by Kate Douglas
Nightshift Bundle with Wolf Tales & Embrace the Night
Kate Douglas
Crystal Jordan
Lynn LaFleur
APHRODISIA
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Table of Contents
Wolf Tales
Embrace the Night
Night Shift
Wolf Tales
Wolf Tales
KATE DOUGLAS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
My sincere thanks to Margaret and Bill Riley,
owners and founders of Changeling Press,
who provided a fertile birthplace for my Chanku.
And a very special thank you to my agent,
Jessica Faust, who has proved
she is even more persistent than I am.
Contents
PART ONE: Stefan
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
PART TWO: Alexandria
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART THREE: Anton
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
PART FOUR: Keisha
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
PART FIVE: The Gift
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
PART ONE
Stefan
Chapter 1
Xandi shoved the deflated air bag out of her lap and used her last tissue to wipe the fog off the windshield, well aware it wasn’t going to change her predicament. She saw nothing but white. At least it was still daytime. Even so, her hands shook, and her heart raced. She paused a moment, fist full of tissue pressed against the windshield, then forced herself to take slow, even breaths. Hyperventilating wouldn’t help one bit.
Look at the bright side. At least it’s still daylight. This could have happened at night.
The thought set her heart to pounding even harder.
She’d skidded at least a hundred yards down the hillside and landed in a cushion of thick snow and heavy undergrowth. Her little white sedan tilted to one side, completely surrounded by small trees and shrubs. Thick, fast-falling snow already hid the hood, and most likely the roof as well. She checked her cell phone again. Damn. Still no signal. The narrow gorge she’d fallen into must be blocking her.
Staying in the car was an option, at least until the storm abated, but she’d plowed into the drift hard and deep, and the storm showed no signs of letting up. Already the doors were wedged closed by the weight of the white stuff, and the windows were almost completely covered.
It wasn’t like anyone would be looking for her, and even if someone did, who’d be able to find a little white car buried under a ton of white snow? She was going to have to make a decision, and make it soon, before she suffocated.
Xandi grabbed her down coat out of the backseat, made sure her boots were tightly tied, her gloves were on her hands and her hat was pulled down over her ears. Slowly, she rolled the window down, pushing the heavy snow back so it wouldn’t fall in her lap.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. She had plenty of vacation time accumulated at work, and she’d taken some of it. She’d told her friends and co-workers she needed to get away, needed to think about making some serious changes in her life. Insisted they didn’t need to know her plans, as she would be gone only a couple of weeks and wasn’t going far.
Well, she hadn’t gone far, not really. She’d made it only about twenty miles out of Portland before the damned diesel had run her car off the road. She wondered if the trucker who’d cut in front of her even had a clue what he’d done.
Wondered if he even gave a shit.
Her hands were shaking as she brushed the wet flakes out of her eyelashes and stared through the open window, up the long slope. Cold. She was just so damned cold. And scared.
“Shut up.” She started, surprised by the vehemence in her own voice. This situation didn’t fit with the thick flakes of snow and the postcard image of pine boughs bending beneath their weight. It didn’t fit with her plans, the reason she’d decided to leave in spite of the storm. It just didn’t fit.
Nothing did.
The highway couldn’t be too far above her, though it was hard to tell up from down in the current whiteout conditions. Whatever tracks her car might have left were long gone. She hadn’t lost consciousness, but she’d sat in the front seat with the deflated air bag in her lap, counting her blessings, for way too long. All the while, the snow kept falling.
Of course, the fact she was still alive after hurtling down the steep slope at over seventy miles per hour deserved a word of thanks. Lately, not much in her life did. She took a deep breath, consciously putting all the crap that was Alexandria Olanet’s life behind her, at least for now. With any luck, she’d get up the hill before dark fell and thumb a ride back to town. So much for her great adventure.
So much for taking charge of her life.
Pushing the rest of the snow away from the open window, Xandi clutched her little leather backpack purse in her hand, squeezed her butt through the open window and tumbled out into the swirling snow.
She couldn’t feel her hands or her feet, and she’d lost her right mitten along with her cell phone hours ago. Snow swirled in ever-darkening blasts as nightfall approached. Obviously she’d missed the road, but where the hell was she?
Brushing her hand across her frozen nose, Xandi bit back a sob. Tears wouldn’t help. It was too late for them, and as cold as it was, they’d just freeze on her face. It was too dark to go any farther, and she was just too damned cold and tired.
Feeling slow and stupid, she looked about her, wondering how she’d go about building a shelter when all she could see was blowing snow and dark shadows.
Damn. It was all Jared’s fault. Well, Jared and his blonde nymphet. Would she ever get past the humiliation, the sick-to-the-pit-of-her-stomach feeling? It hadn’t gone away, not once over the past week…not since she’d walked into her bedroom, the one she’d shared with her fiancé for the past year, and caught him bare assed and buck naked with his face buried between the bitch’s legs.
