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It had been almost a month since Blaine left.

Vance was handling it a little better with each passing day; his gym attendance and personal hygiene had improved somewhat, and he had joined Reid in the practice of avoiding alcohol entirely. It was, as Reid so often said, as easy on the pocketbook as it was on the liver. But if one thing had not receded into the depths of moderation, it was Vance's paranoia. The pit bull had practically grown eyeballs in the back of his head, and he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder, studying people for any signs of linkage to the gang that pursued him.

Everyone was aware of the serial sniper, especially Dallas, who had taken up full-time residence in his home. He wasn't about to admit to Paul or anyone that he was scared, but when he went to the grocery store, he wore a T-shirt, shorts, and a ball cap, and drove his pickup truck. Paul, for one, felt better than he ever had. It was exhilarating. It was addicting. A loss of appetite had returned his waistline to what it was in High School, though he was getting worse about remembering to take his insulin injections.

In a cheap, Las Vegas motel room, Paul pushed a patch through the bore of his new rifle, a Knight's Armament SR-25. That rifle had tasted blood within days of the bear acquiring it. Its semi-automatic, air-cooled, gas-driven operating system was not as accurate as his old M40 was, but at the distances from which he was picking off two-wheeled targets, it wasn't as though he needed a weapon that could shoot one thousand meters. Whatever the tradeoffs were, he was thankful for the quick follow-up shots the new rifle allowed him. Paul disassembled the rifle once it was sufficiently cleaned, and inserted it back into the discreet rifle case in which it was stored. Then, he picked up his ringing phone.

"Paul."

"Hello, Dallas. Are you ready to talk?"

Back in LA, the cougar gritted his teeth and crushed an empty beer can in his meaty paw before answering.

"What's it going to take?"

"Simple. You call your boys off and I'll quit killin' 'em."

"Authorities are looking for you, Paul!"

He laughed, "They're never going to find me. I'm a ghost, hell. I'm already dead. I got nothin' left to live for. Nothing but those good men you're trying to hurt and the ones you already did."

"You started this war, Paul."

The bear wet his lips, "I did. I did, and I aim to win it. I know I'm going to win it. I wouldn't have started it if I had any doubt in my mind about whether or not I was gonna win."

"Well, we'll just see about that then, won't we?"

"This is over just as soon as you say the word, Dal! Look, I'm _sorry_about John. But he's just as bad a seed as you ever were, if not worse! Killin' me, or any of my boys isn't going to bring him back, don't you understand that?"

The line was quiet. Paul's face crumpled and he buried his glassy eyes in the palm of his gargantuan hand.

"Killing Randal wasn't going to bring him back..." He choked on the last word.

"God damn it, Paul, I didn't kill Randal! Nobody in my organization did, he killed himself! You know me; don't you think I would have taken credit for it? I sure as hell wouldn't have bothered trying to make it look like a suicide."

"Fuck you." Paul growled into the phone, "Fuck you! Randal wouldn't have..."

"Paul, you didn't even know Randal."

"Don't you dare-"

"You were away with the service for the first couple of years of his life. You came home and you dumped every bit of your time into riding with us, and when you got bored with that, you spent all your time starting up that auto racing gig. For what? Money? Fame? Meanwhile, little Randal is growing up with a father who doesn't give a shit about him!"

The bear sat on the edge of the motel bed, weeping silently while the cougar on the other end of the line ripped open the scars of old wounds and the blood of painful memories ran free.

"You got any idea just how much influence I had over that boy? Do you, Paul? He graduated from High School because I told him to. He went to college and got a degree because I told him to! I wouldn't let him join the Bitten. I didn't want that for him, and I know you wouldn't either, but you never paid attention, did you?"

Silence.

"And when that cattle dog boy went to work for you and you took him under your wing and treated him like a son!" Dallas trailed off, while Paul listened and wept as silently as he could. The cougar sighed and rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of his free hand.

"I kept in touch with Randal over the years. I figured it was only right, being his Godfather and all. Boy drowned himself in his work." Dallas chuckled, "Can't imagine where he got that from. I guess he figured he'd buy his way to happiness."

