by Various
Brady scowled, then winced in pain. Purple smudges were already forming on his face and arms where Durak’s blows had landed.
Durak frowned. “Leland ships in drugs along with his landscaping supplies and distributes the drugs to the counties in this area. Brady knows all about it, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to give the boys all the details. Because if he doesn’t spill his guts and tell them all about Leland, then they’ll have to assume Brady is behind it all.”
Kelsey nodded then looked at Durak. “Do they know about…you know?”
Durak shook his head and drew her to the other side of the room.
“But Brady knows you’re a werewolf.” Kelsey whispered even though she didn’t know why. Brady had seen Durak shift into a wolf, had followed him, shot him, and then had seen him shift back into human with a lethal wound that had miraculously healed within hours.
“Shhh.” Durak glanced back at Brady, but he was nursing his arm and not paying any attention to them.
“Not that anybody would believe him, but it’s a werewolf trick. A little like hypnosis and he doesn’t remember a thing. Mostly it works because humans don’t want to remember.” Durak looked at her thoughtfully. “Most humans would rather not know about werewolves.”
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“You could do this to me?”
“I could. Do you want me to?”
Kelsey shook her head. “I’ve never known a werewolf before. I think it’s neat.”
Durak grinned. “Neat. I’ve never heard it called that before.”
“Besides,” Kelsey said and slipped her arms around his waist, “if I chose to have you wipe my memory, then I suspect we’d never see each other again. I can live with you being a werewolf better than I can live without you in my life.”
“Can you?” Durak wrapped his arms around her.
“I want to see you, Durak, and be with you. I’ve fallen in love with you and that means I accept everything about you.” Kelsey closed her eyes as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “As long as you can accept that I write erotic romance.”
His forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t have a problem with that. Why would I?”
Kelsey shrugged. “Some men might be scared off, thinking they couldn’t live up to the prowess of my fictional heroes.”
“Hmmm, I never thought about that. How do I measure up?”
Kelsey laughed. “Oh, no, I’m not going there. You’ll either be insulted or get a big head. Either way, you might not feel the need to keep your technique up to standard.”
Durak laughed with her and kissed her soundly, his tongue probing deep. She pressed closer to him, rubbing against the hard bulge in his jeans. She’d forgotten about Brady, the expected DEA team, and everything else except Durak and his cock and how she wanted him right then and there.
Her hands had slipped between their bodies, fumbling with his belt buckle, when a strange sound penetrated through the haze of her desire—the whoop whoop whoop of giant wings beating the air.
Durak’s head snapped up. “Chopper. The boys are here.”
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Manimal
Chapter 5
An hour later, as dawn turned the eastern sky to glorious shades of pink and gold, Kelsey stood with Durak on the snow-covered lawn in front of the cabin and watched the helicopter lift off the ground. Bits of snow and ice sifted over them as the rotors whipped the air, stripping the nearby trees of their winter frosting.
Durak waved a final time. They watched until the aircraft had gone above the tops of the trees and started moving laterally, disappearing in the distance.
“I was close to having enough evidence on Leland, but I expected to have to work for him another month,” Durak said as they walked back into the cabin. “Now, with Brady’s unexpected cooperation, I won’t have to go back at all.”
“That’s good news.” Kelsey stood in front of the dying embers in the fireplace, trying to get warm.
“It’s been a long night, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Durak knelt on the large shaggy rug in front of the fireplace and put on more kindling, waiting until the embers turned into flames before laying on larger logs.
Kelsey sat down beside him. “Wouldn’t you trade it for a job where you wouldn’t get shot?”
“I’ve been shot before, and it’ll probably happen again.” Durak prodded the logs a few times, then set the poker back in the stand with the other fireplace tools. “I have a dangerous job. And I’m a werewolf. Both are high risk. But I didn’t mean the job. I meant spending the time with you.”
Kelsey’s heart thundered in her chest. To her, it sounded as if he considered what had happened between them as special as she did. She reached over and unfastened the top button of his shirt. She had found the man of her dreams, but did he feel the same?
“Have you ever thought of going into another line of work?”
Durak sat back on his heels, his eyes riveted on her fingers undoing each button in turn. “I’ve thought about it, but I like my job.”
“Even the risks?” Kelsey pushed aside the shirt and laid her hands on his chest. Her fingertips found the small, hard points of his nipples and rubbed them lightly.
Durak shrugged the shirt off his broad shoulders. “It’s always been about the risk.”
“Do you think you could live without that risk?” Kelsey sat up straighter and pulled the sweatshirt over her head.
She hadn’t taken the time to put on a bra earlier, so her breasts were bare, the nipples tight and peaked. She gasped as Durak fondled them greedily, thumbs brushing the tips.
He lay back on the rug. “What would I do?”
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“Security.” Kelsey unfastened his belt buckle, then undid the button and zipper of his jeans. “It’s what you were doing for Charles. I really didn’t get to know Charles, but I do know you must be good or he wouldn’t have kept you on. And he was grooming you to take Brady’s place, wasn’t he? That’s why Brady was determined to find something on you, to show Charles you weren’t as trustworthy as he thought.”
