by Vivian Arend
He yanked the button free and nudged her zipper down slowly. “Good thing I have plastic wrap in the kitchen,” he joked.
She laughed, low and breathless, and there was something distinctly naughty about the look in her eyes. “I let a guy try to tie me to the bed with plastic wrap once. The idea was much more appealing in theory than practice.”
“Do you usually sleep with stupid guys? That’s not what the plastic is for.” He levered himself up and reached for the drawer in his bedside table. “See, this is what you use to tie a woman up.” He dragged out several scarves and let them drop to skim over her bare breasts as he moved them to his other hand.
He didn’t need his enhanced senses to register her approval of the idea. Her nipples tightened under the teasing brush of silk, and she sucked in a sharp breath as her eyes fluttered shut. “I didn’t sleep with stupid men. I slept with overeducated men. Sometimes that’s worse.”
“Losers come in all shapes, sizes and tax brackets, honey.” He reached for her arm and froze when he saw the wrap around her delicate wrist. Shit. He’d forgotten about her sprain. “This is a bad idea.”
Her eyes popped open again. “What? Why?”
He grinned, his ego soothed by the fact that she’d forgotten, as well. “You’re hurt.” His thumb stroked over the bandage. “It slipped our minds.”
“So don’t tie me up.” She shifted her other hand and slid it down his back. “Save something for later.”
They should be saving it all for later, for a time when he could think, when his mind wasn’t so scrambled by desire. But he still dropped the silk to the bed and stretched out over her, his lips finding the bare, vulnerable curve where her neck met her shoulder.
She drew in a breath and let it out on a soft sigh as her fingers drifted lower. Her hand dipped under the waistband of his jeans, and she turned her head so her breath tickled against his ear. “I’m thinking the clothes need to be gone.”
A sharp, quick tug brought her jeans off her hips, revealing the white cotton panties she wore. “All of them?” he teased as he hooked one finger under the elastic band and pulled gently.
“I was talking about your clothing.” But she lifted her hips a little in obvious invitation. “Not that you don’t look absurdly hot in nothing but jeans, but they might get in the way of my plans for the evening.”
Joe drew the cotton down her legs along with her jeans. “I know what you were talking about, honey.” He left his own jeans buttoned and in place. “Plenty of time.”
She braced her elbows on the bed and lifted up a little to watch him. “And what, exactly, are you planning to do to me that’s going to take all this time?”
He laughed and dropped her pants on the floor, then teased the back of her knee with his fingers. “I didn’t know you wanted a formal program for the evening.”
“Mmm, no. I’ve got confidence in your experience.” She shifted her leg and rubbed her calf against his side. “I think we can go forward without an outline.”
“Good to know.” He climbed on the bed, this time stretching out beside her and twisting a lock of her hair around his finger. “I’m better at winging it, anyway.” He used the tip of one curl to tease over her skin, then followed the invisible path with his tongue.
She responded with a shiver and an encouraging noise. Her hands found his back again, more aggressive this time as she dragged her nails lightly over his shoulders. He swallowed the growl that rose in his throat and stroked his hand down her belly and between her thighs as his lips parted over her breast and he sucked her nipple into his mouth.
She arched up to his touch, hot and wet, and his fingers slipped against her. This time, he groaned against her skin and caught her nipple between his teeth.
“Oh, God…” Her hand groped at the back of his head, and she choked on another moan as she shifted her legs apart and rocked into his touch with shameless abandon.
He barely brushed her clit, teasing more than anything else, and moved to swirl his tongue around her other nipple. He remained there, touching her without deepening his caresses, and waited for her to come to him.
It didn’t take long. A whimper escaped her and she dug her feet into the bed and arched her hips into his touch. “Joe!”
He turned his face to her neck. “What?”
She wiggled a little and somehow worked a hand between them. Her fingers rubbed against his cock through the fabric of his jeans, and she moaned again. “I am way too turned on for teasing.”
