Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (40 page)

Hollis squeaked, but it was cut off before he could finish. His motionless body dropped to the floor, shifting back to human immediately.

Cole rocked back on his haunches, and he shifted as well, human skin replacing his fur.

In relief, Dana let her human form back out too.

He crawled to her, pulling her into his arms. “Are you okay?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Drink this,” Cole said, putting a small glass into her hands.

“No,” she said. “You know I don’t drink alcohol.”

“It will warm you, Dana,” he said. “Just drink it.”

She did. The fiery liquid burned its way down her throat. She grimaced, but she did feel warmer. She was in Cole’s bathtub, and he was washing her. The water was cold, though, as there was no power for the water heater. Her teeth had been chattering.

“He didn’t hurt you much,” Cole assessed. “A few scratches, I guess.” He ran his fingers over them. They were scattered over her shoulders and thighs. They must have happened when she’d been in wolf form. She didn’t remember anything else.

“Do I still smell like him?” she wanted to know. For some reason, it was important that she get the stink of Hollis off her body immediately. Hence the washing.

Cole shook his head. “No. You smell like you.”

She sighed in relief.

Cole got up from the tub. He disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared with a large blanket.

Gratefully, she stepped out of the tub and let him wrap her in it.

He led her out to his living room and sat her on the couch. He settled next to her, drawing another blanket around his own shoulders.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to kill him on my own.”

He looked surprised. “You were trying to kill him?”

She nodded. “That was my plan. I knew he had to mate with me in order to break the bond between us and free the betas. But I didn’t want to be bonded to him. I knew I had to kill him. It was hard.”

Cole traced the outline of her jaw with one finger. “You are simply amazing, Dana Gray.”

She closed her eyes, enjoying his fingers on her.

Then her eyes snapped open. “Wait a second. I broke the bond. I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” he said. “You did. I lost my sense of you. I lost my pack.”

“Then why...” She gazed at him. Why did he still look so damned good to her? “I shouldn’t be attracted to you anymore.”

He laughed, a throaty velvet sound. “Beautiful, we were attracted before we mated, or have you forgotten that?”

He was right. She remembered that first slip of the blanket, Cole’s fingers accidentally touching her, waking her up. She remembered the confused mix of arousal and revulsion she’d felt. If she were honest with herself, that feeling had never gone away. She shut her eyes. “It
is
my fault after all.”

He trailed a finger down her neck, wandering over her collarbone, dipping into her cleavage. “Am I really that horrific?”

She opened her eyes, gazed into his dark ones. “I think so. Yes.”

He smiled ruefully, inching closer to her. He kissed her.

She let him.

He pulled back. “I want you, Dana. Do you want me?”

She swallowed. “Yes, but...” But if she gave in now, without anything to blame it on besides her own lust, what would that mean that she was? Damaged? Crazy? Maddened? “It won’t bond us again, will it?”

“Not as humans,” he said. His fingers went under the swell of her breast, cupping it with one hand. “I’d rather it not feel forced anyway, wouldn’t you?”

She bit her lip.

He pushed the blanket aside, baring her skin to the night air, to the light of the moon. His fingers danced over her nipple. It tightened, stiffened.

She moaned, really releasing what she felt. There was no one to hear. No one to know.

She touched his stomach, flat and hard. He was all lean angles, her Cole. Not a large, overpowering man but threatening all the same.

“I shouldn’t,” she whispered.

“Neither should I,” he said. He shifted, nudging her thighs apart. He lay down against her, his bare skin against her own. They slid and slipped against each other, like satin.

Her eyes rolled back in her head. It felt so nice.

Cole’s mouth was on her neck. His tongue was in her ear. “If I fall asleep in your arms afterwards, will you have me locked back up again?”

She ran her hands over his back, grabbing the curve of his backside, urging his body against hers. “Probably.”

He groaned.

He was pressing against her sex, long and rigid. She put her hands on him, squeezed him, stroked him.

“Dana,” he breathed.

“You’re a very bad man, Cole,” she said, tugging on him. “I don’t think anything is going to make you good.”

“Mmm. You’re very good. At what you’re doing.”

She quickened her pace. “The betas. They aren’t yours anymore. Why don’t you give up? Why don’t you tell me you won’t kill?”

His eyes were closed. He sighed, and when he spoke, his breath was labored. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If you could change me with a hand job.”

She let go of him.

He laughed. “I’m not going to become someone else because of you, beautiful. You want me because of what I am.”

“You’ll do it again, won’t you?” she said. “You’ll make another pack.”

“I’ll do what comes naturally.” He reached between her thighs to assault her there, tickling and teasing. “You could come with me, you know. If you let yourself go, I think you’d like it.”

“No,” she choked. “I’m not a killer.”

“You would have killed Hollis, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s different.”

He claimed her mouth, thoroughly exploring it with his tongue. As his fingers barraged her and his mouth distracted her, she couldn’t think. When he broke away, she managed, “I won’t become someone else either, you know.”

“Are you sure you haven’t already?”

She didn’t respond.

He moved his hand, running it up over her belly, her breasts. “Give yourself to me.”

Her lips parted. “Cole...”

“We’ll talk when it’s done.”

She swallowed.

And then her hand darted lower. She found him there, hard and huge. She guided him to where she wanted him.

He sighed.

