ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (237 page)

“Us?” She looked at me, and I felt like I could fall into her eyes forever.

“Us, Brandi. I love you. Come with me. Let me keep you safe.”

She swallowed. I held out my hand, and she looked at it for a long time. Finally she stretched out her hand and took it, and we disappeared into the trees.

“What about your pack?” she asked.

“They’re not my pack anymore. By doing this, I forfeit my position as Alpha. I’m a lone wolf now.”

“What does that mean?”

“That it’s you and me now, B. You and me.”

6

We were hidden in a valley high up in the mountains. The moon was full and my wolf had come out, silver and majestic, matching the mysterious light of the moon. Brandi sat next to me, her fingers twirling with my fur.

I hadn’t been with a pack for months now. A lone wolf was a strange thing, given to natural instincts, but master of them in a different way than I’d known before. I didn’t belong to anyone. No one told me what to do or who to be.

And with the death of the pack animal in me, came the death of my vengeance on the Silver Wielders. My hatred for the Hart family.

I wasn’t a pet. Far from it. Brandi was careful around me, because a wolf was volatile even on a moonless night. But we had an understanding. She was my mate.

The pack was still looking for us. I could feel it, shivers running across my skin. The night was quiet and my ears strained for a whisper in the night that spoke of danger. But they couldn’t find us here. It would take a while. The only person that had been able to physically feel Brandi’s location had been me. I’d been bonded to her by marriage. And they didn’t have me anymore.

All I could hear was the rustle of the wind in the trees, the stream that trickled over the rocks. Brandi’s heart beating in time with mine.

“John, look,” Brandi whispered, and I turned my face to where she was looking. The first rays of dawn reached over the horizon where the mountains dipped low enough for us to see. The pending sunrise painted the sky with brush strokes of hazy pink and soft orange. A ripple traveled over my skin, and my hind legs stretched. I could feel my paws curl and then change into hands, my nails shrinking. My teeth blunted and my skeleton changed until I was a man again, lying on the ground.

I never shifted anymore unless the moon called me out. I didn’t have to give in to my wolf as long as the moon was on my side. Brandi smiled down at me, her eyes a bright blue, soft and loving.

“Come to bed,” she said, and leaned forward, planting a kiss on my lips. Another animal awakened inside of me, one that was wrapped in heat and kindled a fire in my body. Brandi intertwined her fingers through mine.

My lips were on hers, my tongue in her mouth, before we reached our cabin door. My hands roamed over her body, committing to memory every inch of her, every curve and dip like I hadn’t touched her so many times. Every time I was with her it was like it was the first time, a breath of fresh air, of life.

We made it into the house. Her fingers were on my naked chest, tracing my pecks and dragging slowly down over my body. She followed the square lines of my muscled torso, followed the V-line to the hem of my torn pants, and worked them down over my hips. I did the same to her, taking off her jacket and her shirt. I kissed down her neck, over her collar bone, and found her chest. She was smooth and inviting.

Her chest rose and fell with her breathing, faster than it had been before, and I worshipped the woman she was. The woman she was for me. My hands traced her curves and came to rest on her breasts, and I found her mouth again.

She stopped me and took my hand, leading me to the small bedroom. We collapsed onto the bed. Daylight fell through the windows, the thin white curtains failing to keep out the soft morning sun. We were safe now, for another day. They wouldn’t hunt us until night fall, and then the full moon would be over and it would be harder for them.

I closed my eyes and got lost in Brandi, the feel of her skin on mine, the imprint of her body against my own. When I entered her the shuddered that traveled through her body rippled over my own. We moved as one, hearts beating together. The cabin filled with the chorus of moans and groans as I built up a steady rhythm, and made the woman mine would be my mate forever.

