I left Sam's place and had decided before I even made it home that I needed to go and let off some steam. Dad wasn't home when I got there—he never was—so I ate some leftovers and got ready to go out. One benefit of turning into a monster wolf was not getting carded at bars. No one would believe I had only just turned 18 even if they did ask for I.D.

Pam, the day-time waitress at Mill Creek, had made it clear that she'd be more than happy to scratch an itch for me if I were ever so inclined. After what happened in the woods this afternoon I was feeling inclined, and made my way into town to seek her out.

He was sitting on the steps leading up to my front door when I got home. I pulled into the empty driveway—Dad still wasn't home—cut the engine and sat in the car for a second before getting out and walking toward him. He sat with his elbows propped on his knees and his head hanging down, not looking at me. I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a minute and when he didn't move I walked up the stairs, brushing past him to the front door. I held the screen door open before going in and looking at him over my shoulder.

"You waited here, so obviously you have something to say. You coming in or what?" I shrugged when he still didn't make a move. "Suit yourself," I huffed and went inside, letting the screen door bang shut behind me.

By the time I was pulling open the fridge I heard the screen door slap against its frame again. I grabbed two cans of soda from the top shelf and passed one to him as I walked back toward him. We stood awkwardly in the entry way between the kitchen and the living room, the small space adding to the tension that already existed between us. I couldn't stop the flashes of memory from earlier that ran through my mind while looking at him.

"You talked to Sam?" he finally asked and looked up at me after a long silence where I stared at him expectantly and he looked at his shoes.

I nodded. "He didn't tell me much though." It wasn't a lie, Sam hadn't really told me anything at all, but he'd hinted broadly enough that the pieces had more or less fallen into place. "He just told me I needed to talk to you. So are you going to talk? Or did you come here to pick up where we left off before you bolted?" I could immediately see the change in him. He stood taller, with his shoulders back and a set to his jaw; it goaded me on. "Not sure I'm up for it anymore. Pam's got me feeling pretty fucked-out," I spat, grabbing my nuts suggestively and brushing past him and into the living room.

I heard him growl low in the back of his throat as I passed, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a huge fucking turn on.

"You got a problem with that?" I asked mockingly as I turned back to face him. Before I knew what was happening, he tackled me to the floor. He locked my arms against my sides with his knees, sitting across my stomach, one hand on my throat the other fisted by my head carrying his weight.

"Yeah, I have a fucking problem with that!" He growled, his face red with anger, where it had been calm only a second before.

"Get off me," I hissed in return.

"You reek of that slut." He leaned further into my face, his hand tightening around my neck.

"Get the fuck off of me!"

"Don't you have a shred of self respect? Will you fuck anyone with a pulse?"

"What's the matter? You jealous?" It wasn't smart to mouth off to the huge guy sitting on my chest with my windpipe being crushed under his hand, but I couldn't reel my big fat mouth in. "You walked away from me, remember?" I pushed my head off the floor and further into his hand, challenging him.

His hand slackened almost instantly and his knees relaxed, allowing me to move again if I wanted to. He stared down at me, and the impulse to fight back left me in a flash. Despite having just gotten my rocks off—twice—I could feel myself getting hard just by him being so close.

"Let me up," I asked more quietly.

His hand left my throat and landed on the carpet only a couple of inches from my face.

"No," his response was much calmer, but laced with a new, raw tone. He loomed; looking down at me with intense eyes that burned right through my residual anger.

"Come on. Let me up." I wasn't even convinced by my weak request. I pulled my arm from under his knee and hesitated only a moment before resting my hand on his thigh. "This is fucked. Why do I want you to kiss me?" I breathed.

He lowered himself down to his elbows, bringing his face mere inches from mine—his chest pressed so tight to mine I could feel his heart pounding.

"Because that's what I want to do; that's what I always want to do when I'm with you." He clenched and relaxed his jaw a couple times and stared down at me before continuing. "I thought I had a grip on it, but you tore that apart completely this afternoon," he explained.

