I felt his mouth settle on the curve between my neck and shoulder, his breath cooling my sweaty skin. I shivered, and he stilled, his cock buried impossibly deep. Aching pressure was building inside me, my hole stretching around his knot.
One of Matthew’s hands sought out one of mine, and he laid it on top. I tangled our fingers together and squeezed. Yes, do it. Please. I couldn’t say it, I could only whimper. But he knew what it meant, and he bit down hard, his extended canines sinking deep into my flesh.
The bond exploded between us, a chorus of gold and red and purple, the warp of my magic and the weft of his alpha power weaving into an unbreakable whole.
My orgasm caught me by the throat and ripped out of me. His hot come spilled into me.
I drifted away for a while, the sharp pain in my neck and the unbearable pleasure of having him in me overloading my senses.
When I came back to myself, Matthew had turned us a little onto our sides. We were stuck together, and I shifted, moaning as the knot tugged on my ass. He sighed against my neck, soothing the bite mark with his tongue.
Our hands were still joined. I looked down at our fingers, mine long and slender and tattooed, his thick and callused.
I smiled, and I could feel a slight spike of pleasure through the bond, as if Matthew was smiling with me, even though I couldn’t see it.
“I love you.” The words floated out of me as if I’d said them a million times.
Matthew went very still behind me. “You do?” he asked, in the tone of a man who’d just been told he’d won the lottery the same day his most hated enemy had been dismembered. “You — oh, fuck, Arik —” His voice broke, and he pressed his forehead into my hair, breathing raggedly. He cleared his throat. “I mean, yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I know.”
I let out a shaky laugh, closed my eyes, and leaned back against him, certain that he’d hold me there. I knew too. And I’d never doubt it again.
The End
Acknowledgements
Thank you first and foremost to Alessandra Hazard, my wonderful alpha reader, editor, and advice-giver. Without her, this book would not be what it is. (Blame her. Seriously.)
Many thanks also are due (in alphabetical order, because they’re all awesome) to Amy Pittel, Kirk Waite, and Jem Zero, for beta-reading and cheerleading along the way. I appreciate you very much!
A special shout-out to Haley, who suggested “The Only Mate I Need Is Coffeemate,” and to Stephanie and Amelia, who came up with some other great ideas for Nate’s weird personalized coffee mugs! Since they so unwisely chose to hang out in my Facebook group, I was able to shamelessly use them as my braintrust.
And lastly, as always, thank you to the readers who enjoyed The Alpha’s Warlock and gave me the momentum to keep writing in the series.
Get in Touch
I love hearing from readers! Find me at eliotgrayson.com, where I’ll periodically post information about upcoming releases, including excerpts, or on Amazon, where you can find my other books. You can also contact me through my website, sign up for my newsletter for occasional updates about what I’m writing or publishing next, join my Facebook readers’ group, or follow me on Goodreads. Thanks for reading!
Also by Eliot Grayson
Deven and the Dragon
Goddess-Blessed series (alt-historical):
The Replacement Husband
The Reluctant Husband
Yuletide Treasure
The Yuletide Runaway
Letters from Portsmouth series (Regency):
Like a Gentleman
Contemporary romance:
The One Decent Thing
Need a Hand?
Mismatched Mates series:
The Alpha’s Warlock
Captive Mate
If you missed The Alpha’s Warlock…
It had been years since I set foot in the Armitage pack's territory, and I'd hoped to keep that winning streak going for a while longer. Of course, being kidnapped and cursed had a way of changing your plans.
Not that I was really setting foot in it now, more like setting hands and knees. I'd fallen so many times that I'd stopped trying to get back up, and was just crawling through the thick, loamy mud under the drenched forest canopy.
The patter of chill rain on the back of my neck was bad enough, every drop sending new shivers down my spine, but my soaked jeans were chafing in every direction and on every sensitive bit of me. Why had I worn skinny jeans this tight again? Oh, right, going out clubbing, and not planning on being kidnapped and cursed. Mud squelched through my fingers and seeped into my ankle boots.
I'd been so careless, so arrogant. My father, such as he was, had been dead for two glorious years, and the magic he'd stolen from me all my life was finally back where it belonged. I could take anyone, right? A powerful young warlock, paranoid as only years of living in the shadow of a criminal with a lot of enemies could make me.
And all it took was a few drops of witchbane poison in my fruity cocktail.
So impressive. My father, may he rot in hell, would be laughing his freaking ass off.
With a grunt and a pitiful moan, I lurched from crawling to belly-flopping in the mud. A wet and filthy rotting leaf poked into my mouth, and I spat it out, my stomach heaving as the flavor of mold burst on my tongue. I wasn't going to make it. Where the hell were the pack's perimeter guards? Someone had to patrol this huge territory, what with rival packs only a few miles away and a master vampire and his brood in the next town over.
Especially since one of those rival packs had snatched me from the club, and especially especially since they'd done it as the first step in a plot against the Armitage pack.
Or at least so I'd gathered as they chained me up in an abandoned warehouse, drew a circle of burnt celandine, and had their pack shaman start a ritual nauseatingly similar to the one my father used to do every month at the new moon.
