Coming awake with a sharp gasp, Lachlan clutched at the blankets and humped against the mattress, searching for the relief he’d been denied in his dream. His asshole clenched and relaxed, practically begging to be stretched and filled. Sweat dampened his hair and covered his skin while the muscles in his back bunched and flexed.

  The dream had seemed so real, not like a memory, but as though it had actually happened right in that moment. He could still hear the raindrops as they fell against the dead leaves, feel the sting of the claw marks over his ribs, and smell the earthy scent of the forest. No matter how still he tried to be or how much he struggled to calm his labored breathing, he couldn’t pull enough air into his lungs.

  “Lachlan?” Xeno rolled over to spoon behind him and slid his hand beneath Lachlan’s T-shirt to stroke his stomach. “Hey, hey, easy. You’re okay, just breathe, baby.”

  His soothing voice washed over Lachlan like a cool balm, and the brush of skin against skin eased the constriction around his lungs, allowing him to suck in a deep breath. The urgency, however, didn’t fade, and instead of relaxing into the mattress, Lachlan launched himself at Xeno, attacking the man’s mouth with all the pent up desire coursing through him.

  Pushing Xeno to his back, Lachlan crawled on top of him, touching every inch of skin he could reach and growling in frustration at the barrier of clothing between them. Never had he felt so out of control, so…aggressive, but it felt good. No part of his body hurt, none of his usual pain emerged to slow him down or hold him back.

  “Wait,” Xeno mumbled around Lachlan’s sloppy kisses. “Hold on.” His long, hard cock pressed into Lachlan’s hip, swollen and pulsing between them. “Are you sure?”

  Lachlan didn’t hesitate, didn’t need to think about his answer. “I’m sure.”

  “I’m serious.” Holding Lachlan’s face in both hands, he searched Lachlan’s eyes, clearly looking for the truth. “There’s no going back, so be sure.”

  Taking hold of his lover’s wrists, Lachlan pulled his hands away and dipped his head for another breath-stealing kiss. “I’m sure,” he repeated. Perhaps the dream had ramped him up, but he’d wanted Xeno from the moment he’d set eyes on him at the café. “I want you, Xe.”

  “I like how you say that.” Then Xeno pulled him into another deep, passionate kiss.

  Lachlan had never been comfortable in a more dominant role, and though he’d instigated that first kiss—quite aggressively—he didn’t have the experience to lead them forward. Taking control didn’t suit him, and he acknowledged that, but he didn’t need to lead, not with Xeno.

  Lost in the melding of their lips and the twining of their tongues, Lachlan didn’t realize they’d moved until his back pressed against the mattress. Xeno mapped his body with strong, capable hands as though committing each swell, curve, dip, and ridge to memory. With skill and efficiency, Xeno had them both undressed in a matter of seconds before returning to his exploration.

  A wave of self-consciousness tightened Lachlan’s gut as Xeno licked and nibbled down his stomach. He hadn’t been naked in front of anyone since the accident, and his anxiety spiked as his insecurities came rushing to the surface. “Wait.” Grabbing hold of his lover’s shoulder, he tried to pull him back up his body, but Xeno refused.

  Shaking his head, he continued nibbling his way down Lachlan’s body until he reached his right hip. Tenderly, almost reverently, Xeno brushed his lips across the puckered scars from Lachlan’s surgery, following the line all the way down to his knee. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as he reversed his trek along the same path. “Don’t hide from me. You should be proud of these scars. Something horrific happened to you, but you survived. I think that’s pretty damn special, not something to be ashamed of.”

  Without giving Lachlan an opportunity to refute his claim, Xeno licked a slow path along the length of his shaft and swirled his tongue around the head of Lachlan’s dick. Capturing the bulbous crown between his lips, he tongued the weeping slit before dropping his head, taking Lachlan’s cock to the back of his throat.

  Indescribable pleasure assaulted him, causing him to arch up from the bed with a loud, gargled moan. As Xeno created a rhythm, bobbing his head in long, slow strokes, Lachlan’s toes curled, his lower back tightened, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Just as he approached the edge of climax, though, Xeno abruptly stopped and rolled away from him.