“That’s true.” Durak pushed the jeans off his long legs while toeing off his boots.
Kelsey kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of her jeans. “You could develop and maintain security systems for businesses, couldn’t you?”
“Yeah, but what are you getting at?”
Kelsey had him right where she wanted him, flat on his back and listening to what she had to say. She straddled him, preparing to settle down on his large, hot cock, her hands resting on his chest. Then she trailed a finger to the unblemished skin at his side.
He was completely healed now with no trace of the gunshot wound.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Durak,” she whispered as she positioned herself so that the head of his cock was right at the opening of her sex. She rocked her hips back and forth, rubbing the engorged head.
Durak’s hands tightened at her hips and pushed down, but she resisted.
“I know you enjoy the risk, but I don’t think it’s fair to ask me to take the risk, too.
Or our children.”
Durak stopped the pressure and looked at her. “Our children?”
“Of course. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, aren’t we? Don’t you want children?”
“Some day, yes, but—” His hands left her hips and he raised up, propping his weight on his elbows. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
Kelsey nodded, suddenly frightened that she’d misread him. What if he didn’t feel the incredible connection with her that she felt with him? What if he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with her? What if he didn’t want to get married? What if he—?
“You aren’t already married, are you?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that—this is a little sudden, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Kelsey once again rubbed against his cock. She wanted him inside of
her, needed him like nothing she’d ever needed before, but she was determined to have her say. He moaned and put an arm around her, rolling them over until he was on top and kneeling between her legs.
“We’ve only really known each other for one night,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but it’s been a very long night.” Kelsey wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed her hips upward. Another moan sounded deep in his chest, but he didn’t take the plunge. She quivered, ready for him. “And we know each other’s secret. I know you’re a werewolf. How many women would accept that about you?”
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“There aren’t many I’ve entrusted with the secret,” he admitted. His hips surged forward, but he only teased her by going in partway. This time Kelsey made a sound, a whimper in the back of her throat. “It’s not just my secret, but my family’s, too.”
“And…and you know my secret,” Kelsey murmured. His cock beginning to fill the aching void of her sex distracted her. She had to make a conscious effort to actually remember her secret of being erotic romance author Cherie L’Amour. She pressed her legs against his hips, to let him know she wanted him fully inside. Suddenly, Durak’s hips drove down, nudging her clit and sending a thrill along every nerve in her body.
Kelsey closed her eyes and gave in to the rhythm of moving with him. “Will you?” she remembered to ask.
“Will…I…what?” he asked between hard, deep strokes.
“Will you marry me?” Kelsey gasped as she felt herself nearing the edge. And then she forgot she had asked a question as their hips pumped wildly together and they moved as one.
A low moan started in the back of her throat as her fingers and toes started to tingle. Her back arched and Durak drove deeper, sending her into the abyss of pleasure.
As she cried out, she felt Durak’s body stiffen, grinding hard into her. Her inner muscles spasmed with the last burst of pleasure just as his face distorted with his release. Then he collapsed across her, taking most of his weight with his hands.
As their bodies settled, Kelsey’s fingers played along his sweat-slick skin, following the ridges and contours of taut muscles. She didn’t want to move, and she never wanted to let go of this man. She hoped he felt the same about her.
He raised his head and smiled, then his cock slithered out of her as he lay beside her, taking her into his arms.
“You never told me,” Durak said after his breathing returned to normal. “How do I measure up to your heroes?”
Kelsey looked up into his handsome face. Firelight played in his dark eyes and softened the hard planes of his countenance.
“I told you I don’t think it would be good for your ego for you to know either way.
But I think I’m the one who’s always been afraid that I’d never find a man to measure up.” Kelsey snuggled closer to him, placing a kiss on his jaw. “And now that I’ve found you, I don’t ever want to lose you. Would you consider another kind of job? One not as dangerous.”
“I’m still a werewolf, Kelsey. There are dangers connected to the circumstances of my birth that I can’t run from. I stopped trying a long time ago.”
He was quiet for a time, and Kelsey was sure she had frightened him off by pressuring him to get a new job and proposing marriage. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the commitment, no matter what he felt for her. She opened her mouth to take it all back when he started speaking again.
“You know, I like my job, but I’m not in love with it.” His hand roamed her body, caressing a breast, her belly, the curve of her hip. “I’m in love with you.”
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“You are?” She was surprised he felt the same way about her and was even more surprised that he admitted to it so quickly. Most men didn’t readily admit to love.
Because he was being so compliant, she felt a stab of guilt that she had asked so much of him. She didn’t have the right to demand that he change his entire way of life just for her. “I love you, Durak, but you don’t have to—”
He silenced her with a finger to her lips. “I learned a long time ago to grab what I want when I have the chance because the opportunity might not come around again.
I’ve been feeling restless, so a career change will be good for me. And I think spending a lifetime with you is a fine idea. Yes, I’ll marry you, Kelsey.”
“You will?” she asked from behind his finger.
He laughed. “Weren’t you serious?”
“Oh, yes, I was serious, but I didn’t think you’d go for it.”
