by Jamie Craig
Kissing Aden Richter like he wanted to eat his face was not part of his mission. In fact, if Jasmine caught him necking with a target, he’d be summarily dismissed, and possibly put on trial, depending on just how much necking had happened. But Jasmine wasn’t there, and Aden’s mouth was nothing less than intoxicating. From the way Aden’s cock pushed against his tight leather pants, Darren had to believe the kiss was affecting him the same way. That maybe, for a moment, physical desire was paramount.
Aden growled in the back of his throat, a low, feral sound that made the hair stand up on Darren’s arms. Letting go of Darren’s thigh, he gripped his hip instead, hauling him closer. It practically pulled Darren onto his lap, his erection hard against his ass, but as Darren shifted in order to increase the contact with all that hot skin, Aden’s hand went back between his legs.
The moment his powerful fingers skimmed over Darren’s cock, strapped tight into his body even though it killed him as he got hard, both of them froze.
Aden hissed. His hold on Darren became unbreakable. “Well, this just got a hell of a lot more interesting.”
Darren struggled, but that didn’t help the situation. It made it worse. Aden’s arm tightened around him, and he ground against his still-present erection. Darren’s ass clenched in response, and anger flared inside of him. He had just totally fucked up, exposed his disguise, and put his life in even more danger, and he still wanted Aden’s cock.
“A bit, yeah.”
Those clear blue eyes fixed on Darren’s mouth. “Argenti’s never sent a man before. Did somebody finally get smart, or is this just my lucky day?”
“Honestly? Nobody else had an invitation to this extremely exclusive and impossible to infiltrate party. So I guess we both got lucky.”
“That explains the dress then. If somebody had been smart, you would’ve been in a leash and collar and nothing else.” His nose twitched, and he leaned forward to nuzzle Darren’s throat, audibly inhaling. “Oh, yeah, there it is.”
“So now that you know my secret, does that make you more or less inclined to go with the option of trying to kill each other?” It didn’t matter, but Darren truly wanted to know. He hadn’t expected Aden’s erection to remain, or for the werewolf to begin sniffing and licking him.
He cried out when Aden sucked hard on a fresh patch of skin, arching into the man’s body in an instinctive attempt for more. The sensations were sharp and sudden, filling his head with a fog that threatened to erase every single one of his intentions, but it was the throb of that thick length against his ass that made it even worse.
Abruptly, Aden stopped. He didn’t just stop; he let Darren go so fast he tumbled from the wall. Darren scrambled to his feet, nearly twisting his ankle on the damn heel, but by the time his head snapped in Aden’s direction, the man was already melting into the shadows.
“Just because I don’t want to, doesn’t mean I won’t,” Aden said. “Don’t give me a reason.”
“It’s too late for that.” Darren didn’t raise his voice to address Aden. The man’s sharp ears would pick up the words. “Because you already gave me a reason to be here.”
“And I’m sure you believe that.” He was almost completely gone now, only the flash of his teeth every once in a while giving away his location. “Just remember who the hunter is here, gorgeous.”
“And I’ll just warn you not to underestimate me, sunshine.”
Another flash. Darren could have sworn he was smiling.
Then it was gone.
Darren leaned against the wall. His warning must have sounded real scary after he had turned into a massive slut for a handsome face, a few low words, and a coaxing mouth. There couldn’t be a repeat performance, and the thought twisted at him a little bit. It was a little cruel, to get that close to what promised to be mind-blowing pleasure, only to be reminded that he had a task.
He couldn’t leave the party until Aden Richter was dead.
Chapter 2
When it came to parties, too proper Halloween bashes with city officials weren’t exactly Aden’s cup of tea. He had to go; there wasn’t any way around it. But hell if he was going to show up in one of those sissy and far too expensive costumes the rest would be wearing. He deliberately chose something provocative. It wasn’t just to get a good laugh out of Giessen at the get-up, but this way, too, whoever was setting him up would know he was there. The leather pants and guitar were one big target of I dare you to come fuck with me. His biggest hope was that the bastard tried. Aden was going to get far too much pleasure ripping his throat out.
