Moving Forward

Just Be (29)

They arrived back in Kyle's room not much later, the grey of his bed sheets a welcome sight. And with a tenderness Max wasn't sure he'd ever experienced from a partner before, Kyle lifted his shirt from his body, and undid the buckle that held his fatigues to his hips. Max's breath faltered, shallowed, a flood of warmth obscuring his normally coherent thoughts.

Barely noticing as Kyle guided him to the bed, Max left his hands to wander, to pull at the offending button-up shirt, and relented to the temptation to muss the beautiful dark hair that Max had spent so much time resisting. And with a grateful sigh, he pulled Kyle down over him, kissing the man so gently their lips barely grazed.

"I love you." Max whispered.

Kyle hissed a breath. "I love you too."

Max surged up, unable to take the soft, slow, barely-there touches anymore, and tightened his grip in Kyle's hair as he pulled the man down to press their lips together harshly. Teeth went unchecked, scraping and drawing blood from whatever bit of skin they caught. Neither man took any notice of the coppery tang in their mouths, nor the ache that came with each bruising kiss.

Kyle moved with a purpose now, putting his hands low on Max's body to give him a pleasure they hadn't been able to experience together before. Max writhed, whining with the sudden intensity, but then went to push Kyles own trousers down past his narrow hips. The shirt came away with an unmistakeable tear and lost buttons.

Kyle gasped at Max's touch, and it was all Max could do to focus on the desperate expressions every stroke elicited. Freeze frame. His memory wasn't enough. Max wanted to stop time; wanted to keep this moment from slipping through the cracks in his memory; wanted every curve and edge and bump burned into his mind.

As those bottomless brown eyes watched Max prepare himself, he couldn't even find a sliver of shame, of embarrassment. All he felt was loved, drowned in that gaze. And when their bodies finally came together, it was a duet of snarls and growls, whines and whimpers, begging, pleading, and whispers of 'I love you' and 'mine'.

It was early evening when the pair woke in each other's arms. Max stretched lazily, bathing in the warmth of the body next to him, and then curled back into Kyle's arms with the satisfied chuff only a big cat can produce. Kyle groaned, tightened his grip, and flickered his eyes open.

Max hummed. "I love your eyes, did you know?"

Kyle's brow twitched, an amused but confused smile on his face.

Max nodded, but didn't explain. Kyle didn't need to know that looking in his eyes was like being smothered or felt like a comforting blanket, depending on Kyle's mood. Or that when he was in wolf form they were flecked with gold, like the fire in him was burning through. Tracing Kyle's features, Max wondered how he'd found such a beautiful man. A finger followed the line of his nose, and Max smile at the crook in it.

A knock on the door brought Max out of his love-induced daze.

"Kyle," it was Andy's voice, "it's dinner time. Your mother told me that there would be consequences if you didn't show up." She paused. "And Blake says Max will be in trouble, too."

Max snorted. Grumbled, stretched, and sat up. "We'll be there in a moment." He said.

He watched Kyle groan, complaints incoherent. "It's hard to believe you're more willing to get up than I am."

Max nodded. They both knew he was a lazy creature. But still. "When an alpha gives his pride an order, you don't make him wait."

"Your his son, though."

"But he's still the pride male. If it was my step-Dad, I could procrastinate as long as anyone else, but my dad is the muscle of the pride. The protector." Max shrugged. "Of course, we bend rules - especially me, since I don't feel all of the lion instincts that my siblings do - but for the most part, we do what Dad says."

Kyle listened without a word, and Max found that odd, until Kyle blinked and stood from the bed. "You speak a lot more with me."

He wasn't the first to notice that. In seconds around Team Panther, they'd seen how much Max spoke around Kyle. But Max didn't much care. Around Kyle, he was comfortable. Whatever was in his head, what he'd normally say to himself, he could say to his mate.

"How're you feeling?" Max asked, "about your parents decision I mean."

"I'm okay." Kyle shrugged on another button-up shirt. "Carter's more level-headed than I ever was anyway. And if he hasn't got the strength, then I'm happy to back him up."

They strolled out of the room hand-in-hand, Max dressed once more in comfortable fatigues. As if rehearsed, his team fell in step behind him, and all of them entered the dining room together. This was a feeling Max didn't know he'd missed, of being one part of a whole. A key piece of a working machine. And the fact that Panther had so easily come to include Kyle - Max could see it, how his team watched Kyle for cues and instructions - warmed him from the inside out.

The dining room was on the opposite side of the house from the main hall, filled with huge tables that were mostly full, apart from one close to the table that the alpha family was sat on. There were two seats free on Mrs River's table, the rest taken up by Kyle's parents, Carter, Fin, Andy, and Blake. The free table, Max understood, was for Panther.

He waved his team off, weathered a few head, shoulder and back pats, and then joined his dad at the table.

"You're late," Blake grunted.

Max flashed him a grin.

Blake retaliated by refusing to call Max by name, instead referring to him as 'lindinho', or 'filho'. Even 'Thiago' made a few appearances, though not nearly as many. Kyle hid away a laugh with every grimace Max kept off his face, and the pair shared glances, knowing exactly what was causing reactions in the other. It was enough to make Andy and Carter fake throwing up. And when Max felt the tiniest flick against the back of his head, he had no trouble flinging a pea at Parrish's forehead. Lola's smug giggle gave her away as the real perpetrator.

"Lindinho," Blake reproached, "you're not five."

"But you still call me lindinho." Max groused.

That made Blake laugh. "Blame your mother."

"Oh?" Amelia seemed instantly interested in that topic. "I'd love to hear about Max's mother."

Blake smiled. "His birth mother is from a tribe of jaguar shifters on the edge of the Amazon forest, right. But I didn't know that when I met her. I'd flown from Arizona to Brazil on holiday, and met Kasumi." He sighed wistfully. "I knew she wasn't my mate, most jaguar shifters don't take mates. But in the years we were together, we were happy. We didn't actually part until I met one of my mates, but we were good friends a lot longer than we were lovers."

"Ugh." Max cringed at the word. To refer to Blake and Kasumi as lovers just felt wrong.

"The lindinho thing?" Amelia prompted.

Before Blake could launch into another story, Max cut in. "It means 'little one' or something in Portuguese."

"Don't lie," Blake admonished. "It means 'cutie'. We'd called him that the moment he was born. It got so bad that he didn't actually learn his name until he was five."

Despite the drama of the day, the evening devolved into laughter.