She pushed me to the edge, and judging by the feel of her around me, she was toppling on the edge herself. I kissed her hard, and pushed her over. She moaned into my mouth, and her body wrapped around mine, a fierce, passionate grip that sent me over as well. It was a burst of ecstasy, love laced with fire. I collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her arms around my neck.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Brandi was the love of my life. She had been for years, and I’d never thought she’d be mine. It had all started with a wild night in Vegas where I’d forgotten about the animal inside of me. And it had ended here, where I was finally one with the wolf, and we didn’t fight anymore. It had been a love-hate relationship for a decade. Now there was only love left. Both of us loved her.

Brandi, the Silver Wielder, enemy of werewolves everywhere, had killed the Alpha in me and given me a second chance. The wolf hunter had saved my life.

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SECRET

By Sicily Duval

I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes with my palms. My head hurt from staring at the screen all day and I’d been clenching my teeth. They felt like they were going to fall out. I ran my fingers through my hair, running out at the bottom of my bob. I hadn’t gotten used to the short hairstyle yet. 

Home stretch. One more chapter to edit and then I could publish the manuscript on Amazon. I sighed and got to work. I had an hour before Chris came home. I wanted to be done by then.

I’d been self-publishing Erotica e-books on Amazon for almost a year now. It was a side-line thing. I did a lot of admin work from home, my boss only wanted me to come to the office once a week. The rest of the time I could get up to whatever I wanted.

Three pen names. Three different Erotica genres. It was definitely a lot more fun than admin.

I read over the last words I’d written, where the heroin was finally going to give in to her lover, and let him take control. I shifted on the chair, scissoring my thighs. My eyes danced over the words, and I corrected a spelling error here, a typing error there. My mouth went dry. I was becoming hot and bothered. If my own writing could do that to me, I was on the right track.

When I was done I walked to the kitchen and prepared the chicken with vegetables to roast in the oven. I took a stake out of the freezer and set it to defrost in the microwave. This one I wouldn’t cook. Chris ate his meat raw. Not rare. Raw.

This was something not a lot of people knew about my husband. He was a werewolf. It was the thrill of what he was that had made me sit up and notice when I’d met him. He’d been a fairytale to me. I knew I would get a chance to escape my rule-restricted life once and for all if I married a man that broke the laws of nature just by existing.

Well, that had been what I’d expected, anyway.

He always came home at six. He would go take a shower while I finished the food, and then dinner time was at seven. We were a young couple with no children, and still we had a strict routine. Married life was very run-of-the-mill.

I heard the key in the lock, and glanced at the clock that hung above the back door. Right on time.

“Hi honey,” I called when I heard the door close again.

“Hi sweetheart,” he answered me, and a moment later appeared in the kitchen door. His dark hair was messy, like he’d spent his day pushing his fingers into it. But his eyes were clear and greener than green.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked, putting down his laptop bag and phone. He walked over to me and pecked me on the cheek.

“Roast chicken. And steak.”

“Sounds great,” he said. “I’m going to hop in the shower.” He turned and walked away. I nodded, and when he was out of ear shot, I sighed. A peck on the cheek. It was endearing. But a passionate full kiss on the mouth? I wished.

Even if he just ran his hand over my ass, just once outside the bedroom. Just to spice things up.

I slid the dish into the oven, and started on the salad.

We went through the motions every evening. It was Tuesday which meant Chris’s talk show was on at nine. We watched that. He laughed, his eyes glued to the screen. I watched him, traced his profile against the light from the lamp on his other side. I wondered how we’d managed to sink into a rut so soon in our marriage.

When I’d met him he was wild, a guy fresh out of college with a degree and a new job, the confidence to take on the world. He’d been the most attractive thing I’d ever seen when we met at a party. Our romance had been whirl wind, I’d known since our second date that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

We’d gone through the motions, dating for two years, engaged for a year, and then finally married, because that was how I was raised. That was how things were done. But thinking about it now, we really shouldn’t have done that.

I was scared I’d killed the passion by insisting we stick to the rules.

At ten o’clock Chris switched off the television and we went to the bedroom. I took off my make-up, checked my clothes for when I needed to go to the office tomorrow, and put cream on my hands. Chris climbed in bed and read a men’s magazine. When I climbed in next to him I threw an arm over his chest and listened to his heart beat.