I retrieved my other arm from its trap and placed it on his back. Giving into the pure want I felt from him, I arched myself off the floor into him and ran my hand up his back to his neck, guiding his head lower.

One second he was close enough I could feel his breath on my waiting lips, the next he had launched himself off of me and was standing with his face to the wall. He leaned with his elbows on the wall above him, his head hung low as his hands fisted in his hair.

I collapsed down to the floor as a heavy sigh left my lungs. "You've got to quit doing that," I groused, getting to my feet a moment later and adjusting my hard-on in my jeans. I was in no better shape than I had been when he had taken off that afternoon.

He spun around to face me, leaning against the wall again with his hands pinned behind him, like he was afraid they would reach out to me without his permission.

"We've got to talk about this," he said, his voice clipped and strained.

"Then talk. I'm listening." I picked my soda can up off the side table where I had put it down before he had tackled me and flopped myself down onto the couch.

"I imprinted on you," he stated bluntly. It wasn't a shock, I had figured that much out. "I know you hate imprinting—you've made that pretty fucking clear—so I've been fighting it, but it's gotten a lot harder lately. Especially when you can't seem to keep thoughts of your most recent conquest to yourself," he ground out, looking at me expectantly, his eyes almost black with intensity.

"You beat my ass because I was thinking about fucking some chick?" I asked when it clicked into place. It made sense now! That's what made him start beating on me.

"Not all of them, just the ones that want to stake a claim on you," he explained, like that would make it better somehow.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I knew there had to be a reason behind his aggression, but it hadn't occurred to me that it would come down to that.

"It's stupid, I know that, but there's this look that girls give you sometimes. I don't know if you even pick up on it, but it's like they'd like to call you theirs if you'd let them." He clenched his teeth and drew in a deep breath before continuing. "Seeing that look on their faces in your mind just pushes me over the edge. It makes me see red; I can't help it." He scrubbed his hand roughly over his face and returned it to its trap between his hip and the wall.

I just sat and stared at him. What was I supposed to say to that? I had been half joking when I'd asked him if he was jealous of Pam, and here he was, telling me that he was jealous enough of things he saw in my memories that he couldn't control himself. This was totally fucked up.

"When did this happen?" I asked finally, still not really able to wrap my head around it. "When did you...How? I thought this happened the first time you saw someone; we see each other all the time." I looked up from my seat on the couch to where he was still standing against the wall. He had his eyes closed and looked like he was concentrating pretty intently on something.

"Yeah," he agreed, which just confused me more. "It was that first night. I didn't really know it then, though." He sighed heavily. He slowly opened his eyes to focus on me, and ran his hand through his shaggy hair. We all kept our hair pretty closely cropped except for him; his was always a little longer and always falling in his fucking eyes.

"What do you mean, you didn't know?" I snarled. He needed to start making sense soon or I was going to lose it.

"It took me a while to figure out that the draw I felt to you wasn't..." he paused and looked at me before continuing, "Wasn't just a magnified version of how I already felt about you, but something more than that." He defiantly didn't break the eye contact between us, despite just telling me that he'd liked me before he'd phased.

Cocky motherfucker.

"Okay, but to hear Sam and Jared talk about it, it's basically impossible to not know. They couldn't stay away from their imprints at all; it was all they ever thought about…" I trailed off as I realized from the look he was giving me, that everything I was saying did apply to him too; he'd just been hiding it from me. I finally got why he was standing all the way across the room with his hands behind him.

He flashed me a pained crooked smile paired with a biting laugh. "Yeah, it's something like that."

I sat up on the edge of the couch and leaned forward on my knees. I'd had no idea that he had been suffering because we'd been spending time together; I couldn't understand how he'd managed to keep that from me.

"Alright, so, how long until you figured it out?" I asked and then added the next thought that popped into my head "And how did you manage to keep it out of the pack mind? From me?"

