Remi’s eyes were watery, the scent of tears heavy in the air, but he didn’t cry. He laughed, almost evilly. “The son of a bitch even told me what I was going to do for a living. One night over dinner he said, ‘You need to fill out this application to the fire department, I already told the fire chief to be looking for it.’ He threw the application at me and asked Sterling, ‘What do you think about Remi being a fireman?’ I don’t know if it was a threat or not, but I didn’t even argue. Besides, Sterling seemed to think it was cool. Of course, most six-year-olds do, huh? They all want to be firemen, policemen or astronauts…or a sports star. At that age, I wanted to be the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.”
“Ah, that explains your jersey number in high school. Roger Staubach, huh?”
Remi grinned. “Yeah.”
“You were damn good. You probably could have been the Cowboy’s quarterback, well a NFL quarterback at least. Tell me truthfully, how many colleges offered you football scholarships?”
“Only two. The scouts were watching other players, not me.”
Jake didn’t ask why Remi didn’t take them up on it or seek out a scholarship to a school of his choice, when it meant he could’ve escaped his father. He didn’t need to.
Jake came to the sudden realization that Remi’s sexual orientation and getting him to accept being Jake’s mate, were not the only obstacles in the way. He needed to help Remi find a way to protect and care for Sterling while getting the threat of Remi’s abusive father out of their lives.
Setting his beer on the table, Jake moved a bit closer to Remi. “What about your mother? Is she still around?”
“Since I moved out, it seems like he beats Mom more. Sterling says it’s because she makes sure Dirk doesn’t go after him.” The tears Remi had been holding back dripped down his cheek. Turning his head toward the TV, which was now a blue screen, he rested his cheek on his knee. “She’s a lost cause. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so damn hard. She won’t leave. Says she loves him and he needs her. At first I thought she was scared, but now…” He dashed the tears away with his hand. “Now, I think he means more to her than we do. Sterling and I have always depended on each other. That’s how it’s been since he was born. If it weren’t for Sterling…” Remi raised his head, tears no longer on his cheeks, but his eyes were brimming with them. “I’d have never gotten out of there alive if not for Sterling. Now, I need to get him out too before something terrible happens.”
Jake swallowed the lump in his throat at what Remi implied. The thought of Remi not being around twisted Jake’s insides in knots. Already, he saw a man he admired, even if Remi weren’t his mate. The fact that he was made him that much more special.
Remi shook his head, and the tears ran down his cheeks. “I don’t know why she didn’t love us enough to leave. How could she choose him over her own kids? How can—? I should have taken him and run away a long time ago. This is my fault, I failed Sterl—”
“Shh. No, you didn’t. Looks to me like you’re doing a damn good job of looking out for your little brother.” Jake touched his cheek, half expecting Remi to pull away. He didn’t. Running his hand over Remi’s face, Jake brushed away the tears. From day one, Remi’s smaller size made Jake want to protect him, but now the feelings were even stronger. “It isn’t your fault, Remi.”
Remi leaned forward. His eyes shifted to wolf eyes as his head cocked. Finally, he closed his eyes.
Fuck, if that wasn’t a turn-on Jake didn’t know what was. His own eyes changed, drawing a groan from him. Blood rushed south, right to his cock.
Wrapping his hand around the back of Remi’s neck, Jake tugged him forward. The smell of arousal pierced his nose before his lips covered Remi’s. Jake didn’t mess around. He caught his mate’s chin in his other hand and pulled down as his tongue swooped into Remi’s mouth.
Opening for him, Remi followed Jake’s lead. His tongue slid along Jake’s as his hands found their way to Jake’s shoulders.
Jake ran his tongue over Remi’s teeth, feeling the extended canines, and his own reciprocated. He’d never lost control over his body—his eyes and teeth—like he did with Remi around. It was both frustrating and fascinating at the same time. He wanted Remi writhing beneath him, wanting to please Jake as much as Jake wanted to please him.