It was steady, a rhythm that I’d built my life around.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too, honey,” he said, not taking his eyes off the article he was reading.

At ten thirty he switched off the light, and settled into the covers. Ten minutes later he was snoring, and I lay staring up at the milky gray light that fell through the crack in the curtain, wondering how it happened that my life was slowly seeping through my fingers. 

Half an hour I stared at the ceiling before I slid out of bed, trying not to disturb the covers and wake Chris. I tiptoed into my office and started up the computer. The low hum of the CPU filled the office. I opened a the web browser and drew up Google.

The bluish light of the screen illuminated the dark office, and my world came to life. In cyberspace I wasn’t the administrator for a publishing firm. I wasn’t the boring housewife that cooked dinner at six sharp every night. I was a damsel in distress, a heroine, a seductress. An exotic temptress. A princess. A queen. I wasn’t Lucy O’Hare. I was Layla, Angelique, Tiffany, Anaïs.

One of my pen names was starting to do really well. I hadn’t realized how serious people were about things that were out of the ordinary. I’d started to realize that ‘normal’ didn’t sell. No one was interested in in-and-out missionary anymore.

I chuckled. Neither was I, for that matter.

They wanted a thrill. Something out of the ordinary. Something crazy. Something they couldn’t tell their spouses about in real life because of how they might sound. The truth was, everyone had a kink in them. And erotica was where they lived out a part of themselves they weren’t sure society wanted to see.

There were two things that made me a good erotica writer. Reading other erotica, seeing what worked and what didn’t – and really, I just had to rely on my body to tell me that – and doing my research about what was plausible. There was no bigger mood kill than reading something that just didn’t make sense.

I looked up toys and positions. I looked up relationship dynamics. I looked up trends and urges and comments and requests. I scribbled down notes, forming the outline for my next story, making stars and bullet points.

When I glanced at the clock again it was four in the morning. I would have to get up in three hours. I closed the browsers and unlocked the filing cabinet, the bottom draw to which only I had a key, and filed my notes.

I crept to bed and wrapped my body around Chris’s, drawing from his warmth. He mumbled something.

When the alarm went off at seven, I groaned and sat up. I had a lack-of-sleep headache and my eyes feel gritty. Chris was already in the bathroom, shaving.

“Are you going into the office today?” he asked when he heard I was up.

“I have to get some files to Barry,” I answered. I stumbled around the bed and stuck my feet into slippers so I could put the kettle on for Chris’s breakfast.

“I’m not going to eat, here, sweetie,” he called after me. “I have an early meeting. I’ll grab Starbucks on the way.”

He walked past me a moment later and kissed me, on the mouth this time but only a quick one.

“I have to run. I’ll see you later, honey. Maybe we go to dinner tonight.”

“Like a date night?” I asked, something inside of me perking up at the thought.

He smiled at me like the idea was quaint. We weren’t teenagers anymore, after all. “We’ll talk when I get home, okay? Love you.” He turned and closed the door behind him.

“Love you too,” I answered to the empty house.

I walked back to the bedroom and got dressed. I put on a dress suit, a brown pencil skirt with a matching blazer and black wedge heels that weren’t very high. I applied light make-up and straightened my hair. When I looked in the mirror I saw my mother.

She’d been a conservative business woman with a bullet proof sense of logic and a determination that scared everyone, including my father. I looked at myself, tracing my image from my feet upwards. There was a time when I was interested, when I used to wear jeans that I’d doodled on with a Sharpie, and shirts I’d tie-died myself. I used to have long hair that curled because I never straightened it, and make-up was a waste of time and money.

I guessed everyone became someone else when they got married. When they had to grow up and become responsible. Everyone outside of my novels.

I switched on the computer again and refreshed my e-mail. Two of them popped up. One was commentary from an adoring fan. I smiled from the inside like sunrise. These things defrosted me. Another was a digital pamphlet.