Paul swallowed the lump in his throat, "You trying to suggest I don't know what it's like to lose a son? Is that what this is about?"

"I'm saying you didn't deserve a son! You don't know what it means to have a child, and have to bury him! Don't you dare say that you know what I went through when John was murdered by your Vance!"

Paul was fuming, his blood pressure up while hot tears streamed down his face.

"The only way you're going to pay off this debt is with your life or his! Or both, if it comes to it. I don't care. It's your call."

"My call is that if you don't disappear from LA forever by the time I get back there, you, and every single one of your Bitten are going to die. I will make sure of it. And so help me God, if you even touch a hair on any one of their heads, I will make sure you never see the light of day again. I will burn down all of Los Angeles if I have to to get to you."

"So be it." Dallas sighed.

"So be it." Paul repeated, and hung up the phone.

***

"Thanks for helping me get the room set up for Kaitlin." Vance said as he and Reid began moving boxes out from the spare bedroom into the living room, kicking up dust and rifling through old possessions, several of which the pit bull opted to simply throw away. Particularly whichever ones reminded him of Blaine.

Speaking of Blaine, the only thing inside the house that served to remind him of her was the ring that sat in the top dresser drawer, collecting tarnish and waiting in the hope that one day, she might return to place it back onto a finger. That day, Vance was certain would never come.

"That should about do it." Reid said, hefting one last heavy box out into the dining room and setting it down on the table. The cattle dog grinned as he opened the flaps, and he pulled out a small, wooden stringed instrument, which he plucked at playfully. Vance's ears perked, and the pit bull turned around to see his old ukulele he hadn't picked up in years.

"Oh, wow. Boy, that thing brings back memories."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it was my Dad's. He used to play it for us kids back in the day, he gave it to me since I was the only one who was into music. Fitting, I suppose." Vance shrugged, taking the instrument from the heeler, "I only ever knew one song on it. Pop used to sing it to my Mom, let's see if I can remember it..." He held the instrument up to his chest and frowned as he fingered the chords awkwardly on the tiny fretboard. "Lot smaller than my Gretsch!" They laughed. Vance cleared his throat, and began to strum the chords in staccato rhythm.

"Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you; let me hear you whisper that you love...me...too..." He fought with the chords, "Keep the love light glowing, in your eyes so blue, let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love...with...you!"

Reid shook his head and laughed at the mediocre performance as Vance gave a deep bow. The older dog blushed some and cleared his throat. Vance put the ukulele on the table and began to dig through the rest of the box, which contained old memoirs from his childhood, things that he never really thought about, but couldn't bring himself to throw away.

"So Lucy and Rigo are going on their little vacation next weekend, huh?"

"Yeah, they're going on a cruise out to the Bahamas." Reid said, hands in his pockets, watching while the pit bull dug through old photo albums. He wondered if Rigo was waiting until after the vacation to spill the beans about him to Lucy.

"Hey, check that out." Vance chuckled and tossed a small, black object to Reid, who jerked his hands from his pockets just in time to catch it. It was a four-speed shift knob. "It's from the first car I ever had," Vance explained, "1990 Chevy S-10 with a four-speed. I wrecked the hell out of that truck one night when I was drunk. Some crazy memories in that thing."

"Hey, what do you say we go get something to eat and go look at stuff for the bedroom?" Reid suggested.

"Yeah, sure."

An hour later, they found themselves standing in the paint section of the hardware store, checking out various shades of pink and other colors fit for a little girl's room. Reid held a particular sample in his hand, gazing at the color. It reminded him of the exact color he and Josie had picked out for Lucy's bedroom when she was born. He looked at the name. _Turkish delight,_he read under his breath. He showed it to Vance, who was holding six of them like a hand of cards, one of which was a putrid color just named 'ham'.

"What do you think about this one?"

"Yeah, that looks good, let's go with that."

Next to them, a man leaned in close to his wife and whispered, "Why can't you be that easy?"

After the hardware store, it was off to the furniture store to find a twin bed in the four-poster design complete with drapes and the whole bit. They didn't have a pink one, the salesman was sorry to say, but a white one gleamed out from all the rest in all its glory. Vance had the salesperson ring it up with the matching dresser and mirror, and they walked over to check it out.