The costume had had an unexpected side effect, but discovering there was at least one Argenti agent on the premises only heightened Aden’s alertness. The Catwoman costume was more than cheap, but the agent had the best legs Aden had ever seen, with the sexiest mouth he’d ever kissed. Indulging in flirting to throw the agent off had been fun. Finding out the agent was really male had been even more so. When it came to sex, Aden was an equal opportunity kind of guy. All he cared about was chemistry. But pinned to the wall, forced to make a choice, a hard cock and a tighter ass would win, every single time.
He was going to have to be careful with this one. This agent—whoever he was—was a distraction. Because Aden was still hard, twenty minutes after leaving the guy in the garden.
Distractions could get him killed. If it wasn’t whoever was setting him up, it was the Argenti agent. Aden had no plans on losing his skin any time soon. He’d kill whoever got in his way, even if it meant seeing pretty boy lying in his own blood.
Aden prowled through the deserted upstairs corridors, his nostrils flaring as he tracked the scent. The rituals framing him had all held distinctive odors. He had spent the past two weeks arriving at crime scenes just a little too late; the pungent gingery smell characterizing each was already dissipating. Humans wouldn’t have detected it. Other wolves might not have, either. Every single death had been drenched in blood, and even Aden had a difficult time separating the smells.
When he had shown up at Giessen’s office to deliver his most recent acquisition, however, the first thing that had struck him was the same scent. It wasn’t on Giessen, but rather, hung in the air around him, in his office, even at his secretary’s desk, like whoever carried it had been through, and recently. He’d accepted the invitation to Halloween without pause. There was a connection. There had to be. And with the full moon on Halloween, too, Aden feared the rituals would come to a head. He didn’t think Giessen was guilty, but the more Aden dug around, the more he didn’t like what he found. Giessen was involved. Which meant Aden was going to stick to him like glue until he found out who was trying to set him up.
Searching through the deserted area couldn’t wait. He had no doubt that once the party really got going, they would start filtering upstairs in pairs and threesomes, seeking quiet rooms, or at least, quiet corners. His vision was sharp enough to see without turning on the lights, even when he wasn’t in wolf form. But he needed to rely on his nose more than his eyes, and that led him further away from the party and deeper into the maze-like corridors.
He listened for any sign that he wasn’t alone, but after the din of the party, the second floor was entirely still. He didn’t make a sound as he walked, his tread so light he might as well have been stepping on air.
The house smelled like its own living creature. Most houses did. They absorbed the scents of the people they protected, and mixed to create something new, something different. Sometimes they were benevolent, sometimes not. The Giessen house bordered on malevolent. Giessen himself was not a bad man, but Aden knew evil when he encountered it. If he had any doubts the rituals all led back here, they were gone.
He paused outside a closed door. The trail continued, but a new scent had joined the elixir, drifting from behind him to cloud his path. Turning sideways, he pressed against the wall to try and disappear. It was the first time that night he regretted his costume choice. He should have found a black shirt to wear, too.
&n
bsp; As soon as he caught the outline of the Argenti agent, his cock jumped. It wasn’t exactly the response he needed right now.
Aden kept against the wall as the outline sharpened. Despite the words exchanged earlier, he knew Argenti agents were dangerous. And single-minded. Once they had a mission, they were on that mission regardless of the costs or the consequences. Having one tracking him now was a hassle he didn’t want and couldn’t afford. Especially if the agent got in the way of his own investigation.
Aden looked away for a moment, and when he focused on the place the agent had been standing, it was empty. Though that delicious scent still lingered in the air.
He didn’t move. Without knowing where the agent was, he risked exposure. He had little doubt the agent was armed. One little blade was hardly up to their usual standards. Giving away his location would create more trouble than it was worth.
