STORY EXCERPT

The snap of a twig was his only warning that someone had snuck up on him. “Excuse me,” an unfamiliar voice said from behind him.

Steeling himself for the inevitable questions and censure, Cody turned. He blinked slowly at the man in front of him. He looked like he was wearing a beekeeper’s outfit, obscuring all but the most basic traits of his features. He was only around five eight compared to Cody’s six-two frame and was built like a waif.

“Uh, hi.” He didn’t know what else to say. Who traipsed around the woods in a beekeeper’s outfit?

The man shifted from foot to foot, clearly nervous and probably as uncomfortable as Cody felt at the moment. “Well, er, I’m a bit lost.” He lifted a map that looked like one of the trail guides that the park rangers gave to people who went on hikes. If that was so, Mr. Beekeeper was very, very, very lost. The nearest trail was over five miles in the opposite direction.

“I’m not a GPS,” he teased, perhaps a bit cruelly given the fact that the guy looked like he was about twenty seconds from dissolving into hysterics.

Pearly white teeth sank into the guy’s bottom lip beyond the mesh. “Clearly,” he snipped.

Whoops. He hadn’t meant to ruffle the guy’s feathers. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I’m not exactly used to people anymore.”

The guy sighed. “Me either. Um, well, what I mean is, I’m not very good with most people. You, uh, looked like you might know your way around here.”

Cody tilted his head to the side, staring at his new companion curiously. “What makes you say that?”

“Uh, you look very attuned to nature.” The guy’s eyes went everywhere but on Cody.

He looked down at himself. Okay, he could understand that the guy probably thought he was some crazy hermit given his current dress. “I don’t have any clothes with me. Sorry about that. My friend was supposed to bring them, but he never showed.” He sniffed the air subtly. At least he hoped it was subtle. The man in front of him was definitely Nightkin. He just couldn’t pinpoint what kind.

He didn’t think he was a shifter because most shifters or werewolves didn’t react that way to nudity. Vampire seemed unlikely as well, just because Cody had smelled enough bloodsuckers to know that they always smelled a little bit like iron. So what the heck was he? It was going to drive him nuts.

The guy’s eyes widened. “Oh? Are you on a run? You’re Nightkin?”

Clearly the beekeeper didn’t have sharpened senses when it came to sensing other Nightkin. Cody nodded. “Born and bred.” He extended his hand. “I’m Cody.”

Beekeeper hesitated a moment before reaching out and taking Cody’s hand. “I’m Rafael. I work in the anthropology department at the university. Nightkin studies.”

“Cool.” Nightkin studies? Since when did the humans give a crap about studying them? The last time he’d been here they pretty much declared all Nightkin godless heathens. Not for the first time since waking up in the woods he wished that Russell was here. Sentinels were supposed to supply information and assistance to their wards. Without him, Cody was bound to struggle .

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, shaking the other man’s hand firmly. At least he remembered some of his manners. “So which trail did you come off of?” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what the beekeeper was, but he refrained. He didn’t want to ruin his display of good manners by displaying his bad ones.

Rafael side, frustration clear in every line of his body. “I have no idea. All of them have ridiculous names. Which, in theory, should make them easy to remember. However, it doesn’t. I was following the map somewhat, but mostly I was tracking a group of wolves that have territory around here. Some of them were tagged for research, and I thought I could track them using the app I downloaded for my phone that the rangers gave me.”

Cody frowned. He usually didn’t mind so much when the rangers came to check on the wolves and keep track of them with those little collar things they were forever sticking around their necks, but Rafael wasn’t a biologist, so why the heck did he need access to Cody’s wolves? “Why are you trying to find them?” He knew he should try to be a little more subtle about the fact that he wasn’t happy that Rafael was tracking his wolves, but subtlety had never really been his forte in his animal skin or out of it.