"She's going to love it." Reid said with a sigh. Memories. They were coming back in droves, and they wrenched at his heart. But Vance was having the time of his life shopping for a bedroom set for his little girl, and the last thing he wanted to do was rain on his parade.

"You all right, man?" Vance asked, but before Reid could answer, they were interrupted.

"Oh, that's adorable!" Someone said, and the two turned to see two women in their early twenties, both of whom looked as though they'd just returned from a rave. It was California, after all.

"Do you have a daughter?"

"Yeah, I do. She's still an infant, but I'm getting everything set up ahead of time."

"Hey, right on, man." The one with electric blue hair and double-aught gauges said, and gave them both a fist bump. It wasn't until then that Reid realized that they were addressing both he and Vance, as opposed to just Vance. He blushed, and by the time he collected himself enough to speak, the women were already walking away and Vance was looking back at the bed, as proud as he could be. So Reid said nothing.

They hadn't taken long to get what they needed, and when they passed a popular jewelry chain on the way back to the house, Reid asked if they could stop, citing that he needed a link added to his watch. They pulled in, and walked inside looking rather out of place in their work shirts and dirty blue jeans, but as soon as the salesperson noticed the Omega on Reid's wrist, she was all too happy to help.

"I just need a link added to it, it's a little tight." The heeler explained, handing it over to her. She marveled at the model for a moment and disappeared into the back with it while Reid and Vance took a look around.

"I remember coming here to get the rings for Blaine." The pit bull mused, staring at some of the other watches they had in the case, eyeing a Rolex as though it was calling out to him. He looked up, and immediately turned around, curtly instructing Reid to do the same.

"What, what's going on?"

"Don't look. Use the mirror over there."

Reid's eyes flicked to the mirror, where in the reflection of it was none other than the handsome Rigo Cabrera himself, eyeing the selection of engagement rings across the store.

"Turning around isn't going to do much." Reid whispered, "We're wearing our work shirts."

"Yeah, well lots of people wear our work shirts, we sell them in the store."

"He's looking at engagement rings. That can only mean one thing."

"You want to go talk to him?"

"No, no. Last time I talked to him he punched me in the face."

"What? Why?"

Reid took a breath, "Okay, remember when I told you I slipped and fell in the shower? I didn't. Look, I told Rigo about...me. About being Lucy's father."

"And?"

"He didn't take it well."

"...Ah."

"Yeah."

"What, has he not told her yet?"

"No, he's waiting for me to do it. He says it's my responsibility to, and he's right. I just have to figure out when the right time to do it is."

"Yeah, that's the important thing."

"Why are we whispering?" Both Reid and Vance nearly jumped out of their fur when Rigo's voice chimed in behind them, and they both turned around to see the grinning, debonair wolf in black scrubs standing there with his arms folded.

"Hey, Rigo." Reid said sheepishly.

"What's going on, guys?"

"I'm just having another link put in my watch, and Vance here is...checking out some Rolexes." He was nervous, and it showed. "What about you?"

"I'm just checking out some engagement rings over there." Rigo motioned with his head, "I really think the rose gold would compliment Lucy's fur, but at the same time I think the white gold would stand out a lot more. What do you think?"

Reid felt like a limp noodle. No twenty-something young man in history had probably ever talked to his girlfriend's father in such a way before, but the wolf knew he had the upper hand, and the smug - correction, attractive - grin on his face said it all. The heeler pocketed his hands and tilted his head up somewhat casually so as to appear more confident.

"Well, being that working on cars is her thing, and that she's usually up to her elbows in an engine bay, I would think she wouldn't be wearing it all that often."

Rigo nodded slowly in agreement, "True. But you know, quality is always more important than quantity. Just like time."

"Right. So, you guys are heading out for your cruise next weekend, huh?"

"Yep. We're going out to the Bahamas. Looking forward to it."

"Oh, I bet. Well, I hope you guys have fun." Reid forced a smile.

"I'm certain we will. Hey, Reid, can I talk to you in private?"

