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  Raw Heat

  Charlotte Stein

  Serena has spent her entire life in the underground, hiding with the rest of humanity from the werewolf plague above. Then she begins taking care of Connor—a werewolf the humans have captured to experiment on, in the hopes of uncovering a cure—and finds her entire belief system shaken.

  Connor isn’t a vicious animal, hell-bent on the destruction of the human race. He’s kind, thoughtful, and above all—absolutely delicious. The feelings he’s starting to inspire are sending Serena out of control…lewd, filthy, glorious feelings, which could cost her job as a nurse. Not to mention her life.

  Lust and love between a wolf and a human are strictly forbidden. But for Connor, Serena may be willing to break all the rules…

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Raw Heat

  ISBN 9781419937989

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Raw Heat Copyright © 2012 Charlotte Stein

  Edited by Grace Bradley

  Cover design by Kendra Egert

  Photography: Dreamstime.com

  Electronic book publication February 2012

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

  The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for, author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Raw Heat

  Charlotte Stein

  Dedication

  To JS, who turned into AH.

  Chapter One

  She knew something was wrong before she’d even worked her way down his body to the tented place beneath the sheet. She could tell by his face—all taut with tension—and the way he was holding himself. Usually he watched her run the soapy cloth over his chest and shoulders and…other parts of him, but this time he’d turned his gaze away, and his shoulders seemed stiff.

  It didn’t take her long to figure out what he was doing. He’d pinched the sheet in with both of his arms so she couldn’t get beneath it. It was stupid of him, of course it was, but he’d done it anyway and now she had to either wrestle with him or act as though half a job was enough.

  She knew it wouldn’t be. Whatever they’d done to him this time—it had covered him in great streaks of brownish, crusted blood. And though the wounds that had leaked said blood were now completely gone, she had to get the remains of it off him. She had to. Werewolf healing didn’t make you magically clean and comfortable.

  And that was the real kicker. The thought of him being uncomfortable, of him festering in his bed all covered in the evidence of what they’d done, each wound like a push pin sticking into his skin with a note attached—Here’s where they hit me with a crowbar so hard it split the skin. Here’s where they made me roll in broken glass, then laughed to see my eyes blaze colorless, and my teeth bared like razorblades.

  Of course, he didn’t go over completely, when they did all of those things. But she’d seen the tapes and knew he got the eyes, the teeth, the stripe of fur and strange new cartilage down the length of his spine, like something out of a dinosaur’s graveyard.

  She’d seen him turn and stare up at the camera, that pale gaze searching and searching as though some part of his mind still understood, and could feel her watching him.

  It made her shiver. It made it hard to believe this man in front of her was the same creature. Even now, with something wrong burning down deep between them and his face turned away, she could see the great, gray stillness of his eyes, like pebbles at the bottom of a river. He’d pulled his lower lip almost completely into his mouth, too, which meant the razorblades weren’t there. If they had been, they’d have sliced that thing clean off.

  So why was her breath catching in her chest? Why could she hear her heart hammering and hammering in some impossible place, like her throat or behind her eyes or right out of her body and halfway down the hall? She kept making the slow circles, everything getting soapier and soapier, nothing any different than usual, not really, and yet the atmosphere kept getting heavier.

  She could almost feel it now, pressing down on her bent back. Something in her made her keep glancing at the door, though she couldn’t say why. They weren’t doing anything wrong. She was his pseudo-nurse and he was her pseudo-patient, and every day they did this very same thing. It didn’t matter if the ward now seemed dim and strange and empty, with him being the last Class One left and all the beds like markers, reminding them of the others who’d escaped or gone mad or worse. It didn’t matter if he’d called her Serena the other day instead of Nurse Kent or nothing at all.

  And it definitely didn’t matter that she’d called him Connor. Other nurses did it, she knew they did. Even the horrible one who liked sticking pins in wolves until they snarled and bucked against restraints that Conn never had to have—she called her patients by their names as though they were still human. It was just easier to say, Conn, can you turn over?

  Even though she knew the others never asked.

  Was that it? Was it the fact she’d asked instead of ordered him? And she hadn’t even gone with the usual thing she called him either. She’d said Connor instead, as though he really was still Connor Grayson somehow, a man with a human life and a family in some bunker or fortress somewhere, just waiting for him to return without that livid scar all over his shoulder.

  Too late, too late, she thought, because it was. One bite and you were gone forever, lost to the seething masses who now ruled the world above. Of course the doctors claimed it wasn’t true, that the world still belonged to humans and a cure was imminent, just around the corner—why, they made progress with the wolves every day, didn’t they?