“Why not?” Durak’s hand slid up into her hair and brought her closer to him, her lips almost touching his. “I don’t have anything else planned for the next fifty or sixty years.”
Kelsey kissed him, igniting the fire of their passion once again, and murmured,
“My hero.”
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About the author:
Lani welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at P.O. Box 787, Hudson, Ohio 44236-0787.
Also by Lani Aames:
Desperate Hearts
Lusty Charms: Invictus
Naughty or Nice
Things That Go Bump In the Night 2
A.D. 2203: ADAM & EVE
Ravyn Wilde
Ravyn Wilde
Chapter 1
Earth 2203
Eve strode restlessly out of the lab, walking quickly through the air shield and out into the night. She was tired but anxious, on the verge of completing a pet project.
Glancing up, she swore, “Damn, it’s a Lupine Moon!”
Her assistant, Charles, cocked one eyebrow at her and gestured in an offhanded manner, saying drolly, “Eve dear, I told you that three days ago. You grunted. But noooo…the greatest geneticist of our time was in the middle of bending over her microscope doing what she does ten hours a day.”
“Shut up, Charles,” Eve spat out.
Any minute she was going to start hyperventilating. This was not good. She was miles from home and the safety of her sealed lab, which wouldn’t protect her now anyway. In order for it to work, you had to enter the damn airtight room three days prior to full moon. The three days were necessary in order for scent to dissipate.
“I hate full moons,” she snarled. Quickly glancing around the compound she ran the options through her mind.
Nothing. Not a damn thing she could do about it now.
“Your stepfather is a werewolf, sweetie. How can you be so ‘One Race’ about this?”
Eve turned on the tall, elegantly effeminate male. “Charles,” she said in a tight voice. “You and I have been working together for three months to create an inoculation that will give one group of Others a chance to have live, swimming sperm. In any way does this point to me being a member of the ‘One Race’? No,” she said before he could comment. “This puts me at the top of their Human Enemy Hit List. Yes, my stepfather is Were, my half-brother is Were, my sister is married to a Vampire—one of the leaders of the Others. I am not prejudiced, I just do not want to chance meeting up with one of the shaggy beasts tonight thinking I smell like wifey,” she enunciated clearly.
Dragging her hands through her cropped, black as midnight hair, Eve nervously checked the compound again before stepping up to her glide. Her heart was racing. She smoothed sweaty palms over her softly curved body and regretted the fact that she hadn’t taken the time for her morning runs in the last month. Like that would help if she were scented. Her amber eyes were narrowed, cautious. Her body poised for flight.
“Do you want me to follow you home?” Charles uncertainly offered.
Eve snorted. “Why? You know as well as I do if I’m scented and marked, I have no choices. The Lupine Act took care of that.” She sighed, “Go home Charles. It was my fault I didn’t realize Lupine Moon was tonight. I can only pray that there is no werewolf out there that is genetically tuned to my scent. I do not need a husband right now.”
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A.D. 2203: Adam & Eve
So saying, Eve settled into her glide and programmed it for home. She waved half-heartedly at Charles and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. The ride home from the lab would take exactly 15.6 minutes in the air glide. Its quiet imperceptible motion wouldn’t disturb her thoughts.
Gee—what to think about? The fact that she had made a huge breakthrough in the development of a serum for Vampire males that would give them a window of opportunity to impregnate their warm-blooded mates? Or the fact that the development of that serum would probably get her killed by the One Racers? Nah, let’s go with the fact that for the first time since her maturity at 18, almost 20 years ago, she’d not locked herself up safely in an airtight room three days before LM!
Eve winced. Lupine Moon. One night a month when lycanthropes everywhere were forced to change, and if they were “of age” they hunted for a mate. Only during LM
from sundown to sunup did they have the ability to scent and trace their genetic mate.
And her grandfather’s work had helped to prove the fact that Weres did indeed have a true genetic companion. His work led to the Lupine Act, which meant that it didn’t matter if you were a shape-shifter, human, or warm-blooded Other, if you were scented, found and cornered for marking before daylight—you were nuclear! Mated.
It didn’t matter if you wanted a mate or not. The minute the furry beast found you and bit your shoulder—marking you for life—there was no legal, religious or physical way out. Mated pair.
And Were-folk mated for life.
What she’d told Charles was the truth. She wasn’t prejudiced. The problem was she didn’t want any male cluttering up her life. Trying to change her as her mother had changed. With a human or Other, you could JUST SAY NO. Saying no to a loupe-garou was against the law.
Please, dear Lord, do not let a werewolf catch onto my scent tonight…
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Ravyn Wilde
Chapter 2
Adam stretched, trying to work a knot of tension from his muscular frame. As had happened well over 280 times in his life since his 18th birthday, it was a full Lupine Moon. Every month, throwing in a couple of blue moons over the years, he looked for her. It seemed as if he’d been searching forever. He was almost 40 and more than ever before he felt the essential lack of a mate to complete him. Energized, the predatory urge to track coursed through his moon-sensitized body. Some instinct whispered across his skin that this would be the time.
