STORY EXCERPT

“I’m heading home, Dr. Hart. Is there anything you need before I leave?” 

Darren Hart glanced up from the papers he was working on to smile at the perky little blonde. “No, Chrissy, I’m good. I’m just going to finish up this paperwork, do another pass through the kennel, and then head home myself.”

“Don’t stay too long, Dr. Hart. You need your rest as much as the rest of us.”

Darren chuckled. He held up his hand, two fingers pressed up and together. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout, Dr. Hart.” Chrissy giggled.

“No, but I wanted to be.” Darren chuckled again, shaking his head as he looked back down at the papers on his desk. “They had some awesome uniforms.”

“Okay, on that note, I’m out of here.” Chrissy laughed. “‘Night, Dr. Hart.”

“Goodnight, Chrissy, drive safe. I’ll see you Monday, bright and early.”

Darren listened to Chrissy leave, the distinct sound of the front door locking behind her. He liked his veterinarian assistant. She was a good kid, although a tad giggly at times.

Still, choosing Chrissy before she finished school to be his assistant was one of the best decisions he ever made. Chrissy worked hard, loved the animals they worked on, and she seemed to have a special affinity for them.

The biggest plus was that Chrissy never gave Darren any crap about being gay. Darren made it clear about that the day he hired her. He wanted his workplace to be a happy place to work. He refused to work with people that would put him down or make fun of him because he was gay. He had enough of that in school and growing up. Now that he owned and operated his own veterinarian clinic, he refused to deal with it if he could help it.

“She really is a cutie, isn’t she?”

Darren rolled his eyes, refusing to answer the voice in his head. He knew it was a figment of his imagination. The doctors said so, every damn last one of them he’d been forced to go to since he first heard the voice.

Logically, Darren knew the voice was a symptom of his psychosis due to the head injury he suffered ten years before while on a hiking trip. At first, he’d taken the medications the doctors prescribed him, but after awhile he decided to just live with the voice. He hated the medications. They made him woozy and filled his head with a fog that made it hard to do just about everything. Not taking the medication meant the voice was always there. Sometimes Darren listened and talked back, usually when he was tired or lonely, but frequently he just tried to ignore it.

“Not talking to me today, Dary?”

“I’m working.”

“You work too hard, my love.”

“I am not your love!”

Darren gritted his teeth, trying not to scream in frustration. He’d been over this before with the voice in his head, a voice that was kind enough to give himself the name Asher.

A part of Darren found it strange that the psychosis in his head had a separate personality from him, considering it was all in his imagination. Maybe he had a split personality or something.

“Ah, but you are my love, Dary. You will always be my love.”

“Asher, look, you—”

Darren’s head snapped up when he heard a noise outside his office. Dropping his pen to his desk, he climbed to his feet and walked to the doorway of his office. Looking left and right, Darren couldn’t see anything out of place.

A short walk down the hallway took him to the lobby of his veterinary clinic. The lights were off, but there was enough light shining in from the parking lot that he could see a small cardboard box sitting several feet outside of the doorway.

“What the hell is that?” he whispered to himself, forgetting his voice could hear him speak.

“Darren, what’s going on?” Asher asked.

“There’s a cardboard box outside the front door.”

“Darren, stay inside,” Asher virtually shouted into Darren’s head. “Don’t open the door.”

“It’s just a cardboard box.”

Darren walked to the door and reached for the lock. It wasn’t unusual for people to drop kittens or puppies off at his front door during the night. He was used to it and figured it was just another box of pets. But as he started to unlock the door, a shadow crossed the pavement from one side of the building. Darren paused and tried to get a better look. He couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it seemed to have four legs.

“Darren, what’s going on?”

“I think there’s something outside, a dog maybe.”

“Please, Darren, stay inside.”

Darren rolled his eyes and unlocked the door, pushing it open. “You’re being ridiculous. It’s just a dog or something. Besides, if there are kittens or puppies out here, you know I can’t leave them there.”

Darren started to step out the door when the shadow suddenly took shape. It was the biggest damn dog Darren had ever seen. A shadow from the other side of the building caught Darren’s attention as it stepped into view. Damn, the dog had a friend.

“Okay, maybe going outside isn’t such a good idea.”

“Darren?”

“Those are the biggest damn dogs I have ever seen.” Darren looked a little closer through the glass as the two dogs growled at him, baring their teeth. “Actually, I don’t think they are dogs at all. Asher, do you think it’s possible for wild wolves to be this far inside the city limits?”

“Darren, please, love, don’t go outside.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking staying inside is a good idea.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Darren was mesmerized by the sensual glint in Ash’s baby blue eyes as the man slowly lowered his head. He captured Darren’s lips in a deep, spine-tingling kiss that rocked him all the way down to his toes.