He clenched his jaw and moved his hand lower and pressed one finger inside her, rocking the heel of his hand against her. “Better?”
Brynn groaned, and her hand shifted up until her fingers encountered his belt. She swore softly and clutched at it as her hips rocked with his hand. “Fuck! I…can’t—oh Christ…”
“That’s right,” he murmured. He drew his finger back and thrust another one in, as well. “You want me naked, you have to come for me.”
Someone wants their perfect weapon back, only she’s not coming quietly.
Stripped
© 2009 Marcia Colette
Alexa Wells wants her life back. She’s just not sure what that life was. The memories inside her head—a stripper’s—aren’t hers, and before she humiliates herself onstage one more time, she sets out to collect the scattered pieces of her mind. The trail leads to Boston, charges of identity theft and murder, and the real bombshell: a forgotten werewolf lover who insists she’s a werewolf hybrid.
Matt York doesn’t care that she looks at him like he’s been smoking crack between court cases. Now that he has her back he’s not about to let her go it alone, even if she can easily kick ass and take names all by herself. Amnesia only scratches the surface of her problems, and like it or not, she’s stuck with him.
She’s also stuck with Robert Gamboldt, a venture capitalist who’s not above murdering his way to the top. He’s not about to lose his prize possession without playing dirty. It’s a simple enough offer. Be his personal assassin, or go to jail.
With options like that, it’s enough to make a hybrid go full-blood.
Warning: Delicious sexual tension with a werewolf who’ll wait as long as it takes for his hybrid werewolf mate to come around.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Stripped:
Matt’s wild scent came through like fresh cologne. I smelled him all the way over the railing and into the bushes where he had disappeared.
Woods enveloped my surroundings. I leaped over large boulders and rotted stumps, following his trail. Strange that I honed in on it among the woodsy scents. I could even pick out the fresh rabbit trails and deer that had left crisscross paths along the ground. When I came to a small ravine, I slid down the incline and splashed into the frigid brook at the bottom. Matt’s scent had disappeared, but I continued in a straight line anyway. There was no reason why he’d head downstream unless another animal was after him and he wanted to lose the scent. Grabbing a thick root, I climbed up the opposite side of the hill.
I stopped and whiffed the air. Still, no male wolf smell. Damn. Maybe my senses were wrong after all.
Stupid as it sounded, my instincts urged me to go down on all fours. It was a good thing I was in the middle of the forest or I’d never have lived this down. After dropping to my knees, I pressed my face close to the earth and sniffed around for a scent. I must have looked like a wild woman raised by dogs, pushing my way through leaves and twigs.
A smell hit me. On the smooth surface of a small rock, I found a piece of Matt. Excited, I continued searching, picking up more and more until I found the right direction again. I hopped to my feet and darted through a thick copse.
Branches and twigs snagged my sweats and pricked my calves. Twice, I tripped on rocks and thick roots, but they didn’t stop me. I needed to find him before that maniac hunter put a bullet in his ass. I was sure he wasn’t hurt or I would’ve smelled blood on the air.
Something about this experience brought back pieces of
my dreams with me running through the woods. I half-expected a pack of wolves to filter out of the shadows and run with me. They didn’t, of course, but in a way, I wished they had. At least those shadows were friendly. Heaven only knew what awaited me out here.
A black wolf leaped from a band of thick foliage. I stopped and threw my back against the nearest tree, cold bark biting into my back.
Matt—my gut said it was him—growled. His ears flattened on his canine head and his lips peeled back to reveal a set of serrated teeth. The only signs of his human half were in his mahogany eyes. However, with the searing hatred burning through them now, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure about that.
He lunged.
I ducked to the right and threw my fists in front of me, ready to fight him off. I guess I was wrong about anything human behind those eyes once he had turned into a wolf.
