by Lynn Hagen
This time Raven couldn’t fight the grin. He chuckled as he nodded.“But you have to promise to brush your teeth when you’re done.”
Oscar grinned, shoving a cookie into his mouth.“I will,” he mumbled around the Oreo.
“Do you need help getting back to your room?” Raven asked. He knew the small human child had been badly burned in a fire. Although Oscar was in physical therapy, the child still had trouble getting around, stairs being his biggest obstacle.
Oscar nodded, curling his fingers around his stolen snacks. Raven picked him up and cradled Oscar in his arms and then walked back upstairs. He peeked into Chance and Seth’s room, making sure they were asleep before taking Oscar to the adjoining room, settling him in his bed.“Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”
“I won’t,” Oscar promised as he began to nibble on his stolen pizza, a sparkle of thanks in his eyes.
Raven walked out of the bedroom, seeing Chance awake and watching him. He should have known he couldn’t sneak by a shifter.
“Thanks,” Chance said as he glanced back at Oscar’s door.“I heard him when he left the room. Seth doesn’t know I let Oscar go for snacks at night.”
“I do now,” Seth said sleepily.“And I’ll deal with you and Oscar in the morning.”
Chance grinned as he looked over at Raven, his large hand rubbing down Seth’s back.“Thanks for bringing him back upstairs.”
Raven nodded as he walked out of the bedroom and closed the door.
“Nightly rescue mission?” Darcy asked from behind Raven, his voice a mix of tension and humor.
Raven closed his eyes briefly. It seemed he just couldn’t put any distance between himself and his mate. The aroma of Darcy’s blood wafted around Raven, creating a cloak of temptation and making his jaw tic. His heart rate sped up. Not to mention he was practically drooling at the sweet scent of his mate’s blood.
Raven took a step back, letting a breath out slowly.“You should go to your room.”
Darcy shook his head, taking a step closer for every one Raven took back.“Tell me, Raven. Why do I get the feeling that this perfect little town is hiding something?”
Raven stilled, stopping his backward progression. He nearly closed his eyes at the sound of his name on his mate’s lips. He wanted to hear it again. Only next time, Raven wouldn’t protest to both of them being naked.“Like what?”
Darcy shrugged, his hands folded behind his back.“You tell me.”
Not only was his mate’s blood tempting, he was very observant. Raven would have to remember this. He took a step forward, noticing that Darcy didn’t look so confident now that he was moving toward his mate. Darcy’s arms came to his sides as he glanced behind him in the direction of his bedroom.
“Afraid, Darcy?” Raven asked as he took another step toward the human, his eyes narrowing when he saw a nervous twitch in Darcy hands. He wasn’t trying to scare the man. Raven was only trying to get Darcy away from him before he sank his teeth into his mate’s softlooking flesh.
Raven scented his mate, and he hungered.
Darcy turned back toward Raven, his copperybrown eyes skipping over Raven’s face as his mate’s breathing intensified, coming in quicker pants. Even the pulse in Darcy’s neck was thumping harshly. Darcy looked like he was caught in some sort of imaginary headlights, unmoving and frightened.
Raven’s tongue traced his bottom lip as he stared at Darcy’s neck. His fangs were painfully trapped in his mouth as Raven fought against biting his mate.“Go back to your room, Darcy.” Because he was losing control fast. Raven wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand there and ignore the succulent scent of his mate’s blood. The need to drink was overriding his common sense. He had to get Darcy away from him.
Darcy nodded, taking a step back and then spinning on his heel, hurrying down the hallway. Raven sighed in relief, although the craving hadn’t dissipated in the least. But Darcy was gone. That helped him breathe through the need as he closed his eyes and counted to ten. That didn’t help. He wanted to chase Darcy down, but forced himself to stay rooted to the spot.
“Is there something I should know about?”
Raven turned to see Malcolm standing in the hallway, his thick arms crossed over his massive chest as he stared where Darcy had just been standing.
Yeah, there was something Malcolm should know. Raven couldn’t seem to control the urge to sink his fangs into his mate’s vein. But was he going to tell the bear shifter that? Hell no.“No, nothing.”
