Slow Shift by Nazarea Andrews (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

said, everything Chase doesn’t quite dare believe into the desperate slide of their lips, the sharp hungry nip of teeth, the needy noises spilling from Tyler—from Tyler—as he cradles Chase’s face in his big hands and thumbs at the hinge of his jaw, kissing him like he’s starving for it.

“Tyler,” Chase gasps and Tyler nips at his neck, sucking hard, like marking Chase has suddenly become his life’s goal and he’s determined to get it right now.

Each hard suck of his lips is like a fucking live wire to Chase’s dick, and he mewls, arching helplessly against Tyler. He grinds down with this dirty twist of his hips that makes Chase fucking moan.

“Not leaving,” Tyler whispers harshly, and Chase can register it distantly, so fucking distantly. “I’m never leaving you, Chase.”

Chase is sobbing by the time Tyler kisses him again, riding the hard thigh presses between his legs almost helplessly as Tyler coos, “There you go, sweetheart. Take what you need.”

He does. Tears in his eyes, fingers in Tyler’s hair, tongue in Tyler’s mouth, he grinds against Tyler’s thigh and whimpers. When Tyler bites him hard, right over the fresh bruise on his pale throat, Chase comes with a low groan, spilling wet and hot in his boxers. Tyler groans and dips down, nosing along his wet crotch and rutting against Chase’s leg until he snarls, claws digging into the mess of blankets until wet heat spreads against Chase’s leg.

~*~

Tyler crawls up his body and sinks into a lazy kiss that feels utterly familiar and impossibly new, and Chase hums happily into it. They curl together to watch the movie on the screen, and Chase plays in the hair on his arm while he breathes in the scent of them.

He isn’t terribly surprised when Chase swallows audibly and asks, “Tyler?”

“Hmm?”

“What was that?”

Tyler presses his lips to the boy’s throat. This side is still pale and unmarked, and it makes him itch to change that.

“I’m tired of fighting something we both want,” Tyler says carefully, “You—you still want it, right?”

“Yeah,” Chase bursts out, “I definitely—all the want, dude, one hundred percent want.”

Tyler laughs and leans down to mark up his pretty skin. “Good,” he murmurs and Chase shivers against him, sighing. He can hear the smile in his boy’s voice as he stares up at the stars. “Good.”

Chapter 22

The thing is, Chase has known Tyler Reid for so long, he almost can’t remember a time when he didn’t. It’s a far distant time of sugar sweet memories wrapped up in a thread of fairy tale happiness, memories of his mother that’ve taken on a haze of disbelief and unrealness.

Chase knows Tyler, knows when he’s happy and angry, when he’s eaten up with guilt, when he’s missing his family, when he’s quietly content. He knows how Tyler eats his pancakes, that he likes his bacon too crispy, and his tea milky and sweet. He knows Tyler runs in silence but wants music when he’s working out, that he loves long too hot baths, and that he hates the attention he gets for his good looks.

He knows the secrets that Tyler doesn’t share with anyone, not even Lucas, like that he tried to kill himself after the accident, that he missed Mia for years, that he cut himself daily when he was living in New York, that Chelsea could smell it but never did anything to stop him.

He knows that Tyler wants a kitten but is afraid it’d hate him, that he adores the Chief but only tolerates Ben, and that on new moons, Tyler sings, feeling so mellow it’s almost a high.

He knows Tyler as well as he knows himself. Hell, Chase thinks he knows Tyler better than he knows Ben, a knowledge bred by intimacy, years of living on top of each other, and the grief that brought them together.

He thinks, with a bone-deep certainty, that he knows everything there is to know about Tyler Reid. He’d stopped being surprised by the older man years ago, maybe the day Tyler looked at him over his brother’s hospital bed and blurted out, “Werewolves.”

It turns out—he’s wrong.

~*~

They stumble into the house, fingers twisted together, and Tyler freezes. He presses Chase into the door, his big body braced between Chase and Lucas. A low growl is in his throat as Chase pets at the nape of his neck.

There’s a quiet tenseness to the room, followed by footsteps, slow but measured, to Lucas’s room. Chase pokes Tyler in the side and gets a low rumbling growl for his troubles.

“Did you just growl at Lucas?” Chase demands.

Tyler doesn’t answer him, just tugs Chase into his room and pushes him in the direction of the bed while he locks the door. He glares at it for a few seconds, then turns to Chase, who’s standing near the bed with a tiny grin on his face, reeking of come, sugar, and satisfaction.

“Wanna tell me what’s up with the caveman routine?” he asks, voice warm and teasing.

Tyler flushes and looks away. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“I’m not,” Chase murmurs, and it draws Tyler’s eyes up, shy and hopeful. He makes a grabby motion to Tyler and the ‘wolf obligingly crowds closer to him, dipping down to press a kiss into the curve of his throat, almost melting into Chase when he wraps his long arms around him.

He’s held Tyler before, but comforting him on bad days or cuddling during a movie marathon was never like this. This feels achingly familiar and shockingly new, electric in a way that it never has before.

“Smell good,” Tyler mumbles into his neck, inhaling and nuzzling.

Chase giggles. “I’m covered in come and sweat, dude.”

Tyler’s head comes up, his eyes gleaming. “Yeah,” he breathes, and Chase has a moment to think ohhh, before he’s being kissed, Tyler licking into his mouth like he’s starving and Chase is a feast. It’s hot, hungry, and desperate, years of want poured out into a hot rush.

He’s been with guys before—drunk hookups at the local club, a few handjobs in high