HEART OVERLOAD: Chapter 1

The huge crate falling off its roller skids is stupid heavy. Steel-reinforced, packed tight with food rations, hydration packs, nutrient blocks—all the stuff that keeps the Silo running. Nobody’s skipping a meal down here, not while the scientists push their bodies to the limit.

A single corner on the reinforced steel crate hits the floor, and pressure sensors wail up and down the hallway. The blast door to the mess hall lumbers up, but someone in control is must be hitting the override to stop it. Even the guards know the problem. 

This wall is notorious, cranky. If it goes up, it’s not coming down. For days. Hungry guys going to the mess hall have had to step over this malfunctioning wall for weeks. This blast wall has a rep.

At some point during the stretch of this wall refusing all attempts at fixing it, it stopped being a problem and started being a challenge. Someone—probably Marquee—started calling it the Calf-Builder 9000, and suddenly it was a competition. The guys took bets on who could clear it clean, who had the best form, and who could get through a bulk without using the stairs. Wes swears he saw someone do it with a weighted vest.

Now again, it’s rising up as part of the Silo’s routine. Obstacle course before food. Natural selection.

The tug engine pulling the crate is chugging but stalled.

Some eager logistics guy outside the Silo overpacked this crate—probably thinking he was doing everyone here a favor by shoving in extra-dense, high-calorie rations to fuel the muscle monsters in the Silo.

Now? Nobody can move the damn thing.

It needs to be lifted up and over the blast door hitch-point, better known as the Calf Builder 9000—this solid steel barrier that always manages to get stuck waist-high. Somebody screwed up, again, and now this absurdly heavy crate has to be hoisted up, cleared, and carefully dropped onto the other side.

No rolling it. No dragging it. No tilting it.

Somebody is going to have to grip the huge neon yellow webbing straps, lift it to waist height, and push it over the mechanical sector wall.

Jokes fly while they struggle:

“This some kinda new test?” One of the bigger guys shakes his head, flexing his fingers. “Cause I swear the gap between motivation and suffering just disappeared.”

“Man, I shit bigger bricks than this,” another grumbles, his basketball-sized biceps rippling.

“Yeah?” Auggie grins, shaking back his shoulders. “Then plant those big brick-laying cheeks under here and put all that extra protein to good use.” The guy snorts, steps up, grips the crate’s neon yellow four-inch wide straps. Braces. Tries. Goes gahhhhh! All his muscles bulge up. The steel crate moves, but only an inch.

The first guy? Same thing. Got an extra inch this time.

Nobody’s weak in here. Every single one of them is engineered for mass and power. But this? This is different.

The second guy pats Auggie’s big muscled shoulder with his own mitt of a hand. “How about you, big guy?”

Auggie swallows.

“You’re real sweet, but we all know how strong you are.”

The brick shitter guy chimes in: “Only guy in the Silo who can make Shep melt. And hold him down, just enough—so he can fuck ya without throwin’ ya.”

Auggie snorts, smiling. “No, buddy. When Shep and I do it? We’re making love.”

***

Shep gets word of the trouble with the food crate real quick.

This is what’s going through Shep’s mind as he jogs towards the cranky stuck mess hall blast door:

You ever seen a hundred muscle-mutants go hypoglycemic at the same time? ‘Cause that’s how we get a Silo-wide cage match.

Last time the food delivery was late, Tate punched a wall, someone else tried to eat their own protein tub, and Shep saw Wes doing complex math on whether he could start siphoning calories from IV bags.

You ever seen a 500-pound guy with a 10,000-calorie-a-day metabolism realize the food delivery isn’t coming? It’s like watching a bear realize winter is canceled.

Shep rounds the corner.

Shep likes Auggie, and he likes what he sees.

Auggie’s ass, rolling, tensing, bulging into place, his quads hardening thick as cable. Auggie’s back fanning out wider, his traps joining the party and pushing high.

Veins snaking up over Auggie’s back, pushing hot under his fur, his whole body fighting for every inch.

Veins rise out of Auggie’s thick back muscles, crawling up Auggie’s traps, disappearing under the hair at the nape of his neck. Thin blue lines trace down the ridges of his lats, feathering outward along the curve. A thick, pulsing vein runs along his rear delt, jumping up as Auggie flexes harder and grunts into the lift.

Shep exhales through his nose, deep, slow.

Oh yeah.

Shep could step in.

But why the hell would he?

This is too damn good to stop.

Auggie’s getting the freakishly heavy crate up, inch by slow inch.

His fur catches the light, rich as burnt cinnamon. Streaked in warm, golden-brown hues shifting with every muscle tensing harder. Where the strain hits hardest—across his shoulders, down his arms—his coat darkens, the muscle underneath pulling so tight it looks burnished bronze.

Shep leans back against the wall, big arms crossed over his own massive chest, grinning slow.

Because damn.

Because Auggie’s stepping up now, and Shep—Shep ain’t in a hurry.

Not when Auggie’s this fun to watch.

Big. Thick. Ripped as hell. Bulging, shifting muscle, veins popping.

Shep lets his eyes drag down over the rippling flex of Auggie’s back, the way his tail flicks, thick and strong, working like the rest of him.

