gave him a light kiss, then another. His lips parted and I thrust my tongue in, tasting him, holding him harder against me, my pants immediately beginning to grow tight. He melted in my arms, his hands gripping the back of my neck, his own arousal becoming obvious as it nudged mine. I dimly heard the sound of an engine drawing close and broke the kiss reluctantly, pressing my face into Embry's neck instead.

"Jeez, guys, get a room!"

We both looked up at the truck nearby, Embry flushing. Jake was hanging out of the window, Seth leaning across him from the passenger seat, his customary cheeky grin fixed to his face.

"Fuck off," I smirked.

"Embry, I don't know how you put up with this jerk," Jake grinned.

"Imprint," said Embry smugly, stepping away from me slightly. I let him go and shoved my hands into my pockets in an attempt to disguise my excitement.

Jake and Seth drove off and we walked the rest of the way to my place. Dad was busy in the kitchen with some paperwork and Embry and I grabbed some food and spent the evening in the lounge watching television. It was all I could do not to keep grabbing him and kissing him, but I didn't want to piss Dad off if he came into the room. Embry stayed until ten and I went to bed right after. It had been too long and suddenly I couldn't wait to get my hands on myself. I jacked off vigorously, my eyes closed, biting my lip to try to stay quiet, imagining it was Embry's hand on me as he sat beside me, his other hand playing with his own cock. I came hard and fast all over my stomach and chest and grabbed my discarded shorts to wipe up the mess, panting and grinning. I couldn't wait for tomorrow night.

It was a long day at work on Saturday. Dad knew I was taking Embry on a date, but it didn't seem to bother him. By then he'd had almost three weeks to get used to the idea that it would happen at some stage and had only said that he didn't want me getting up to anything in the house while he was in it too.

"Huh, that's not going to happen!" I had snorted in embarrassment. Have sex with a guy with my Dad in the next room? Not a chance. But I was already watching out for a suitable place of my own to rent and the minute something became available, I intended to move out. Miserable as I had been in New York, I had got used to having my own place and longed for it again.

We finished work at three on Saturdays and were home by three-thirty. I showered and put on black jeans and a white shirt, leaving several buttons unfastened and rolling the sleeves up to the elbows. My heart was skipping and my stomach full of butterflies by the time I set off in the truck to pick up Embry, which was insane because I'd spent every available minute with him over the last few weeks, only now it was a date it was different. I didn't want to fuck things up and I realised that my main priority wasn't that I should have fun or that I should have him get me off later or anything that involved me at all; all I wanted to do was make him happy.

Embry came out of the house the minute I pulled up. His mother still didn't accept him spending so much time with me and was convinced I would only use him and hurt him. He hadn't told her we actually had a date that night, but as we drove into Forks he told me that she guessed anyway when he put on his best black shirt with his newest jeans and spent far longer in the bathroom than usual 'primping' himself.

I had booked a table for seven o'clock, assuming that a new restaurant would be packed on a Saturday night and it was lucky I had. All the tables were occupied except for one large one in the middle with a 'reserved' sign on it and a small one in a booth near the rear which was for us. Our waiter brought us a dish of free nachos and some margaritas along with the menus and we made short work of the snack while deciding what to eat. As usual we both had enormous appetites and chose a selection of starters including chilli poppers, crab cakes, chicken wings and another dish of nachos topped with spicy chicken, guacamole, salsa, sour cream and cheese. We both picked steak fajitas for the main and then spent the next hour eating and talking and ordering refills of the margaritas although I stopped at two and switched to beer. I still had to drive back to La Push. We finished the meal with cinnamon tortilla baskets filled with assorted icecream and after I paid for the meal I suggested going to see a movie.

'Colombiana' was the choice, a thriller about a girl whose parents were murdered, leading to her becoming an assassin hunting down the bad guys when she grew up. It wasn't a bad movie, although by the time it was halfway through, I found I was looking at Embry more than the screen. We were in the back row with no one else nearby and I slid my arm around him, leaning closer to kiss him the minute he turned his head towards me. We kissed until we were breathless, forgetting about the rest of the movie and suddenly I was eager for it to end so that we could get back to the truck and find somewhere to park. By the time we left the theatre, my cock was attempting to tear its way out of my pants and a glance at Embry with his hands in his pockets, obviously covering up the fact that he was in the same state, only turned me on more.

We drove out of Forks and headed back to La Push, turning off to join the cliff road a little way from the outskirts of the Reservation. I parked up off the road under the shelter of some trees and when I cut the engine and turned off the lights, Embry scooted along the seat into my arms in a second. Our lips met and the kiss was immediately heated, our tongues caressing each other, mouths urgently devouring, soft moans issuing from Embry's throat as I ran my hands down his back, then slid them around to his chest and began to unfasten his shirt. With the last button undone I pushed the garment off his shoulders, then paused to drag off my own shirt, wanting to feel his skin against mine. My heart was slamming against my ribs in excitement and when I touched his chest, I felt the rapid pounding of his under the pecs which had rapidly filled out again over the past few weeks.

"God, I want you so much," I groaned, lowering my hands to unfasten his jeans.

"Wait." I was surprised when he pushed my hands away and I looked up at his face. Was I rushing things too much?

"Don't you want this?"

He grinned. "Yes, I just have my own ideas of what happens." His hands slid down over my stomach to the front of my jeans and he popped open the top button, then the next one and the next. His knuckles brushed my erection as it strained against the front of my shorts and I sucked my breath in hard. I knew I would be lucky to last a couple of minutes when he began to touch me. My balls ached and I was already leaking precum. I leaned back against the door of the truck as Embry pushed the front of my shorts down and wrapped his hand around my shaft. His thumb rubbed over the slit and he squeezed lightly, then suddenly he bent forward and took me into his mouth.

"Oh, fuck," I hissed. "Em..."

"Mmm?" he mumbled, dipping his head lower, his lips drawing me in further, tongue circling. My response was nothing more than a groan. It was something I had never managed to experience so far. Rachel had an aversion to putting parts of the body into her mouth and my other two brief encounters with Embry and Jacob hadn't involved anything more than a quick screw. I closed my eyes and simply enjoyed, knowing that I wasn't even going to make the couple of minutes I estimated it would take for him to get me off with his hand.