Take You There

By Willa Okati

2Thoughtful, quiet, and just a wee bit on the dryly sarcastic side, Ethan teaches music at the university in Second Chance. With barely enough time to breathe between hysterical students and faculty shenanigans, he’s not looking for Mr. Right -- just Mr. Right Now -- and only when the moment calls for it. The beautiful man who calls himself “Blue” in a quick, dirty alley encounter should have satisfied him. But now Ethan can’t get Blue out of his mind, and can’t seem to stop looking for him.

Carter --”Blue” when he wants to stay anonymous -- wears his scars on the inside, but they’re deep and still bleeding. He doesn’t venture far outside his antique & pawn shop unless he’s desperate for someone to touch and hold him and make him feel good for a little while. He promised himself he would never want more again. The smoldering musician who caught his eye, and what they did in the alley, should have been enough. That should have been the end of it.

It wasn’t. It isn’t. Their encounter left him pregnant, and he’s been frozen since then, not knowing how to break free of his shell or what he should do. Until Ethan finds him -- and then, everything changes. Again.

Author’s Note: Also featuring Oscar, everybody’s favorite sarcastic best friend. We all need an Oscar in our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Nov 12, 2021

Willa Okati

Willa Okati can most often be found muttering to herself over a keyboard, plugged into her iPod and breaking between paragraphs to play air drums. In her spare time (the odd ten minutes or so per day she's not writing) she's teaching herself to play the pennywhistle. Willa has forty-plus separate tattoos and yearns for a full body suit of ink. She walks around in a haze of story ideas, dreaming of tales yet to be told. She drinks an alarming amount of coffee for someone generally perceived to be mellow.

Book preview

Prologue

Was there a place like this in Second Chance?

Of course there was. Carter’s lips curved wryly around the rim of the highball glass he held to his lips. There was always a place like this no matter where you went. It just depended on whether who you asked knew what you wanted. And if you wanted a bar that didn’t serve chicken wings but did pour good beer and better tequila and top-shelf vodka, you wanted the bar called Speakeasy, just off Main Street. You could only get in through the back door and only if you knew where and how to knock, but once you did…

It wasn’t a place where everyone knew your name, but for most people there, that wasn’t even close to the point and sometimes --

Carter kept to himself when he could, lived silently and solitary, and he’d chosen that kind of life on purpose. It was better that way. Safer. He could watch his twelve and his six, and he could walk away from anything before it overwhelmed him. But sometimes --

Sometimes, he needed this.

Tucked quietly and carefully in one corner of the room, he kept the rim of a glass of tequila at his mouth, but only for show; he’d already sipped his way through two shots. Enough to work the tension out of his knotted muscles, but not so much that he’d do something he’d regret in the morning. Or if he did, to know it’d been worth it.

Carter’s hand spasmed around his glass, remembering it all too keenly, and knew he’d keep remembering until --

He should have turned the radio at his antique-slash-junk shop workbench off as soon as the first broadcast about the quarry disaster came through, but it’d caught him before he could switch the app off and he’d been lost. Drowning in it. He’d spent the day ignoring a workbench full of things that needed repairing, fixated on the steady voice of the broadcaster droning on and on and on with the lists of missing, injured, dead. On and on and on. Heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak, and he’d felt them all. Even now he could feel the echoes in his chest, cracking with each one --

He knew better.

Carter rubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes. He’d always been like that, ever since he was a kid. Too sensitive, even if he’s probably going to be an Omega, they’d said. Strange, even for someone with -- you know -- his kind of bloodline, and everyone knows how they are.

So.

He’d taken that to heart too. He’d learned how to turn himself off -- but too well. Even if he hadn’t intended it, he’d gone too far in the other direction. Unless he was as careful as careful could be and didn’t slip up as he had with the radio, it took him so long to warm up to people and let them in that it turned them off, made them look at him oddly and give him a wide berth.

What’d happened today at the quarry wasn’t about him. Carter knew that.

But if he ever wanted to sleep again, he needed this.

Carter tilted his head back and gulped, letting the whole shot burn its way down his throat. He came up breathless, but -- better. Much better, even if it left him gasping and with his heart pounding. He lightly thumped the heel of his shoe on wooden floorboards worn smooth from years of others doing the same. The owner, who set the playlists every night, had a sense of occasion. No wailing jazz or mournful blues tonight. Just hard, driving beats that made a man want to shout, stomp his boots, pump his fists to the sky.

To dance, and --

To erase everything except feeling good for a little while. To fuck.

Fuck, no playing around, no sugarcoating it. A soundtrack like this demanded hard kisses and hands on harder bodies from anyone who was willing, who was able, and who was old enough to know better but still didn’t give a damn.

But who?