Licks his teeth.

Then, under his breath— “Yum.”

Auggie grits his teeth harder, fighting the weight.

But Shep sees it.

The way Auggie’s soft ears twitch. The way his tail jerks slightly, the way his breath changes—

Oh yeah. He heard.

Shep’s grin widens, eyes dragging down from Auggie’s broad, straining back, down over the cut trench of his waist, down to—

Yeah.

That ass.

Thick. Dense. Heavy with power.
Flexing hard, pushing deep into that perfect squat.

Auggie’s pants do nothing to hide it—Auggie’s glutes are working like pistons, the fibers underneath firing hot and tight, thick as hell, shaking just enough with the sheer force he’s putting into the lift.

Shep loves a strong ass.

Loves the way it locks tight, how it rolls into the press, how it’s fighting for every inch of ground.

“Damn, cinnamon roll,” he murmurs, voice dropping low. Mostly to himself. “You really making me not wanna step in right now.”

Auggie’s still gritting through it, thighs bulging, that perfect backside clenched so tight it could squeeze and crush steel pipe like a spent shell casing.

Shep’s eyes stay on Auggie’s ass muscles. Enjoying the little shake, the way Auggie’s hips flex into the push. Enjoying each hard, muscle-thick shift as Auggie fights gravity for the love of all the hungry muscle mice in the Silo. 

For a second—just a second—Shep thinks about letting him go a little longer. Just a little longer.

Because damn.

But then—

Auggie slows.

His back knots up tighter. His breath goes harder. The crate is rising—but not fast. Shep watches as Auggie’s muscles shake, his quads flexing so hard they look like they might cramp.

Shep knows that feeling.

The moment where the weight fights back. Where the strain digs in deep and your heart starts pounding harder, pushing more blood, screaming for oxygen.

Auggie grits his teeth, tries to clear the stupid high hitch. Shep can hear him grunting through it, breath rasping as the crate stalls.

This is the exact second where a man’s body tells him it’s done.

Shep knows that second.

Auggie just hit it. “Hepp….Shep…py.” 

***

HEART OVERLOAD: Chapter 2

Auggie tries to push one last time. Doesn’t even make an inch. And this’s when Shep moves.

Big. Easy. Confident as sin.

Slides in right behind him, warmth rolling off his massive frame, pressing up close. His move says, You’re strong as hell. And I got you.

Shep’s hands slide to Auggie’s waist. His broad warm palms brush the slope of Auggie’s pumped and tremoring obliques. Shep’s grip is sure. His body slots in behind Auggie, his chest brushes Auggie’s delts. Auggie drags in a breath of air. Shep’s abs are pushing forward low, curving into where Auggie is starting to collapse.

Auggie groans, protest and relief, arcing his low back muscles back into Shep’s abs. Auggie leans his roused delts back into Shep’s pecs.

“You can let go now,” Shep purrs, voice like warm honey. His own pulse presses against Auggie’s throbbing, blood-filled back muscles. Ba-dump.

Auggie huffs out a half-laugh, half-groan.

Shep’s grip firms. He’s already moving. He’s guiding Auggie back, taking the weight. Not a takeover. A sweet and monstrous carry. “Step back, Cinnamon Roll.”

Auggie does. Just a little. He leans in, nose brushing Shep’s neck, the heat coming off him already dizzying. “God,” Auggie breathes, voice low and spoiled, “you’re gonna thump for me, huh?”

Shep squares up.

Auggie hears the sounds he’s been waiting for. That breath. That cavernous inhale that stretches rib to spine. That delicious spread of thick-ass legs, planted solid like Shep’s going to squat the Earth. The subtle groan of fascia flexing under skin as hands wrap the crate. Ba-dump.

Auggie’s eyes flutter half-lidded. “Yeah… right there. Do it again.”

Shep grunts a response that rolls through Auggie’s body. Shep’s hands clamp onto the crate. And then—

Shep drives up.

Everything fires.

His glutes clench like steel clamps, thighs flex so thick it looks obscene, hamstrings carve deep. Striations cut under fabric, turning raw power into motion. Shep’s lats pull tight, his traps climbing up huge.

The sound of it—pure pressure.

A deep, grinding, full-body strain Auggie can hear in the flex of muscle, in the stretch of Shep’s skin and fur pulled skin-tight over a body built by man for war.

For one glorious, stupid second—

It almost happens.

The crate shifts. Lifts. A foot. A whole high foot. But reality steps in.

Gravity wins.

The crate slams down like a pissed-off god. Like a fuck-you from physics itself. Shep’s arms jolt, biceps flexed to hell, the shock jarring up through his chest, through every locked-down, hard-as-fuck inch of him.

Shep’s breath punches out rough. Chest rising big, thick, dripping heat. Sweat carves slow down his jaw, disappearing into the cut of his throat, veins bulging, his fingers flexing.

Shep tilts his head, grins, and goes again.

The weight hits everything.

Auggie hears it before he even sees it. The deep, trembling bruum of glutes locking down, the massive flex of thighs so thick they press seam to seam. Massive meat grinding under fur.

Shep’s hamstrings are carving deep enough to make Auggie’s tongue twitch. Striations pop. Shep grunts, and the veins on these massive hamstrings rise.

