I managed to crawl toward the shower. Why was there a shower in here? I pulled myself up, using the wall, then paused for a moment to press my face against the cold tile.
If I could get the water on, I could wake myself up with some cold spray in my face and then clean up the mess I’d made.
I stretched out my arm. I could almost reach the knob.
“Are you all right?”
I turned to see the incredibly hot man staring at me. I hadn’t thought to close the door behind me.
I licked my lips as I tried to reestablish the connection between my mouth and my brain. Purging all the alcohol had sobered me up a little, but my head was still foggy.
“Is there someone I can call to help you?”
A few days ago, I would’ve had a boyfriend to call, but not now. I’d hoped he’d help me calm this restlessness inside me, that he’d be willing to take charge of me and my desire to be controlled, but asking for what I needed had led to him kicking me out. Friends? I had a few of those, but none I wanted to see me like this. Family? Fuck no, I’d cut them out of my life a long time ago. What would my mother say if she saw me now? I couldn’t do a better job of proving her right about where my “lifestyle” would lead me. I started to laugh, softly at first and then louder. Did I sound as unhinged as I thought? Oh fuck, were those tears on my face?
I was on the floor again. When had that happened?
The man sat down beside me, pulled me into his arms, and held me as I cried. I should have been embarrassed, but I didn’t have the strength, and he smelled so good—better than chocolate cake, better than a warm spring morning. In seconds, his scent became my favorite smell.
I was ruining the man’s obviously expensive shirt, but he didn’t seem to care, and I couldn’t have pulled away if I’d wanted to. His hold was much too firm. His arms felt hard as stone, his chest equally solid. He could snap me in two if he wanted. What had I been thinking?
He must have sensed when I’d cried myself out because he pulled back and looked down at me. “Better?”
I nodded, still not sure I could speak.
“Good. Lean against the wall. I don’t want you falling over.” He scooted me until I could rest my head against the tile. Then he turned on the shower and did the cleanup I’d been trying to do. I was too exhausted and out of it to protest this stranger who oozed wealth and power cleaning up vomit. It was wrong, but nothing in my world had been right in a while.
I heard someone knock on the door. Wasn’t it open, though? Then I realized it was the door to the man’s office.
“Don’t move,” the stranger ordered.
Even if I’d had the strength to, I wasn’t going to disobey him. I doubted many people did.
I heard the door open. My rescuer and another man spoke in voices so low I only heard the rumble, not the actual words. A few moments later, they both came into the bathroom. The other man, the one my rescuer had left to deal with the lions, knelt beside me. “I’m Storm. I’m King’s brother.” King, that was the man’s name. It fit. Storm was almost as gorgeous as his brother, but his scent was different and nowhere near as intoxicating.
“My name is Emerson.”
“Emerson, do you have a safe place I can take you where someone will care for you?”
I wondered if Brady, my ex, had gotten rid of my things when I’d run off. Even if he hadn’t, I couldn’t go back there. “Not really.”
He glanced back at King, who inclined his head, clearly communicating something important.
“I’m going to bring you to our house. We have plenty of room, and you’ll be safe there. We’ll find you some clean clothes, and tomorrow when you’re feeling better, we’ll talk more about your situation.”
If the headache that was already gathering behind my eyes was any indication, I was not going to be feeling well tomorrow.
“May I carry you?” Storm asked.
“I guess so.” Why the hell not? This day really couldn’t get any stranger.
“Don’t let him out of your sight,” King said. “And let me be the one to tell the others about him.”
“You really think I’m that stupid?”
King snorted.
“What others?” I barely got the words out around the gathering fuzz in my mouth.
“Our brothers.”
“M-More of you?”
Storm just chuckled as he scooped me up like I weighed nothing. I wondered for a moment if I was dreaming, but he felt very solid for a dream.
“Go straight home with him, then call me with a status report,” King ordered.
“I really can handle this, big bro.”
“See that you do.” King was using his scary voice again, the one he’d used with the lions. Why did he need a report? And why couldn’t his brothers know? Was I being kidnapped?
Who the fuck cared? King was the sexiest man I’d ever seen. I’d been in self-destruct mode for the last few days anyway. Why not let myself get taken captive by a werewolf family? I let my head rest against Storm’s shoulder and surrendered to sleep.
I was startled awake by a knock on my door. I could tell it was late from the bright sun blasting through my window. I’d been up earlier to go to the bathroom, but my head had threatened to explode, and I’d stumbled back to bed.
Before I could respond to the knock, the door opened, and King stepped into the room. He was wearing a three-piece suit. He looked wealthy and dangerous and not at all what I’d expected when I’d set out to get fucked by a shapeshifter. He was so much more controlled than I thought a werewolf could be, and yet, the animal was there. I could feel it under the surface of his polish. I wondered if I was still drunk, because I was absolutely sure his wolf was calling to me, telling me I was his.
