Just Like Animals: A Werelock Evolution Series Standalone Novel

by Hettie Ivers

  My vision narrowed and my one shaky arm still holding me up gave way amid the intensity of pleasure surging through my core. My forehead met the new-smelling carpet as I rode out the decadent sexual tremors that wracked my body.

  I felt an unfamiliar pulling sensation in my womb as muscle tissue deep within my sex pulsated continuously. Every centimeter of the thin, fibrous tissue of my inner walls felt alive with awareness as Raul slowly removed his fingers from my ass, murmuring sweet words as he kissed my back and shoulder.

  He reversed the positioning of our hands pressed to my sex, sliding his fingers from underneath mine and pressing my own against my sopping clit. “Keep touching yourself.”

  It was an order more so than a request. Although I didn’t think there was another orgasm left in me, I obeyed. There was something in the way he said it that I was hard-pressed to resist.

  “My wolf needs to fuck you now.” His words came out soft and tender, belying the startling nature of his declaration. “I can’t promise he’ll be gentle. But you’ll be safe.”

  I nodded into the carpet, not missing the way my pussy fluttered shamelessly around him—excited by the promise of a rough fucking. I knew he hadn’t missed it either.

  God, this was wrong.

  And hot.

  I braced my free hand against the carpeted floor next to my forehead as, true to his words of warning, something in Raul shifted, and a moment later he went from patient, cooing lover to an aroused beast pushed beyond the limits of his self-restraint.

  He fucked me hard and fast, lifting my spread knees off the floor to deepen the angle of his penetration as he grunted and growled and drove into me with abandon.

  Heaven help me, I was going to come again embarrassingly fast.

  “You’re not marrying Gregg,” he decreed.

  Who was Gregg?

  “You’re mine, Bethany.”

  I nodded again, his possessive shit-talking making me even hotter.

  “You’ve always been mine.”

  His voice was gravelly, his words certain. They sent an unbidden shiver through me. Not in a bad way, either. As crazy as it was, his words rang with a truth that felt bone-deep. A truth I didn’t care to analyze too closely in the moment.

  My night had taken on a completely unreal quality somewhere between being eaten out in public while held down by international mannies and finding out that Raul was a werewolf subspecies.

  “Say it,” he suddenly demanded, his grip tightening on my hips, his balls slapping my spread center. “Say you’re mine.”

  “I’m … yours.”

  He growled and thrust harder. His hand fisted my hair, pulling my head up and forcing my back to arch. “Again.”

  “Yours,” I gasped, rubbing myself faster. I was right on the edge. “Always yours.”

  “Mine,” he proclaimed in a voice that sounded more animal than man. It scared and thrilled me.

  “Ask permission to come,” he commanded.

  Dang. The kinky dom shtick was hot. And I did want to come again. Desperately. But there was something I wanted more, so I defied him and asked for it instead. “I want your cum,” I told him, my voice breathless. “Filling me. Please, Sir,” I taunted.

  He groaned and muttered to himself in another language before his hand smacked my rear. He yanked my hair and started pounding into me like the devil. I think I caught the words “dirty bitch” right as my orgasm hit, my pussy convulsing and squeezing around him, my frantic moans escalating, resonating through the cab.

  He did come inside me then—partially, at least. He seemed to lose control of himself before realizing what he was doing and pulling out, the last of his hot cum spraying onto my ass and lower back.

  He unleashed a string of angry-sounding foreign curse words right before I felt sharp teeth sink into my shoulder.

  “Ow. No—ahh, fuck,” I stammered in genuine pain and panic—even as my orgasm continued—the animalistic violence of his unexpected attack shocking me.

  That one had hurt.

  And he wasn’t letting go. He bit down harder as I tried to pull away, his body bearing down on top of mine, pinning me flush against the vibrating carpeted floor of the moving car.

  “Raul? Please.” My plaintive appeal seemed to have fallen on remorseless ears when he growled and his jaw clamped down more forcefully upon my shoulder. But as tears sprang to my eyes, his palm fell softly against the side of my head, his fingers curling around my ear in a calming caress. His other hand wedged itself in between my body and the floor to cup the tender flesh between my thighs.