Darren groaned at the strong, heady taste of the man kissing him filling his mouth. He grabbed the front of Ash’s shirt and pulled him closer, needing more contact with Ash’s body. The feeling of Ash’s hard body against his was heaven. Darren bent his leg and pressed his knee against the outer edge of Ash’s waist. His hands clenched in the fabric of Ash’s shirt as the man’s body pressed closer against him.

Darren wanted more. He tugged on Ash’s shirt, pulling on him. He groaned, the tingles shooting throughout his body at the touch of Ash’s hand moving down his body almost more than he could handle.

Ash gripped Darren’s hips and pulled him closer. Darren shuddered when he felt the thickness of Ash’s hard cock push against the apex of his thighs. He moved, crying out when his cock smashed against Ash’s.

He looked up at Ash, the heat smoldering in the man’s eyes burning into him. When Ash moved his hand and gripped his ass cheek, Darren couldn’t help but arch up into the man’s body. The sensations brought on by the man above him were just too great to ignore.

“Dean,” Ash rasped out, “why don’t you and the pups go get something to eat?”

“Yeah, it shouldn’t take us too long to find something,” Dean replied.

Darren glanced up to see Dean gathering the puppies up in his arms and carrying them out the door, shutting it behind him. He wanted the man gone so he could get busy with Ash, but he was concerned about letting the puppies out of his sight.

“Uh, he won’t—”

“The pups couldn’t be in safer hands, Dary,” Ash murmured between kisses along Darren’s neck and jaw line. “I promise.”

Darren tried to reply, to make some intelligent response other than a strangle moan, but the blood was draining from his brain and pooling in his groin with each touch of Ash’s lips on his sensitive skin.

“Ash…Ash, I—”

“Shh, Dary, I have you,” Ash whispered. Darren groaned and arched into the hand Ash cupped around his aching cock. He shuddered when he heard the soft rasp of a zipper being pulled down. Cool air hit his shaft before it was quickly covered by Ash’s hot hand. “I’ll take good care of you, love.”

“Oh, I dreamed of this,” Darren whispered raggedly. “I dreamed of your hands on me. It’s been so long, and all I’ve had is the voice in my head to jerk off to. It’s—” Darren suddenly gasped and sat up, pushing Ash’s hand away to bury his head in his hands as he groaned.

“Oh my god, I’ve been jerking off to the voice in my head.” Darren never felt more embarrassed than he did at that moment. For years, he’d been jerking off to the sexy voice in his head…and the voice was real!

“And you wouldn’t believe how sexy that was, Dary.” Darren resisted the hands that pulled him back for just a moment then cuddled into Ash’s broad chest, burying his face against the man. “And just a little bit dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Darren frowned then tilted his head back to look up into Ash’s smiling face. “How could that be dangerous?”

“That voice thing goes both ways, Dary. I can hear you just as you hear me. I can also feel you like you feel me.” Ash’s smirk seemed to be directed more at himself than Darren. “I’d be sitting in a meeting or something, and all of a sudden I’d be horny as hell, your sweet voice murmuring to me, every aroused emotion you had hitting me like a ton of bricks. You can’t imagine how many times I’ve left a meeting right in the middle of it to go jerk off in my bathroom.”

Darren started to chuckle as the image of Ash running from a meeting to go relieve himself in the bathroom filled his head. He didn’t quite feel so bad knowing he affected Ash just as much as the big man affected him.

“So, this bond thing goes both ways then?”

“Yeah, it does,” Ash said, frowning slightly. “Does that bother you?”

“No, it’s just a little hard to get used to. I’m remembering everything I said to you, all the stuff I shared with the voice. It’s a little embarrassing, you know?”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Dary. We are bonded, we share everything.”

“Yeah?” Darren liked the sound of that. He wanted someone special to share everything with. He hated being alone, although as he looked back, he never felt truly alone as long as he had the voice in his head talking to him.

“Yeah.” One corner of Ash’s mouth lifted up in a small smile. “If you remember back, I didn’t just listen to you, I talked to you, too. I shared my deepest desires with you, even if you only thought I was a voice in your head.”

“I just can’t believe you’re real.”

Ash chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest. Darren closed his eyes and groaned when he felt Ash’s hand move down his body to wrap around his cock again. “I’m very real, Dary.”

Darren couldn’t believe how fast the touch of Ash’s hands on his body could take him from normal to hot and horny in a matter of seconds. The man barely had to touch him and Darren felt like he was going up in flames.

“I want…I want…” Darren wasn’t sure how to ask what he wanted. He wasn’t even sure if he should ask. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted. According to Ash, they had been getting to know each other for years, shared their deepest, most intimate thoughts with each other. Yet, they’d just met in person.

Darren shuddered when Ash’s hands pushed down the back of his pants and between his ass checks, Ash’s fingers skimming over his puckered hole. “Soon, Dary, soon I will take you here and make you all mine.”

Darren wanted it now! He wanted the hard cock he could feel pressing against him to pound into his ass. His sensitive hole quivered at the mere thought. Darren started panting. He needed so bad.

“Ash, please!”