Matt landed somewhere behind my tree. A man screamed and stumbled backward. The wolf’s powerful jaws remained clamped around his assailant’s arm. Jerking his head from side to side, he hung on until bones cracked like a person biting into an apple. The yanking had turned into a pull as he tore the arm off and let it fall to the ground. Matt lunged at the man’s throat, silencing his horrific screams.
The savagery of his kill bothered me, though I knew it shouldn’t. If my dreams were correct, I had killed a few werewolves of my own, only I didn’t have sharp teeth to do it with. However, that cute butt and those adorable dimples didn’t seem cute anymore. Part of him was human, but full acceptance meant choosing the beast inside him too. That scared me. I didn’t want to be a savage like that.
Matt stumbled away from the unmoving body. In fact…he stumbled a lot.
Any doubts I had left me. I ran to him and dropped to my knees.
A whine came through his closed muzzle as he walked with a slight limp. Whenever he stopped moving, he lifted his left paw off the ground or barely let it touch.
“Come here, you big baby.” I snatched him by the scruff of his neck and buried his head between my breasts. That might be just the thing he needed to calm down. “Let me see.”
He groaned and pulled away. I got rough with him this time. Matt tripped into me, so I wrapped one arm around his neck and held him still. He was a powerful animal, but I held my own and examined his shoulder. Maybe this was the best way to respect the wolf side of him. Through power and strength, seeing as he seemed to understand that most.
Blood matted his fur. At first, I thought it was from the man he had killed, but even after I cleaned it with my fingers, more appeared. Jagged pieces of skin about the size of a quarter kept pooling with blood. It looked like a graze, which meant he’d be okay. If he were human. Being a werewolf, I couldn’t be sure.
“You need to change,” I said. “You up to it?”
This time, Matt pulled away and settled down on his belly. His head lowered between his front legs and he closed his eyes.
His fur rippled. Seconds later, something began slithering underneath his bubbling coat. Several cracks jolted his legs and back. His tail was the first to go. It began receding into his tailbone until it disappeared. His face broke in several different spots just as his pointed ears began to round off and shrink back to where they were level with his eyes. Clawed paws elongated into fingers, thumb pressing out on the sides. With the exception of his head, his black hair had thinned out like a man balding on a time-lapse camera.
Minutes later, a naked man lay on the ground with one leg bent and the other one sticking straight out at me. Had the circumstances been less urgent, I might have sat there and admired the view.
Talk about getting your signals crossed…
Wolf Signs
© 2009 Vivian Arend
Granite Lake Wolves, Book 1
Robyn Maxwell doesn’t care that her brother has to cancel out on their backcountry ski trip. She can do it alone. The fact she’s deaf doesn’t make her survival skills any weaker. The chance to get away from it all and relax in the Yukon wilderness is just what she’s been craving.
Meeting wilderness guide Keil at the cabin starts cravings of another kind. Keil’s one hot hunk of ripped, tasty male. Now she has to deal with raging hormones as well as strange questions about wolves and mates and challenges to the death.
Keil was trying for a nice reflective retreat before challenging for the Alpha position of his Alaskan pack. He wasn’t planning on meeting the woman destined to be his mate, or finding out she’s not aware she has the genes of a wolf.
Between dealing with his accident-prone younger brother, a deaf mate with an attitude and an impending duel to the death, his week—and his bed—is suddenly full.
Far from the relaxing getaway any of them had in mind…
Warning: Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “talking with your hands”. Includes dangerous use of sarcasm and hot nookie in a remote wilderness sauna.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Wolf Signs:
Robyn shifted uncomfortably on the bench in the annex outside the sauna. Keil had gone back into the cabin with TJ and left her with the directions to relax and wait for him while he grabbed a few things. She added a couple extra logs into the stove, topped up the snow in the buckets and sat to wait.
It was damn uncomfortable to be sitting there knowing any moment a werewolf was going to walk in the door and have sex with her.
Arghhhh. Even the thought made her twitch. What the hell was she doing? This was crazy. It was beyond crazy.