  “No,” he gasped, tangling his fingers in the sheet and squirming as the chilled air breezed over his spit-slicked shaft.

  The scraping sound of the nightstand drawer sounded over Xeno’s quiet laughter, followed by the snick of a bottle cap. “Patience, sweetheart.”

  Lachlan didn’t want to be patient, though. He wanted relief, preferably in the form of an earth-shattering orgasm. In the beginning, he may have been a bit cautious, but now, he’d fully committed himself to reaping as much pleasure from their tryst as Xeno could give him.

  “Hurry.”

  The mattress dipped when his lover returned to kneel between his splayed thighs. “You are most demanding, Mr. MacAuley.” Sliding two slick fingers between Lachlan’s cheeks, he ringed the starburst twice before pushing inside, pumping the digits deep into Lachlan’s channel. “Are you feeling neglected? Am I not giving you enough attention?”

  His confident movements and teasing tone sent Lachlan’s lust into overdrive, which only increased his impatience. As Xeno’s long fingers thrust into his ass, sawing in and out in a quick tempo that lit up every cell in his body, he would have begged, pleaded, or bargained for release. The pressure in his sac built, though, squeezing his aching balls, and Lachlan found he could no longer form intelligent speech beyond one-word requests.

  “More.”

  “Hush.” Xeno’s tone morphed from playful to tense, as though speaking through clenched teeth, and his actions suddenly became jerky and uncoordinated. “Just let me take care of you.”

  The guttural quality of his voice triggered a memory, a recollection from Lachlan’s earlier dream, and he pried his eyes open to peek up at his lover. At first, he didn’t know what to make of what he saw, convinced his eyes were playing tricks on him. Just like in his dream, though, Xeno’s eyes shined with a golden, ghostly light, and sharp, pointed canines extended below his upper lip.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  While he felt slightly unnerved, the belief in the strange, unusual, and unexplainable came with the territory of being an author. “I’m not afraid.” While he couldn’t explain it, and maybe it proved his naivety, the absolute conviction that Xeno would never harm him penetrated Lachlan down to his soul.

  “I’d never hurt you.”

  “I know.” In actuality, he couldn’t know that, but he felt it, believed it with unshakable certainty—maybe because Xeno looked anxious enough for both of them.

  Extracting his fingers from Lachlan’s channel, Xeno poured a generous amount of lube into his palm and stroked his cock with a shaking hand before lining up the crown with Lachlan’s entrance. “Deep breath, sweetheart.”

  The unearthly glow of his eyes intensified as he snapped his hips forward, plunging into Lachlan’s depths with a feral growl. As Lachlan’s inner walls stretched to accommodate the massive girth, the aching burn made his eyes water, but he couldn’t blink away the moisture, couldn’t look away from Xeno’s hypnotic gaze.

  The world faded away, leaving only the two of them wrapped in haze of desire, and as Xeno increased his pace, tiny explosions ricocheted throughout Lachlan’s body. The slap of skin against bare, slick skin echoed around the room, mingling with their grunts and groans, and each bone-jarring thrust drove Lachlan closer to the edge of oblivion.

  “Please, please, I need…” Unsure of what he needed, Lachlan trailed off, whipping his head back and forth on the pillow as he thrashed against the bed.

  Without warning, Xeno scooped Lachlan into his arms, pulling him into his lap and pressing their sweat-dampened chests together. A string of mumbled words in in a language Lachlan didn’t recognize fell from Xeno’s lips. While he didn’t know the literal translation, he instinctively understood the promise in the reverent tone.

  “Please forgive me.” Fisting one hand in Lachlan’s hair and jerking his head back on his shoulders, Xeno struck hard, piercing the skin on Lachlan’s neck with his wickedly sharp fangs.

  With a full-body shiver, he released a torrent of hot semen that splashed against Lachlan’s inner walls and flooded his convulsing channel. The sting of pain in his neck, coupled with the friction against his aching cock, sent Lachlan careening headlong toward orgasm. Yelling his lover’s name to the ceiling, he clutched at Xeno’s shoulders as he erupted, emptying a river of pearly cream into the minimal space between them.