"Um, sure. Yeah."

They stepped outside, and Rigo dug a pair of sunglasses out from the pocket of his scrubs, sliding them onto his face. He uncharacteristically faltered for a fraction of a second before he spoke, and when he did, it was the last thing Reid would have expected from the wolf.

"Reid, I've been thinking a lot about what you told me. And I understand that you're in a tricky position here. You want to keep a good employee, and you want to have a relationship with your daughter. I get it."

Reid nodded.

"But Lucy deserves to have a daddy to walk her down the aisle at her wedding."

The heeler took a deep breath and exhaled, nodding while he pawed awkwardly at his face in a strange attempt to distract from the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

"Now you helped me back then when I found out the truth about Lucy, okay? I'm willing to help you, too. If you'll give me your blessing to ask her if she'll marry me, I will be more than willing to help you with coming clean about your past. If she takes it hard, I'll be there to support you both, and I'll do anything I can to bring you two together. What do you say?"

"I can't think of anyone I'd like more." Reid grinned, and Rigo beamed at him.

"Come here." The wolf said, and pulled the heeler into a hug. Reid's heart jumped up into his throat, and his crotch began to swell the moment he felt the wolf's chest against his own. He hugged him back and resisted the urge to bury his face into the fur on Rigo's neck since it smelled so wonderful, so he indulged in a little longer of a hug than what would have been deemed normal.

"It's always darkest before the dawn, you know." Rigo said as they separated, "But I'll have your back. Don't worry."

They re-entered, and Vance approached them wearing the Rolex watch he'd been looking at in the case.

"What do you think?"

"Looks good on you." Reid said.

"Well that's good, because I bought it." He laughed. Reid went wide eyed, and looked down as the pit bull handed him his watch, "I picked up the link for you, I figured it was the least I could do for your help."

"Oh, man, you didn't have to do that!" The heeler fawned, slipping it onto his wrist and closing the clasp.

"Well hey, now we match!" Reid said, holding out his wrist.

"Swiss watch club!" Rigo declared humorously, displaying his TAG Heuer timepiece.

"By our powers combined!" Vance said, throwing his fist into the air and immediately bringing it back down when Reid and Rigo looked at him funny, along with everyone else in the store. The pit bull pouted playfully.

"Fuck y'all, I just dropped eight g's on a watch like ain't give a fuck!" He snapped his fingers and sashayed out of the store while the two other canines shared a good chuckle. Always leave them laughing.

Half an hour later, they were back at the house, laying down drop cloths, removing switch plates, and taping off the moulding. It was grueling work, but they knew the finished product would be worth it, and Reid could see just how happy it was making his best friend.

"Oh yeah, this was a good call." Vance crooned while he rolled the pink paint over the plain white wall in what would soon be Kaitlin's childhood bedroom. He smiled with every dip of the roller into the paint tray, just thinking about all the memories that he would make with her in that room. Brushing doll hair, having tea parties - little girl things that had someone told him a year ago that he would one day look forward to, he would have laughed.

"Yeah, it's going to go really well with that white poster bed you bought."

"Definitely."

"Hey, Vance?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think that you'd ever leave us?" Reid posed casually, but with just a hint of worry in his voice. Vance rolled the paint roller through the tray again.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, with your band and everything?"

"Oh, no dude. Hell no. Doghouse is my life. It's my career, you know, being in the band is just a hobby, really. Yeah, we've got some albums out, and we play some shows here and there, but we've never actually toured nationally. We're not that popular." Vance added that last bit with a bit of sarcastic wistfulness.

"I mean if you ever did become popular enough to tour...do you think you would?"

"Honestly?" Vance stopped rolling the wall, "Probably not."

"No?"

"I mean, why would I? I make six figures a year in a career that I love; I wouldn't give that up for anything. Besides, I hear touring is not all it's cracked up to be. Sure, there's good money in it, but it's stressful. Being on the road for months at a time, playing shows almost every night...I love to play, but I don't know that I would want to make a career of it."

"Ah."

"Why do you ask?"

"I dunno. I just worry about shit. You know me; I have issues with anxiety and all that. You know, the kind of crap I see my therapist about."