"It took a few weeks, honestly. Everything was so new—you know what it was like. By the time I'd settled into a pattern and got used to being a fucking wolf I started to realize there was more to it than just some stupid crush. It was more than just wanting to be with you or be you," he sighed and rambled on, "I felt like I wanted to be part of you; have you be part of me. I started to think about Sam and Jared's memories about imprinting and it all sort of clicked into place. I didn't phase once I realized until after I talked to Sam."

"Sam?" I couldn't imagine my cousin being especially comfortable with the idea of an imprint on another guy; he was a good guy and did a great job being a fair Alpha, but he wasn't exactly the emotional type or the most progressive thinker.

"I asked him to give me an order not to think about the imprint while I was phased. He said once you found out the order would be useless, which I'm guessing is true. The others will know about this as soon as one of us phases and lets it slip," he looked so serious and worried about that being an issue.

I stood up and took a few steps toward him, but stopped when he visibly tensed up.

"I already told you, I don't really care what they think," I said, shaking my head. "I don't give a rat's ass what they think when I'm with a girl, why should it make a difference if it's a guy?" That was exactly the conclusion I'd come to, although I hadn't actually thought it so clearly before then.

I had to move, I couldn't stand in front of him like that and not touch him; I turned and walked back across the floor. Just talking about being with him made it feel like there wasn't enough air in the room. My palms started to sweat and I felt short of breath. I couldn't deny that I felt a serious pull to him, but knowing that it was because he'd imprinted made my heart race and my head spin.

I hated the fucking idea of imprinting; having your whole life decided for you like that pissed me off. There was no choice in it. I'd been terrified about imprinting on someone since Jared had gone fucking crazy over a girl he hadn't even known existed. I either had to keep talking or get the fuck out of there.

"Right. So, now what happens?" I asked, pacing back and forth across the small living room.

"Now?" His certainty and determination came to a grinding halt as he dropped his eyes to the floor. "You decide what happens now."

I stopped my pacing and stood in front of him, hating how vulnerable he looked. I waited for him to say more, but he didn't.

"What does that mean?" I could feel the anger rising up in me again. It felt like he was still keeping something from me and I was sick of not understanding when he did talk.

He didn't respond.

He didn't even look at me.

"Jesus, talk to me! If this were to go the way you want, what would happen?" I spat at him in frustration. It felt like he was being so evasive and it was making me fucking nuts.

He moved so quickly I didn't have time to react, or maybe I didn't really want to. He clamped his hand around the back of my neck in a firm grip and turned me to face the wall in one swift movement, pushing me against it and pressing his body into mine with one muscled thigh between my legs.

My heart raced in response; my instinct to fight back flaring up but immediately being over taken by desire. His other hand pinned my wrist to the cool smooth surface above my head and he leaned his mouth right into my ear.

"You want to know what I want, Paul?" he crooned, his voice quiet and low, his breath hot on my face; mine hitched in my throat.

"I want to touch you all over." His hand on the back of my neck smoothed over my shoulder and down my arm, pulling my free wrist over my head to meet the first, which he trapped together in one of his big hands-I didn't dream of struggling free. His other hand ran down over my ribs to curl around my hip roughly, just avoiding brushing over my dick, which already ached to be touched. His weight against me kept me from moving, not that I wanted to by that point.

"I want to taste every inch of your skin," he purred, running the tip of his tongue over the outside edge of my ear.

I closed my eyes as a shudder crawled down my spine.

"I want to watch as you fall apart because of me." He pulled my hip backward and pressed his hard cock against my ass; his breathing faltering just a tiny amount at the sensation. I couldn't help myself; I pushed back into him.

"Then I want to bend you over and claim you." His hand was on the front my throat tilting my head back and his hot mouth on mine, briefly, leaving me wanting more.

"You need to know that if I fuck you, you're mine, Paul." His fingers curled around the back of my neck again.

"I won't share you, so you'd better think carefully about this," his voice was so thick at my ear I almost couldn't recognize it.

Just as suddenly as he had pushed me against the wall, he stepped back and released me, leaving me wanting.