Carter ran a finger around the rim of his glass as he searched the room and sorted through his options. The locals all knew him here. He had to do his hunting among the new-to-town men, but there were plenty. Firemen and rescue crews who’d done their jobs and been turned loose to celebrate, for one. Graduate students, a whole crop of them.

A few who weren’t nearly so easy to pin down. Those were the ones he wanted. Carter wanted that, to chase after the distraction they provided.

Or to be chased, instead. That was new.

Carter could feel one of them watching him. Staring at him. He wasn’t sure how long the man had been looking. He might have started while Carter emptied his glass and had his throat on display; that would have piqued any Alpha’s interest. Slowly, slowly, he swept the room, searching.

Finding.

There. Someone he’d never seen before. An Alpha in a dark green shirt, well-worn jeans that hugged his ass, and scuffed leather boots. Long hair pulled up in a messy knot -- to hell with fashion for this guy, he clearly liked what he liked and he liked his man-bun -- and a feral grin. Lean as a lone wolf in early spring but lined with lean muscle and blessed with a sense of rhythm. He’d probably had just as many drinks as Carter, or more, but he could still keep up with the beat, swinging his hips and raising his hands to the roof.

When Carter met his hot, interested stare, the Alpha raised an eyebrow in both dare and invitation.

Yes. That. Him.

Carter licked the last drops of tequila off his lips, put his glass down, and slid out of his corner to glide across the room. The sheer number of men packed in there made for tough going, but the way that Alpha watched him was a good motivator to keep moving. Carter didn’t stop until he’d reached the man, eyed him up and down to let him know they were on the same page, then turned away only to lean backward -- his own invitation.

He sighed in relief when the Alpha took him up on it. His chest nestled against Carter’s back and the rest of him came along for the ride, cradling Carter’s ass and guiding Carter’s hips with his hands on them. He could keep the beat, and he could manage a good, deep, dirty grind at the same time. Already hard, Carter could feel the man’s length pressed against him as he rocked and Carter rolled back, a hot buzz running through him that had nothing to do with tequila or a driving bass line.

Not that he didn’t enjoy both. His head went calm and empty, and his body took over. When he leaned his head back in pleasure, deliberately exposing his throat again, the Alpha put his mouth there with his lips over the thumping pulse in Carter’s throat. His beard, though short and neat, prickled and tickled and made Carter part his lips on a silent moan.

What’s your name? the Alpha asked against his ear.

Carter stiffened, then shook it off before the man could notice. He didn’t do real names, not with one-night stands. For this to work, to truly satisfy him, he needed the safety net of anonymity. Blue, he lied. Call me Blue.

The Alpha said something in reply, probably his real name, but Carter deliberately chose not to listen. Besides, his senses were otherwise engaged. Another soft cry escaped him when the Alpha ran strong, agile fingers with callused tips through the length of Carter’s hair. It’d come loose of the ties he kept it back with, but he liked his hair -- glossy, black, silky -- and he’d let it grow as long as he wanted, until it fell nearly to the center of his back. It seemed to fascinate the man. He reached backward to cup and cradle the Alpha’s jaw, stroking beneath it.

Blunt teeth nipped at his neck -- not marking Carter but teasing him. Reminding him that an Alpha could use his teeth for fun and games as well as leave a stamp of ownership if he chose. Just give him an excuse.

Carter had teeth too, but he only shivered with pleasure and ground back harder as the Alpha held him tighter. Still in time with the music but adding his own rhythm. He tucked one hand into Carter’s hip pocket, teasing a finger along the side of his hard-on, then slipped it around front to cup him.

Oh, they were on the same page. Carter moved into the touch, letting him know how hard he was too, how hungry, how he wanted what the Alpha was offering.

The Alpha leaned closer to his ear. Carter could feel the tickle of his lips moving, but the music was too loud, and he couldn’t make out a word. Probably his name. Definitely a question. Maybe even something filthy. It all came down to the same thing: want to get out of here?

Yes, and the sooner the better. Carter peeled away from the man just far enough to take his hand and tilt his head toward Speakeasy’s door.

Coming?

The Alpha grinned again, bright and fierce. I will be.

He switched their grip so he held Carter’s hand instead of the other way around. He was the one who led the way forward, back the way Carter had come but right past his corner, opening the door to let a gust of cooler air in and showing them both out into the night. They moved quickly enough to raise Carter’s heart rate and speed up his breathing with pure anticipation.

He wasn’t wrong to let it race through him. The second the Speakeasy door closed behind them, the Alpha spun Carter around to press him against the cold brick wall of the alley and put his hot mouth to Carter’s.

Warm, golden light from the one lamp next to the door, the kind of light Carter liked best, bathed them both in a soft glow. Carter moaned again, more