  As he sucked the bite wound on my shoulder, his fingers stroked my slippery folds, and I ceased struggling, stilling beneath him and succumbing to his ministrations. A similar sense of lethargy as the one I’d felt when he’d bitten my thigh and my breast in the club pervaded my system. Despite the throbbing sting in my shoulder, I began to feel high. Euphoric. A little dazed and delirious.

  He had warned me about his wolf. And he’d said that I would be safe. My mind found twisted reassurance in that promise. And my body was finding relief in what Raul was doing to me—the pain and pleasure receptors within me blurring and blending.

  By the time his canines withdrew, the pain I felt in my shoulder paled in comparison to the pleasure I was feeling as I came again—crying out as I squirmed against his palm and fingertips.

  “That’s it, sweetheart.” His cock was still hard as the length of it pressed against my ass cheek, pushing me into his soaked hand. Jesus, were werewolves perpetually erect?

  I was a mass of quivering jelly limbs by the time my tremors ceased, my body a useless, sprawled heap on the floor. I couldn’t have gotten up if I’d tried. Raul seemed to anticipate this, because he wrapped a blanket around me and lifted me in his arms.

  He deposited me onto the leather bench seat that stretched the length of our enormous ride. He sat next to me but placed enough space between us so that our bodies weren’t touching.

  He seemed nervous all of a sudden—or worried. But he asked without emotion, “You okay?”

  I nodded faintly. I was at a loss. A part of me had expected him to apologize for biting me so hard that last time. When he didn’t, I stated the obvious as I angled my upper body toward his. “You bit me again.” Something stopped me from asking him why.

  His brown eyes met mine: frank and unwavering. “I did.” No apology. His posture turned guarded. His features followed suit.

  “We didn’t use protection,” I pointed out, my cheeks flushing with guilt over my part in that. “It was irresponsible of me to ask you to come—”

  “There’s no need to worry.” He reached out and tucked my messy hair behind my ear. “I’m clean. As a werewolf, I can’t catch diseases. I won’t allow you to get pregnant, either.”

  I swallowed. “Won’t allow?” I parroted with a nervous chuckle. “What, um, does that mean?”

  “As a werelock, I can use magic to prevent pregnancy.” He produced a fresh Johnnie Walker—that he’d very obviously just materialized out of thin air—and handed it to me, further illustrating his ability with magic.

  My pulse spiked, and I released another anxious laugh, but I gratefully accepted the drink. I wasted no time in taking a large gulp before blurting, “What are we doing, Raul?”

  His expression remained shuttered, but he gave me a lopsided smile as he continued to run his fingers through my hair, gently detangling the strands. “We’re enjoying each other, Bethy. We’re headed to your place now, where we’ll continue to enjoy one another.”

  I took another liberal sip of strong alcohol, nearly finishing the glass as I digested his words. He wasn’t asking permission. He was telling.

  And he already knew where I lived, apparently.

  “That okay?” he belatedly tacked on, adding the illusion of choice to my situation.

  My childhood crush was now a powerful, magical werewolf creature. What would he do if I said no? Based on the way his men had responded to hi
m back at the club, I suspected he was used to people doing whatever he told them.

  Yet I couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d ever force anything on me. Not when his touch felt so divine, his soft caress simultaneously soothing and exciting me as his eyes studied my face, patiently awaiting my response.

  Ah, hell. Who was I kidding? What was there to force? As I let my eyes wander over the masculine beauty of Raul’s extraordinary, naked physique, I knew I’d let him do just about anything he wanted to me.

  I pretty well already had.

  “Sure,” I agreed with a shy smile. “That sounds like fun.”

  My heart melted all over again when Raul’s smile blossomed into a wide, boyish grin, and he pulled me onto his lap and kissed me breathless.

  His hand soon wandered beneath the blanket covering me, and other parts of me melted as his fingers began toying with me, pinching and playing with my nipples. He kept me right on the edge of orgasm for the rest of the drive to my place, stopping short every time I came close to coming, telling me I needed more practice controlling and withholding my release whenever I mewled in complaint.