Every part of Shep activates.

Shep’s back lights up, every muscle digging in deep, lats spreading, traps rising.

Auggie listens.

Lets the sounds only he can hear drench him. He lets the hot rhythm slide into his ears, into his ribs, deep into the thick of his own body.

His big soft and veined mouse ears twitch toward Shep’s frame, homing in on the sounds inside the veins climbing up the sides of Shep’s neck. A soft roar of blood is churning through these veins. Auggie’s breath hitches—just a flutter—as he flicks his focus down into Shep’s back. His lats swelling. His traps bunching up. A low throb radiating through all this thickening muscle, hard and working.

Almost… there. A little lower. A little to the left.

Auggie’s hearing dials in, tight as a scope.

Ba-Dupp. BADUPP.

Oh hell yes.

Shep’s big heartbeat. Loud and rich and powerful.

The crate under Shep’s control lifts—six inches, maybe nine. Shep’s whole body shakes, straining to get it up over the stalled steel mechanical wall. Auggie rocks his hips forward into Shep’s glutes, his voice bright and wicked. “Squeeze your butt!” He reaches—can’t not—and squeezes a fistful of that flexed mass, heat blooming up his arm the second his palm meets it.

“Mnghgh?” Shep grunts.

Shep’s ass flexes so tight in Auggie’s hand, like polished stone wrapped in warmth. His glutes clamp even harder under Auggie’s hand—pushing back, answering him. Shep’s striated muscles are clenching back at him, thickening and vibrating with power.

Goddamn.

Auggie gives a squeeze, slow and sure, deep into the muscle. “Back chain, Shep. Lock it down. Squeeze your ass like you’re smashing steel between your cheeks.”

Shep lets out a breath—low and hot. Groans. “Damn, Aug.”

Auggie’s fingers stay right there, over Shep’s steel-hard flex, feeling every tremor of power gathering and vibrating through Shep’s muscle under his palm. “Squeeze, big guy.” Auggie swears he can see his cue ripple through Shep—like the body’s listening, not just the brain. There’s something about that. The way muscle moves under skin when it’s cued right. Shep’s hips jut forward, making the crate jerk.

Shep grins. He loves it. He loves every last word Auggie gives him. Because this is not just hot—this is correct. Shep exhales hard, sweat beading at his temple, breath coming fast through clenched teeth. His hands don’t let go, still locked in, forearms shaking from the sheer weight. Frustration flickers across his face for the first time. The weight won’t budge.

The crate thuds as it slams back down onto the floor, sending shockwaves through Shep’s arms, his whole frame jolting against the force. His breath punches out, sharp and hot, chest pumping, sweat rolling thick down the deep pulsing muscled crevasse of his pecs.

Auggie exhales, feeling the pulse inside his own chest flicking higher. Shep shudders, breath coming fast, heat rolling off him in thick waves. “Shit.” Shep shakes out his arms. “That’s a bastard.”

Auggie drags his eyes down Shep’s form, down the swelled curve of bicep and forearm as Shep flexes his fingers loose. “You ever not get it up?” he asks, low and teasing.

“Sure. Once.” Shep shrugs, cracking his neck like it’s nothing. Auggie’s follow the roll and thick swell of trap over trap, that ridiculous flood of muscle. A slow ripple under skin that makes his ears twitch involuntarily. “Then I got bigger.”

Auggie snorts, breath hitching just enough to give him away. The heat below is moving. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, but he’s not just hearing his own. He’s hearing Shep’s heart. That full-bodied, load-bearing rhythm. Still thumping through him from the lift.

Shep tilts his head. This look? Auggie knows this look. Knows it down to the bone. It means Shep’s about to go full Shep. “You know what we need?” Shep grins slow, eyes catching fire.

“Mmmm?”

“You. On my ass. Your weight squeezing me.” Shep grunts and chortles, nudges Auggie’s big shoulder with his own. “Like a powerlifter suit.”

Auggie’s breath flares. His thighs clench without thinking. His hands ache to grip. He’s already hearing the deep thump-thud in the muscles wrapping and dipping deep around Shep’s spine. Already wondering what this massive ass’ll feel like with him riding high, heartbeat to heartbeat, squeezing the hell out of all Shep’s muscles. “Yeah, Shep. I’ll squeeze you so tight, your power is gonna bust up through you.” Auggie breathes on the back of Shep’s shoulder blades. Shep’s muscles quiver as he rumbles like a tremor in the earth. Mmmmmmh. I’ll help you get this big thing up.”

***

HEART OVERLOAD: Chapter 3

Auggie moves in without thinking, hands sliding over Shep’s back, heat hitting him like a goddamn furnace. His fingers press in just to feel—how thick it all is, how much muscle fights back under his palms. He exhales rough, forehead bumping heavy against the thick slope of Shep’s trap. Auggie sinks his own weight sink in, muscle on muscle, heat to heat. He presses himself up, chest to broad, heat-drenched back.

Shep hums, low and slow, the sound vibrating right through Auggie’s hands, straight into his chest. He doesn’t rush Auggie. Just stands there. Lets him. Lets Auggie get drunk on it. Shep breathes out slow, his broad frame expanding, and—fuck. Auggie feels this exhale bellow down through his whole body.