Rafael shifted again as if he sensed Cody’s displeasure even if his tone remained friendly. “I’m not actually conducting a study on them, but I’m hoping they lead me to something.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

ADULT EXCERPT

Rafael panted in the small downstairs lavatory, hand wrapped firmly around his cock as images of Cody’s body flashed in his mind like a porn reel. He shouldn’t be doing this. Cody would be coming down the stairs any second. For some reason that just made him hotter. Thinking of being caught jerking off by Cody while he imagined the wolf’s cock was enough to make pre-cum dribble from his tip.

He bit into his bottom lip to keep from groaning. As much as he tried to deny his own nature because of his hang-ups, he was a nymph, a descendant of a fertility god. Sex and sexual thoughts drove him as crazy as the next guy. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel desire. It was that he couldn’t ever get far enough into sex with someone to complete lose himself and forget said hang-ups.

“Fuck,” he whispered again, hand moving faster on his prick. “Fuck.” Pleasure streaked up and down his dick, forcing all thoughts out of his head but ones of release. It was technically very bad manners for one to masturbate to their house guests, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He couldn’t walk around with his hardness making a tent of his pants all day. Relieving it was the only option.

He wanted Cody’s hands on him. The shock of that thought should’ve been enough to kill the hard-on, but it wasn’t. Since Cody had moved in, he’d slowly touched him more and more. They were casual touches, innocent ones, but even those had made him recoil at first. Gradually, though, he’d come to expect and take comfort in those. The comfort had transformed into blatant lust in the past few days. Every time Cody patted Rafael’s shoulder or ruffled his hair, he’d sported woods for what seemed like hours afterward. Seeing Cody naked and hard was too much for him. He needed to come. Now.

He worked his dick faster, chasing orgasm as he grew harder if that were possible. “Cody,” he whispered the other man’s name naughtily, closing his eyes to imagine it was really Cody’s hand there, Cody’s touch commanding he take pleasure in this. He couldn’t help the groan that issued from his throat.

He clamped his mouth shut, determined not to make another peep. All he could hear was his heart thundering in his ears, so he needed to be quiet. He couldn’t risk Cody finding out. Sure, the man had said he’d found him attractive, but Rafael wasn’t a casual dater. In fact, he wasn’t much a dater at all. He was too much work for the normal individual, and Cody only had six months. Rafael wouldn’t be able to handle losing someone with so much potential as a partner considering it would probably take that long for him to get used to the idea of having sex to begin with.

Another hand wrapped around his dick.

His eyes shot wide as he looked in the mirror in front of him. Cody crowded in behind him in the small half bath, his hand brushing Rafael’s aside as he took over the task. His eyes ate Rafael alive, filled to the brim with extraordinary heat. He hadn’t even finished dressing. He was clad only in the jeans Rafael had brought to his room and nothing else. He pressed against Rafael so he could feel the answering arousal through Cody’s pants and the scorching heat of his chest against Rafael’s back.

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t protest, could only stare into Cody’s eyes via the mirror as Cody’s hand wrought untold pleasure on his senses.

The wolf leaned down and pressed his lips to the shell of Rafael’s ear. “That’s it, sweet. Take your pleasure. Revel in this.”

Rafael groaned, the words tightening his sac. He gripped the edges of the sink basin to steady himself.

Cody made a circular motion on the head of his cock that made Rafael’s eyes cross. “I want you to come for me, Raf. I want you to give me every drop.”

Release raced toward him, sending electrical pulses up and down his spine as his brain diverted every available bit of blood into his cock.

“Cody,” he whispered. “You don’t have to.” This wasn’t like him. He didn’t let anyone touch him like this, but, God, he wanted Cody to.

“Want to, sweet,” Cody rumbled. “Have to. Feel how hard you make me?” He pressed closer, jabbing Rafael in the back. “Want you to come for me. Want to watch.”

Rafael panted, his hips rocking of their own accord into the circle of Cody’s fist before pressing back into the heat of Cody’s body. Cody ground against him from behind, his hand moving faster.

“That’s it, sweet. Move for me. Show me you want this.” Cody’s voice had gotten so deep and guttural that understanding him was a test of Rafael’s linguistic skills. It was so sexy to see him so animalistic for some reason.