  Covered in sweat, cum, and a small trickle of blood on his neck, Lachlan slumped back to the mattress and closed his eyes while his chest continued to heave. Caught up in the moment, selfishly desiring the pleasure Xeno could bring him, he hadn’t tried too hard to make sense of what he’d seen. Now, however, without the distraction of the man’s dick in his ass, he couldn’t not think about the glowing eyes and the extended canines.

  Flipping his eyelids open when his lover stretched out beside him, Lachlan turned to look at him and frowned. Xeno appeared ridiculously normal. No sharp teeth or eerie eyes, and he even smiled that usual, cocky smirk of his. For a fleeting moment, Lachlan feared he’d cracked under the recent stress and hallucinated it all. Thankfully—or disturbingly—the ache in his neck proved otherwise.

  Chapter Seven

  “You bit me.”

  “My eyes lit up like Roman candles and I grew fangs like something out of a Wes Craven movie, but you’re focused on the fact that I bit you?”

  “Well, yeah, that’s the only part that affected me.” Good thing the man was cute, because he could certainly be dense sometimes. “It’s going to scar, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a mating mark,” Xeno answered somewhat tenuously, as though he feared Lachlan would dissolve into a meltdown at any moment. “It’s supposed to be visible. It says you’re mine.”

  “I’m yours? Like a candy bar or a piece of furniture?”

  “What? Wait. No, that’s not what I meant. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  With the media shoving romanticized versions of werewolves, vampires, and the like down everyone’s throats, society had become desensitized to the fantastical and once unbelievable. This played only a small part in Lachlan’s easy belief. Ever since he’d been a small boy, he’d believed there were things in the world that couldn’t be explained. Aliens, paranormal creatures, and supernatural beings—all legends had some basis in truth, and he wasn’t so arrogant to think humans were the only intelligent beings in the world or the universe.

  If he’d met Xeno in a dark alley with the guy on full beast mode, he may have had a much different reaction. If Xeno wanted to hurt him, though, he already would have. Lachlan believed, he’d always believed, but he needed to understand.

  “What are you?”

  “How are you taking this so well? Why aren’t you curled up in the corner screaming or sucking your thumb?”

  “Nope.” He tapped the end of Xeno’s nose and shook his head. “I asked you first.”

  “Lykós. We’re an ancient breed of—”

  “Werewolf,” Lachlan inserted with a nod. “I’ve read about the legends. You’re a dreamwalker, right?”

  Xeno fidgeted with a loose string on the pillow case and wouldn’t look at him. “Yeah, that’s right.” With a huff and a creased brow, he ceased toying with the string and looked at Lachlan. “Are you sure you’re okay with all of this? I had envisioned this conversation going much differently.”

  “Well, it might have been nice if you’d told me before you were balls deep in my ass, but lucky for you, I’ve always been a believer.” Instead of being frightened like any normal person would probably be, Lachlan only felt excitement. It was like knowing the secrets to the universe but being unable to prove them—until now. “I’m hoping the rumors about you being immune to diseases are true.” The first inkling of anxiety tightened his chest. He’d never been so stupid, so wrapped up in someone that he forgot to use a condom.

  “Relax,” Xeno cooed. “You’re perfectly safe with me. I’d never risk your wellbeing for anything.”

  “Okay.” Sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, Lachlan chewed on the flesh for a few seconds, deciding if he should take Xeno at his word. While the guy withheld some fairly vital information about himself, he had no reason to lie. “Okay,” he repeated. “Good.”

  Resting his hand on Lachlan’s hip, Xeno began tracing little circles on his skin with his forefinger. “What else do you want to know?”

  Lachlan had a million questions. He wanted to know everything, all the way back to the truth of the reality and the origins of the fairy tales. “How old are you? Are you immortal?”

  “I’m six hundred and twenty-one. My family led a group of Lykós over from Spain in 1812, and my grandfather helped colonize Shadow Hills.” Pausing, he watched Lachlan closely, as though looking for a reaction. “As you guessed, we’re immune to disease and heal quickly from injuries. Our blood can even heal humans and other supernaturals, but we can be killed. However, in the loose sense of the word, I suppose I am immortal.”