“Fuck,” Auggie breathes, voice half-mashed into Shep’s fur.

Shep shifts his weight just a little—a nudge of reassurance. “Ready?”

Auggie grunts and pushes himself all the way up, locking chest to back, heat to heat. His thighs brush Shep’s—fuck—thick quads thick enough to keep a man standing through a war. His arms snake forward, greedy, slipping under Shep’s massive arms, locking around his ribs and pecs where he can grip. 

Shep breathes out slow—and Auggie feels it. Feels the massive chest expand against his forearms, feels the ribcage shift under the thick, furnace-hot skin.

“Big fucker,” Auggie mutters into Shep’s trap.

Shep rumbles a laugh that rolls through him, then flexes—elbows flaring wide, pecs driving outward—and Auggie’s arms get shoved outward by the sheer breadth of it. The neon yellow webbing straps around the crate slap taut, fwap. “More, baby,” Shep purrs.

Auggie tightens his grip, forearms bulging against the wall of muscle. Shep grunts his approval, and Auggie feels it knocking through his knucklebones. 

“Yeah. That’ll hold me.” Shep shifts again, dragging Auggie lower, adjusting him. “Under the shelf,” Shep breathes.

Auggie slides his locked arms down, under the wide ledge of Shep’s pumped pecs, and—holy fuck—he feels it all. The furnace heat. The deep, layered thickness. The weight of a body built to bend steel.

Auggie lets go just a little—lets gravity sink him deeper onto Shep’s mass—and Shep just takes it. Absorbs him like it’s nothing. Like Auggie’s weight is fuel.

Shep’s chest lifts big, his back swelling even broader into Auggie’s chest muscles, ribs flaring, muscles flexing so huge Auggie’s arms are dragged wider just to stay locked. “Yeah, baby,” Shep rumbles, voice thick. “Hold me down. Give me more.”

Auggie locks his thighs tighter around Shep’s hips, sealing himself onto the living mountain, arms trembling with how fucking good it feels to clamp and cling.

Then—Shep goes still.

That stillness.

Auggie feels it—the shift inside Shep’s body—the slow loading of breath.

Shep inhales.

Deep.

Deeper.

Auggie’s mouse ears flick sharp toward the sound. His sensitive hearing picks up the way Shep’s ribs flex, cartilage creaking slightly under the strain.  Like wind tunneling into a cavern. The groaning, thick stretch of fascia loading over straining muscle.

Then—

Ba-DUMP.

Auggie shudders.

The heartbeat. Massive. Slow. Thunderous. Pumping right under his forearms where he’s locked around Shep’s chest, pounding through thick, sweat-damp fur into his own ribs.

Shep holds the breath. Every fucking inch of him braces.

And then—

He pulls.

Force explodes through Shep’s back into Auggie’s chest like a shockwave. Auggie curves arches reflexively into the hot power.

THUD-THUD.

Shep’s arms blast outward—biceps bulging huge, triceps splitting deep, the flex so massive Auggie feels it ripple through Shep’s lats into his own body.

The crate rips up—a foot, two—steel groaning.

Shep’s whole upper body convulses under the weight. His pecs drive outward, veins surging hard over Auggie’s locked wrists. Auggie feels the thick slabs of muscle quake, feels the engine-heart hammering faster now—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—pushing blood, swelling every hot vein Auggie’s body is mashed against.

Auggie’s hearing spikes. He hears the suction of Shep’s lungs barely holding the loaded breath. Hears the wet-clack of valves hammering open and closed inside Shep’s chest.

Hears—

Ba-dupp. Ba-dupp. Ba-dupp.

The slam of blood charging through the massive artery threading under Shep’s pec, over his shoulder, down into that big thick bicep.

Auggie tightens his grip instinctively, arms and thighs bracing harder.

The weight’s moving—

—but it’s not over yet.

The crate bumps the stuck steel barrier. Auggie feels it—the shock, the jolt through Shep’s massive locked-down frame. Shep’s muscles writhe—pecs surging, lats flaring out harder against Auggie’s own biceps, traps fighting up high under Auggie’s jaw.

And Auggie’s grip slips—just slightly. He growls, arms clamping harder, holding Shep down, everything he has sinking into the mass of him. Shep snarls through his teeth, still holding the breath—still flexing, still fighting—every inch of him a pulsing, hammering furnace.

Then—

Shep roars.

It rips through Auggie’s chest, his skull, his goddamn soul.

The roar breaks the dam.

Shep’s pecs blast bigger against Auggie’s arms, heart slamming wild—THUD-THUD-THUD—the veins surging harder, his whole giant body convulsing upward.

The crate jerks up—clearing the damn hitch—barely.

Shep’s breath punches out—raw, wrecked—but the weight’s still there, still brutal.

Still needs more.

Auggie feels Shep’s chest stutter under him—the slight shake of a body asking for help without words. Shep growls, half-grin breaking through the strain, voice a rumble so low only Auggie’s oversensitive ears could catch it: “C’mon, cinnamon roll. Gimme more.”