"Well I'd hate to think that I'm the cause of any of that."

"No, of course not, it's just that..." Reid turned around and set his roller in the tray, "Over the last year I've seen so much heartbreak, and loss, and I've dealt with unrequited love, and now this whole thing with Paul..." He sighed, "Paul is never going to be able to come back from this. He's gone too far already, if he comes back now he'll get thrown in jail."

Vance stopped painting and turned around to look at the heeler.

"I'm sorry; I know I'm raining on our parade here." He said dejectedly. Vance shook his head.

"Don't be sorry. After the way I've been over the last decade, I'm surprised that you feel like you can open up to me like that. I'm glad you feel like you can, I want you to. Hell, I wish I had that kind of courage."

"Oh, I'm sure you do."

"Dude, I really don't." Vance chuckled and set his roller down, walking out of the room for a quick break from the smell of paint. "There are some truths about me, some ugly, some not so much, but just ones that I've hidden from for thirty years because I didn't want to accept that they were a part of me."

Reid followed him out into the living room, "Like what?"

Vance stopped and looked at the floor, his shoulders and ears low, his hands clasped tightly together. Lips pursed, he turned around to look at the heeler, and when he finally spoke, it wasn't quite what Reid had expected.

"Did I ever tell you about the first gig that I ever played?"

Reid shook his head.

"It wasn't with the band I'm with now; it was a friend's band, actually. It was back in 2007. I was twenty-one years old at the time. They needed a fill-in guitarist because their lead wound up in the hospital with...I think it was food poisoning. Something. Anyway. I told them I would. I figured it was going to be some small venue place, you know maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty people, tops?"

"There were more?" Reid guessed. Reid guessed correctly.

"Turns out we were opening for a much more popular act. There were about twenty-five hundred people in this auditorium, okay? I peek out there and see all these people with the house lights dimmed..." Vance looked terrified, "...I threw up before the show because I was so nervous. I didn't think I could do it. I wasn't nearly as good a guitar player as my friend Chad was, not back then, at least."

"So what happened?"

"I psyched myself out. I basically forced myself to do it. And when I got out there on stage, I had my eyes on my guitar the whole time. It was that same one." He pointed through the open doorway of his home studio to the Gretsch 6120 sitting on the stand, "When I finally looked up, the stage lights were so bright that I could barely even see the audience."

"So it wasn't so bad, then. You could just focus on playing."

"I could just focus on playing," The pit bull echoed, nodding. He seemed nervous just telling the story. Reid couldn't imagine what it must have been like being there. "And I had a good time. It was a blast; it was...the most unbelievable rush, just altogether indescribable. And the after-effects, whoo." Vance's face had gone from frightened to floored.

"Adrenaline is crazy like that." Reid concurred.

"Yeah, well, I'm not an adrenaline junkie. I just like to enjoy life; I don't need to jump out of planes to do it. Like I said, I have a career that I love, I work with people I love, and I make good money doing it."

"I guess you've got a point there. But you know, in spite of all that, it's usually worth it. Worth it for the end result, or in some cases just to say you did it."

Vance swallowed, nodding. Reid furrowed his brow in confusion. Something was wrong, and there was a palpable tension in the air about the pit bull, but before he could ask, he spoke up again.

"That way I felt about the show, right before I went on stage...onto a _real_stage for the first time in my life? It pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right about now."

Reid gave a short, confused shake of the head, "What's going on? Talk to me, man, what's bothering you?"

"This." Vance said, and before Reid could stop him, before either of them could do anything about it, Vance stepped forward and pulled Reid in by the shoulders, and kissed him like the fate of the earth depended on it. The heeler's eyes popped wide open, staring down the length of his best friend's muzzle, the end of which was pressed tightly up against his own in a surprisingly soft kiss. Instinctively, Reid's hands rose from his sides and found themselves on the pit bull's hips. A second or two later, Vance's hands slid off of the heeler's shoulders and slid down his back, pulling him in until their chests touched. Reid had closed his eyes as well by that time, and he gasped a little when they opened their muzzles only slightly enough to allow them to mesh together, but not enough to introduce tongue into the fray. Reid squinted a little and tightened the embrace somewhat before pulling back.