So he waited. One minute ticked by. Two. Not a sound disturbed the empty hallway, except for the echoes from the party downstairs. If the agent moved, Aden didn’t hear it, which only made him more nervous. That testified to the agent’s skill. He would have much preferred having an idiot to deal with than someone who could get from one place to another as quietly as Aden could.
His thoughts stopped. If the agent was moving that quietly, he had to have taken off the high heeled shoes. Which might mean…
He ducked the split second before he heard the air whisper its approach. Plaster rained down on top of his head as something embedded in the wall, right where his head used to be.
Aden glanced up and growled in the back of his throat. He’d been right. One of the shoes was stuck in the wall.
“I don’t have time for this,” he said, just loud enough for the agent to hear him. “You do realize it’s a full moon, right? Run along home before I decide to stop playing nice and shift, just for you, gorgeous.”
“Do you think I care if you shift?” His voice came from the right, and Aden turned toward it. A few seconds later, words drifted from the opposite direction. “I’m trained to fight werewolves, sunshine. It’ll be like putting down a wild animal.”
“And how many have you actually killed?” Aden crouched down and crept along, focusing in on the scent rather than the voice. “You’re not even old enough to shave. Not that I mind that. Especially if you’re nice and smooth all over.”
“Been an operative for three years. Maybe you should do the math.”
The agent’s scent intensified, and Aden quickened his pace, already drooling. He rounded the corner, but instead of finding the agent’s tight little body, he only found a shirt tossed to the floor.
It was barely a scrap of a thing, but Aden brought it up to his nose and inhaled deeply. His mouth watered, and for a moment, his head filled with images of riding the agent’s ass until they both passed out. It took too much effort to shake them away. After his response to the agent downstairs, of course the other man would use his sexuality to distract him.
“Tell me you lost the padded bra, too, and we’ll have the beginnings of a perfect party,” Aden taunted. “How exactly do you plan on getting out of the house now without half your clothes?”
“The back door. The real problem is going to be getting your body out of the house.”
“Maybe you should have planned for that in advance.”
“Oh, it’s under control. Don’t worry about that. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo, after all.”
Aden had a feeling he could do this all night. The last agent he’d tangled with had been a bore, but this one kept along just fine. The only problem was, he didn’t have all night.
From the sounds of the party, the stairs were in the same direction as his new friend, which made returning to the festivities an impossibility. There was a third floor, but Aden hadn’t bothered learning the floor plan of the house. His plan had been to follow his nose. This agent was now getting in the way of that.
“It might not be your first, but I can pretty much guarantee it’ll be your last if you don’t let me go,” Aden tried. “And really, you’re too pretty to end up in pieces. Even if they’d be very pretty pieces.”
“Come on, now. Do you really think I can just walk out of here and leave you? What do you think is going to happen to me if I go back to Argenti without your head?”
“Offer to blow your boss to make up for it. That would work for me.”
“I don’t think she’d be interested.”
“Well, that’s a shame. I’d say you could offer something else, but something tells me I’m more to your taste than she might be.”
“I’d say the real shame is that you’re a remorseless killer. We could’ve had a good time if it wasn’t for that little issue.”
Aden chuckled. “Now who said I was remorseless?”
“Do thoughts of all your victims keep you up at night?”
“No, pretty boys like you do.”
“You’re a charmer. So what are you doing up here? There’s no prey to stalk, near as I can tell.”
“What’s that? A rational Argenti agent?” Aden clicked his tongue, creeping along the wall. Maybe if he got close enough to the man to grab him, he could end this once and for all. “Even if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me, so why should I even bother?”
“Now you’ve piqued my curiosity. Indulge me.”
“No, I haven’t. You’re stalling for time.” But the request made him pause, weighing his options. It couldn’t hurt to tell the agent what was going on. It wouldn’t stop him from going after Aden, but it might get him thinking outside of his red tape box. “You think I killed all those people, don’t you?”
