I could feel my wolf scratching just below the surface, wanting to take control and dominate him. I held back the instinct. It was one I was familiar with; one that had often presented itself when I'd been fucking any chick that would let me. It was different now though. The instinct was stronger, more permanent. I wanted to claim him, not just dominate him. I forced myself to take things slow, to make sure he was ready, but all I really wanted to do was bury my cock inside him; to make him mine like I was his.

I sat back on my heels between his spread knees, and placed one hand on his hip to keep him steady. I coaxed my lubed fingers slowly and gently inside, preparing him, while holding a mental rein on the wolf within me. When I was able to easily slide three fingers into him until my knuckles were tight against his ass without feeling him tense, I raised up on my knees behind him, my cock hard and ready since that first lash of my tongue over his skin. I slid my length over his slick opening, letting him adjust to the slow rhythm of my hips as I rutted against him. His deep throaty moans nearly made me lose the hold I had on myself.

"Paul, please," he breathed into the pillow, pressing back into me.

I lined myself up; just barely nudging against him, and letting him set the pace. I knew he'd been fucked before, but I also knew the guy had been rough with him and that it had been a while. I wanted him to enjoy this. He pushed himself back onto my cock and I fought like hell to hold still. The tight ring of muscle around me, squeezing me and making me lose my mind and my focus. I gripped his hip firmly, my fingers digging deep into his flesh; he'd bruise if he weren't a wolf. I fucking loved that he could take what I could dish out. I placed my other hand flat on his spine, feeling his deep breaths and moans vibrate through his body and into mine.

He gritted his teeth and grunted as he took me deeper, pushing himself.

"Easy. There's no rush," I soothed both him and myself.

After what felt like an agonizingly long time, my cock was fully inside him. I could feel his muscles spasm around me, adjusting to the intrusion. After holding still a moment, he rocked his hips against me experimentally and I pulled back a tiny amount and slowly slid back into him. He whined deep in his throat and threw his head back. I leaned over his back, resting my hand over his exposed throat and tucked my mouth close to his ear. "You feel so fucking good, Emb," I breathed as I slowly moved within him again, feeling his answering groan under my hand and through my chest.

I started a slow rhythm, holding myself back, until he began to move with me. He rocked his hips in counterpoint to my thrusts, increasing the pace. I ran my hands over every inch of him I could reach, loving the feeling of his muscles working under his sweat-slippery skin.

We had been totally mentally connected the few times we'd managed to have sex, but there was something more there this time; something totally fucking addictive. It could have been the power trip I felt being inside him for a change, even though I knew that he was still the one in charge. Who knows? Whatever it was, it made my entire being ache; made me want to get as close to him as I could get in every way possible.

He twisted his shoulders and draped his arm across my neck and over my back pulling me forward. He turned his head to look back at me and as soon as our eyes met I fucking knew what the mysterious energy that filled me was and it scared the shit out of me. I grabbed his jaw and kissed him hard before he could say anything at all. Pulling back far enough to plead into his open panting mouth, "Don't say it," I gasped and kissed him again. "I know. Please, don't." He took my mouth again to stop me begging any further and silently reassured me.

I wasn't ready to hear that yet. I knew he felt it—I'd known for a while—but I just couldn't even think about having him say it out loud. Not yet. It lingered there, hanging in the air between us like a heavy fog as I pumped my cock into him, capturing his grunts and moans with my mouth, my arm wrapped tight across his shoulders, holding him to my chest.

As strongly as I hadn't wanted him to say it a minute before, I suddenly needed to hear it. I rested my forehead against his temple, just breathing for a minute, trying to get my head wrapped around my sudden change of mind. I held his head to mine with my hand against his jaw, desperately trying to ground myself.

Fuck!

"Okay," I heaved and nodded. "Say it, Emb." I felt like I was choking; like I couldn't breathe; like I was drowning.

"I love you." His words were only a hint of a whisper.

"Fuck!" My heart stopped, and then started slamming in my chest ten times faster the next second; it felt like I was having a fucking heart attack. No one had ever said those words to me and meant them. Fuck, no one had ever said it that I could think of.

"Again? Say it again?" I begged, hardly a sound coming from me.