"Whoa, whoa, Vance! Hey..." He let go. So did Vance. Neither spoke, only examined the floor with the intensity of a day trader. The pit bull breathed heavily, his chest and shoulders rising and falling for several seconds afterwards. It had been a good kiss, and while it lasted perhaps four seconds at most, it felt like one blissful eternity.

"I'm sorry." He whispered. There were tears in his eyes.

"Vance..." Reid said, his voice soft, low, and as gentle as the kiss they'd just shared.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, don't be sorry." Reid pulled the younger dog into a hug and held him tightly, feeling the heat from his face in the fur on his neck. The pit bull cried silently on the heeler's shoulder for perhaps a minute, and when he tore himself away, he looked as though he was mad at the world.

"I should probably just finish this up myself." He muttered, not able to look at his friend. He didn't even want to look at himself.

"Hey, look, maybe you ought to take a break from it. Maybe the paint fumes got to you." Reid joked, trying to lighten the mood. "Do you want to go for a drive?"

"No, I just want to be alone."

Reid nodded as he grabbed his keys off of the credenza behind the couch and headed for the door, "Okay. Well, I'll be available if you need me, all right? Just call me."

Vance nodded, and the heeler opened the door gently and shut it, heading for his pickup. He piled into the driver's seat, but didn't put the key in the ignition. He just sat there. He sat there, and let his mind run rampant about what had just taken place inside the house. He picked at a piece of dried paint on his old work shirt. He pulled out his phone and stared at the blank screen, hoping for a call that in all likelihood would come a little too late. So he waited. He waited a whopping sixty seconds before popping the truck door back open and marching right up to the front door of Vance's house. He raised a fist to knock, and before he could bring it to the wooden slab, the door was flung open.

Vance grabbed the heeler, pulled him inside without a word, and shut the door.

Just as Reid had suggested, no more painting was done. Together, they surrendered to lust just inside the door, their second kiss a riveting sequel to the first. If there had been any doubts about whether or not either of them wanted it to happen, they were dispelled the moment that their tongues met.

A figurative breadcrumb trail of clothing led a suggestive path to the bedroom - the same bedroom that Vance once shared with his wife during their short-lived marriage. It no longer mattered, for at that moment, Vance was exactly where he wanted to be all along. In the arms of a man like Reid, someone whom his respect and admiration for never faltered. Those feelings had evolved only in the last few weeks, but at a pace rivaled only by the speed at which he and the other dog were moving.

The moment Vance's legs hit the side of the bed, he plopped down onto it with a single bounce before going down to his back - he didn't have a choice, Reid was on him like white on rice, their muzzles still meshed in a magnificent meeting of the mouths. Wandering hands explored uncharted territories, slipping stealthily underneath elastic waistbands, freeing painfully hard erections from cotton and spandex entrapments.

"Oh my God, Vance..." Reid breathed, breaking the kiss only for an unwanted moment to marvel at the pit bull's impressive endowment. He looked with his hands, as his eyes were transfixed on Vance's, half-lidded and burning with a wanton lust that couldn't contend with even the first time he and Aiden had made love. Maybe it was the situation. They were both vulnerable, he wasn't ruling it out - the fact remained, Reid had admired Vance from afar for about as long as they had worked together.

"Do you have lube? This thing isn't going in me without it..." The cattle dog breathed, chuckling a little, their noses mere inches away from one another's. Vance bit his lip, unintentionally teasing his new partner, green eyes flicking to the side with the kind of uncertainty that would expectedly accompany the thoughts the younger dog was having.

"I ah...um." Vance cleared his throat. Beneath his ruddy fur, he was turning a bright red, "I was kind of hoping that maybe you'd...y'know, be on top."

It was Reid's turn to blush. Understandable, considering that his best friend, known to be a gigolo and a womanizer, wanted him to pop his cherry. He tried not to look surprised, but maybe that's what Vance wanted. Either way, the cattle dog just nodded. It surprised even him - he'd always had a bit of a schoolboy crush on the pit bull, and he'd more than once been the subject of his shameful masturbatory fantasies, but the idea of topping him turned him on just as much.

