STORY EXCERPT 

“Am I dead?” Roy asked, his voice sounding eerily hollow as white mist swirled around him.

Roy stood there, wondering where he was. The last thing he remembered was being behind the wheel of his car and two bright lights coming straight at him. Hazy figures that could be other people, but could also be so many other things, were scattered about in the distance.

“Of course not!” The loud, chipper answering voice had Roy spinning around to come face-to-face with the most androgynous man he’d ever laid eyes on. With long wavy blond hair, blue eyes, trim waist, and a flat chest, Roy wasn’t certain what he was looking at. The chest and voice told him it was a man. The hair and facial structure said woman. “You’re in limbo.”

“Excuse me?” Roy blinked, not entirely sure what to make of what the man—he was going with man for now—had just told him.

“Yes.” The man nodded. “To be more accurate, your soul is trapped between the world of the living and the dead. Back in the living world you’re in a coma with a fifty-fifty percent chance of waking up. Head-on collision, nasty thing.”

Roy’s stomach lurched. He was going to be sick! This man had just told him he was in a coma due to a car accident like he was reporting the weather. What the fuck was wrong with him?

“No reason to worry though,” he continued, seemingly uncaring for Roy’s internal dilemma. “I’m here to offer you a deal.”

“A deal?” Roy hedged.

The man smirked. His blue eyes turned calculating. “Yes. You see you’re a special existence in this world. Your great-great-great-grandfather came into contact with something in his youth, something he couldn’t explain. I’m sure there’s a family legend about it, right?”

How the fuck did this guy know about his grandfather’s crazy stories? “Are you talking about the cat people in the jungles of Brazil?” Roy asked, his regular mocking humor in his voice.

“Jaguar shifters, to be more accurate.” The man’s smirk grew, “And yes, I am. You see, the fact you have an ancestor that’s come into contact with one, and survived, has left a trace on your bloodline. All I had to do was wait for one of you to come here.”

“Okay, I’ll play along.” Roy sighed. If he really was in limbo, then he had nothing better to do. If he wasn’t, and this was all a dream, then at least he’d have something interesting to talk about with his friends in the morning. “Why is this all so important?”

“Because, you’re a virgin and a mortal,” the man said.

Instantly Roy felt his face heat with a blush. No one knew he was a virgin. It was his closest guarded secret!

“Oh, don’t worry.” The man grinned. “Your secret is safe with me. You see, your virginal state is exactly why I’m here, to offer you a contract. A second chance at life if you will.”

“If I refuse?” Roy frowned. He’d lived in the city long enough to know a scam artist when he saw one. This guy was as shady as a street peddler selling brand-name watches.

“You die.” The words were said so easily, as if they didn’t impact everything in Roy’s life. Still, as he stood there, looking at the eerily beautiful man, his words rang with a solidity that carried far too much weight to not be true.

Roy glanced around at the figures he could see off in the distance. “Are you giving them the same option?”

“Nope,” the man replied. “Most of them are here because they can’t move on. A few are here because of a punishment. Others, well, they’re just lost. My job isn’t to worry about them. My only concern with this place is when people like you come in.”

“Virgins with ancestors who have encountered cat people?” Roy couldn’t help but sound a bit cynical. This was all so ridiculous!

There was that humor back in those blue eyes. Roy wasn’t entirely sure he liked that look. “Virgins with ancestors who have encountered a creature of the supernatural,” he corrected him.

Yeah, because that made this so much clearer. “Who are you?” Might as well have a name to go with the face, and it was the most normal thing Roy could think of right now.

“I have many names,” the man said. “My most common name is Cupid.”

“Come again?” Roy blinked, his voice deadpan.

“Cupid,” he repeated. “God of love.”

“Right, and I’m Jesus Christ,” Roy laughed. “Okay, now I know I’m dreaming. You can go away now, and I’ll just wake up.”

“If I leave, your soul vanishes and you never wake up,” Cupid informed him. “Well, you’ll be reborn eventually, but you’ll have no memory of this life.”

Okay, this was starting to cease being funny. A large part of Roy actually believed this lunatic and his words. Hell, he was even considering taking his offer. Whatever the offer was.

“What do I have to do?” Roy found himself asking, even with a small piece of him screaming not to.

Cupid smiled, and for a second Roy could see the cherub face that so many used to depict this man in modern times. “I want you to mate with a jaguar shifter and give birth to his children.”

“I’m sorry, what?” 

