Darin Brightmore is a nurse who runs to escape the stress of his job. He’s unprepared when a routine trip down a local hiking trail lands him in the arms of a sexy stranger. Darin is instantly drawn to the charming Raylan and is disappointed when their encounter is cut short. Shortly after the encounter his life takes a turn for the strange.
Raylan Loup is a werewolf who is beyond pleasantly surprised when he stumbles across the enticing Darin one late afternoon. Determined to claim the quirky nurse as his own, Raylan sets out to win Darin over. Unfortunately, the appearance of a Huntsman dead set on putting Raylan down turns what should have been a routine courtship into a battleground.
Can Darin accept all of the danger that comes with being Raylan’s mate or will he wish he never let the wolf at the door into his heart?
Be Warned: m/m sex
Raylan presses their joined hands to Darin’s stomach, and his other arm comes up to wrap around his chest so that his hand is hooked around the curve of Darin’s opposite shoulder. They fit together like puzzle pieces, and Darin isn’t ashamed of the way his stomach clenches and his cock goes hard and long in his loose fitting pants. Not when he can feel every inch of Raylan against him and he knows that the werewolf is just as affected. Raylan dips his head and nudges Darin’s to the side so that he can run his nose along the length of his throat.
“You have no idea what it did to me to have you ask for something. What it did to the wolf to have you participate, even unknowingly, in the gifting. It took all the control I had left not to come for you then. Not to push my way into your life and take and take until there was no part of you I hadn’t touched, no part I hadn’t tasted. No part of you that wasn’t completely mixed with a part of me.” Raylan’s teeth close over the tender flesh of Darin’s neck, and he whimpers, hips bucking up and fingers tightening around Raylan’s hand.
Raylan doesn’t stop. He just tightens his hold on Darin’s shoulder, squeezes his hand in return, and grinds the long arch of his cock against Darin’s ass. When he finally pulls away, Darin is breathless and knows that he’s going to have one hell of a mark. It makes something inside of him sit up and whine, makes him want to beg Raylan to do it over and over again, to mark him from head to toe.
“It got worse when I had to leave, when the Huntsman was so hard on my trail I had to disappear for a while to try to make it seem like I’d moved on. I was two states away and the wolf would take over, would drag me almost halfway here before I could take control back enough to turn around.” Raylan whispers the words into Darin’s ear.
“I-I don’t understand. Why would the wolf drag you back here when there’s danger?” Darin does his best to keep his voice even, but he knows he’s failing, can feel the tremors that are wracking his body and the way his heart’s beating fast enough to burst.
“Because it wants you, too, just as bad as I do, and it didn’t like being away from you, being unable to protect you. And then last night when you helped me, when you treated the wound, put me in your bed and then slipped in beside me like a true mate would, I couldn’t help but move things forward to the next step.”
Darin remembers the hot press and glide of bodies and hands, the thick heat of Raylan pressed against him and the tight ring of his fingers as he wrung Darin’s orgasm out of him. He has a fairly good idea of what the third step is. He can vaguely remember Raylan rubbing his back, the warm dampness of his hand and the way his skin had been sticky and itchy this morning. His dawning awareness must show somehow because Raylan’s laughing again, a dark husky chuckle that sends puffs of warm air across the mark on Darin’s neck.
“Hmm, I enjoyed it, too, enjoyed rubbing my scent onto you and yours onto me, enjoyed the thought of you lying there asleep, so trusting and smelling of our sex. It’s a sign that you’re mine, that you belong to me and that I’m going to mate you. If another wolf got anywhere near you they’d know right away that you were taken. It’s still a struggle not to bend you over this counter and take you, to hold back and not fuck you right here in this kitchen until you can’t move, can’t think, without feeling me inside of you. The scenting helps, even though the fact that it’s faded a bit because of your shower is slowly driving me crazy. I want to be so deep inside your skin that you’ll never wash me off.”
Raylan untangles their fingers, and his now free hand skims its way beneath Darin’s too large shirt, and he hooks a thumb in the waistband of his pants. His fingers caress the arch of Darin’s cock, finding the little wet spot on the fabric that’s proof of just how affected Darin is and worrying it with a nail.
“As a matter of fact, I think I’ll fix that problem right now.”