"Okay." Reid nodded, and Vance reached into his nightstand drawer and produced a bottle of lube. Reid stood up. Vance crawled back onto the bed so that he was fully supported by it, his legs spread, his erection resting anxiously on his stomach. Reid crawled onto the soft mattress on his knees, and used his left hand to coat his length with the cool, clear liquid, his pinkish flesh glistening in the light of the room.

"You're sure you want to do this?" Reid asked with eyebrows raised in question.

"I'm sure." Vance whispered, and leaned up to kiss the heeler again, his lips begging for the contact he so desired. Reid kissed back and lowered himself onto the other dog, their members brushing against one another briefly before he reached down and positioned himself against the tight pucker underneath Vance's tail. Vance tightened every muscle in his body when he felt Reid begin to push. Lips tightened around his lover's kiss, and his ring shrank when he felt the blunt tip of the other dog's cock push against it.

"Just relax." Reid advised, and Vance nodded with eyes shut tight, relishing with tingling skin from the feel of the heeler's breath on his face. Reid started to push a little harder when he felt the pit bull relax, and the tight ring of muscle began to part around his cock. Vance gaped and his eyes opened a little wider the moment he felt himself get penetrated. It was an entirely new sensation for the pit bull, but a welcome one at that - for as different as it felt, it was an oddly comforting feeling of fullness.

"Oh, God, Reid..." Vance whispered as the heeler hilted himself inside him, the heeler gasping with pleasure the moment he felt the bottoming party clench around his throbbing length. Reid wasn't going to last long, he knew it - it had been a while since he'd last had sex, and while Aiden had been a lot of fun in bed, there was a certain fun, a tantalizing innocence about the pit bull, a virgin of gay sex yet to be taken in such ways. Reid was honored, and quite aroused to be Vance's first.

"Let me know if it starts to hurt too badly and I'll pull out." Reid said with genuine concern, but Vance just shook his head.

"No, you're fine; just let me get used to it." Vance said, casually ignoring the other half of the truth that was the fact that he enjoyed the feeling of his tailhole being spread by his new lover's girth. With Vance's go-ahead, Reid slowly drew his modest length out of the pit bull, then pushed it back in with a quick, but gentle thrust. Vance grunted with quiet, stunted sounds that bordered on cute, but he didn't care how he sounded, as that was the least of his worries.

Their bodies read one another's like books. As Vance relaxed into the rhythm of Reid's thrusts, the heeler picked up the pace just enough to elicit louder moans from his partner, though not so fast so as to cause the pit bull any pain. Vance dug his claws into Reid's back, and the cattle dog grabbed handfuls of the sheets while he pushed, thrusting his rock-hard, pulsating endowment into the tight hole beneath the pit bull's tail.

Vance couldn't hold back any longer. Reid could see him blush underneath his fur, and in the periphery of his vision, he watched the pit bull ejaculate all over himself. Vance's entire form seemed to tighten and shrink as his sizeable erection jumped and twitched and thick strings of semen jettisoned from his tip, landing in abstract patterns across his chest. It had taken no more than a couple of minutes of being penetrated to occur, and the new bottom was obviously embarrassed, but Reid was no less aroused by the sight. He was now pumping with a steady rhythm; quick, but not fast, and with all of the gentleness and care with which one would treat a virgin lover. It hadn't been the longest romp in bed he'd ever had, nor had it been the most planned or least awkward. Nevertheless, he was enjoying it, because somewhere, in the back of his mind, in the dark closet reserved for his loftiest fantasies, he'd always wanted this.

Neither male was worried at that moment about the potential ramifications of their little bedroom soiree, like awkwardly avoiding eye contact at work the following day. So while Reid thrusted in and pulled out with seamless rhythm and Vance dug his claws into the heeler's back, they simply let their most primitive of desires take the wheel.

"I can't hold it." Reid grunted and went lightheaded with impending climax.