ADULT EXCERPT 

Nexus almost purred when Roy stopped asking questions and just leaned back, showing trust in a rather intimate way. Knowing his mate was inexperienced changed everything. The only thing on Nexus’s mind now was showing his mate pleasure. More accurately, how pleasurable it was for two souls to become intertwined as marked mates. Hopefully it wouldn’t scare Roy.

With Roy’s shoes off, he moved to remove his pants and paused as a thin strip of red was revealed. Nexus couldn’t hide his surprise at Roy’s choice in underwear. A man’s thong, perfectly encasing Roy’s hard cock, was certainly unexpected for a man that had no experience.

“Did someone tell you to wear these?” Nexus asked, his fingers gliding beneath the silky fabric, teasing along Roy’s erection and up to his dripping cock head.

“What? Of course not.” Roy squirmed, a blush heating his face. “I find them comfortable. Why, something wrong?”

“Everything is fine,” Nexus growled. He removed Roy’s pants, but decided to leave the thong on. He never really thought about underwear, especially considering the fact he went commando, but damn. Seeing Roy lying on his bed, a white button-up shirt and a thong the only things covering him, had his cock standing at full attention. Just this image alone had him ready to fuck his mate into the mattress, but he controlled himself. This was about Roy, not him.

He removed Roy’s socks finally and started a deep massage at his feet, moving up his calves, continuing to his thighs, and sliding beneath him to knead his ass.

“I could turn over.” Roy bit his bottom lip, his eyelids at half-mast. Nexus didn’t need to hear the heat in Roy’s voice to know he was relishing this. His cock, which was pressing against the thong, a wet spot forming at the front, was evidence enough of his enjoyment.

“No.” Nexus leaned forward and kissed at Roy’s clothed, dripping cock. His tongue snaked out and tasted his precum, enjoying the feel of the silk beneath his rough tongue. “Stay just like that for now.”

“Okay.” Roy’s breath was shallow, and Nexus looked up to see him flushed. Right, this had to be a first too for his little mate.

“Scared?” Nexus pulled back, his hands rubbing up and down Roy’s legs.

Roy took a deep, shuddering breath. “A bit.”

Honesty, that was good.

“How about this.” Nexus crawled up so he was leaning over Roy. “If at any point you get too frightened, or want me to slow down, just tell me and I’ll put on the brakes.”

Roy nodded, a small, shy smile dancing on his lips. Nexus captured those lips, drinking in the gasped breath that escaped as he teased them open and slid his tongue inside, fucking his mouth like he so longed to do with his ass. He loved how Roy trembled beneath him, his hands reaching up and grasping Nexus’s shirt innocently.

As his tongue fucked Roy’s mouth—giving him a preview of what was to come—Nexus started unbuttoning his mate’s shirt. He trailed his fingers down slowly as he opened the material wider and wider. Nexus planned to take this as slow as possible, drawing out Roy’s pleasure and keeping him calm at the same time. Yes, he wanted to drive his dick into Roy’s ass, making him scream as he fucked him over and over, but it was his mate’s first time. So, slow and steady was how it was going to happen.

“Nexus,” Roy moaned into the kiss as the shirt fell away fully open.

Pulling away, Nexus looked down to his husband and couldn’t help but growl with want. The pure wanton sight Roy made. It had to be illegal for a virgin to look like this.

Kissing Roy again, he trailed open-mouthed wet kisses across his jaw, licked down his neck, and nipped at his nipples as he cupped his hand around the begging cock between Roy’s legs. His thong was soaked through, practically dripping with precum. He may be inexperienced, but his body sure seemed to want what was coming. His dick was all but screaming for more attention.

“Hold on,” Nexus instructed as he remembered an important detail. Leaving Roy lying on the bed, panting, he went to the left bedside table and opened the top drawer. Pulling out the fresh tube of lube he’d stashed there, he returned to Roy and smirked at him. “This is going to make things a lot easier on you.”

“Um.” Roy licked his lips and sat up. “Can I do something?”

“Of course.” Nexus kissed Roy’s nose. “What do you want to do?”

Roy took several deep breaths before meeting Nexus’s eyes straight on. “Undress you.”

Nexus groaned and stood still. “I’m at your mercy, minha alma.”

Instantly Roy paused and looked at Nexus. “Really? You sure about that?”

“Absolutely.” Nexus nodded and moved in, reclaiming Roy’s lips in a heated kiss. He didn’t doubt that Roy knew exactly what he’d just called him. Minha alma, my soul, was a term he never thought he’d call anyone, but with Roy he couldn’t help but hope for it. That’s why he’d said it.