  By the time we arrived at my pretentious apartment building, I was too far gone and beyond ready to be fucked to care that I was still naked and wrapped in a blanket—while Raul was somehow magically dressed again—as he carried me through the lobby. I was barely lucid enough to mutter an acceptable greeting to my distraught-looking doormen as they took note of my disheveled, half-naked state and the hulking stranger carrying me.

  I had the oddest sense Raul wanted my doormen to see me with him that way. But I never got the chance to question him about it, because his pants were down and he was inside me the moment the elevator doors shut, taking me hard and fast up against the rear wall.

  “Let it out for me, Bethy,” he egged me on as his hips hammered into me, his pelvis circling and hitting my clit with every thrust, his fingers digging into the flesh of my ass. “I want to hear you.”

  All the pent-up need from my delayed orgasms in the car ride exploded in me. I came quickly and with a blinding savagery, screeching Raul’s name along with some other expletives.

  “There’s my dirty exhibitionist,” he praised with a soft chuckle, kissing my sweaty temple.

  When the elevator dinged open at my floor, Raul carried me to my front door—still hard inside of me. It was then that I noticed he was completely naked again. We both were. And I realized that I had no idea where my wristlet with my keys had ended up. It was probably still back at the club. Shit.

  I winced up at him and mumbled, “Raul, I don’t … don’t have my purse. It had my phone … my keys …”

  He smiled down at me like I’d said something cute. “I know. Stephen took them for safekeeping. They’re in your apartment.”

  With that, he did that magic thing again where we ceased to exist for a split second, only to reappear inside my front door.

  My muddled brain was still struggling to process the news that Stephen had already been inside my apartment—not to mention grasp how any of this crazy magic stuff was even possible—when Raul lifted me off his rigid cock and set me down on my knees in front of him on the tiled floor of my little foyer.

  He didn’t say anything, simply threaded his fingers through the hair at the back of my head and guided his wet erection to my lips. They parted to accept him without hesitation, and he proceeded to leisurely fuck my mouth, his thrusts slow and methodical.

  It was clear he wanted to control the pace and depth of his movement, so I let him. I’d never been so turned on, so hot for anyone in my whole damn life.

  “Touch yourself,” he told me, his voice low and raspy, his heated gaze making the demand seem more like a plea.

  Keeping one hand braced against his muscled thigh, I brought my other down between my legs.

  “That’s it, baby. Show me how you like it.”

  Show him I did. I was only too eager to please—to make him as hot for me as I was for him.

  My efforts were rewarded each time Raul groaned and pulled on my hair, or grunted and thrust all the way to the back of my throat.

  He continued to issue directives. “Spread your legs wider. Add another finger, Bethy.”

  He never had to tell me anything twice.

  I was completely captivated, and so intent on timing my own orgasm to coincide with him spurting in my mouth that I didn’t ever think to question why he hadn’t just magically transported us from the Hummer to the inside of my apartment in the first place. Or to wonder why the ten-minute ride from the club to my apartment had taken us what had felt like well over an hour in his stretch Hummer.

  I never thought once about the surveillance cameras that were in all my building’s elevators, or the security sensors and the camera that Gregg had set up inside my foyer over nine months ago.

  And despite my best intentions, my orgasm hit me several seconds before Raul erupted down the back of my throat when he started talking dirty, recounting how much he’d enjoyed fingering my ass in the Hummer, telling me how good it was going to feel for us both when I took his whole cock in my ass.

  He carried me to my bedroom next. And I lost track of how many orgasms I had, or of how many more times he bit me. It hurt a little less each time. Either that or my body was becoming conditioned to welcome the initial sting of Raul’s fangs, knowing the pleasure that would soon follow—because I also seemed to orgasm harder following each successive bite.

  By the time he took me in the shower, it was past three a.m., and I was so exhausted afterward that I almost fell asleep standing as he supported my body weight and washed me from head to toe.