"Do it..." Breathed the pit bull, his voice hushed and his face contorted with the dull throb of unfamiliar pain that he knew would afflict him in embarrassing ways in the morning. Perhaps he would avoid trying to sit for a while so as not to spur on any rumors around the shop.

Reid's ears were back. His arms were locked out, tawny hands gripping at the sheets while Vance gripped his forearms. His sack bounced off of the ruddy dog's tight, athletic ass, and he throbbed inside the grip of that ring of muscle, ready to release everything he had. Every muscle in his body tightened. His back arched, he hilted himself inside, his modest length twitched, and he spilled every drop of his sticky, thick spunk into the pit bull. Vance gaped with the new sensation of having a man come inside him. The heeler's cock seemed to harden with the onset of his orgasm, and there was noticeable warmth that could only be from the semen. Like their first kiss, the climax was short, as was the sex, but it was the very embodiment of quality over quantity.

Reid kept himself suspended over Vance, their muzzles mere inches from one another's, their hot breath mingling in the space between. Neither spoke a word; they simply waited for the guilt to set in. Unlike them, it never came. Reid slipped out of his new lover's hole and lowered himself so that their chests were touching. He didn't care about the semen that was being ground into his fur as they started making out, holding on to each other as though the other might vanish into thin air at any second.

Eventually, when their muzzles were sore from kissing, Vance got up to pee. Reid rolled over onto his back and watched the ceiling fan blow cold air over him. It chilled his still-wet, half-erect member, so he pulled the sheets up to his waist, wondering if he should go into the bathroom and shower.

He drifted off to sleep before he could come to a consensus. Vance locked the front door, returned to the bedroom, turned off the light, and slid into bed next to his new lover, who he hoped would soon become so much more.

***

Paul seethed with boiling blood as he closed the gap between him and Los Angeles. His truck and its stolen license plates barreled down the One-Five at seventy miles per hour, and while he wanted to go faster, the last thing he needed was to be pulled over. He had very little to worry about - the police didn't even have a description of what the killer might look like, but he figured it was best not to risk it.

Part of him wanted to take that new semi-automatic rifle of his and walk into Rotgut Rob's and just blow everyone away - but he knew that wasn't a risk worth taking either. There were only twenty rounds in the magazine, and Rob's had easily three times that many bikers in it at any given time. Painfully slow as it was, he figured he would stick with his current modus operandi.

That was at least until he saw one riding alone.

Paul recognized the bike before he recognized the rider. The rider was J.F. Lawson, an asshole, for lack of a better word. He wasn't a child molester or a wife beater, he was just an asshole in every since of the word. By all rights, a real prick. The bear knew he wouldn't be able to take him, not at seventy miles an hour. By the time he'd gotten in a good position to snipe, Lawson would be long gone.

Paul slammed the accelerator all the way down to the floor, and the tires dug in, propelling the truck faster along until it tapped into the back of J.F.'s motorcycle. The old fox fought to regain control of the bike, but Paul had gotten the jump on him. He bailed at nearly eighty miles per hour, skidding across the pavement while his bike slid alongside him, barreling into another lane entirely. J.F. remained in the fast lane until he came to a blisteringly painful stop, illuminated by the high-beams of Paul's pickup truck.

Lawson groaned aloud, covered in torn clothing and road rash from the spill. The truck door opened after a moment, and the bear stepped out, backlit by the brightness of the headlights. Paul white-knuckle gripped the L-shaped tire wrench in his right hand, advancing slowly on the downed fox.

"Mister...go get help...please!" Lawson begged, propping himself up as best as he could. Paul stopped just in front, staring down at him. Scowling, he raised the wrench and bashed the fox's head in with it. The first blow knocked him unconscious. The second killed him. The third split his skull open, and the remaining twenty-two hits bludgeoned the canine's head into an unidentifiable pulp, a gory mess of skull fragments, brain matter and teeth.

Paul heaved and sweated profusely over the body, staring down at it with a wide-eyed look before finally collecting himself. Headlights could be seen on the horizon behind him. He booked it back to his truck and tossed the murder weapon into the passenger side floorboard before piling in himself and throwing it back in gear.

There were two bumps when he took off for LA once again.