Bas had a hard time understanding until the truth suddenly rushed through him. Shit. I’m hearing his thoughts. He didn’t want to hear any more. It hurt to know Gray saw him as something inferior, yet at the same time, it gave him hope that Gray couldn’t stay away. If what he heard from the man was true, Gray lusted after him with a hunger he’d never felt before.
“Stay with me. Right with me.” Gray ran a hand over Bas’s cock, and the dual stroking sensation, inside and outside his body, jolted a burst of seed from him. “That’s good, baby. Give me more. Put it all over my skin.”
Bas had a hard time holding it in. The love, the lust, the need. The anger. And then Gray leaned down to kiss him and clutched his cock tighter.
Bas groaned as he came and continued to come. The explosion rocked his entire world, and the intensity nearly made him black out. When he came back to himself, he saw Gray’s belly covered in semen. Then Bas shifted his hips. Gray’s face tightened, and his lips parted on a moan as he came inside Bas. A second, smaller eruption jetted from Bas’s cock.
“God, you smell so good.” Gray paused, blinked, and seemed to come back to himself.
The intimate connection that had all but joined them as one just seconds earlier faded, then disappeared. Gray withdrew from Bas, left the bed, and stood. “You good now?”
“Good? I’m great.” And confused as shit.
“Okay, then. I’m going to hit the shower and get some rest. You should do the same.” The look he shot the door couldn’t be mistaken. Gray wanted him gone.
Bas sat up, his chest tight, and his eyes burned with what he tried to tell himself was rage. For all that he’d initiated sex, Gray had been right there with him. “Sure thing, hero. I’ll take my unnatural, experimental ass back to my room. Away from your fucking ego.”
He leaped from the bed, ignored the twinge in his ass, and slammed the door shut when he left the room. Then he took a long hot shower in the other bathroom and wondered how the hell he could have fallen in love with such a prick.
The moment the door slammed, Gray shuddered and slumped to the floor. He’d never felt so weak yet so strong at the same time. It was as if Bas had left with a piece of him, and his odd parting words made a scary kind of sense. Unnatural? Experimental? Gray had been thinking that while they’d fucked.
When his first attempt into Bas’s mind had failed, Gray had retreated and hadn’t tried again. Though he had the power, he didn’t like abusing it. As much as he wanted to know what Bas thought, he’d never been into rape—of any kind. A violation of another’s mind was a strict taboo. The only times he’d done it in the past had been through his sister to warn her of mortal danger.
In any case, he didn’t want to read the man’s mind. That would mean opening up a connection that apparently already existed, because he’d swear Bas had somehow read his thoughts. An impossibility, or at least it should have been.
He sent out a telepathic knock, needing a conversation he knew his sister would keep quiet and private from their meddling grandmother. If his parents hadn’t been vacationing halfway across the world, he’d have asked them. But he didn’t want anyone even guessing at what he suspected.
“Ava? You busy?”
His sister answered right away. “Yeah, busy trying not to lose my friggin’ mind. This kid of mine is crazy hungry all the time.”
Great. Just what he needed. To think about his sister breastfeeding. He mentally scrubbed his brain. “I need you to do me a favor. Read my mind.”
She gave a laugh. “Yeah, right. You know I can’t do that. I’ve never been able to.”
“Just try.”
“Okay.” She paused. “Nothing. Tighter than a drum. But…”
“But what?”
“You seem different. And what’s with the chocolate?”
“What?”
“I don’t know how, because you can’t smell thoughts. But it’s like you’re coated in chocolate. Oh God. I hope that’s not a sign I’m pregnant again. I need some recovery time from Sophie.”
He heard the mental echo of a baby’s gurgle and sent a burst of love to his niece. “She’s like me,” he said with pride. “My little girl can hear thoughts.”
“You mean my little girl. You’re as bad as the others. Gunnar brags she has his strength and his bright blue berserker eyes. The others are claiming she mimics whatever they do, and Grandma is so proud, she’s about to burst.”
“Good. Keep Alicia busy and out of my hair.”
“Uh, about that. I heard her on the phone with Lonnie earlier. You don’t pull through on this mission, and she’s planning to put you behind a desk, bro. Be careful about this one.”
“Fuck.”
“Watch your mouth.”
He could feel her frown. “Sorry. Hey, at least the kid can’t understand words yet. Can she?”
Ava sighed. “I hope not. Because half the things Gunnar says would melt her ears clean off. Oh hell. She’s hungry again. Gotta go. Love ya.”
“You too.” He disconnected the link and tried not to jump to conclusions.
His parents could read each other’s thoughts. So could Alicia and Lonnie, now that his grandmother had finally accepted him as her mate. Gray had been gifted with an advanced telepathy from the time he could crawl. Any serious ties to a mate would be mental as well as physical.
He’d never before been so tuned into another person. With Bas, he felt physical desire. But did he also share a mental connection? He couldn’t be sure, not without looking into Bas’s mind. Tempting as it was, he didn’t think Bas would welcome the intrusion. Certainly they shared chemistry. But what if Bas had only wanted him to sate his needs? They’d worked together for months, but this was the first time Bas had shown any interest. Hell, up until this point, he hadn’t realized Bas liked men.
Though most Circs were bisexual, many preferred one gender to another, seeking other Circs more as a necessity than due to any real sexual preference. Bas had never displayed the typical characteristics of a Circ—the mating heats, the out-of-control rages, resistance to the change. From what little Gray knew, Bas was a rare individual who had adjusted to the Circe serum without a problem.
Until now.
Until he had his first mating heat. But why so late after becoming Circ? The nagging question remained, though Gray tried to ignore it. What were the odds he’d been thinking of Bas as an experiment and the man just happened to mention it in a fit before stalking out the door?
On shaky legs, Gray stood and moved to his shower, where he washed himself clean. Yet the bonded scent of himself and Bas didn’t fade. His beast stretched inside him, wrapping himself in the familiar, welcomed touch of Bas’s memory.