“Thanks,” Nicky said, drawing up his knees and hugging them. Marco was right, of course.

He’d been an asshole all day, and what was worse he knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop. He just

hadn’t realized Marco had noticed.

“Spill it. We’re not going to bed until you do.”

Feeling moodyand out of sorts, Nicky looked around the little clearing where they’d

camped for the night. Everyone was inside their tents except for him and Marco, and the moon

cast a silver light on the trees around them. He knew Marco was tired, but was sitting up with

him because Nicky was so restless tonight. All day long Nicky had been watching Cade and the

way he looked at Jax, like Jax was some precious jewel that had just landed in his lap, and he

didn’t quite know what to do with him yet—proudly show him off or jealously hide him away.

Nicky didn’t think Cade or Jax were even aware of it, but Nicky recognized that look on Cade’s

face. It was the same one Marco used to give Nicky.

He knew Marco loved him, but not with the same intensity that he’d once sensed in him.

Marco said it was his imagination. Maybe it was. Of course, they’d been together going on three

years and things were bound to be more familiar and less exciting, but after all they’d been

through, Nicky wondered if Marco’s loving him hadn’t become a habit. What if deep inside,

Marco yearned for something more?

The plain and simple truth was that Nicky was jealous as hell of this soif de sang, as Cade

called it. He and Marco no longer had even a blood match and now here was this shiny new thing

that Jax and Cade had together, a thing Nicky had never heard of before the two showed up. It

seemed almost as if fate were mocking him again, showing him what it could be like between

him and Marco, if only… Like a brass ring that was just out of reach, the connection he and

Marco used to share beckoned him, taunted him with doubts. Not about his love for Marco—that

was real and solid. No matter how much Nicky teased him, he knew it was mostly just a bid for

his attention. There was no way he could live without Marco.

What really plagued him, even kept him awake at night was the idea that Marco might find

someone else. What if there were someone out there who might be Marco’s true match? Sure, the doctor said wolves only got one blood match, but he’d been wrong about so much. The blood match seemed to be evolving. Everyone had noticed it. Tucker’s father was claiming to have had it twice—once with his wife years ago and just recently, with Tucker’s best friend, Kevin, a thing that Marco had told him was impossible. Yet, Tucker said they were totally in love and were about to have their own commitment ceremony. If such a thing were possible, what if Marco found another blood mate? Nicky would have no chance of holding onto him then. He bit the skin around his thumb nervously, until Marco pulled down his hand. “Nicky? Talk to me. What is it?”

Nicky leaned toward the fire again, stretching out his hands. No matter how much teasing Rory did about his lack of activity, Nicky knew his body was in good shape and he worked out daily. It wasn’t the cold or a lack of physical strength that had him shivering. “Nothing really,” he said. “Just thinking about, you know—the blood match thing we lost.”

“What? Why in the world are you still… Oh, because of Jax and Cade? Honey, we’ve been through this a million times. There’s never going to be anyone else for me except you.” “How can you know that?” Nicky was trying to keep his voice low and not disturb the others, sleeping in the pup tents close by. He couldn’t keep the intensity out of his voice, though, no matter how hard he tried. “You’re not exactly the master of your own fate. You said yourself you didn’t even like men all that much before the blood match got to you. What if some good-looking woman comes along, courtesy of this fucking blood match? What will you do then?” “Then she can go back the same way she came. I love you, Nicky. Only you.” Marco pulled him by the arm toward their tent. “Need another reminder?”

Nicky allowed him to pull him into the tent, and as soon as Marco got him inside, he was pulling at his clothes, his hot breath sending up little clouds of steam in the cool mountain air.

Nicky allowed Marco to pull him down onto the sleeping bags, turning his face in for the kiss and letting Marco control it as longas he wanted. Marco’s lips lingered over Nicky’s for a long time before he pulled away and pressed his forehead to Nicky’s. “How can you think I’d ever leave you? It took me long enough to find you and get back into your good graces after our breakup.”

Nicky pulled back and bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, you’re not all the way back in yet, so don’t count your chickens.”

Marco smiled as his fingertips slid underneath Nicky’s shirt, resting against his side. “How about if I count your ribs instead?” he asked, moving his fingers lightly along them. Nicky was ticklish, as Marco well knew, and he tried to jerk away, but Marco hauled him back against him. “Stop,” Nicky said breathlessly, struggling to get away and still stay quiet. Marco twisted and fell on top of him, his hands sliding under him to cup his ass.