“He is a guest here, Raven, just as you are.” The warning was clear in Malcolm’s deep voice.
“Everything is fine.” Raven walked back to his room, cursing under his breath. He closed his door and wondered if he would survive the night with Darcy right across the hall.
At this rate, he wasn’t sure he would survive the hour.
Chapter Three
Darcy felt his entire body shaking as he closed his bedroom door. There had been something unnerving about Raven as they stood in the hallway. If Darcy didn’t know any better, he would say that Raven hadn’t seemed human.
But that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
Oh, gods, he was cracking up in this small town. Maybe months
of traveling from town to town had finally cracked his mind. He wouldn’t doubt it. Darcy was starting to see things that weren’t there. He was starting to imagine things that couldn’t be possible. And if his gut didn’t stop gnawing at the feeling of this town being too perfect, he was going to go crazy—if he already hadn’t.
This wasn ’t like him. Darcy was never this damn suspicious. He was uptight and moody, but he wasn’t someone who thought a town was filled with dark secrets.
Gods, he needed sleep.
He jumped out of his skin and damn near shouted when his bedroom door flew open. His nerves were already wound tight as it was. Thankfully he had caught the scream before he had let it loose. He didn’t need Sterling making him jump like that. “Damn it, Sterling.” Darcy was a nervous wreck and knew his heart couldn’t take any more scary shit tonight.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sterling asked as he plopped down on Darcy’s bed, pulling one leg up and tucking it underneath him.
Oh, nothing. Raven just scared the shit out of me in the hallway and he didn’t seem human.“You’re supposed to knock.”
“Gee, get your panties out of your ass crack.” Sterling rolled over onto his side, grinning like an idiot up at Darcy. He willed himself to relax, taking in a deep breath and silently letting it out. He had to keep his cool. It wouldn’t do him any good to have a nervous breakdown because Raven had made him think that more than humans walked the earth.
That thought was totally ridiculous, right?
Yeah, yeah, it’s ridiculous.
Hell, he was answering himself now. Nuthouse, here I come.
“This place is so cool. There’s a large barn with horses and a corral behind the house. I saw some cows. Cows, Darcy! I know, I’ve seen them before, but not this close. I was able to pet one of the horses named Mammoth. Daniel said that one of the Lakelands would take me riding if I just asked.”
Darcy was losing it and needed to pull himself together. He could still feel his body shaking as he stood there looking at his younger brother. He wasn’t sure what to think right now. Raven had shaken him to his core.“Don’t bother the nice people.” Nice people, riiight. “They’ve already extended themselves by letting us stay here for the night.” But Darcy did keep in mind that Sterling loved animals. The guy had a weird way with them. Even the meanest dogs seemed to calm down around Sterling. His younger brother had begged for a pet for months, but Darcy wasn’t willing to have an extra responsibility, and owning a pet was a huge responsibility.
It hurt him to tell Sterling no, and now that they were on the road, he was glad he had stuck by his guns. As badly as Sterling craved a pet, it wouldn’t have been a wise decision.
“It’s just horseback riding, Darcy.” Sterling was alm
ost whining as he pushed up into a sitting position, irritation and a big, sappy pout on his face.“That can’t be putting them out.”
Darcy hated seeing the look of disappointment on Sterling’s face. The man had already been through enough. They both had, but Darcy didn’t want to chance being asked to leave because Sterling was being a pest. And Sterling could be a very big pest. “Just don’t bug them.”
Sterling’s eyes lit up as he grinned from ear to ear. The little shit knew he won.“I promise I won’t.”
Somehow Darcy had a feeling he was fighting a losing battle with his little brother. Sterling not bugging people was like the sun not rising.
Totally impossible.
It was infused in Sterling’s DNA to be a pain in the ass. Darcy glanced at his open bedroom door and then gave in to the urge and closed it. He was still a little wigged out about the way Raven had acted in the hallway. He prayed it was lack of sleep that made him see things, but he could have sworn he had seen a hunger in Raven’s eyes as he stared at Darcy. Never before had anyone looked at Darcy in that manner, and it was shaking him to his core. It wasn’t just the fact that Raven gave him a hungry look. He could have shaken that off. But Darcy had felt the hunger as well.
