“Mmm hmm.” Jobe’s voice was thick, his eyes closed.
They’d each bathed when they’d gotten home and then, in an unspoken agreement, met in the living room. Wesley had been glad for the opportunity to learn more about his unique new pack, but he had missed the part of the evening when he got to unwind with Jobe. He had gotten used to going over the events of each day with Jobe, talking and learning, so he had been secretly thrilled when, despite being visibly exhausted, Jobe came to chat with him after his shower instead of going to bed.
“It was Brian’s last night in Red River and he spent it with you instead of with his family,” Wesley pointed out, watching Jobe’s expression closely.
Chocolate-colored eyes fluttered open. “He was with his parents that morning and his sister that afternoon.” Jobe stretched his neck from side to side and combed his fingers through his brown hair. “Then we had the big dinner for him, where everyone had a chance to wish him well.”
Still not getting the information he sought, Wesley cleared his throat and tried again. “The two of you are close?”
Jobe nodded. “Brian’s a good guy and a strong wolf. I’ve talked to him a few times since he left and you don’t need to worry about Purple Sky. They’re in good hands.”
That actually hadn’t been Wesley’s worry. Not at all. A month earlier it would have been, but after being embraced by Red River, he realized how disconnected he had been from his old pack. Purple Sky had needed a different Alpha and Red River was now his home. But his question had nothing to do with his new pack either. With the exception of one short break he had taken from Purple Sky over a decade earlier, Wesley’s focus every minute of every day of his life had been on his pack, not on himself. Until now.
Understanding that if he wanted to know the nature of Jobe’s relationship with Brian, he would have to be much more direct, he said, “Were you sleeping with him?”
“What?” Jobe jolted to a sitting position, his previously soft, relaxed posture turning rigid. “No!”
While Wesley was happy with the answer, Jobe’s affronted tone wasn’t what he had anticipated. Having now met everyone in Red River, Wesley knew there were more same-sex matings in his new pack than he had heard of elsewhere, and as far as he could tell, people viewed those pairings identically to those between males and females. Brian Berger was a handsome man, an Alpha wolf, and, according to Jobe, a good guy. Having sex with someone like him was nothing to be ashamed of, so the vehemence of Jobe’s denial implied that either he was in a relationship with someone else or he had no sexual interest in men.
Wesley had spent every waking hour for the past three weeks with Jobe, and while he was unquestionably close with his pack, Wesley hadn’t seen an indication of intimacy with anyone. And he had been looking. That eliminated the possibility of another relationship as the reason for his negative reaction to Wesley’s question.
“What about other males in the pack?”
“What about them?” Jobe asked, his lips thinning and his eyes narrowing.
Although discussing Jobe’s previous sexual partners made Wesley decidedly uncomfortable, he needed to gauge Jobe’s interest in men because, after nearly a month with Jobe at his side, he vibrated with the need to touch him, to taste him, and to hear him moan in pleasure. But no matter how fervent Wesley’s desires, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill them if Jobe wasn’t attracted to males.
Trepidation straining his voice, Wesley asked, “Have you had sex with any of them?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me tha…” Jobe swallowed hard, shook his head, and through gritted teeth said, “No, I haven’t.”
Red River was too remote for pack members to interact with outsiders unless they traveled several hours, and even then, the nearest towns were tiny, way too small for a gay bar or another obvious place to pick up men. Regardless, with as tied as Jobe was to his beloved pack lands, Wesley couldn’t imagine anything being important enough to pull him away. So if Jobe hadn’t been sleeping with males in Red River, he hadn’t been sleeping with males period, which meant he wasn’t likely to want to sleep with Wesley.
“I see,” Wesley said quietly. He draped his forearm over his eyes and sighed. He had left Purple Sky despondent that he’d never be able to fulfill his purpose as an Alpha wolf and worried that he’d be forced to all but sell his body to a stranger in order to provide for his old pack. Now he found himself at the center of a pack rich with resources, shifters, and community, a pack overjoyed to have him as their leader, and all he could do was yearn to meld his body with that no-longer-stranger.