The worst part was the woman’s reaction. She hadn’t even been upset. No, she’d just grinned at Xandi with a look of feral satisfaction, spread her legs wider and faked an orgasm. It had to have been fake—the timing was too good—but Jared hadn’t seemed to mind.
While Xandi stood there in shock, Jared had raised his head, his face streaked with the other woman’s fluids, and stared stupidly at her, blinking like the idiot he was.
In a way, she thought, it was a good thing. Okay, so her self-esteem was officially in the toilet, but at least she’d learned the truth about him before they got married. If only she’d listened to her friends. They’d been trying to warn her, had told her over and over to get out before it was too late.
Now, it just might be. Night had fallen. The snow swirled in ever-stronger gusts. She’d stopped shivering, couldn’t feel her feet, couldn’t move her hands. An almost cozy warmth stole over her. Sighing, feeling more regret than fear, Xandi slowly collapsed into the soft, welcoming snow.
Warmth. The most wonderful
sense of warmth, of contentment. Sighing, Xandi snuggled deeper into the blankets, aware of a slight tingling in her toes and fingers, a sense of heat radiating all around her, of weight and comfort and safety.
And something very large, very long, very solid, wedged tightly between her bare buttocks, following the crease of her labia and resting hot and hard against her clit. She blinked, opened her eyes wide, saw only darkness.
Awake now, she felt soft breath tickling the back of her neck, warm arms encircling her, a hard, muscular body enfolding hers. She held herself very still, forcing her fuzzy mind into a clarity it really wasn’t ready for. Okay…she remembered being lost in a snowstorm, remembered thinking about building a shelter, remembered…nothing. Nothing beyond the sense that it was too late, she was too cold…then nothing.
The body behind her shifted. The huge cock—at least that much she recognized—slipped against her clit as the person holding her thrust his hips just a bit closer to hers.
Xandi cleared her throat. Whoever held her had obviously saved her life. Everyone knew more heat was given off by naked bodies, but she’d never really thought of the concept of awakening in the dark, wrapped securely together with a totally unknown naked body. No, that really hadn’t entered her mind…at least until now.
She fought the need to giggle. Nerves. Had to be nerves. But she felt her labia softening, engorging, knew her clit was beginning to peek out from its little hood of flesh, searching for closer contact with that hot cock. The arms holding her tightened just a bit. One of the hands moved to cover her breast.
Neither one of them spoke. He knew what she looked like. She had no idea who held her. What age he was, what race, what anything.
He saved your life.
There was that. She arched her back, forcing her breast into the huge hand that palmed it. In response, thick fingers compressed the nipple. She bit back a moan. Jared hated it when she made noises during sex.
This isn’t Jared, you idiot.
The fingers pinched harder, rolled the turgid flesh between them. Screw it. She moaned, at the same time parting her legs just a bit so that she could settle herself on the huge cock that seemed to be growing even larger. Then she tightened her thighs around it, sliding her butt back against his rock-hard belly.
She felt the thick curl of pubic hair tickling her butt, rested against the hard root of his penis where it sprung solidly from his groin and clenched her thighs once again, holding onto him. She felt the air go out of his lungs, then the lightest touch of warm lips against her ear, the soft, exploring tip of his tongue as he circled just the outside, the soft puff of his breath.
Shivers raced along her spine. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, anchoring herself while at the same time holding both of his hands tightly against her breasts. The hair on his arms was soft, almost silky. She tried to picture her hidden lover, but before an image came to mind, he hmmm’d against her ear, then ran his tongue along the side of her throat.
She felt the sizzle all the way to her pussy, felt his lips exploring her throat, his mobile tongue teasing the wispy little hairs at the back of her neck. His hands massaged her breasts, squeezed her nipples, then rubbed away the pain. His hips pressed against her, forcing his cock to slide very slowly back and forth between her swollen labia.
She moaned again, the sound working its way up and out of her throat before she even recognized it as her own voice. The heat surrounding her intensified. Whoever he was, whoever held her…she sighed. He literally radiated fire and warmth and pure carnal lust. One of his big hands slipped down to her belly, cupped her mons and pressed her against him. Still gripping his forearm tightly in her left hand, she felt his finger slide down between her legs.
His fingertip paused at her swollen clit, applying the merest bit of pressure. She held perfectly still, afraid he’d stop if she moved, afraid of her own reaction to this most intimate touch by an absolute stranger. She kept a death grip on the wrist near her breast. The fingers of her right hand dug into the corded tendons on the underside of his forearm, and everything in her cried out to thrust her hips forward, to beg him to stroke her, to bury more than just his finger in the moist heat between her legs.
