In fact, the age at which Aelius lost his virginity to his crush was downright criminal. It was almost a miracle that he wasn’t a father already.
Conner’s lips thinned, but he didn’t look angry, or disappointed. He looked like he was having trouble giving Aelius advice on this. “You know,” Conner finally said. “Just because you’re not gay doesn’t mean you can’t like men, too.”
Aelius looked up at his alpha, and he was stunned by how…true that sounded. But not true at the same time. “Conner, I’m not bi either.”
“The fact that you spent the night with Kyle suggests otherwise,” Conner said. “And don’t give me that shit about just wanting to get him out of your system. You wouldn’t have touched him if you didn’t want him.”
“No, really,” Aelius said. “I’m not sexually attracted to men. You’re standing naked in front of me now. I’ve been around pretty much everyone in the pack when they’ve been naked, and I’ve never felt a pull to any of them.”
“Just to Kyle?”
Aelius sighed. He thought of Kyle’s face, the few but cute and tiny moles that grew along his neck and touched on his jaw. Aelius thought about Kyle’s dark-brown hair that was rich with highlights, and Aelius was pretty sure the guy didn’t go to a salon. Kyle was the perfect height, too. Shorter than Aelius, which was how he preferred it, but not so much smaller that Aelius had to lean down to kiss him. Kyle couldn’t grow a beard to save his life, had dark eyes that portrayed every expression on his face and were sexy as hell when the man’s lips were wrapped around Aelius’s cock, but he still had such a young look about him, even though Aelius had heard that Kyle had just turned twenty a little over two months ago.
It was enough to make Aelius feel guilty that he’d missed the man’s birthday, but what was he supposed to do? Send him a card that said Happy Birthday! I know we fucked a while back and just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten it?
Aelius wasn’t big on social etiquette, but he was pretty sure that having a one-night stand didn’t put someone on birthday or Christmas card lists. “I… Yeah. Just him. When I was in that fucking vampire house, chained up to the wall, he was all I could think about. It fucking drove me crazy when I thought I’d never see him again. Not you, not anyone else in the pack, just him.”
To make matters more confusing, whenever Aelius touched himself during the night, his thoughts had started to wander toward Kyle. The first time he’d done it, he’d had to use his imagination to supply all the things he wanted to do to the man, including what he would look like beneath his clothes.
Then Aelius had seen it, for real, when he’d peeled the clothes right off of him, put him on his hands and knees, and then pushed his aching cock deep into the younger man’s body.
It was the hottest, tightest fit that Aelius had ever experienced in his life. Once hadn’t been enough either. Kyle had spent the entire night in Aelius’s room.
Just thinking about that got Aelius’s blood running south, and his stupid dick was rising to attention, like it did every time Aelius thought about Kyle.
He was so fucked.
“I like him, and I don’t want to hurt him, but I’m just… He’s too young and he’s not my type. We’ve gone to the point of no return already. I avoided him and now he’s avoiding me. We can’t build a relationship on that.”
“So you agree that you would be okay with having a relationship with him? Not with any random man, but with him?” Conner asked.
The man wasn’t going to let this go. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s over.”
“No it’s not,” Conner said, and he finally pushed himself away from the tree he was leaning against and started to walk away.
Aelius felt a growl rising up within him. The only thing that kept it back was his respect for his alpha. “What?” He followed the man. It looked like they were heading back to the pack.
“I’ve been speaking with Mason for the last little while. I’m not the only alpha who’s worried about someone in his pack. He and I agreed. I’m giving you a couple of weeks off. I want you to pack up some of your stuff, and I’ll send you over there to fix this. I’m not telling you to mate with him,” Conner said quickly when Aelius opened his mouth. “I know you don’t want to do that, but you need to go over there and finish what you started. Even if it ends with the two of you just deciding enough is enough, and that you would be better off as friends, then that would be something I’d get behind you on because you need to start focusing. Do you think that sounds reasonable?”