  But then the ceiling groaned above their heads and a new breach took another hundred lives and who could believe they were telling the truth? She hardly saw anyone now, on her travels around the endless underground corridors. Really it was no wonder she’d started talking to Conn, actually talking to him about meaningless things like books he’d once read and places he remembered. His memory was just so vast and full of the time before and the world above, and if she was truly honest, his voice did weird things to her insides.

  It was like molten metal, pouring all over her. And it sounded that way now, when he told her she should stop in a tone so tight it practically hummed.

  Of course she knew she should obey him. If he was telling her do something, it had to be important. Wolves didn’t get to tell humans what to do, down here. Wolves did as they were told or else they got beaten, or drugged, or restrained. Sometimes they got
all three just because it suited the doctors and their tests, so him speaking to her that way had to mean something.

  She wished she didn’t know what. She wished she hadn’t said to him, Oh Connor, the day before. It had sounded too warm, too full of the ache that had gone through her on seeing his broken body, and then he’d looked at her with something other than complete stillness.

  His eyes had blazed, briefly, and when she’d gone to give him the shot she’d stolen—just for the pain, didn’t he deserve something for this terrible, terrible pain?—he’d actually grabbed her wrist. Told her she’d be in trouble, that she shouldn’t, that he’d heal soon, he would, he just needed a bit of time.

  He just needed food, which she’d brought him. It had meant she’d gone hungry today, but what did it matter? What did it matter when she could count his ribs sometimes through the thick meat of his immense body, all six-foot-five of him just melting away right before her eyes? What did it matter when they’d lost the war—human beings had lost the war so who gave a fuck anymore. Who gave a fuck?

  She pulled the sheet away from him and he didn’t resist. He kept his gaze on nothing and clenched his jaw and breathed too hard, but he didn’t try to stop her. He just let her soak the cloth in the hot water again, then run it down over his heavy thighs as though really he didn’t have anything like an erection. No, no, no, nothing like that ever happened. Wolves didn’t have sex thoughts. Hell, humans barely had sex thoughts anymore either, and certainly not about their half-animal patients.

  Why, she’d not had a whole, complete sex thought in over a year—ever since the guy in the laundry room, spurting between her greedy fingers with his mouth on her neck and her head filled with weird thoughts. Weird thoughts like, If you were a wolf, you’d bite me now.

  Though she’d long since stopped thinking things like that. Since Connor had been assigned to her, she’d stopped thinking about a lot of things. She’d stopped thinking about how wet she sometimes felt between her legs, after she’d spent the day sliding a soapy cloth over his naked body. She’d stopped thinking about running through a forest with a wolf after her, because too often it was Connor and he didn’t bite her when he caught her.

  He moaned in her ear with that liquid-metal voice of his instead. He rocked between her legs and asked her if she still thought he was a man, if she still found him attractive even though she knew what he was underneath.

  She could never remember what she’d answered, in these dreams. But she knew what she’d say now if he asked. God yes. Yes, yes, a million times yes. It didn’t matter that he was a wolf—he made the guy in the laundry room look like a mutant. She knew he did. Before all of this he must have had girls falling all over him, girls prettier and sexier than her, girls with pouting lips and fine, straight hair, all ready to devour his perfect, lush mouth and his stormy eyes and that look about him, that hungry, ready-to-fuck look.

  It was on him now, that look. She got to the bottom of his legs without glancing at his face, but once there she made the mistake of flicking her gaze up.

  And he was burning at her, just burning. He’d clenched his hands into fists at his side, which should have been threatening but wasn’t somehow. None of this was threatening, even though she could see his cock clearly, jutting up over his belly like a…like a…

  Jesus, she didn’t even know. Of course she’d known how big he was, there—she’d seen it often enough, thick and slumberous between his thighs—but close up like this and so stiff and swollen and ready to just do whatever it was he wanted to do…

  It felt very, very different.

  So much so that her nipples had stiffened underneath the cotton of her stupid too-thin uniform, and she knew how slick her sex was. She’d soaked through the material of her panties, at the very least, and when she moved, things glided.

  It was mortifying. Not least of which because she knew one thing for certain—he’d be able to tell. He didn’t completely turn into a wolf, not ever, but he definitely had all of the senses. He was always sat up waiting for her, before she’d even opened the door and walked into the ward. He knew when she’d stopped washing her hair with the meager supply of shampoo and started in on the scrappy soap.

  He’d know this. He’d be able to smell it, hear it, feel it most likely. It was probably the reason for his immense erection—he’d gotten the scent of her ridiculous arousal and it had forced a completely unwanted reaction on him.