King held out his hand like this was a business meeting, and I wasn’t naked in a bed in his house with only a fuzzy memory of how I got there. I could piece together most of the previous night, but the last bits were blurry and I had no memory at all of being placed in this bed. When I’d taken a piss earlier, I hadn’t seen my clothes. What had happened to my phone and my wallet? Was I going to be allowed to leave? And why the hell did the thought of him keeping me there make me hard? I’d wanted to get fucked, not kidnapped. I was sober now; at least, I thought I was. The pounding in my head made it hard to think clearly.
I took his hand and it was fever hot; if a human felt like that, I’d be worried. I glanced up and when our gazes met, I froze. His eyes had gone from brown to a wolfish yellow. I stared at him, my heart hammering. The instinct-driven part of my brain told me to run from this predator. But the rest of me wanted to offer myself so he could consume me. When he pulled his hand away, his fingers trailed over the pulse point at my wrist, and my heart stuttered.
As soon as he stepped back, I wanted to ask for more. His touch hadn’t just felt good, it felt right somehow, like I’d never really been touched before him. I needed more.
“I’m King.” I had heard right.
“Is that your name or your title?”
He smiled. “Both.”
I didn’t doubt it. Who wouldn’t want to do this man’s bidding? “I’m sober now, and I still want to fuck you.” I shouldn’t be goading him, but I didn’t know how else I could get what I wanted: for him to put me on my knees and make me submit to him.
A low growl rumbled from him, and he took a step back. “No.”
“Are you sure?” I clearly hadn’t gotten over my wish to self-destruct.
He closed his eyes, and I watched his chest rise and fall with a long breath. When he opened his eyes again, they were still yellow. I couldn’t help but smile at the evidence that I was messing with his control. I should be frightened by that. He could kill me easily, but he could have done that last night too. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t truly hurt me. I just wished he’d hurt me the way I craved.
“I explained to you last night that being with me, with any shifter, is dangerous for a human.”
“Maybe I l
ike danger.”
“No.” He slammed his hand down on a dresser. “You don’t want to be torn apart and bleeding from the gashes my claws slash into your skin. Your body can’t heal that.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I could.”
“But you wouldn’t.”
“You can’t know that. Trusting one of us when you can’t get away is a bad idea.”
He was right. I couldn’t know that, and yet I felt sure of it down to my bones. “So shifters can’t be trusted? And humans are right to be fearful of you?” What the hell was I doing? Did I really want to die?
He growled. “Giving shifters the same basic rights as humans is not the same thing as tempting us with your soft skin and round ass and then expecting us to hold back when our instincts tell us to drive into you, pounding you so hard you’d be bruised and hurting for days. That’s—”
He stopped, breathing hard. My cock tented the sheet, and a damp spot appeared over the tip. What he’d described—not the gashes from claws but the rest of it—was the hottest thing I’d ever heard.
I let my hand drop to my cock. His eyes followed the movement as I stroked myself over the sheet. “That’s exactly what I want.”
King was shifting from side to side, practically vibrating.
“I think you want it, too.” I milked my cock until more precum gathered at the slit, then I reached under the sheet, captured it with my finger, and held my hand out to him.
He seized my wrist in a grip so hard I almost cried out. The hand that held me grew fur and claws as he sucked my finger, and I felt the prick of sharp teeth. This wasn’t good. I’d pushed too far.
He let me go and stumbled back toward the door. “Need. Time,” he said, then he was gone.
When I was alone again, the buzz of lust in my mind calmed enough for me to think clearly. Was I trying to get him to tear me apart? No one knew where I was, and it wasn’t like my human friends could do anything to save me, even if they were willing to brave a werewolf’s den to do it.
A few moments later, I heard a piercing howl. It sounded like it came from outside, but I couldn’t be sure. I needed to get out of there.
I was searching the room for any sign of my clothes when someone knocked on the door. I yanked the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around me.
“Emerson, are you all right?”
It was Storm. I knew he’d brought me home even if I couldn’t remember any of the details. That probably meant he was the one who’d undressed me, so he should know where my clothes were.
“You can come in. I’m fine.”
The door swung open, and Storm stepped inside holding a neatly folded stack of clothes and a cloth tote bag. “I had your clothes washed. There’s also another outfit here in your size if you’d prefer something different. Everything from your pockets is in the bag.”
I took the things from him. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure if I would get these back.”
Storm frowned. “We weren’t going to steal from you.”
I had a vague memory of pulling up to an enormous house, like something from a movie. “I don’t guess you need to.”
He smiled. “True, but we’re also just not assholes. Well, King can be and Bryce too, but I’m not an asshole, and none of us would take things that belong to a guest.”
“So I’m a guest?”
Storm studied me. “What did you think you were?”
“I thought I might be a prisoner.”
“You don’t seem very concerned about that.”
“Um… I…”
“Do you want to stay?”
“Is this a trick question?” He hadn’t actually said I wasn’t a prisoner.
He laughed. “My brother snarled at me to apologize and offer you a ride home just before he gave his wolf free rein and raced off into the woods. I don’t remember him losing control like that since he was a teenager. You have a very interesting effect on him.”