Auggie tightens instinctively, his whole body locking down—thighs squeezing harder around Shep’s hips, arms clamping tighter under Shep’s pecs. Shep’s vascular tail flexes harder between his legs, pressing up—grinding—against Auggie’s cock.

His ears flick madly, catching the raw roar of Shep’s heart slamming faster, louder.  Heat floods his hips—sweat slick between their bodies, muscles clenching.

***

HEART OVERLOAD: Chapter 4

Auggie’s cock twitches hard, the pulse matching the hammer-blows of Shep’s heart under his arms. Each deep boom through Shep’s chest kicks right into Auggie’s hips, sends fresh heat rushing to his groin.

With the heavy lift pushing Shep to the limit, the base of Shep’s tail swells under him — hot, hard, thickening as the load slams down through Shep’s spine.

Auggie rocks his hips and looks down. Veins surge up across the dense meat of Shep’s tail, pressing up harder between Auggie’s own flexed thighs.

Each new beat of Shep’s heart punches more blood into Shep’s tail. The thickening shaft of it grinds bigger against the insides of Auggie’s pumped quads. Auggie flexes his legs harder just to hold onto Shep.

Auggie grunts, clamps his quads against Shep’s massive hip bones. He locks his muscles solid around Shep, thigh to thigh, sealing him in. Auggie grits his teeth, grinding down heavier, molding his full body weight like a chrome bumper to the steel chassis of Shep’s frame.

“Lockin’ you in, sweetheart,” Auggie breathes, low, brushing his lips again against Shep’s sweating, hot traps . “You’re not going anywhere. Not without me.”

Shep grunts, a deep rumble under Auggie’s chest, and gives a short nod. “Good,” Shep growls. “Gonna push.”

Auggie flexes his arms tighter, clamping harder under Shep’s vast pec shelf. “Then push, big man,” he mutters, heat thick in his voice. “I’m right here.”

Shep’s hips drive down for leverage, lats flaring so wide and hard they bow against Auggie’s locked-in arms. Auggie’s thick biceps, wedged under Shep’s pits, feel the sudden flood of force — muscle swelling hard enough to shove at him, grinding heavier against his flexed arms.

Auggie’s pecs grind into the broad, sweat-slick swell of Shep’s traps, feeling the deep surge of heat and blood as Shep’s back flexes harder. Auggie’s abs scrape rough against the thick ridges of Shep’s lower back, the raw flex and swell of Shep’s spinal erectors pulsing up against him, hot and thick, piping with power.

The huge crate grinds down into the broken blast door with a tortured shriek.

Shep shoves.

A deep, brutal full-body push.

Auggie feels it—feels it—Shep’s muscle under him thickening, swelling outward against his body like a living engine firing hotter with every brutal grind forward.

The mass of Shep’s back bulges and shifts under Auggie’s pecs, pec meat riding the thick power-slick traps below him. Shep’s lower back arches harder against Auggie’s abs, muscle fibers tightening into steel cords that hammer up against Auggie’s locked core.

Shep’s ribs flare outward with a massive breath, forcing Auggie’s flexed forearms apart under Shep’s vast pec shelf—Auggie grits his teeth and clamps down harder, locking Shep inside the flex of his whole damn body.

The broken frame of the blast door groans and sinks an inch under the crushing weight of the stalled crate. Shep grunts, breath gusting out against the flex of Auggie’s arms. “Didn’t clear it,” Shep pants. “Got it halfway. Heavy as hell.” Shep grunts, teeth gritted against the weight. “If this is another crate of powdered soup,” he grunts, “I’m throwin’ it straight into orbit.”

Auggie’s cheek twitches up but he doesn’t waste breath answering. He clamps tighter, grinding his thick thighs against Shep’s hips, locking their bodies closer, chest to back, sweat-slick and heaving. His cock throbs, pinned and leaking between their grinding bodies, heat boiling up his spine.

Auggie growls low against Shep’s traps—pure encouragement, pure drive—and flexes his whole damn body around Shep’s roaring, straining mass. He grinds down, body speaking the only language he’s got left.

Push, baby. Push.

Shep leans back into it. He pushes.

Auggie feels it first in his arms—Shep’s lats bowing out harder against his locked biceps, the hot pulse of swollen muscle grinding bigger against him. Then in his chest—Shep’s traps surging back into Auggie’s pecs, steam rising off his flexing body. Then in his gut—where Shep’s lower back heaves against Auggie’s abs, thick and ridged and burning with force.

The grind of Shep’s strength slams through him like a living engine, shoving forward, bulging bigger, rawer, hotter against every inch of Auggie’s locked-down body.
Auggie grinds down, thighs clamped hard around Shep’s hips, riding the full brutal shove, feeling every molten surge of strength hammer through Shep’s growing frame.

Auggie rides Shep’s renewed push, his hips and thighs locked solid around Shep’s thick hips.

Shep’s vascular tail flexes up again between Auggie’s legs, hotter, thicker, throbbing now with the same rhythm hammering through Shep’s entire body. The slick grind of sweat and heat between their bodies drags rough across Auggie’s cock.

Auggie’s sensitive ears flick again, keying deeper into the sounds inside Shep’s body—the roaring rush of his blood, the massive slam of their heartbeats together, the sucking groan of Shep’s breath dragging deep and low into his massive lungs.