His need to take over was so intense he was nearly shaking with it. He barely managed to suppress his more aggressive tendencies. Given Remi’s past, Jake didn’t want Remi feeling trapped.
They ended up with Jake lying on the couch and Remi on top of him.
Remi’s hard cock pressed into Jake’s hip and his dark hair fanned around them, concealing their faces.
Grabbing two handfuls of his mate’s ass, Jake pressed against him, making sure Remi had no doubts that he was hard too.
Remi moaned and thrust his hips. He turned his head, breaking their kiss and exposing his neck as he nuzzled his face against Jake’s shoulder.
Oh fuck. Jake’s cock jerked, his hips bucking. The submissive action was almost his undoing. Turning Remi’s head further, he brushed his hair back and licked a long line over the slim column of his throat.
Remi’s pulse thundered beneath his tongue, attesting to his arousal just as strongly as the erection pressed against Jake’s.
Dragging one fang down Remi’s neck, Jake fought the urge to bite. He wanted to pin Remi still with his teeth and fuck him until neither of them could move. He didn’t dare.
Remi shivered, spreading his legs, allowing Jake more access, and pressed his neck into Jake’s teeth.
Oh fuck. It was too much. How could Jake resist such a sweet offer?
Seduction is his only chance for freedom…and love is a death sentence.
Feral
© 2009 Joely Skye
Even among shifters, Ethan is a rare breed. So rare, he’s spent the last eight years in hiding from the werewolves who once captured and tortured him. Now a tranq dart has cut short his feral existence. Waking in human form in a locked room is more than a living nightmare…it’s reliving his worst one.
Yet in the troubled eyes of one of his captors, he senses a weak link. One he can use to escape—by seducing his jailer.
Bram’s life as pack omega isn’t easy. As long as he obeys his alpha he is protected. However, there are some things he just can’t bring himself to do. Keeping a precious cougar shifter prisoner is one of them, especially one who has somehow managed to capture his heart.
Setting Ethan free could be a death sentence for both of them, for Bram’s pack doesn’t take betrayal lightly. And the alpha is set on revenge.
Warning: Explicit m/m sex and violence.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Feral:
Ethan didn’t react to Bram’s entry, even when he approached the bed. Bram stared down, wishing he knew what to do.
Let him go free.
It was the obvious answer and Bram didn’t trust it. If Bram opened the doors and let Ethan walk out of the building, he wouldn’t get far. There was a razor-wire fence that surrounded the pack’s headquarters. Yes, a legacy from Gabriel’s paranoid rule, but the thing was, Doug had never seen fit to tear it down. One day it might protect us from the government had been his last explanation.
Bram retreated and sank down into the corner, directly below the camera and out of its eye. Sure the camera was switched off, but under the circumstances, it didn’t hurt to be overcareful.
“What are you doing?” Ethan spoke to his arm still covering his face.
Bram tossed several answers around in his mind and couldn’t find anything he liked. He settled on, “I don’t know.”
Lifting his upper body so he rested on his elbows, Ethan looked across at Bram, then glanced up at the camera. He briefly closed his eyes before he rolled off the bed and came over to Bram on all fours.
Stalked over, Bram thought, and there was grace in it.
Day-old stubble adorned Ethan’s jaw and his badly cut hair stuck up haphazardly. The bones of his face we
re too sharp, even if he had put on a bit of weight since staying here. Bram thought he was so beautiful and could never tell him.
“Are we out of sight?” Ethan asked softly.
Bram nodded. He had hunkered down in the corner with his knees up, his legs blocking Ethan, who had stopped just out of reach.
“My cat wants out, out of this room, out of this body.” Ethan’s gaze burned, which made Bram feel hot. “But I think that might be a death sentence here.”
“No one is going to kill you.”
Ethan’s mouth twisted. “That’s what Gabriel once told me.”
“Doug is no Gabriel.”
“And yet, I am still his sacrifice, no?”
Bram wanted to shake his head, but he remembered that there were people out there who Doug said would take care of Ethan. Was that a sacrifice? “I don’t think so.”
