STORY EXCERPT

“Come on. Quiet down. I need to talk to you,” Josef was saying to Felix in a gentle voice. “I’m sure it’s not all that bad.”

Felix sniffled hard and hiccupped before answering. “I was in…in…your h-house.”

“You covered the window, but you didn’t do the damage?”

The tiger shifter shook his head vigorously. “No, I would never do that. It was four or five shithead human teenagers. I scared them off but not in time to stop them from causing so much damage. I’m sorry.”

“Felix, how long have you been going into Josef’s house?”

Josef looked up at Regal with a surprised expression. So did Felix, who stared at him through the windshield. His face was red and puffy from crying. “You know who he is?”

“Yes. I’m the one who took out his brother Rodney when he was in Jonas Powell’s house.” Regal didn’t apologize for what he’d done. “I suspect you’re the one who placed the bombs that didn’t have a chance in hell of going off?”

The man’s lower lip was caught between his teeth. He worried it a moment before he sagged. “Yeah, I fixed them so they wouldn’t detonate. And I’m glad you stopped Rod from hurting anyone. You did what you had to do.”

It seemed the little tiger shifter was giving him this one. Regal wondered if Felix would be as accepting when he discovered that Regal had neutralized two other brothers and helped with the arrest of their mother.

“Felix, you didn’t answer the question,” Josef said, using the man’s name for the first time. Felix’s eyes widened in surprise. “How long have you been going into my house?”

Felix shrugged slender shoulders. “A couple of months, maybe. I’m not quite sure. I never damaged anything,” he added defensively. “I didn’t steal anything, either.” He blushed, and his gaze dropped from Josef’s. “Well, I did take the sleeping bag, but I returned it.”

“I was wondering where it had come from.” Josef blew out a breath and straightened. “Well, I need you to go to the police station and make out a report about what you saw and heard.”

“I didn’t hear anything! And I have some money. I can pay for the time I slept in your house.”

“You’re going to the police.”

Felix’s expression turned mutinous. “No, I’m not. And you can’t make me. They’ll throw me in prison forever!”

That was a very real possibility.

Because Regal had stepped from in front of the car, and Josef had moved from where he had crouched between the open door and the car, Felix wasn’t blocked from driving out. He put the car in Drive and floored it, yanking the door shut as he went, the tires burning against the concrete beneath them, the sound ear-splitting in the closed space. The smell was nauseating.

“Fuck!” Josef took a swing at nothing, obviously furious with himself for letting down his guard.

Regal chuckled. “You handled that well.”

Josef turned to glare at him. “I suppose you could have done better?”

ADULT EXCERPT

Josef laughed softly as he continued to play. He wasn’t a get-it-done kind of guy, even with a new partner, believing in making sure the person gained as much pleasure out of the experience as he did.

With his dick throbbing as hot blood pumped through his veins, Josef knew, as much as he loved to play, he would reach critical levels soon, where his control would be tested. Josef lowered his head so he could capture Regal’s lips with his own. Their mouths molded together as they kissed, tongues dueling, exploring, before pulling back for breaths, while nipping each other’s lips.

It was the sexiest play Josef had experienced in a long time. He didn’t always share a bed with a sex partner. Sometimes it was just down-and-dirty sex to scratch an itch. These moments with Regal were proving to be a lot more than he’d ever expected them to be, even with the addition of a bed.

As soon as there was a break, Josef grabbed the box of condoms off the nightstand and took one out. He looked at Regal questioningly when the man stopped him with long fingers around his wrist.

“You won’t need that,” Regal told him softly, his meaning clear.

But Josef had to be sure. “You know what might happen, right?”

Regal chuckled. “Yeah, I took sex ed.”

Satisfied, Josef tossed the condom back to the nightstand and reached for the lube. With his heart pounding and his breathing ragged, he lubed his fingers and his dick, as well as Regal’s hole. They kissed again as Josef began to stretch Regal’s hole until it was a quivering ring of muscles and welcomed his entrance.

A sudden overwhelming need to join their bodies was riding him hard, making him feel almost desperate to be inside the man. Josef rose to his knees, repositioning himself on the bed. Then he grasped his dick, guiding the head of his dick to the man’s hole, pausing only for a moment.

Josef’s gaze locked with Regal’s. “Mates?”

Regal nodded and smiled. “Mates,” he confirmed.

After taking a deep breath, Josef pushed forward, his dick sliding into the heat of Regal’s body. He leaned forward, bracing himself above Regal with a hand on either side of him. His almost-mate wrapped his long legs around Josef’s waist as Josef bottomed out, his balls coming to rest against the man’s ass. They stared at each other as the most incredible sensations he’d ever experienced swept through him.

A rosy flush crept up into Regal’s face as his lids lowered slightly. Regal was so incredibly beautiful that Josef could only stare in wonder. He was filled with a desire to explore every inch of his lover, but that would have to wait until he’d satisfied the intensifying need to make his claim, taking Regal as his mate. His fangs were elongating, touching his lower lips. His gaze fixed to the tips of Regal’s canines as they appeared.

“Mmm, so sexy,” Josef said as he lowered his head so he could lick those exposed tips. Regal moaned, his body undulating beneath Josef, driving Josef’s dick deeper into the man’s dark channel. “You are going to make me lose control.”

Regal chuckled. “Control is highly overrated. I want you to fuck me hard and fast. Then claim me, my sexy vampire.” He lifted his arms to wind them around Josef’s neck. “Now, let’s have some fun.”

“I’m all for fun.”

The moans weren’t long in coming when Josef began to thrust and withdraw, plunging deep before pulling back until only the head of his dick remained behind the tight ring of muscles. The length of his shaft was stroked and squeezed. Regal knew a few tricks of his own and wasn’t afraid to show them off. It was a sensual play of give and take.

Sweat beaded Josef’s skin, dripping off in places. Regal’s skin was also covered in the slick dew caused by their efforts to wring out as much pleasure as they could in as little time as possible. The musky scents of their aroused bodies filled the air, and he inhaled it.

His heart was pounding in his chest. His breaths were harsh. Josef was amazed how the sensations traveling through his body were unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It proved to him that this wasn’t just sex, that Regal meant far more to him than a convenient hole to fuck. The maned wolf shifter was meant to be his mate, his life’s partner.

“Damn, I love how your, big fat cock stretches my ass,” Regal told him in a ragged voice, his hands now moving restlessly over Josef’s torso. His slender fingers plucked at Josef’s left nipple, rolling the hard nub between the pads. “But I feel like you’re holding back. Let loose on me, bad boy. Fuck me like your life depends on it.”

Josef didn’t have to be told twice. He reared back, spreading his knees as he grabbed Regal by his narrow hips and began to plow fiercely into him. Regal, for his part, reached over his head and braced his hands against the carved headboard, preventing himself from being pushed up the mattress by Josef’s powerful rutting.

Regal’s cries of pleasure were like music to Josef’s ears when the head of his dick struck the man’s ultrasensitive gland repeatedly. Josef looked at the long, arched neck, his gaze riveted to the spot where he would bite and take the blood he needed to claim Regal as his mate.

“Regal…” Josef began, his voice thick.

Regal opened his eyes and looked up at Josef. “Do it. Make me your mate, Josef. Claim me.”