  Lachlan had assumed as much, but he wanted to back up to the part about the blood. “You can heal…” Glancing down at his hip, he brushed his fingertips along the map of scars while his thoughts strayed to earlier that morning. “You know, I’ve been taking painkillers for months, and they’ve never completely taken away the pain.”

  “I’m sorry,” Xeno mumbled. “I couldn’t stand how much pain you were in, and I had to do something. So I put a couple of drops of my blood in your orange juice earlier.”

  Maybe Lachlan had lost his mind, because he found the confession sweet rather than creepy or disturbing. Rolling to his side, he cupped Xeno’s cheek and pressed a chaste kiss to his swollen lips. “Thank you.” He wanted to hear more about the dreamwalking, to know if Xeno was responsible for his recent erotic fantasy, but he wanted to know about this “mating mark” more.

  “Why did you bite me, Xe? What does it mean?” The intense, instantaneous attraction, the deep, consuming connection, and the almost desperate need to be together made a hell of a lot more sense now, but he wanted to hear Xeno say it. He needed to know everything involved in being the “mate” of a werewolf.

  “I can see it in your eyes. You know what it means.” He tugged on Lachlan’s earlobe, pulling him closer for another kiss. “It means you’re mine, but it also means I’m yours. I know you’re afraid sometimes, but you don’t have to be anymore. No matter what it is, I’ll always be here to protect you.” He stroked Lachlan’s cheek and traced the curve of his jaw. “Cherish you.” His lips rubbed back and forth across Lachlan’s, and Xeno sighed happily. “Love you.”

  His heart pounded and his cock twitched in renewed interest, but Lachlan pushed through the desire, forcing himself to focus. Xeno couldn’t love him. It had just been a figure of speech. After all, they’d only known each other for a few days. “If we’re b–bonded, does that mean…does it…what does that mean?”

  “You’ll never grow old and you’ll never be sick. It’s a gift, Lachlan, a promise that we’ll be together forever.”

  Lachlan’s head spun as he began to hyperventilate, and it felt like the room had suddenly grown smaller, oppressive. Having sex with a werewolf barely rated on his fucked-up-o-meter, but talking about spending forever with said werewolf sent him into a panic of epic proportions. “I have to go.”

  “Breathe, baby, just breathe. I know it’s a lot to take in, but you’re not alone, okay? I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  Not helping. He had to get out of the room, find a safe place to be alone and break down. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Lachlan—”

  Holding up his hand to stop Xeno’s protest, he slid down from the bed and marched naked to the bathroom. “If you mean what you say, if you really care about me, l–love me, then you’ll give me some time to process this.” Right then, he couldn’t be sure of his feelings, and he needed to know he hadn’t been manipulated by some omniscient matchmaker. Was anything he felt for Xeno real? Or had everything been an elaborate fabrication brought on by pheromones and animalistic instinct?

  A loud bang on the door stopped him in his tracks, and Lachlan jerked toward the sound. “What, Grady?”

  “Dry your dick off and get out here. You have therapy in half an hour.”

  “He’s not going today,” Xeno yelled back.

  Growing more frustrated by the moment, Lachlan threw a filthy glare at his lover and continued on to the bathroom. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” If he wanted to find answers, he needed to get his head on straight, and he could only do that by getting a little distance from the situation—also known as Xeno.

  * * * *

  Lachlan spent a lot of time by himself over the course of the next week, holed up in Xeno’s office typing away at his manuscript. At least, he hadn’t left, though. There had been a minute, just a brief moment where Xeno hadn’t been sure he’d return after his session with Grady.

  When he’d walked through the front door with a huge grin on his face, Xeno had stupidly believed their fight had been forgotten. Once their eyes met from across the room, and Lachlan’s happiness deflated, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  In all the ways he’d imagined telling his mate about werewolves and the paranormal world, he’d never thought Lachlan would be so calm and understanding. Riding a current of relief, he’d pushed too hard, been too overbearing in his presumptions. Not once had he stopped to consider that maybe Lachlan didn’t want to be with him. He’d only thought of himself, his own happiness, which made him one selfish bastard.

  “I screwed up.”

 

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