That was a little more than he could handle.
“You look like shit,” Sterling said as he pushed from the bed, a bounce in his step now. Even though Darcy’s nerves were on edge, he smiled. Sterling had that effect on him.“Get some sleep.”
Sterling’s advice seemed to bring on Darcy’s fatigue. He yawned as he nodded, waving his brother from his room, feeling his eyelids grow heavy. The bed was looking more appealing by the second.“I will.”
“Oh,” Sterling said as he turned back around, nearly bumping into Darcy. He sidestepped, Sterling missing him entirely.“Pa said that breakfast will be at six.”
“Pa?” Since when did Sterling call anyone Pa? It sounded strange hearing Sterling call anyone by a fatherly name. Their own father had died when Sterling was two. Darcy had taken on the responsibility of raising Sterling, along with their mother, until Darcy turned of age and got his very first apartment.
But when their mother passed away, Sterling had moved in with Darcy. They’d lived together ever since. Until that jackass landlord pulled that bullshit stunt.
Sterling double whammed Darcy with a snort and an eye roll. “Just be downstairs for breakfast. Roman is giving us a ride to work.”
Darcy wasn’t even going to ask who Roman was. There were just too many people in this house to keep up with. But the one person Darcy wouldn’t forget was Raven. The man was an enigma. One minute he had been polite to Darcy, even a bit shy and charming, and the next he had practically threatened Darcy to go to his bedroom.
Maybe the guy was bipolar.
And those charcoal-black eyes. Darcy felt as though he were falling into a dark abyss when he stared into Raven’s eyes. The feeling wasn’t welcome, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like losing himself so quickly to someone, especially someone he just met.
“Hello?” Sterling waved his hand in front of Darcy’s eyes a goofy frown on his face.“Where’d you go?”
“Asleep on my feet,” Darcy answered as he ushered Sterling toward his door. He really did need some sleep. It might only be nine at night, but six in the morning would be here soon enough.
“See you in the morning, dork.”
Darcy closed his bedroom door, yawning as he pulled his clothes off. It had been one long day, and all he wanted was a shower and a soft mattress. He walked into the bathroom and took a long shower, letting the hot stream of water beat at his muscles, sighing deeply as he washed away the tension of the day.
Too bad he couldn’t wash all his worries away with the hot jets of water. It would take a waterfall for that to happen.
After toweling off, Darcy climbed into the large bed and folded the blanket over his head. He was beat. After walking for what felt like forever today, then finding jobs, and then coming out here to this ranch, Darcy had had enough excitement for one day.
And then there was Raven.
Darcy turned over, closing his eyes as he tried to forget the man who had scared the hell out of him in the hallway, yet excited him in ways Darcy didn’t understand.
Raven was tall, over six feet, with a nice frame that wasn’t too large or ripped with muscles. He was sinewy, sleek, and Darcy couldn’t help but wonder what Raven looked like naked. He was glad Raven wasn’t protruding with large muscles. Darcy didn’t care for the overly muscled. They were overrated and not his type. He preferred the more refined body that hid a tight and lean physique that begged to be explored.
But Darcy’s mind wandered back to Raven’s coal-black eyes. He had caught the gleam of interest in Raven’s eyes earlier—before Raven had scared the shit out of him in the hallway.
“You were just imagining the interest,” Darcy mumbled to himself as he let out a long breath and tried to sleep. But as weary as he was, Darcy couldn’t get Raven off of his mind. The man was simply gorgeous. He held an old-world air about him that intrigued Darcy.
Too bad Darcy didn’t have the balls to hit on the man.
Darcy knew he was gay. His eyes wandered toward men, not women. He drooled every time he saw a man in nicely sculpted jeans, and Darcy got a boner when he spotted a man without a shirt on, or wearing even less.
He just never acted on his lust.
Darcy was ready, willing to jump into the rainbow lake, but he lacked the nerve to approach anyone to feed his curiosity and turn it into reality. He was in a house full of men, for fuck’s sake, and Darcy was too chickenshit to approach any of them.