BOOM-sshhh, BOOM-sshhh, BOOM-sshhh.

Deep. Huge. Like a drum inside a war machine.

Shep’s veins surge up thick and hot, crawling over his shoulders, his traps, up the thick cut of his neck, where Auggie sees his pulse thumping.

Shep flexes under him—pecs surging up against Auggie’s locked forearms, lats flaring wide like a shield of living muscle. A silent flex, a slow, brutal show of force. You feel that, baby?

No words, just raw, heavy strength, pressing harder into Auggie’s straining grip.

Heat floods Auggie’s hips, rolling over him in waves. And waves. And waves.

Auggie’s body—big, flexed, muscle-drenched—comes in a blaze of heat exploding from his dick. Every inch of him flexes tighter. Thighs clamping around Shep’s hips, core locking down, glutes firing like pistons. His arms flex tighter under the slab of Shep’s pecs, locking them chest to chest, sweat-slick and trembling with overloaded muscle.

Auggie’s orgasm hits him in a rolling surge—

Thick, hot, full—

Spilling across Shep’s back, flooding over the thick base of Shep’s pulsing, vascular tail.

Auggie’s breath breaks loose against Shep’s slick neck, a hot gasp mixing with the breaths bellowing through Shep’s chest. Auggie’s thighs flex tighter without thought, grinding down harder against Sheps’ hips, riding the relentless hammer of Shep’s heart as it slams through his tail under Auggie’s thighs.

Shep’s hips jolt forward with the fresh surge of sensation and power.

The second Auggie’s wet heat spills across his lower back, Shep feels it.

Feels it in his bones. In his blood. In the engine-heart slamming against his ribs.

The locked-in squeeze of Auggie’s full mass clamps tighter around him, grounding him, feeding him.

Hot as hell on power and the molten pleasure of Auggie’s body fused against him.

The shock of heat soaking into his sacrum, flooding against the strain-tightened cords of his back. The locked-in squeeze of Auggie’s full muscle mass pressing him tighter, grounding him. Shep feels the heat right against his lower back, his ass, spreading over his tail.

Oh, yeah, Augs. That did it.

Power surges from his core up his spine.

Shep’s arms shake, his whole upper body flexing so tight his pecs practically surge out of his chest, veins pushing up harder.

Shep roars.

A massive, primal groan, raw with pure force, pure struggle, pure power.

And the steel crate gives.

His arms shake. His whole upper body flexes so tight his pecs surge out hard against the crate’s steel edge. Veins pop, carving lightning forks up his biceps, over his forearms.

The crate fights.

Shep fights harder.

His massive fingers dig in deep. His biceps curl too hard. The steel groans, bends inward against the sheer pressure of his thick-veined arms.

Shep shoves the crate.

Shep’s pecs mash forward—huge, mashed together, pressing up against the stubborn metal crate side. He can feel the strange give—the soft warping resistance—but he can’t think, can’t stop, can’t slow the surge ripping through him.

Heat and muscle and raw will—

And the crate rips up.

Shep drives the stupid heavy crate over the blast wall, powered by the grind of Auggie’s body locked tight around him, the sweet-hot spill of praise soaking into his fur and the roaring war-drum of his own overloaded heart.

Then the crate slams down on the other side.

Boom.

The whole damn floor shakes under their bare feet.

Down low, trapped under the brutal, flexed columns of his thighs—

Shep’s cock throbs thick and wild.

Straining.

Leaking.

One heartbeat away from busting, overloaded with strength, power, and the raw, molten pleasure of Auggie’s body clenching around him.

The second the weight leaves his hands, the second he isn’t fighting steel anymore—

All that force has to go somewhere.

Power rips through Shep.

Shep’s whole massive body curls in—lats flaring out, pecs bunching higher, every muscle surging tighter and bigger in a full-body flex that feels like it could tear him apart.

His cock jerks, thick and heavy. Loaded down.

A roar tears out of his throat—raw, animal, pure—shaking Auggie against him.

The first burst hits so hard it nearly buckles Shep’s knees—a thick, wet explosion that rips through him, flooding between their bodies, soaking hot down his own flexed thighs.

His arms clamp down on Auggie’s biceps under his pits, tighter without meaning to, crushing Auggie closer to him, needing him, needing him to feel this, every heartbeat, every flex, every fucking burst of molten pleasure ripping through Shep’s overloaded frame.

Auggie grunts like sweet deep sin, and his arms snake tighter under Shep’s pulsing pecs.

Shep gasps. His heart is hammering wild.

Chest ballooning bigger with every pulse of his cock.

Sweat pouring.

Pecs flexing so huge and swollen it feels like they might split his skin, the veins across them pulsing thicker, harder, flashing under the lights with every clench.

Another pulse of power through his body. Another eruption through his cock.

His hips rock forward.

His roar fades into a broken groan, deep and heavy and soaked with the sheer force of it.

Auggie’s body stays locked to him, strong and grounding, riding it with him, matching him muscle for muscle, flex for flex, pulse for pulse.

And Shep fucking loves it.

Loves that Auggie can take it.

Loves that Auggie wants it.