“Armitage can't defend against this,” one of the werewolves in the corner of the room had said to another, gesturing my way. “Once his energy's bound to yours, he'll have all your resilience and all his powers, all under your control. He'll be the perfect weapon.”
He'd sounded like he was trying to talk the other were out of some serious doubts about the plan. I thought the other were was probably the smart one, since I had some serious doubts myself.
Strike that, I had no doubts at all. I was going to die here in the forest, my magic drained out of me by this fucking curse, my body withered away to nothing and sinking into the mud until only a few bones wrapped in skinny jeans remained.
And then I heard the growl.
It was the kind of sound that would make any human's nervous system go into overdrive; it had a low, throbbing undertone to it that raised all the hairs on the back of my neck. I managed to turn my head and peer into the pre-dawn gloom. A pair of glowing golden eyes looked back at me, set in the face of a wolf with his (probably his, but I sure as hell wasn't going to try to inspect) teeth bared.
Finally. Jesus, would it kill them to keep a better eye on their borders?
“I'm Nate Hawthorne,” I rasped faintly, drowned out by the rain. It didn't matter. With the wolf's supernatural hearing, I could have been twice the distance away and he'd have heard me as well as if I'd had a microphone. “I need to see Matthew Armitage.” The wolf stared me down. My head started to spin, and I dropped down, my cheek hitting the ground with a splat. “Take me to your leader.” I started to giggle, my chest heaving as the laughter morphed into sobs, the curse draining more of my life away. I could feel it like a physical tug on every vein and nerve.
The wolf tipped his head back and let out a long howl, a call that probably carried all the way to the other edge of the pack's territory. And then he came a cautious couple of steps closer, sniffed me, let out a disgusted huff, and settled on his haunches a few feet away.
He was waiting for someone, then. Backup. Maybe, hopefully, someone who could find me a shower and a borrowed pair of boxers. At leas
t he wasn't ripping out my throat.
I probably passed out for a few minutes, because between one second and the next, another wolf was prowling out of the forest. Even with the rising sun hidden behind clouds, and even with my vision as bleary as it was, I could see that he was enormous, easily half again as large as the first. Most of the werewolves I'd seen fully shifted had some shade of gray fur, but this one had a coat like a tawny owl, variegated hues of brown and tan, dappled like sunlight through trees.
The wolf came right up to me with a nonchalant saunter that was more than a little insulting. To be fair, if I'd been a giant predator with four-inch razor-sharp retractable claws, I probably wouldn't have been too terrified of the twink in skinny jeans lying in the mud like a lump, either.
He sniffed me like the other werewolf had, and then shoved one dinner plate-sized paw under my shoulder and flipped me like a pancake. An expression that in a human would be utter horror and disbelief was oddly clear even on that lupine face. His lips drew back, exposing a wicked set of fangs.
“I need to see Matthew,” I choked out, hoping to convince him before he ripped my guts out and had his minion throw me down a ravine. I hadn't meant to tell the details of the story to anyone but the leader of the Armitage pack, for the sake of discretion, but...wasn't saving your own ass the better part of discretion? Or something? “I was kidnapped. By the Kimball pack, and it had something to do with your pack, and Jesus you don't need to kill me —” My voice rose to a squeak as he leaned in, his teeth fully on display, his enormous muzzle way, way too fucking close for comfort.
But he didn't bite, just sniffed me again, from my head all the way down to my feet, pausing at my wrists. Finally he let out a surprised-sounding huff.
A second later his huge form blurred, rippled, and reshaped into a man nearly as enormous compared to other humans as his wolf form was compared to garden-variety wolves. Messy auburn hair curled around his temples, and his freckles might have given him an air of innocence if it weren't for the cold, pale blue eyes. Oh, and the shoulders and chest bulging with muscle. And the claws.
Either way, I knew he was the opposite of innocent, and I knew damn well who he was.
My heart sank. Ian Armitage. My dead ex-lover Jared’s best friend and cousin, the pack leader's second in command, and one of the most feared werewolves in northern California. And he hated me.
The curse might still try to kill me, but now it would probably have to get in line.
Ian flexed his hand, extended his gleaming claws, and laid them gently across my throat. My vision blurred as my heart rate shot into the stratosphere.
“What the fuck are you doing here? One flicker of a lie, and you'll be dead in seconds.”
I had to struggle for breath before I could answer, and that was irritating as hell. Yes, I was less than thrilled to have a supernatural apex predator about to rip out my jugular, but mostly I was just cursed. And having him interpret my shortness of breath as pure terror was plain embarrassing.
“You can smell them on me, can't you? The Kimballs,” I panted, and he nodded, his grip on my throat tightening a nearly-puncturing-my-veins fraction. “They kidnapped me. And they started some kind of —” Deep breath. “Ritual.” I forced another breath into my lungs. “I need to see Matthew.”
Was the sun going down again? That wasn't right. It was just coming up. But everything had gotten darker.
Yeah, I was passing out. Everything went black, and Ian's furious face was the last thing I saw.
Available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited
The One Decent Thing
Available on Amazon
Everyone says kindness costs nothing. It’s a lie. Kindness can cost you everything.