“Interesting?”
“I shouldn’t say any more.”
“Would you be breaking some brotherly code?”
“I’d be likely to get my ass kicked.”
I smiled. “I don’t think it would be easy to have King as an older brother.”
Storm rolled his eyes. “He’s bossy and controlling as fuck, but he takes care of all of us.”
“How many of you are there?”
“King, Bryce, and I are biological siblings, and we adopted Garrett and Shadow as teenagers, but they are just as much my family as King. I have a sister too, but she found her mate, and they live in Northern California with his family.”
“So when you say older brother, are you… um… are you all like actually quadruplets or…? I guess I don’t know much about shifter biology.”
Storm laughed. “While shifters used to have litters more commonly, in the last few centuries, the chance of multiple births has dropped to nearly the same as humans. My siblings and I were all singletons. I was the baby until Shadow came along.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just…”
“There’s nothing wrong with being curious.”
“Do you have the same anti-human bias as your brother?”
Storm sighed. “My brother isn’t anti-human. He just wants to keep you and other humans safe.”
“I know, but—”
“King would never intentionally do you harm, but to prevent that, he has to go against his instincts. That’s not easy, and a lot of shifters don’t want to work that hard. A few, like the men we saved you from last night, think humans are nothing more than holes to be used until they’re too broken to be any fun.”
My heart pounded, and my stomach flipped. “They would’ve killed me, wouldn’t they?”
“Possibly, and they wouldn’t have cared if they did. We would never allow anything like that at our club. It’s a safe space for everyone.”
“Except humans.”
“We don’t allow humans, because we can’t guarantee their safety. You’re too vulnerable. If a shifter Dom is used to playing with other shifters, he could easily do more damage than he intended. It’s safer to keep the humans out.”
I understood, but it didn’t change what I wanted. If I had any sense, I’d go looking for what I wanted at a human club, but I couldn’t stop myself from wanting the added danger, and if I were really honest, it wasn’t even the danger anymore, it was just King. What was it about him that drew me in so intensely? “I want to see your brother again.”
Storm frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You said he was affected by me.”
“Yes, but if he can’t control himself around you, things won’t end well.”
“If he would just agree to fuck me, everything would be fine.” Shit, did I say that out loud? And where the fuck had that thought come from? Logically, it should be harder for King to keep control once he unleashed his desire, and yet, I knew what I’d said was true.
Storm’s eyes widened, and a wicked grin let me know I’d definitely spoken out loud.
“Um… I shouldn’t have—”
“You’re not wrong, but convincing him of that won’t be easy, and you’ll have to play by his rules.”
“Is he as stubborn as I think he is?”
“Whatever you’re thinking, multiply it by ten, and you might be close.”
“Fuck.”
Storm just laughed.
“What kind of rules?”
“Despite working at a kink club together, I try not to know the details of my brothers’ sex lives, but I hear King’s a very strict Dom. He likes well-trained submissives, and he takes obedience seriously. That’s not to say he couldn’t stand to loosen up a bit or that it wouldn’t be good for him to have a challenge.”
That sounded unbelievably hot. In all my favorite videos and every fantasy I’d had, a shifter Dom demanded my surrender. I longed to find out what that felt like in real life. “I’d love to be whatever he needs.”
&
nbsp; Storm smiled. “I’m not sure you’d like it as much as you think, but first he’d have to agree to play with a human. He’s not wrong to be concerned for your safety.”
“So you support the no-humans rule?”
“I support not having unescorted humans at the club, but I’m a bit more liberal than King on the issue of playing with humans, and I could see bending the rule to allow shifters to bring their human partners to the private rooms if they had a known track record of safety. But I’m not a Dom, so I don’t have the same perspective.”
I considered that. “You don’t think King would break those rules.”
“Not if he could help it.”
“What could I do to make sure he couldn’t help it?”
Storm rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I really should stay out of this.”
“King told you to give me a ride home, but you can’t do that, because I don’t have one.”
“A home?” Storm’s eyes widened.
“My boyfriend caught me watching shifter porn. He was already angry with me for asking him to dominate me, and he saw my interest in shifters as another sign that I’m some kind of deviant. He kicked me out. I was going to look for a new place today, but I got laid off from work two weeks ago, so trying to get someone to approve me for a lease is going to be fun.”
Storm growled, and I could feel the sudden tension in the air. “Your boyfriend left you fucking homeless? Did he hurt you?”
I huffed. “Not physically, if that’s what you mean.”
“Where is he?”
Storms eyes had gone yellow like King’s, but this time I could tell the loss of human form was from anger, not desire.
“It’s okay. I’m fine. I mean, I will be fine.”
“There’s a guesthouse on the grounds here. You’ll stay there.”
“If King wants me gone, then—”
“He doesn’t really want you gone. He wants you here so badly he can’t hold his human form, so he’s pushing you away. If you tell him I said that, I’ll… I would say throw you to the wolves, but I think you’d like that too much, so I’ll simply deny I said any such thing.”
Claiming Bite Page 2