“I suppose I should take some comfort from the fact that you don’t appear to want me to be a sacrifice.”
“I don’t,” Bram whispered.
“What do you want, Bram?”
The air seemed to thicken, a tension, and Bram didn’t know where to look. Ethan’s gaze refused to let go and while usually it was a good thing to look away from someone and cede way, that wasn’t the case here and now. Ethan was no werewolf. Instead he was a captive cougar asking for something Bram was in no position to give. Freedom.
Pulling himself up into a crouch, inches from Bram, Ethan reached out a hand and placed it on Bram’s knee.
He tried to stifle his reactive shudder but didn’t succeed.
Ethan waited until Bram got used to the heat of his hand on his knee.
“Bram?” asked Ethan in a low voice.
Bram gave up pretending he was unaffected. “It’s hard to breathe.”
Cocking his head, Ethan regarded Bram as if trying to interpret a foreign language. “You held me, not that long ago. You held me repeatedly.”
“That’s different.”
“Okay.” In one movement, Ethan turned and slid sideways in between Bram’s knees, a surprising invasion that Bram couldn’t resist. Then Ethan turned so they had their familiar embrace, his back resting against Bram’s chest.
He should push Ethan away. It was the right thing to do, but slowly and carefully Bram wrapped his arms around this thin stranger who jerked in the hold even while moving deeper into Bram’s lap. They were awkward and difficult with each other, but Bram did not want to let go. Neither did Ethan, for Bram could smell his desire.
“Your cat is…?” Bram didn’t know how to ask if Ethan’s cougar was desperate to get out.
“Okay. For now, anyway.” Ethan turned his head to lay his cheek against Bram’s chest.
“You’re okay, you mean.”
“I’m not okay, you must know that. But…this is better. Can you tell me why I like to hear your heart beat?” It was an oddly wistful question and Bram felt completely out of his depth. Was he supposed to even answer? Well, he couldn’t. Ethan gave a shuddery sigh that echoed something inside Bram. “I don’t really think you’re okay either, Bram.”
Bram held Ethan tighter, and breathed in Ethan’s scent. There was something a little wild and foreign, something cat, or maybe just Ethan. It turned Bram on.
Ethan had to know, had to feel his erection pressing against the small of his back. Bram nuzzled Ethan’s neck in apology, and Ethan repeated, “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
He didn’t answer, simply leaned back, head against Bram’s shoulder to rest there. Bram shouldn’t, but he raised one hand and stroked that long neck. Ethan groaned, turned his face into Bram’s neck and licked the skin.
Bram jittered in reaction and Ethan said, “Shhh. Settle down.” Before Bram could declare that was impossible, Ethan slid his tongue along the dip above Bram’s collarbone, and Bram jumped again.
“You have me at a disadvantage.” Ethan spoke against Bram’s throat. “So many disadvantages. You can smell my arousal, but my sense of smell is not quite so acute. On the other hand, I can hear your heart beating too fast, your breath going in and out quickly.”
Bram clamped down hard on Ethan so he couldn’t move.
“Why are we like this together?” There was a kind of wonder in Ethan’s voice.
Bram cleared his throat. “I’ll let you go.”
“I don’t want to be let go. But I need you to help me. You know that.”
“Doug,” began Bram, but didn’t know what to say beyond that. Doug was in charge, not him.
“Doug is going to kill me.”
“No.” Bram didn’t believe it, and wouldn’t allow it.
“Like Gabriel.”
“Doug despised Gabriel. They’re not at all alike.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“You haven’t been hurt,” Bram pointed out.
“Not physically, but this containment is hurting me. I need out, Bram.”
“Even if I let you out of here, you wouldn’t escape. We’re at the pack headquarters.”
Ethan’s entire body stiffened. “Oh God. Not here again.”
“It’s not like last time,” Bram insisted.
“No. Because last time someone helped me get away.”
Despite himself, Bram stroked Ethan’s face. A kind of silent promise because Bram couldn’t say anything. While he hoped his loop of tape was still running, there was always the awful possibility that Doug had returned and was listening.