  I could barely keep my eyes open as I sat on the bathroom countertop brushing my teeth. Raul stood in front of me, his hands braced against the quartz surface on either side of my hips, a goofy, enamored smile on his face as he watched me. I asked him if werewolves ever got sleepy. He laughed and answered with an evasive “Sometimes.”

  He made me drink a full glass of water before tucking me into bed. I was desperate to ask him if he’d be gone when I woke up. I had a sinking feeling that he would be. Because he hadn’t crawled into bed with me. And because he seemed sad, or worried about something, as he sat on the edge of my bed, running his fingers over the damp hair at my crown.

  I couldn’t imagine going another ten years without seeing Raul. Not now. Not after tonight. But my heavy eyelids betrayed me, and I fell asleep before I could find the nerve to ask when—and if—I was ever going to see him again.

  8

  Raul

  “Time!” Mom shouted to me from the kitchen.

  Ugh. I hit the pause button on the Super Nintendo controller in my hand. I’d just beaten Japanese Mask Robot and was pumped to face off against Dr. Wily next, the final boss in the new Mega Man 7 game. I eyed the clock and scribbled the time down on the notepad on the floor next to me. “Got it,” I called back before un-pausing the game.

  Mom and I had been timing her contractions all day. I didn’t know what exactly it was about them that we were timing or how it all worked; I just wrote down the time on the notepad she’d given me when prompted.

  While we’d been out running Mom’s “last-minute baby errands” that afternoon, the contractions had gotten so close together she’d said that she was certain today would be the day my sister Milena would be born. Mom was in such a great mood about it that she’d bought me the video game I’d been bugging her to get me for months. I was pretty sure she’d done it to keep me out of her hair.

  She was busy in the kitchen now, making meat lasagnas and casseroles so I’d have something decent to eat while my Aunt Aracely was here to help with the baby. Mom’s twin sister, Cely, was arriving tomorrow to stay with us. Aunt Cely was pretty cool to have around—’cept for the fact she was a vegetarian who only prepared gross foods. I refused to eat that crap, and Mom knew it.

  “Time.” Mom’s voice was notably weaker when she called out again. I paused my game and wrote
down the time.

  “Got it!”

  I was in the middle of a boss rush in the game when I heard something clatter to the floor in the kitchen. Mom had gotten clumsier the bigger her belly had grown. It sounded like she’d dropped a dish or a cooking pan. Again.

  Not wanting to pause the game, I hesitated before calling out, “You okay, Ma?”

  She didn’t respond right away. Then she said, “Fine. A plate ... fell.” She sounded strange. Winded.

  Something told me I should go check on her, but I was already fighting Spring Man, and I didn’t want to stop. I was dying to get to Dr. Wily. “Be there in a minute to help clean it up, ’kay?”

  Kitsune’s yapping pulled my mind back to the present. Bethany’s rescue pup, a four-month-old Akita wolf, was running in circles around the redwood tree he’d pissed on. Dawn was over an hour away, the forest still dark beneath its canopy of giant redwoods. Poor little guy had probably never seen a real forest before.

  I knelt down on my haunches and ordered, “Come.” He scampered over. “Good boy.” I patted his head and scratched behind his ears as I continued to praise him, welcoming the distraction from my own thoughts. My head was a fucking mess, and I needed to stay focused now more than ever.

  I could tell Kitsune didn’t like me yet. Teleporting him from Bethany’s high-rise apartment to the redwood groves of Big Basin had unsettled him. He definitely didn’t trust me. But he knew enough to listen to me. If he hadn’t understood immediately that I was his new master, seeing me transform into an enormous wolf had cemented that fact.

  Bethany had only had him a week, and it was clear she didn’t have a lot of experience with puppies in general, much less an Akita wolf-dog hybrid.

  The little beast seemed to have been partially potty-trained before Bethany had gotten him at least. But she’d mistakenly assumed that he was fully trained and had been leaving her balcony door ajar for him to go out there and do his business whenever she left the apartment. I smiled to myself as I imagined her trying to explain to the stubborn little mutt that he should use the patio when he had to go. I knew Stephen and Tiago had stumbled upon and cleaned up several of Kitsune’s accidents earlier when they’d scouted out Bethany’s apartment for me.