"Okay," Frankie replied, settling his head back on Dobs chest.
Dobs stared down at the man's sandy blond hair. He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through the slightly curly strands. It was soft, thick. "Is your hair this soft as a wolf?" he asked absently, surprising himself at his curiosity.
"I don't know," Frankie replied, the words hard to make out with the way his mouth was half crushed against Dobs' chest. "I've never had anyone comment on it. Want me to shift and you can tell me?"
"No!"
Frankie immediately tensed, telling Dobs he'd said that a little too quickly and too vehemently. He rubbed his hands up and down his beloved's spine and quickly explained, "Feral shifters killed my mother, and I was raised by a very … prejudiced father." He could only imagine what the man would say about him bonding with a shifter if he were still alive.
Dismissing that thought, he continued, "I still have a hard time around shifters when they're in animal form. I understand you won't attack me, baby, I do," he soothed, not liking how tense Frankie still was. Shit, how can I fix this? "I-I'm going to go see Doctor Gordon Digby. I hear he's pretty good," he whispered, hoping the others in the house couldn't hear his admission. Telling his lover was one thing, everyone else … he really didn't want them to know. "Maybe he can help me come to terms with it, hmm?"
Frankie lay still and quiet in his arms for far longer than Dobs would have liked, but then he realized it was because the man would need to sift through everything spoken and think about it to understand it. He patiently waited for a response.
"So, it's not my wolf you don't like?" Frankie asked tentatively.
"No, baby," he replied instantly. "You're a very handsome wolf, and I'm flattered that you protected me." He did feel flattered, and looking back on his memory objectively, Frankie really was a good-looking animal. "I know I have a problem," he admitted. "And I'm hoping Gordon can help me."
Frankie worried his lip for a second, then offered, "If there's anything I can do, you'll tell me, right?"
Dobs nodded. "Yeah, baby. I'll tell you."
Nodding back, as if that decided it, Frankie settled his head back on Dobs' chest and tightened his arms around his torso.
Dobs relaxed, glad he'd managed to get over that hurdle, at least momentarily.
A throat clearing from the doorway caught his attention. "You better not be getting cum on my couch, Frankie," Nick admonished, though the twinkle in his hazel eyes softened the words.
Frankie still flushed. "Sorry, Nick," he replied instantly.
Dobs glared at the shifter, the fact that his beloved's ass was once again on display making him exceedingly cranky. "What the hell do you want?" he snapped.
Frankie thumped his chest with an open palm. "Not nice. We're in his house," he scolded.
His lover's actions made him blink and something unraveled just a little in his chest. The huge shifter was so … nice. "Reb did a really good job raising you," he commented. Frankie's brows shot up, and Dobs knew he'd surprised the shifter as much as Frankie had surprised him a second before. Grinning, he murmured, "Maybe after I bond with you, other people staring at your ass won't bother me quite as much."
"I'm a shifter. When I change, I have to take my clothes off or I ruin them. Or get stuck in them." Frankie shivered, his eyes losing focus for just a second as he obviously relived some event. An event Dobs really wanted to know about from the look of consternation on Frankie's face. Then his lover refocused and frowned at him, that look Dobs didn't like nearly as much. "You will have to get used to me getting naked."
Dobs forced a smile. "I'll try. This is a new experience for me," he reminded him.
Frankie nodded. "Me, too," he responded, then leaned up and gave him a kiss.
Catching the nape of Frankie's neck in one hand, Dobs didn't let him back away. He nipped his lover's bottom lip, which gave him the access he wanted when Frankie grunted in response. Thrusting his tongue inside the warm, wet cavern of Frankie's mouth, Dobs explored slowly, mapping his lover's mouth, enjoying his taste and the little whimpers escaping Frankie.
Lex's voice cut into Dobs' enjoyable make-out session. "Didn't you tell them we need to leave?"
"I tried," Nick replied, adding dryly, amusement filling his voice, "but I didn't get very far before they got distracted."
Dobs slowly brought the kiss to an end, sucking lightly on Frankie's tongue in the process. Damn, he could so easily get addicted to the wonderful sounds Frankie made. He was so open, so honest in his reactions. Dobs wanted to know what other sounds he'd make, especially when he sank his dick into the man's channel and rubbed his cock head over his prostate.
Groaning, Dobs glared at the pair of men. Wait, now there were four men standing in the doorway. Lex and Nick had been joined by Seb and some other guy that Dobs didn't know. "What the fuck? This house is filled with voyeuristic assholes," he snarled.
Seb laughed. Nick grinned and winked at the stranger. Lex smirked and replied, "Figured you'd like to know that appointment you wanted is supposed to start in forty minutes, plus we have more information about Mikael." He shrugged, his expression not changing. "It's not my fault you can't keep your hands off your beloved for five minutes so we can tell you." He tossed a small package at them, which Dobs caught on instinct. "Clean up. We need to leave."
The four men wandered off, and Dobs looked at the package in his hand. Wet-wipes for babies. Huh? The itch of drying cum answered his unspoken question. "Come on, Frankie. Let's get cleaned up." He helped his lover move sideways and pulled out a couple of wet napkins and started cleaning them up. "Hey, is Frankie a nickname or something?" he asked absently, needing to focus on anything but the thick sexy dick he was fondling.
Frankie shivered. "Cold," he snickered, then answered, "Yeah. My name's Franklin, but everyone calls me Frankie."
"Huh, do you ever go by Frank?" Dobs asked.
"No," Frankie replied. "Where are you going? What appointment? Who's Mikael?"
Dobs pulled off his shirt, grimacing at the way the fabric stuck to the hairs making up his treasure trail. "I told you I planned to see Gordon. That's who the appointment is with. Mikael is a vampire I stopped from stealing control of a coven a couple years back. I found out this morning that he and some of his buddies are camping just outside Declan's territory. That's one of the reasons I came here today, but I got a bit … distracted," he admitted. "I wanted to warn you to be careful. If you run across any vampires other than me, Lex, Seb, or Caspian, get the hell away from them and call me immediately."
Frankie picked up a shirt from the end table where he'd gotten his sweats earlier. Turning back toward Dobs, he asked, "Why would they approach me?"
"I took one of the Vampire Council's jets to get here. They probably found that out, which also means they knew I was coming here to search for my beloved, and probably knew I was weakened from not drinking enough blood," Dobs admitted. "They're probably hoping to either take me out and if that doesn't work, they might come after you." He pulled a confused-looking Frankie into his arms and held him tight. He already knew what the next question would be, and prayed his answer wouldn't lose him all the ground they'd gained this afternoon.
Chapter Eight
"Is that why you're thin?" Frankie asked, leaning away from the vampire and looking him over again. "Because you weren't drinking enough blood?"
"Yes."
Dobs wouldn't meet Frankie's eyes, and the way he whispered the word concerned Frankie. "Why wouldn't you be drinking enough?"
"Because it didn't taste good to me," Dobs stated softly.
Frankie thought about the way Dobs enjoyed sinking his fangs into his neck, the moans he made upon drinking his blood, the pleasure it seemed to give them both. For a second, he had to fight back a wave of jealousy at the idea that he'd shared that with others. It was stupid. Just as Frankie had had sex before, Dobs had drunk blood before. He told himself it was no different.