And in one swift stroke, he was buried deep inside her.

She cried out.

Twenty-two

“Cole got away from the SF?” Dana said to Avery. She was wrapped in a blanket, drinking hot cocoa and sitting on the edge of an ambulance outside Cole’s house. She’d called for assistance about a half hour ago, after Cole was gone. The sun was struggling up over the horizon.

“He used the betas,” said Avery. “The whole place is torn up.”

“Well, the betas aren’t a problem anymore. Because of what Hollis did to me, he became their alpha. When I killed him, the bonds were broken. Everything’s all right now.” It was better if they thought that she’d been alone. It made things easier.

“Except for the fact that Randall is still running around free,” said Avery. He looked around. “I can’t believe you didn’t see him. I was sure he was coming after you.”

Dana shrugged. “Maybe he was. Maybe after the bond between us broke, he changed his mind. Whatever the case, I didn’t see him.”
Liar,
accused a voice in her head. And she was. A filthy liar. Letting Cole go only because he was an exquisite lover? That was wrong on so many levels, she didn’t know where to begin. But the crazed obsession seemed to be gone. Whether it was because their bond was broken or because making love to him had lessened the tension, she didn’t know. If Cole started killing again, she’d stop him. But she was happy enough to have him gone for now.

Avery jammed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. I guess he went off to meet those wolves he was talking to—the ones we heard?”

“That seems likely,” she said. “Is headquarters really bad?”

He nodded. “It’s gonna take some work to repair the damage.”

She made a face. “That’s no good.”

“Hey, what about you?” he said. “I’m going on about all of this, and you were a victim here. Hollis...”

She looked away. “I was in wolf form. It wasn’t as bad as...”

He sat down next to her on the edge of the ambulance. “Yeah, but it probably wasn’t good either. You’re free of Cole now, but you’re not okay.”

“I’m...” She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what to say. She still felt the same way about Avery. He was sweet and nice and attractive. He was an intelligent choice. But she didn’t know if she could be affectionate to him when another man—a man she felt strongly about—had been giving her the fifth orgasm of her evening earlier.

“You’re gonna need some time,” said Avery.

She nodded, relieved. “Yes. A little time. Please.”

“Sure thing.” He kissed her forehead.

CRIMSON

Crimson
by V. J. Chambers

Professor Carter Alexander may have a sharp tongue and a reputation for reducing freshman acting students to tears, but he’s gorgeous. He’s the man of Teagan Moss’ dreams. Literally. She’s been having dreams about him since she was thirteen years old. Yes,
those
kind of dreams.

Teagan’s been sheltered, hidden away by her crazy aunts and her even crazier mother, all of whom have cautioned her that the man in her dreams wants to hurt her. But Teagan doesn’t believe in their stories of power and evil.

All she wants is to be normal for once.

One night, she’s compelled out of her bed by a force she doesn’t understand. She finds herself across town on Professor Alexander’s porch.

And he’s kissing her.

CRIMSON
© copyright 2013 by V. J. Chambers
http://vjchambers.com
Punk Rawk Books

Please do not copy or post this book in its entirety or in parts anywhere. You may, however, share the entire book with a friend by forwarding the entire file to them. (And I won’t get mad.)

Crimson
by V. J. Chambers

CHAPTER ONE

Teagan

I’d been having the dream about the dark man since I was thirteen. It was always the same. I was in the woods in the darkness. The moon was bloated in the sky, full and bright.

I was lying on a raised dais, tall trees surrounding me.

And the dark man was... on top of me.

We were doing it. Getting it on. Having sex.

I called him the dark man because he was wearing a dark hooded robe that hid his face.

But right at the end of the dream, he would lean down and our lips would meet.

And I’d see his face.

I’d reach up and push back his hood. I’d gasp.

He was beautiful. He had light blue eyes the color of a summer sky. His hair was sandy and cropped short. His jaw was firm and strong. His nose was straight. I would put my fingers on his lips, and he would kiss them.

And something would stir inside me. Pleasure and desire and emotion. It would build, like a gathering storm.

Then I would wake up.

Like I did that morning, feeling as frustrated as I always did. It wasn’t just that I was so obviously about to have an orgasm in the dream, and that I’d woken up before it happened, it was that I’d felt so connected to the dark man in that moment. I was half in love in him, and he wasn’t even real. I didn’t like leaving him behind.

But it was morning. The sun was pounding through the window in my bedroom, illuminating the dust on all my antique furniture. My aunts, my mother, and I all lived in the old Moss mansion, which was the only thing of value my family owned anymore. Generations ago, the Moss family had been rich.

But that was before the Evil Ones started stealing our power.

If you listened to my aunts. And they were crazy.

Not as crazy as my mother, of course. My mother was the real deal. Schizophrenia. She saw things that weren’t there and had paranoid delusions about people trying to capture her.

It wasn’t exactly the easiest place to live. And I had been trapped here for all of my twenty-one years.

Until today.

Today. Crap. I was supposed to wake up early today to get ready for the car Thornfield College was sending for me. I twisted in bed, looking at my clock.

That late?

I threw myself out of bed. I was never going to get ready in time.

* * *

Carter

I dumped several heaping spoonfuls of coffee grounds into the coffee maker in the faculty room in the theater department. Usually, I came in hours later than this, and by then, someone else had started the coffee. Not today.