“I think the evidence points to only one werewolf in the area. A werewolf interested in stockpiling power. A werewolf with friends in high places to keep him out of the reach of the law. A werewolf who can shift at will.”
“And you think I’m dumb enough to leave such a blatant trail? I do have friends, gorgeous, but they draw the line at publicity like that.”
“It’s not about being dumb. After tonight, it won’t matter what your friends think. You’ll be powerful enough without them.”
So they knew about the rituals. Or at least enough to understand that it was all about power. Too bad they were foolish enough to think he’d be as obvious as that.
“Or maybe not. Whatever it looks like, I didn’t do this.”
“Oh, you’re innocent? Why didn’t you just say so earlier?”
Aden gritted his teeth. He knew it sounded ridiculous. He should have known someone as narrow-minded as an Argenti agent would scoff at the possibility.
“Why would I want more power?” he tried instead. “I’m already one of the strongest wolves in the region. I’m in control of my shifting. I don’t need to worry about lunar cycles. What do I possibly have to gain from any of this except to draw unwanted attention to myself?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re greedy. Maybe you’re stupid. Maybe you’re just bloodthirsty. But I haven’t seen any evidence that you’re innocent.”
He was close enough that he saw the man’s outline again. Something glinted in his hand. Something metallic. From the way his fingers were positioned, it could only be a gun.
With silver bullets. Argenti agents always had silver bullets. Aden had a scar along his arm where he’d been grazed by one the first time he’d met an Argenti agent. Five years ago.
“Sniff it out,” Aden said. “It’s here. In this house. It was at every single one of the rituals, and it’s somewhere in here. Go ahead, gorgeous. Use that nose of yours. Your mouth can’t be the only talented part of your body.”
“How do I know this isn’t a trick to distract me while you’re finishing the ritual yourself?”
“I could volunteer a place on my lap while you take a sniff. You’ll know exactly where I am then.”
“Take a sniff at what? What, exactly, should I smell?”
For the first time, he thought he detected a note of interest in what A
den might be claiming. “Like ginger,” he said. “Like magic gone sour.”
“Like magic gone sour,” he repeated. His silhouette turned to face Aden, and the gun glinted in his hand again. “Fine. But if you do anything…anything…I don’t like, I’m going to put a bullet between your eyes.”
Aden saw more than the gun. He saw glimpses of the man’s torso, tightly muscled with a thin trail of hair disappearing into his skirt. He saw a nervous swipe of the man’s tongue over his lower lip and, better, remembered exactly what the ripe swell of flesh felt like between his teeth.
“You liked it when I did this, though.” Slowly, carefully, his gaze unwavering from the gun in case he misjudged the man, Aden reached out and ran the back of his fingers along the agent’s forearm. Heat immediately erupted from the man’s skin, pungent and prickly. “I’m guessing you still like it.”
His lips parted and he caught his breath. “No touching, sunshine. Not until we find the proof you insist exists.”
Just as slowly as he’d reached out, Aden withdrew, a smile curving his mouth. “Deal.”
Chapter 3
Aden ripping him in two was not the worst thing that could happen to Darren. The absolute worst thing would be Jasmine finding out Darren had the open shot and never took it. Twice. He’d had an open shot twice. His finger had been heavy against the trigger, and all he had to do was apply a tiny amount of pressure. Twice. But the first time, Aden had called him a pretty boy. And the second time, Aden was touching him. How could he shoot the werewolf in that situation?
It was wrong to give Aden the benefit of the doubt. Wrong and stupid. And punishable by…Darren didn’t want to think about the punishment he was courting. Even if Aden was telling the God’s honest truth and there was another, unknown werewolf in the area, that might not be enough to pull Darren’s ass out of the fire. But he had a priority greater than eliminating a target. He had a priority greater than getting his hands and mouth on Aden’s body. He wanted to stop a killer.