Sebastian
The only decent thing my high school bully ever did for me got him sent to prison. Aidan was a jerk, but he saved me from making the worst mistake of my life, and in return, my parents ruined him. Now that he’s out, I’m determined to make amends. No matter what he needs, no matter how long it takes, I will make it all up to him. But first I’ll have to figure out how to hide my attraction to my sexy, confusing new roommate.
Aidan
Saving him cost me everything. I have nothing and no one—except Sebastian. He’s determined to make good on a debt I never asked him to repay. He’s offering me money, a place to stay, and help adjusting to life on the outside. But all I’m really wondering is…who can save Sebastian from me—the desperate, bisexual ex-con who probably wants more from him than he’s willing to give?
The One Decent Thing is an M/M new adult bisexual romance with lots of heat, angst, and physics jokes.
Reviews of The One Decent Thing
“I don’t like a GFY storyline, yet Eliot Grayson makes it squarely about hearts not parts, so I relaxed into the story — in Eliot I trust… This is 5 star reading — enjoyable, interesting, engaging, a book I know will be a comfort reread favourite.”
— Kazza at On Top Down Under/Dark Hints Book Reviews
“Both characters were strong in their own ways, but didn’t realize how much until they recognized it in each other. Thanks, Eliot, for the story of forgiveness, redemption, and love.”
— Lena Grey at Rainbow Book Reviews
Read on for an excerpt from The One Decent Thing, available for sale and in Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.
Four Years Ago
Through the rain-specked windshield he was as indistinct as a ghost, a gray shadow bathed in the sickly orange of the street light over the bus stop. I’d planned to get a burger, maybe a root beer and some fries if I had a few quarters in the center console of my car, and go home. It’d been a long day, a fucking long, boring, awful day at the superstore where I had a shitty stocking job that barely paid my rent, and I was so done. Even the weather was messing with me. Rain this late in May wasn’t normal, but they were predicting a cold-ass summer.
I’d just made a left after waiting forever at the light, of-fucking-course, with my greasy burger almost in sight, when I saw him.
Sebastian Peach. Silly name for a weird guy, and shit, I’d made sure he knew my opinions on his name, and his clothes, and everything else when we were in high school. But it’d been almost a year since I graduated, and real life had kicked me in the face enough times since then that I couldn’t remember why fucking with him had seemed like fun. Why make life worse for people when life itself was good at doing that all on its own?
He’d been two years behind me, though, and had to still be stuck in that crappy school. It was the end of his junior year.
So what was he doing sitting at a bus stop at nearly ten in the evening with the rain starting to come down — and was that a duffel bag by his feet?
I crossed a lane and pulled over, jerking to a stop about fifteen feet past the bus stop. A glance over my shoulder showed no bus coming, and no other cars in the way. I put it in reverse, backed up until my passenger window was right in front of him, and rolled the window down.
Sebastian was looking shifty, leaning over and holding onto the strap of his duffel like he was ready to run. I didn’t really blame him. He was maybe a buck twenty soaking wet, dressed like the gay, nerdy hipster kid he was, and honestly looked like he might as well have had the words easy prey stamped on his forehead.
Leaning over, I called out, “Hey, Sebastian!” He jumped, hefted the duffel bag, and stood, poised to make a break for it. “Sebastian, it’s me. Aidan.” How could he not recognize me? We hadn’t seen each other in a while, but I’d clocked him from across two lanes in the rain.
“I know,” he said tightly. My heart sank a little. Right. He wasn’t ready to run because he didn’t know who I was, he was ready to run because he did. “Just keep driving, okay? Don’t — just don’t.”
His voice cracked on the last word, and his face was crumpled like he was about to cry, or had already cried, or both.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said, and I actually meant it.
S
ebastian frowned. A car drove by in a whoosh of tires on wet asphalt. “I’m fine.”
“Dude, you’re at a bus stop with a bag, in the rain, like, too late at night on a school night.” Which made me sound like a total asshole since I was only nineteen, but whatever. “At the very least you need a ride somewhere. I can drive you home. Your phone run out of battery or something?”
“Someone’s coming to get me.” He shifted his grip on the bag’s straps, and he didn’t look me in the face. “You should go.”
I thought about it for a second; I even took my foot off the brake. But then I slammed it back down again. There was something really off about the whole situation. If his mom or somebody was coming to pick him up, why hadn’t he said so? And if he wasn’t catching the bus, why was he at the bus stop instead of inside the taco place a couple of blocks down, where it was dry and warm and there were people around? He only had on a thin-looking purple hoodie — with rainbows on the sleeves, of course — and a pair of skinny jeans, and he looked cold and miserable. Dirty-blond hair flopped around his face in limp, rain-damp waves and hung into his eyes.
I pulled up the parking brake and got out of the car. As I rounded the front, Sebastian started backing away, dragging his bag with him like it was too heavy for him to lift.
My hands went up in the universal okay, okay gesture, and I stopped. “Seriously.” I put as much sincerity as I could into my voice. “Seriously, dude, something isn’t right. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight if I leave you here. You can use my phone if you want?”
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