“Oh,” said Ethan, voice toneless. “I really thought you might help me. I thought I could be more persuasive than this. Out of practice. Out of practice with a lot of things.”
“Patience,” Bram mouthed, subvocally, and Ethan jerked his head around, trying to make eye contact.
“The camera has sound?”
Bram let his eyelids fall in assent.
Ethan fought to turn full around to face Bram, fear in his expression, in his scent. “Doug has made it clear he will punish me.” His voice rose. “Doug—”
Bram cut him off with a kiss. Not very elegant, not like how Ethan had kissed him earlier, it seemed almost a fight, a clash of mouths, and Bram angled his body away to prevent Ethan from leaning into him.
But Ethan had to shut up.
Breaking the kiss, Bram met Ethan’s gaze and mouthed, “I’ll take care of it.”
“By fucking him.”
“Enough.” Bram glared. He should get out of here, but Ethan looked a little crazy with fear. Suddenly the cat turned away, sliding his sweats down as he settled back against Bram again.
Bram watched as Ethan brought his right hand down to his own hard cock to jerk himself off, and Bram’s dick turned to steel.
“Hold me while I get this out of my system,” murmured Ethan and Bram slung an arm across Ethan’s ribs and held fast. “I need this. God knows I need something.”
Ethan’s dick was weeping pre-come and he began to pump himself.
Bram couldn’t speak, he just breathed Ethan in and nuzzled the cat’s neck and didn’t let him go. He’d never held on to someone while they jerked off. In fact, doing so had never occurred to him though his skin suddenly felt electric.
The mind may forget, but the heart remembers…
Bound by Nature
© 2010 Cooper Davis
A Forces of Nature Novel
It doesn’t take Hayden Garrett’s college degree to figure out why Officer Josh Peterson is the last man alive he wants to face. Not because of the council’s harebrained idea to broker peace between their clans.
It’s the sweaty palms that prove Hayden never got over his embarrassing attraction to his alpha rival. Mate with him? Nothing fills Hayden with more desire—or dread. Josh doesn’t have a gay hair in his fur. At least not one he owns up to.
Despite Josh’s reputation for being a connoisseur of female flesh, he’s always cared about Hayden. In a different world, they might have been friends. Now, face to face after five years, the bitterness in Hayden’s eyes fills Josh with regr
et for what could have been—should have been.
As Hayden and Josh journey through rituals—and intimacies—that will knit their souls for life, passion and anger flares, revealing a powerful secret. The truth about a long-ago sharing of hearts, bodies and souls that ended in tragedy…
Warning: Steamy love between two rival alpha werewolves, a pregnant moon that inspires mating urges, and one shy guy who knows exactly what he wants.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Bound by Nature:
Hayden could have just gone ahead and shot himself. At least it would have gotten the torture over with. Butterflies kicked around inside his gut, his heart pounded with expectation, and his palms sweated with the worst kind of dread and embarrassment. No fucking way was this prearranged meeting going to end well. It wasn’t even going to happen. The hair along Hayden’s nape kept prickling, giving him a bad feeling about the whole set up.
The council elders had decided that drastic measures were called for in order to stop recent escalating violence between the two rival packs in the area. Lately the aggression and marking had breached boundaries, and just last week two males—one from each of their packs—had wound up dead after a bloody brawl. As a result, the elders demanded a peace settlement. That’s why they’d arranged this meeting between Hayden, second in line of his own pack, and the secondary Alpha from the other clan.
Hayden was hardly involved with pack policies or dealings these days, but as heir apparent, he’d shown up as requested. And Joshua Peterson—curse his unreliable, smug ass—was supposed to be here representing his own pack in the exact same capacity. Hayden cringed inside just thinking about seeing the other wolf.
Josh Peterson was literally the last man alive he wanted to face, not about anything and definitely not about the council’s current proposition. Now, it appeared Josh didn’t even have the balls to show for the sham of a meeting.
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