It was for Eroticon, an erotica conference. This Saturday. In Atlanta.

I had to go. I could tell Chris… something. I’d think of an excuse. It would be so good for business. I took a deep breath and blew it out in a shudder. I hadn’t lied to him before. Not outright. Omission was a kind of lie, but it didn’t taste bitter on my tongue, like outright lies did. And I would have to tell him
something,
I couldn’t just leave out the bit about where I was actually going.

Still, I wanted to go. I wanted to meet other people that did what I did. I wanted to have an opportunity where I didn’t have to hide what I did. At Eroticon I would just be one person. The person that wrote erotica. Not the housewife with secrets. Not the conservative woman with dirty secrets. Just me.

I reserved a seat for myself before I could change my mind. My fingers flew over the keys and I hit enter, sending it off, before I could stop myself.

On the way to the office I imagined all sorts of scenarios. I could tell Chris I was going away for work. I was going to see my boss, Barry, after all. I could tell him tonight, over dinner. He would have three days to get used to the idea. To arrange golf with his colleagues or something. Maybe it was his weekend away, too. I hadn’t noticed the moon.

Chris always made a point of leaving the house when he couldn’t control his wolf, or stop the change from happening. He didn’t want me to see him like that. He said it wasn’t pretty, I deserved stability. I guessed we all had parts of ourselves we wanted to hide.

I ignored the bad aftertaste when I stepped out of the car, and walked towards the drab square buildings that held the offices.

My work was the only point of light and my dull world. It was worth the lie, surely.

Chris

I unlocked the door and stepped into the quiet house. I was home from work early, and Lucy would still be at the office. I didn’t often come home to an empty house.

I could take the time and go for a run. I tried to shift into a wolf as little as possible, for her sake. She was so perfect, I didn’t want to keep reminding her how flawed I was. It was bad enough already that I couldn’t stop the change from happening on the nights the moon was full. She didn’t have to see my wolf on top of everything.

The raw meat she always prepared for me kept me in check. Without something bloody once in a while the wolf would come out whenever. A curse? Maybe. I’d just come to see it as part of who I am.

I put my laptop bag on the counter and switched off my phone. I didn’t want to be found, not right now.

In the bedroom I found the fur coat in my cupboard. It was dark brown, the same color as my hair, and when I touched it, a hum flowed through my veins, like this coat was permanently charged.

The coat made the change easier. I could turn into a wolf without help, of course. But if was out of practice, like I’d been lately, it was often painful. I had to change often to be fit for it, and in my life that just wasn’t possible.

I got undressed and shrugged into the coat. It came down to my thighs, covering everything it needed to. The fur was comforting on my skin. A second skin. Which was exactly what it was.

I left the house again and got into my car, driving to the edge of town where the suburban homes fell away into wide open rolling fields. Trees stretched to the horizon after that, and that was where I was headed.

When my paws hit the mulch and I was in wolf form, I stretched and unfurled into my animal body. Everything was clearer and sharper as a wolf. I’d forgotten how much I loved being like this. My ears moved, following the smallest sounds – the scramble of a squirrel up a tree. The birds overhead in the canopy of leaves. I sniffed. The smell of water was on the air but I knew the lake was some distance away.

I set off into the trees, heading for the water.

When I got home again it was still early. Lucy wouldn’t back until just after five. I had two hours to kill. I opened the fridge and found leftovers from the night before. I finished it. Her scent hung heavy in the house, even with my human nose I could pick it up. She was a presence here even when she was gone.

I walked into her office where her perfume hung the strongest. It was neat, with nothing out of order. I wondered how she managed to live her life this way, with nothing ever out of place. Her control of her life was intimidating, sometimes.

Her computer beeped, and I realized it was still on. And e-mail had come through. I sat down in front of the screen and looked for the chess icon. I hadn’t played against a computer in a while. Instead of clicking on the chess icon I accidentally clicked on the internet icon instead, and her browser popped up.