Loves—

The molten pleasure of being held, praised, and pushed by the one damn person who can match him for heat.

Shep stands there, chest heaving, pecs still flexed tight, veins still standing bold under sweat-slicked skin. His breath slows, but his heart is still pushing, still pulsing big, deep, alive.

Shep drops one hand away from the crate. Hooks Auggie’s thick thigh in his palm, curling his fingers deep into the muscle. Shep grins. “Wanna check my pulse?”

***

HEART OVERLOAD: Chapter 5

Auggie zeroes in.

Auggie locks onto the thick vein climbing up Shep’s flexed neck, still swollen hard with the roaring force of his big heart. He leans in, dragging a slow, heavy stripe with his tongue over the hammering beat.

Auggie’s strong tongue tips this corded, pulsing vein. Every la-lub la-lub of Shep’s heart feathers into Auggie’s mouth, into his chest, down into his hips. Clenching his flexed forearms tighter under Shep’s pec shelf, Auggie presses in deeper into Shep’s sternum. Mashing pulsing warm pec meat. Needing to get closer. Needing to feel Shep’s heart still hammering from the lift.

“Could stay right here,” Auggie smiles. Shep’s warm heartbeat reaches and curls into him, feeding straight into the dense core of his own body.

Auggie needs it. Needs to feel the beat.

He leans in a second time, landing his tongue on Shep’s neck, dragging a hard, slow stripe right over the beating vein. He presses his tongue deeper against Shep’s pulse, feeling it thicken and roll, letting the pulse pour straight down his own throat. Shep’s pulse pours into him, a living thud Auggie feels in the root of his own body. Heat swells up after it, flooding Auggie’s ribs, sinking into the cradle of his hips, thick and sweet and too much to hold back.

Auggie’s cock lifts a little — soft and slow — nudging against Shep’s back. Quiet, easy.

Breathing together. Auggie holds here, feeling Shep’s body throb against him.

Shep huffs out a breath, low and warm. His lower erectors nudge up into Auggie’s soft full tip, careful and warm from the lift. He’s wrapping Auggie up without even using his arms.

Auggie presses deeper into Shep’s sternum, feeling that thudding heartbeat pour into him, slow and sure.

“Might not let you go,” Auggie rumbles against Shep’s skin,  almost smiling, almost serious. He breathes and lets his words sink in as heavy as his grip.

Shep grunts low, the sound rumbling up into Auggie’s mouth through the tight flex of his traps. Auggie braces tighter, cinching his biceps harder under Shep’s hot pits. Every pulse he drinks down makes him heavier, hotter, tighter, until he’s matching Shep’s heartbeat with the slow, rhythmic deep clench of his whole body.

Aiming higher for the pulse throbbing behind Shep’s ear, Auggie shifts up Shep’s body —

He sees it.

The dent. Two big massive dents.

Right there on the steel crate.

Right where Shep’s pecs slammed into the crate.

And Auggie—holy fuck.

His brain stutters.

Because he felt it. He was behind Shep when it happened, bracing him, feeling the power surge through his back. Auggie felt it happen. Braced against Shep’s back, feeling the surge, the raw animal drive of him lifting and slamming the crate forward. But seeing the pec-sized dent shoved into reinforced steel — shoved in by Shep’s chest, driven clean across the blast door —

Holy fuck.

Auggie chokes on air, hips locking down harder around Shep’s hips.

Shep, feeling it—feeling him—grins.

Shep knows.

So Shep—big, smug, indulgent—

Flexes.

Just a little.

Just enough to make his pecs pop, the striations tighten, making his veins push higher over thick, sweat-slicked muscle.

Auggie growls like velvet melting into a deep, smoldering well.

He needs in. Needs to feel the beat. “Relax for me, big guy,” Auggie drags his voice slow across Shep’s trap like a hand sliding over warm skin.

Auggie slides one broadstrong hand up, pushing up into the thick, pulsing meat of Shep’s left pec. He presses deep, slow, heavy, working Shep’s muscle under his palm, clearing it to the side like clay, dragging the weight of muscle sideways, his strong hands working thick clay, like sea shaping sand.

And, ah, ahhh, here it is. Shep’s big heart.

Auggie plants his palm flat over it, feeling the hammer-strike beats drive into his hand, feeling the thick cords of muscle he’s holding back pulse and jump in his palm.

Heat flashes up his arm, across his chest, drags deep into his gut.

Auggie flexes harder, digging his fingers into the dense shelf of Shep’s pec, locking onto the raw force hammering inside his big guy.

Shep grunts low, deep in his chest—a sound of pure approval—and relaxes again, driving another big THUMP-THUMP-THUMP deep into the flesh of Auggie’s palm.

The beat thuds into Auggie’s palm, hot, close, not close enough.

His fingers curl harder into Shep’s chest, his body already pulling for more before he even thinks about it.

Shep chuckles—a rich, low sound—and catches one of Auggie’s locked forearms in his hand. With a slow pull, he peels Auggie around, turns under Auggie’s hands until they’re chest to chest.

Until Auggie can have him whole. Shep’s big kneecap nudges the nook of Auggie’s thigh, where his own beat still thrums full. “You helped me get it up, Augs.” Shep smiles. “Couldn’t’a done it without you.”