But there was only one man Darcy wanted to approach.
“Go to sleep,” he groaned to himself as he grabbed one of the pillows on the bed and shoved it over his head. It would do no good to fantasize about someone he couldn’t have, or was too scared to have.
Raven was quiet, reserved, and downright intimidating. The man wouldn’t waste his time on someone like Darcy Lagrange. The guy struck Darcy as the type of man that appreciated more sophisticated company. Darcy wasn’t sophisticated. He was well mannered, and even educated, but he lacked the sophistication that would impress Raven.
But damn if Darcy wasn’t dying to let Raven have him—just as long as the man didn’t scare the crap out of him. Darcy turned over onto his stomach, his cock hard and poking him in the belly as he reached behind him, rimming his fingers around his untried entrance.
He quietly moaned as his hole pulsed and images of Raven taking him filled Darcy’s head. He pulled his hand back up toward his head, spit on his fingers, and then reached back behind him, sliding his fingers down the crack of his ass and then rimming his hole once again.
When Darcy slid one lone finger into his ass, he softly spoke Raven’s name. He imagined that it was Raven’s hard cock entering him, filling him completely, making his body come to life. His cock jerked, pulsed, and leaked as Darcy inserted another finger.
“Fuck me, Raven, please,” he whispered in the dark room as his imagination took flight. Darcy had had fantasies before, but never like this, never to the point that he was verbally living the fantasy out while fucking his fingers like they were a cock.
Raven’s cock.
Darcy hissed, moaned, and grunted as his fingers pushed deeper inside of his ass. Even though he was imagining Raven fucking him, imagination just wasn’t enough. Darcy needed the real thing to make his orgasm happen.
He could jack off, but it wouldn’t be the same as having Raven touch him, kiss him, or just take command and rock Darcy’s world.
“Is that what you want?”
Darcy froze, every muscle in his body locking down. Even his breathing was so shallow that his lungs were beginning to burn from lack of proper oxygen. He was even too afraid to remove his fingers from his ass.
No sudden movements.
“I know you’re awake, Darcy.”
Darcy still didn’t move. He w
asn’t sure how Raven had gotten into his bedroom so quietly, or why the man was here, but damn if this wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of his life. Had Raven heard him crying out to be fucked? Darcy was going to die of complete and utter mortification.
When the blanket was tossed aside, Darcy slammed his eyes closed. He knew what Raven was looking at, and there was no way Darcy could deny what the man was seeing.
“Darcy,” Raven groaned as his fingers trailed lightly down Darcy’s arm. It was the same arm that held the fingers that were tightly tucked into his ass. Darcy shivered.“What are you doing to me?”
The dryness in Darcy’s mouth was almost painful, but not as painful as the heart that slammed into Darcy’s chest, making it almost impossible to breathe.“Raven.” He half whispered, half whimpered the man’s name.
“I couldn’t stay away, Darcy,” Raven murmured as he crawled onto the bed next to Darcy, his fingers lingering dangerously close to Darcy’s wrist and the fingers that were inserted into his rear end. He could feel that Raven was still fully dressed, the denim of his jeans scraping against Darcy’s bare legs.“Keep your fingers where they are.”
Darcy swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth to speak, but it was a futile attempt with Raven so close, the heat of his body soaking into Darcy’s naked flesh. He lay very still, wondering what Raven was about to do, and prayed at the same time that the man fulfilled Darcy’s fantasy.
Raven’s firm hand curled around Darcy’s chin, tugging Darcy’s head until he was staring into Raven’s eyes.“I’m trying to figure out what to do with you,” Raven whispered against his lips before he laid a kiss as tender and light as a summer breeze across the edge of Darcy’s mouth. When he tried to pull his fingers from his body, Raven’s fingers wrapped around Darcy’s wrist, holding it firm in its place.“Don’t.”
Darcy gave a tight little nod of his head, wondering if he hadn’t fallen asleep and all of this was just one great-ass dream. If it was, hell if he wanted to wake up anytime soon. Raven’s weight felt good pressed into Darcy’s body. They were lined up perfectly.