Instead, as her body trembled with the fierce need to move, she held her hips immobile. After a moment that might have lasted forever, he gently rubbed his fingertip around her clit, dipping inside her wet pussy for some of her moisture, then bringing it back to stroke her once more.
She bit back a scream as his roughened fingertip touched her again, the circular motion so light as to hardly register. Her trembling increased, her desire, her barely controllable need to tilt and force her hips against him, to make him enter her.
She didn’t care if he used his cock, his tongue, his finger…hell, at this point, he could use his whole fucking hand and it wouldn’t be enough. She choked back a whimper as he changed the direction of his massage, moving his fingertip slowly up and down over the small hooded organ. Each stroke took him closer to her pussy. Closer, but not nearly close enough.
Her breath caught in her throat when he dipped inside her, swirled his thick finger around the streaming walls of her pussy, then returned to caress her clit once more. A small part of Xandi’s mind reminded her she was being beautifully fucked by a total stranger, that her fingers were clutching thick, muscular arms, that she was clasping her thighs around the biggest cock she’d ever felt in her life—and that they still hadn’t exchanged a single word.
It came to her then, in an almost blinding flash of insight, a personal epiphany of pure, carnal need and unmitigated lust, that she’d never, even in her most imaginative fantasy, been this turned on in her entire life. Never felt so tightly linked—mentally, physically, sexually—to anyone. She moaned aloud as his finger once more slipped back between her legs. His thumb stroked her clit now, and that one, thick finger plunged carefully in and out of her weeping flesh.
Suddenly, the hot tip of his tongue traced the whorl of her ear, then dipped inside. Shocked, she thrust her hips forward, forcing his fingers deep. His breath tickled the top of her ear, his tongue swirled the interior, leaving it all hot and damp, filled with lush promise.
She thrust harder against his fingers, still holding one of his hands against her breast, forcing the other deep between her legs. She felt the thick rush of fluid, the hot coil of her climax building, building with each slick thrust of his cock between her thighs, each dip of his fingers, each…
Without warning, he rolled her to her stomach, breaking her grip on his forearms as if it were nothing. He grabbed her hips and lifted her. Xandi moaned, spreading her legs wide, welcoming him, begging with her body. Eyes wide open, she saw nothing but darkness, felt no sense of space, lost all concept of time. She quivered, hanging at the precipice of a frightening, endless fall.
His big hands clasped her hips, held her tightly. He massaged her buttocks for a moment with both his thumbs, spreading her cheeks wide. She felt her slick moisture on his fingertip, almost preternaturally aware of each tiny spot on her body where she made contact with his.
She wondered how much he could see, if his night vision were better than hers. It was as dark as the inside of a cave, wherever they were. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t see the soft bed beneath her, couldn’t see her own hands.
Couldn’t see his.
Yet the link persisted, the sense of connection, of need, of desire so gut deep it was suddenly part of her existence, of her entire world. A link she knew would be forged forever when he finally entered her, filled her with heat and pulsing need.
He lifted her higher, his hands slipping down to grab her thighs, raising her up so that her knees no longer touched the mattress, so that her weight was on her forearms, her face pressed tightly to the pillow.
She expected his thick cock to fill her pussy. Wanted his cock, now. Please, now! Her breath caught in short, wild gasps for air, her legs quivered, and she hung there in his grasp, waiting…waiting. Hove
ring there, held aloft, the cool air drifting across her hot, needy flesh. Waiting for him to fill her.
Instead, she felt him pull away, felt the mattress dip as he shifted his weight…felt the fiery wet slide of his tongue between her legs.
“Ahhh…” Her cry ended on a whimper. He looped his arms through her thighs and lifted her even higher, his tongue finding entry into her gushing pussy, his lips grabbing at her engorged labia, suckling each fleshy lip into his hot mouth. He nibbled and sucked, spearing her with his tongue, nipping at her with sharp teeth, then laving her with soft, warm strokes. Suddenly his lips encircled her clit, and he suckled, hard, pressing down on the sensitive little organ with his tongue.
The scream exploded out of her. She clamped her legs against the sides of his head, peripherally aware of scratchy whiskers, strong jaw. His tongue lapped and twisted, filling her streaming pussy, as she bucked against him. He was strong, stronger than any man she’d ever known, holding her aloft, eating her out like a hungry beast, his mouth all lips and tongue and hard-edged teeth.
He dragged his tongue across her clit once more, suckled her labia between his lips and brought her to another clenching, screaming climax. Once more, licking her now, long, slow sweeps from clit to anus, each stroke taking her higher, farther. His tongue snaked across her flesh, dipping inside to lap at her moist center, tickling her sensitive clit, ringing the tight sphincter in her ass. Gasping, shivering, her legs trembling, Xandi struggled for breath, reached for yet another climax.