Shep’s arm hooks around him, pulling him in, guiding Auggie’s ear right against the pounding wall of his left pec.

Shep dips his head, pressing Auggie’s sensitive ear—the one that picks up everything—right against the deep, thick shelf of his left pec.

“Go on,” Shep rumbles. “Listen.”

Auggie doesn’t need telling twice.

He melts into it, hands sliding up, bracing lightly against the sides of Shep’s chest, anchoring himself. His ear presses tighter, and—

And, ah, ahhh, here it is.

He hears the big slaps of heart valves shutting and opening. Auggie is savoring Shep’s big heartbeat, sounding the full-bodied roar of life’s power.

Every beat hits Auggie deep, each heavy shove of blood thuds into his ear, rattling into his bones.

Auggie loves how Shep’s body is still working. Still pumping. Still riding the back edge of that impossible, inhuman lift.

Auggie clings tighter without even realizing, arms locking around Shep’s thick torso, the weight of all that muscle and life pressing up into him.

Shep’s hand stays cradled around the back of Auggie’s head, thumb stroking slow circles against the nape of his neck. “Yeah,” Shep murmurs, indulgent, his voice a low rumble in Auggie’s skull and chest. “You’re really listenin’, huh, Cinnamon Roll.”

Auggie just groans, pressing closer, because fuck—

This?

This is heaven.

Shep chuckles. “Good, huh?”

Auggie nods, chuffs, and rumbles.

Shep grins, flexes his pecs just a little—

Just enough to pulse another heavy BOOM-BOOM right into Auggie’s ear.

Now Auggie shifts. He needs….His hands slide down, tracing the thick swell of Shep’s arm. His breath catches when he feels the heat still rolling off the muscle, the way the skin stretches tight over the thick, corded bicep.

His ear catches a different sound now—lower, heavier, the deep, thick surge of blood pumping through the huge vein running low along Shep’s massive bicep near the elbow notch.

Auggie’s body shudders. He traces his fingertips along the thick pipe of the vein, feeling it hammer under his touch, swollen and hot, still working hard from the brutal lift. He mashes his cheek to Shep’s bicep. Sound in the biceps, especially the left peak, is exquisite. For connoisseurs.

Auggie wants to savor. 

After a brutal lift like Shep just pulled off, you can feel the vein pulse against your ear, you can feel it almost pushing you off, every few seconds, with a slippery, full rush.

Auggie presses in harder, locking his ear tighter against Shep’s vein.

He smiles to himself. It’s not a heart boom here — no, it’s faster, tighter, hotter. It’s like a rope of water shoved through tight space, a slick rushing pulse.

Every surge kicks under Auggie’s ear, strong enough it could nudge him off if he let it.

He doesn’t.

Auggie grits down and slides his hand around Shep’s side, gripping behind Shep’s meaty thick rear delt. His hand sticks and slides over Shep’s sweat-slick back muscles locking and flexing under his grip. He hooks his fingers deep, anchoring himself into Shep, holding tight.

Auggie tunes all his attention back to his ear heating up on Shep’s bicep.

Ahh, he hears what he’s listening for: long tight vein walls stretching and recoiling slightly with every beat of Shep’s heart. Here, Auggie doesn’t want the thudding. He wants to hear the surging pressure and the blood rebound. Needs the whoom-fff. He wants to feel the bright pounding fight inside Shep’s body — the blood shoving through the mass.

Auggie breathes it in, slow and full, savoring it like the finest part of a meal.

Shep grins down at him, Auggie’s skullbones mashed into Shep’s muscle deepening Shep’s deep indulgent voice. “Couldn’t get enough, huh?”

Auggig licks his lips. “…different sound.”

Shep chuckles. He flexes slow, making his bicep swell even higher under Auggie’s cheek, forcing that thick vein to give itself up more into Auggie’s ear. “Yeah,” Shep rumbles, “means I’m still workin’.”

Shep loves the way Auggie listens, breath bellowing, completely caught up in the sensory overload of Shep’s body still coming down from the lift.

So Shep—big, warm, knowing exactly what his cinnamon roll needs—

Flexes.

Slow. Lets his bicep swell under Auggie’s palm, pushing high, veins stretching thick and hot, muscle pulsing as his heart pounds another slow, powerful beat through his arm.

Whoom-fff, whoom-fff.

Auggie gasps. Grunts. 

His fingers tighten, tracing the hard, dense curve of Shep’s mountainous bicep. Shep chuckles, indulgent. Rolls his shoulder back, turning his fist outwards, making his bicep pop up higher. He makes his thick, heart-fed left-side vein push up harder into Auggie’s soft hot ear.

Auggie’s breath stutters. He chortles deep through his chest. His fingers trace the length of Shep’s massive bicep. He drags his palm slow from the shoulder down, following every big bulging, pulsing inch.

Shep grins. “That better, Augs?” Shep flexes harder. Lets his bicep peak full and hard into Auggie’s ear.

Auggie rumbles. “Yeah, fuck, Shep.”

Shep just grins at him, his voice low and warm. “Go ahead, cinnamon roll. Keep on listenin’.”