“Say please.”

Nicky huffed a few times, and tried not to smile. “Please don’t tickle me, Marco,” he said obediently, gazing up from under his eyelashes. “And I promise not to cut your balls off while you sleep tonight.”

Marco quirked up an eyebrow and squeezed Nicky’s ass hard. “Oh,you’re going to have to do much better than that.”

“Ow, ow. Okay. Please sir. Pretty please, with sugar on top.”

“That’s exactly where I plan to be, baby. And you don’t even have to call me sugar.” “Oh God, that was awful,” Nicky said, laughing and trying to muffle it against Marco’s neck, as Marco worked his pants down.

“It worked though, right? I love that laugh, even if I have to resort to bad jokes. ” Nicky pulled his arm out from between them to slide it around Marco’s neck. “Promise me one thing,” Nicky whispered in his ear, his sudden stillness communicating to Marco that he was serious, his breathy voice catching a little.

“Anything,” Marco murmured back to him, brushing his nose against Nicky’s. “Just tell me if you ever feel that way—the way Cade feels for Jax—about someone other than me… Promise me if you ever get that feeling you’ll tell me right away and give me a chance to fight for you.”

“Nicky,” Marco said, gazing into his eyes. “We’ve already proven we have nothing to fear from the blood match. I’ll never feel anything like that for anyone but you. We beat it once, and we can do it again if we ever had to. But baby, what I feel for you is stronger than any fucking blood match, you got that?”

Nicky nodded, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “I got it,” he said. He bit down gently on Marco’s earlobe. Marco growled and pulled on Nicky’s jeans until he had them below his hips.

Trailing kisses down his stomach, he surprised Nicky by engulfing his cock in his mouth. Nicky gasped and tried to rise, but Marco pushed him back down.

His lips set up a steady pressure, as his velvet tongue slid up and down the skin of Nicky’s sensitive shaft, sometimes stopping at the head to nibble or slip down into his slit. Nicky writhed beneath him, quickly becoming almost mindless as he gave in to the pleasure. Marco looked up into Nicky’s eyes, letting him feel the connection. Nicky felt the firm helmet on the head of his cock pop fully down Marco’s throat, and he cried out softly, almost overcome with passion. He wouldn’t be able to hang on much longer, and he touched Marco’s hair, threading his fingers through it. He felt his cock twitching, and he squeezed his fists, praying to hold on, loath to lose this kind of pleasure. His balls tightened, and he felt a tingling at the base of his spine. Nicky was breathing rapidly and trying to hang on, and he just might have made it if Marco hadn’t pulled off a little and licked slowly up his shaft, swirling his tongue over the head. He threw back his head and would have screamed if Marco’s hand hadn’t clapped over his mouth. He pulled off with a little plop and put his other hand around the base of Nicky’s cock, squeezing tightly and stopping his orgasm.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he whispered. “You’ve been teasing me all day—it’s your turn.” Nicky let his head fall back on the sleeping bags as he groaned.

“Evil wolf bastard.”

“You better believe it.” He licked the broad mushroom head again, and whatever Nicky tried to say came out as garbled nonsense. Chuckling at how easily he’d been able to bring Nicky to such mindlessness, he ran his hands down Nicky’s thighs and between his legs, still licking greedily at his cock. His hands moved up to fondle his balls, and Nicky shifted his legs to open them wider and give him access. Marco looked up at him, making sure Nicky was watching and slowly and deliberately wet his finger. He put that finger in Nicky’s hole and Nicky widened his eyes and clenched around the burn.

“Oh, Jesus,” he murmured, uneasily. “You know I can’t be quiet—I’ll wake everybody up.” “Then you’ll just have to work harder on your self-control,” Marco said softly, and slid the finger up higher as Nicky’s ass clenched around it. Before he could say another word, Marco swallowed his cock again, deep-throating him and humming around his cock until Nicky felt a scream about to burst from his throat. Another finger slid deep inside to join the first and they reached up higher to rub across a spot inside him that made him buck his hips and cry out even through the burn.

Marcoput his hand over Nicky’s mouth again. “Hush,baby. You’ve been asking for this all day, and you know it. Now take your medicine like a good boy.”

Chapter Six

Jax raised up on one elbow, shrugging Cade off as he tried to pull him back down. “No, listen. Do you hear that? What is it?”