Uncertain what all bonding entailed, Jason just shrugged. He knew it'd been mentioned a couple of times, but with all the information dumped on him, he wasn't completely sure how to answer that.
Growling, Sean glared at him for a second. Evidently, he correctly read Jason's silence, for he snapped, "Look. A shifter bonds with his mate by sharing both his seed and his saliva. The bite on your neck mixed Michel's saliva with your blood. Did you use a condom?"
The blunt words and question caused embarrassed heat to flow up his neck and through his cheeks. At Sean's frustrated growl, Jason managed to unstick his tongue. "N-no. He said he was clean and since I'd never-" He bit off the rest of his words.
"Shit," Sean mumbled. He gulped the rest of his beer, put the bottle down, then turned and captured Jason's gaze. "Look, Jason. Whatever you think you saw, you really didn't see."
Jason opened his mouth, ready to fire off an angry and indignant response. Sean wasn't there, so how dare he tell Jason what he did and didn't see.
Sean held up his hand. "Let me explain."
Crossing his arms over his chest, Jason arched one brow. This oughta be good.
"Okay," Sean murmured. He huffed a sigh, then claimed, "Once a shifter is mated, he can't be turned on by anyone other than his mate. You're a cute guy, but you could dance naked on the porch railing and I wouldn't get hard," Sean claimed.
Jason flushed, once again embarrassed, at that image. He had no intention of testing that particular theory. He remembered Michel turning around, naked, shocked, and hard. "But I saw him. He was hard."
Sean rolled his eyes. "Did you forget what I told you about a shifter's heightened senses? He was responding to you, not his buddies. You were near. You're his mate. He hadn't seen you in days. You turned him on."
Frowning, Jason grabbed another beer and popped the cap. After taking a drink to wet his throat, he asked, "Then how come he didn't tell me that?"
"Did you give him a chance?"
Jason curled a lip at the other man's exasperated tone. "He was naked, rolling around with three other men! Why the hell would I give him a chance? Why would I think it was anything other than what it looked like?"
"Point taken," Sean replied slowly. "But he's a shifter. We don't really care too much about things like nudity. We're not a modest bunch since we have to get naked to shift, otherwise we'll get tangled in our clothes." Sean grimaced. "It happens to most of us at least once as an adolescent while learning to control our shift. We learn pretty damn fast that it's not comfortable."
Sucking in a breath, Jason felt his blood heat at the idea of a naked Michel. He rubbed his forefinger across his brow a couple times, trying to get his thoughts in order and ease the ache caused by stress behind his eyes.
Sean, Raul, Jared, and Carson had taken him running a couple times over the past few days. He'd turned his back each time the men undressed and shifted. Those few runs had taught him that shifters weren't wild animals while in their wolf form, being able to reason, understand, and even interact with others. Their hierarchy remained intact regardless of whether human or wolf.
Jason hated to admit it, but Sean made sense. Shifting with clothes on would be a problem. Still, that didn't explain why Michel was wrestling with three other men. He remembered Carson and Sean wrestle in wolf form. Would they do the same as humans?
Michel had said he was old, did that mean he had kids? Could those have been his sons? Jason felt the blood drain from his face. There was a sobering thought. Would he have to act as a parent? He knew he wasn't ready for that.
Groaning, Jason grabbed a fresh beer and held the cool bottle to his temple. Tears of frustration threatened the backs of his eyes. "Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to not understand your culture?"
"You'll get it," Sean assured, patting him on the back, then he helped himself to another beer and lounged back.
"Guess I'll have to eat crow, huh?" he mused.
Sean snorted. "Michel will probably just be so damn happy you're willing to talk to him after such a misunderstanding you won't even need to apologize."
Although that heartened Jason, he didn't think that'd be fair. He knew they both had things to apologize for as well as a lot to discuss. "Guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow."
Sean just grunted.
Jason palmed his phone and tapped it against his shorts-clad leg. He didn't feel right about just dropping in on Michel … not after what had happened the last time. Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to gather enough courage to call the man either. Would Michel return a text, maybe? But how should he start? Who were those men and why were you naked with them?
He watched Uncle Raul scramble eggs and fry potatoes while Sean handled the bacon. They touched each time they passed, a hand on a hip here, a trail of fingers over a shoulder there. It was innocent and sweet, and Jason's heart ached with longing. He wanted that.
Screwing up his courage, Jason grabbed his mug of coffee and headed onto the back porch. He set his coffee on the porch railing and sucked in a deep lungful of crisp, morning, mountain air. Letting it out slowly, he hit send. The symbol for a call connecting showed up on his screen. He lifted the speaker to his ear and waited with bated breath.
It went to voicemail. Disappointment flooded him, instantly replaced by longing as he listened to Michel's deep, gruff voice.
"Convince me to call ye back."
Jason almost snorted at the curt command. Licking his lips, he opened his mouth to say something … anything. Jason snapped his mouth shut just as quickly as three wolves prowled out of the trees into the clearing.
He didn't recognize them.
Dropping his phone, Jason heard the plastic clatter on the deck's boards. He ignored it, slowly backing away. A furtive look backward told him the door was three steps to the left. The door opened and Uncle Raul stepped out. His uncle paused, frowning.
"I know I've seen you all around, but I'm not sure I know you," Uncle Raul stated, confirming that they were local shifters. "What's up?"
Just then, a fourth wolf padded out of the forest. He growled at the other three, then started to shift. Jason frowned. Did he recognize this one? To his shock, after about fifteen seconds of listening to sinew pop and bones crack-which made Jason cringe-Michel stood in the clearing … in the buff.
Saliva pooled in Jason's mouth and his pulse sped up, flooding his groin with blood, even as jealousy ripped through him. How the hell did other humans get used to their significant others parading around naked in front of others?
Michel looked over his shoulder at the three wolves, who now sat in a semi-circle behind him. "What the hell are the three of ye doing here?" he snarled, before turning back to Jason's uncle. "I came to see me mate." Michel then fixed his piercing dark-eyed focus on Jason. "We need to talk, Jason."
"You need to put some clothes on." Jason blurted the first thing that came into his head.
Smirking, Michel ignored everyone else as he stalked toward him. "What's the matter, sweetheart? Don't ye like the view?"
Michel's deep voice rumbled through Jason, making his balls throb and his fingers tingle with the need to touch all that hard muscle and course hair on display.
"Were you expecting a guest?" Uncle Raul asked, his dry tone cutting into Jason's lust-glazed thoughts.
Jason snapped back to the present, remembering their location. "Others shouldn't see your naked ass," he hissed. After a heartbeat, Jason remembered Sean's words the prior evening about modesty, not to mention how Sean and Carson stripped in front of everyone to shift. Jason quickly added, "At least, not for more than a minute before or after shifting."
Michel's brows shot up. "I didn't really have time to grab clothes. Me buddies-" He glared over his shoulder at the three wolves, who were all in various stages of shifting-"took off, threatening to bring ye to me. I guess they didn't believe me when I told them I'd planned to swing over here later."