The door opened and Robyn jumped. Sexual heat flowed off Keil’s body and reached to caress her skin.
Okay. She remembered why she was going to do this. Every inch of her was on fire and she was being drawn toward the tall, hard male as if she had ropes that twined about her limbs, trapping her. Keil dropped a blanket on the bench beside her. He glanced at her before lifting her chin with his hand.
“Hey, it’s okay. Let’s take this slowly.”
Robyn dropped her eyes, blushing furiously. “I’m scared.”
“Scared of me?”
“Kind of.”
His gentle hand traced over her ear and nestled in the hair at the back of her neck. “I don’t want to scare you, little bird. I want to love you.”
She lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t know what to do. I mean, I know what to do but I’ve never…”
Keil waggled his eyebrows and his eyes brightened. “I know you’ve never. I’m glad you’ve never. It’s good that you’ve never. Now I don’t have to go track down your old lovers to kill them.”
“Possessive much?”
“You have no idea. Yet.” Keil leaned closer to brush his lips over hers. “Wait until you are fully wolf. I bet you’re going to be just as possessive about me. Wolves mate for life, and we don’t like to share.”
Robyn shifted again on the hard bench. How could she want this much and still feel afraid to take the next step. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to build up her courage.
A gentle touch pulled her to her feet. “You’re thinking too hard. Let’s go slow. You must be sweaty from our ski and digging up TJ. Let me help wash you up.”
Keil’s hands drifted over her shoulders, pulling her up against his body for a brief caress as he reached behind her body to grasp the bottom of her long-sleeved T-shirt. With a slow fluid motion, he lifted it off her, then dropped it on the bench behind them.
As his eyes traced over her torso, Robyn fought the urge to cover her chest with her hands. Ugh. She had to decide to be seduced in a mountain cabin wearing her plainest and sturdiest underwear. Luckily Keil’s face didn’t seem to express any displeasure with what he saw.
And neither could Robyn complain. Keil removed his own shirt with one swift yank and stood inches away from her, his rock-solid abs tempting her fingers.
“Damn. Just…damn. Is what they mean by washboard abs? Can I do some laundry?”
Keil smiled and reached for her. Removing the tight sports bra didn’t go as smoothly. In the m
iddle of pulling it off, Keil’s hand got stuck in the twist of the Y back and Robyn froze with her arms pulled over head, bra wrapping her tight with Keil’s forearm. The heat rose in her face.
“Hell of a thing to happen, but don’t worry. This gives us some very interesting possibilities.” Keil lowered his head to press a kiss on her neck, fluttering soft kisses down over the tops of her exposed breasts, sending chills shooting through her even as he supported and stretched her arms above them.
His touch was gentle but the restrained power was there, under the surface. His tongue stroked over her skin toward her cleavage then his teeth nibbled back up the line of heat he’d created all the way to her lips. His hand was loose from her bra and she lowered her arms slowly, his hot gaze never leaving her body.
“Take off the rest and I’ll get the shower ready.” He spun around quickly, leaving Robyn wondering what she’d done wrong.
“Keil?”
His strong arms poured the heated water into the holding tank over the top of the shower. “I need to cool off a bit. You’re very beautiful and because you’re my mate, I really, really want you. I’m trying to keep things slow here.”
After prepping the water, he placed her into the shower, turning her body until she was wet from head to toe. With a flick of the wrist, he stopped the water and picked up the washcloth and soap. Starting at the back of her neck, he rubbed small circles over her skin, covering her shoulder blades, slipping over her spine until his hands cupped both cheeks of her ass.
Robyn dropped her forehead against the side of the shower stall and closed her mind to everything but the wonderful sensations racing over her skin at his touch. The heat from the sauna warmed the side room they were in to the point that she was comfortable even as droplets continued to cling to her skin. His mouth fastened on her neck, lapping at stray pebbles of water pooled there. Her womb clenched, releasing moisture as every stroke of his tongue sent thrills through her body to increase the desire mounting deep inside.