  She almost wanted to apologize, but it would just mean acknowledging what was going on. And that seemed like a bad, bad idea. Better just to keep soaping him until he started breathing in a completely unsettling and too rapid way, body minutely squirming and rocking against the bed, everything so hot and stifling and awful.

  When she dared to look at him again, he’d closed his eyes. He’d turned his head to one side, against the pillow, and it seemed for all the world as though he’d found himself in the middle of a troubling dream.

  His gleaming, parted lips aside, of course. They just looked like something she needed to touch, immediately. She couldn’t even see the sharp hint of his teeth, so it didn’t seem like too great a hardship to imagine sliding a finger inside or maybe…maybe she could just lean down and—

  She shook herself hard and kept on with it, teeth gritted, arms now soaped all the way up to the elbows. Everything would be okay if she just pretended all of this was normal, if she just continued washing him and studiously ignored his stiff cock. In a minute she could tell him she was done and he could clean that place himself.

  Hell, he could do other things to it, if he wanted.

  She would just turn her back and think of other things distant and far away, and he could stroke himself to orgasm while her sanity held on to itself by a thread. Something like that.

  Something that was not her running the back of her hand over the thick length of him, just to see him jerk and shiver.

  He didn’t move away though. He didn’t grab her wrist the way he’d done before, and he didn’t tell her to stop or anything like that. And when she did it again, firmer this time and with more intent, he opened his eyes.

  Looked right at her, almost feral but not quite, his entire body rippling with the tense breaths she could see him drawing in.

  She hardly dared move. Did he want her to? God, she didn’t even know what the want was, in that equation. She thought, blindly, of the guy in the laundry room and her hand on him, but it hardly seemed adequate in the face of Connor’s swollen cock and the arousal thrumming through her and fuck it, just fuck it.

  On the next pass over his body she tossed the cloth aside, halfway down. Then just let her bare, slick hand slide up, over the solid length of him, until he bucked and put a fist to his mouth and oh God that was a sweet sight.

  She could nearly hear the moan he’d pushed right into his clenched hand, and when she slid her tentative grip back down—almost like cleaning but not quite—she actually did hear him. He was loud, really loud—far louder than she’d ever expected in thoughts she absolutely hadn’t had.

  And he pushed into it too. He rocked his hips and came close to fucking her hand before she’d even gotten up a good stroke, but that was fine. That was okay. If they were doing this then she sure needed the help, because her brain had short-circuited five minutes ago and he felt like a liquid dream in her hand—so solid and thick and slippery.

  A pearl of pre-come had welled in the slit at the tip, and when she swiped her thumb over it he produced more—a fine trickle over her pumping fist. It was almost too much to bear, too much to take in, knowing he was going to climax so soon with her hand on him and her body over his and God, God.

  She squeezed her thighs together around the sweet ache there, but it only made things worse. Her clit felt immense, swollen, and every little movement chafed her uniform against her nipples. If he hadn’t been able to tell how aroused she was before, he’d definitely be able to detect it now, and the thought spurred her on, made her jerk at him quicker, harder. />
  A groan escaped from between his lips, though she could hardly blame him. He looked dazed and lust-choked, mouth open and so slick-looking, head back, spine arched almost clear off the bed. She’d had no idea she could do this to someone—make them feel this abandoned, amidst the pain and the horror and everything pressing on them all of the time—but it couldn’t be denied.

  The sight of him coming, hard, all over her working fist and his tensing belly…it was enough to get her to accept it fully. She’d done this—made him spurt all over himself. And he was still shaking with it minutes later, breathing hard into a hand that now looked bloody, a fine coat of perspiration just visible below the streaks of soap and water.

  She looked at the glistening fluid that marked his stomach and could hardly believe what she’d done. It was on her too—between her fingers, slick and sticky—and though the urge to wipe it off surged through her, something else had hold of her at the same time.

  She wanted to lick it. Taste it. Taste him. He hadn’t moved and she felt almost certain he was drifting into sleep, so really, how much would he know if she just put a finger to her lips? How much would he know if she just slid her hand between her legs and rubbed over the swollen mound of her sex?

  It wouldn’t take long. A couple of firm strokes over her clit and she’d come just as he had, hard and too loud and then oh, the relief. That’s how he looked, she realized—like a weight had been lifted off him or some great pressure had eased.

  Would it really be so much to ask, to have him ease the pressure on her too? He could do it, she knew he could. He had such long, thick fingers and they’d feel so good sliding through her slick folds, so good grasping at her body and then maybe he could…