"I love you," he repeated, clear and concise this time; that beautiful, lopsided fucking smile spreading across his lips. He studied my face a moment letting it soak in. "Paul, fuck me." He pushed back at me with his ass. I hadn't realized we had stopped moving.

I pressed my forehead to the gentle curve of his spine between his shoulders, starting up a punishing rhythm that kept time with my raging heartbeat. His confession echoed in my mind, until it was no longer something that terrified me, but something that comforted my rattled nerves.

"Fuck, Paul, just like that," he rambled as I curled my arms around his chest, holding on and draping myself across his back, pumping into him harder and faster. My orgasm built steadily, and threatened to overtake me just as I felt Embry clench tight around me and stiffen in my arms before his arms folded under our weight. He came with his face turned toward me and contorted into a silent roar, and I followed right behind him.

After haphazardly wiping down with tissues from the bedside table, I laid down on my side next to him on the bed, throwing my arm across his lower back, hooking my leg over his and resting my forehead on his shoulder. We stayed like that until long after our heart rates had returned to normal and our breathing had calmed. I knew he wasn't asleep, even though he hadn't moved.

"You meant it?" I spoke softly and pressed a kiss into his shoulder. He turned his face to look at me.

"Of course I did," he smiled.

"I didn't say it back," I acknowledged, closing my eyes. I tried to find it in myself to say the words. I knew I loved him—there was absolutely no doubt in my mind—but I couldn't form my lips into the shape of the words to tell him so. It wasn't just because of the imprint either, love was such an absurd concept to me, one that I wasn't familiar with at all, but I didn't doubt that I was in love with him, not for a second.

His smiling lips captured mine in a sweet kiss before he told me, "I don't need you to."

I do, though.

Just fucking say it you coward!

He smiled again and added another kiss to my already raw mouth. I loved being with him like this, our skin sticking together as the sweat dried, laying together in a fucked-out heap, the air filled with the combined smells of him and me and sex—it was my favourite place to be. My bed was bigger than his but we still slept tangled together in it anyway.

"Paul!"

My old man shouting as he threw open the front door yanked me unapologetically from a too-short sleep, his boots clomping loudly on the hardwood floor of the hallway headed to my room. It was way too fucking early for this shit; I'd only been asleep a couple of hours. The bedroom door flew open and he kept talking. "I need to borrow the Dodge, kid. My truck died and I got t...Shit!" he stammered, realizing I wasn't alone. "I didn't know you had...oh, Hell! uh...company?" He almost choked on his words when he recognized it was Embry that was naked in bed with me.

We untangled from each other and I sat up, scrubbing my hand over my face, not nearly ready to be awake yet, let alone to be facing a heavy conversation so early in the morning. Dad stood in the doorway gaping at us, clearly at a loss for words. I just stared at him, waiting for him to get on with whatever it was that would happen. He leaned heavily against the door frame, still not saying anything; just looking from me, to Embry, and back to me with wide eyes.

Emb sat next to me, staring down in his lap, where he plucked at a loose thread on the sheet. It was not helping the tension in the room at all, so I nudged him with my knee, looking away from Dad to catch his eye. It was totally not like him to get all nervous and shy, and it was making an already awkward situation worse because I could feel him freaking out. "Quit it," I said quietly, looking at his fidgeting fingers and back to him with a little smirk. I wrinkled my eyebrows at him in a silent question and he relaxed his hands almost instantly. We looked back up at my father at the same time.

"That's the way it is between you two, then, huh?" he finally said with a lift of his shoulders, like he was shrugging off a heavy load.

"Yeah," I confirmed, nodding slowly.

"Hell, I guess I should knock," he scoffed. I had no clue what was going through his head, and frankly I didn't care much. No reaction he could have was going to impact things with Emb; the worst case was he'd throw me out and I'd be looking for somewhere else to live. It was totally unlike him to be at a loss for words though. I nodded again.

He continued on with his previous thought like he hadn't walked in on his son in bed with another man. "I need your car. Keys?" he asked pointedly.

I pointed at the top of the dresser, and he stepped in to cross the room and retrieve them.

"That's it? That's all you're going to say?" I asked, frowning at him. I was totally unconvinced that my old man was okay with the situation.

"I'm late; I'll be back in a few hours. You'll be around?" he checked looking back over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.

"Sure."

"Right," he nodded and stormed out as fast as he'd arrived.