Page 2 of Hunted Mate (Stalked Mates #1)

I open the first file and start reading the notes as I walk, passing big stacks of boxes, all of which contain precious hardcopies of the kind of intelligence needed to prove this sort of theory.

I walk face first into a wall that wasn’t there this morning, drop my file, and bump my nose.

“Ow.”

Big hands steady me and stop me from tripping over backwards.

I look up to discover that there’s a man in my underground office.

He’s tall, well over six feet, and he’s wearing a wolf mask.

His arms are bare because he’s also wearing a vest. There are sleeve tattoos down each of his overly muscular arms. I can’t see what they depict, exactly, from this distance.

I know instinctively that he’s hot. He has the broad shoulders, narrow hips, and the kind of physique that implies chiseled everything.

“Uh, hello?” I stumble back, dip down, pick up my file and put a little distance between us. I am deeply embarrassed. I hate seeming clumsy. I hate making mistakes.

He doesn’t say anything.

“What do you want? Nobody is supposed to come down here.” My question comes out bluntly and rudely. “That’s why there’s a lock on the door.”

He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me from behind the mask.

He has ice-blue eyes under there, regarding me with an unwavering stare.

He folds his arms over his chest, making tattoos ripple with the motion.

I see fangs, I see fur. I feel a jolt of some dark energy that scares me into taking another two steps back.

I tell myself this is some kind of shitty prank.

The other journalists don’t take me seriously.

They’re always fucking with me. Last week someone left their husky in here, then told me that they’d gotten me an interview with a real life wolf shifter.

I pretended to laugh, but underneath it all I was humiliated.

One day, I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.

“I really don’t have time for this today,” I say.

“You’ll make time.”

I don’t recognize his voice, but that’s probably because it’s muffled by the mask.

“I have a lot of work to do, and this isn’t funny. It’s actually starting to become harassment. Don’t think I won’t go to HR.”

He chuckles, a deep, rich, masculine sound. “I don’t answer to HR.”

The hair on the back of my neck is starting to stand up.

There’s something uncanny about this man.

He doesn’t belong here. He’s not built like an office worker.

Not even one who goes to the gym all the time.

He’s got the kind of muscle you see in people who spend a lot of time outside.

The skin under his tattoos is deeply tan, and what I can see of his hands indicates roughness. Short, unmanicured nails.

I sigh and put my files down on my desk.

“So what’s this about?”

“It’s about you, and this shrine to the unforgivable.”

“Unforgivable?”

“What you are investigating is unnatural and yes, unforgivable. This is your warning. Stop.”

“You mean wolf shifters?”

“I mean the cursed children of the wild,” he says.

“Wait, that’s what you call them? Cursed children of the wild? Unforgivable?” I go to my desk, pick up a pencil, and start making notes.

He is on me in a flash, snapping my pencil in half and throwing it on the floor.

“Throwing tantrums won’t stop me,” I say as he looms over my desk, his hands fisted on either side of it as he stares me down.

Again, he doesn’t say anything.

“I might take you seriously if you weren’t wearing that stupid Halloween mask,” I add, my temper flaring as he continues to say nothing at all. “I’m not afraid of you. And I’m not amused by all these stupid pranks. Nobody here might be taking this seriously, but I am.”

“I’m taking this very seriously,” he says. “More than you know. That’s why I am telling you to let this go. Stop thinking about it. Stop investigating it. Stop trying to find information. You’re going to get yourself killed. ”

He says the part about getting myself killed in a deep growl that makes fear run through me in a horrible trickle. He wants me to feel threatened, and I do.

I back up toward the door, but he’s faster than me. A lot faster. He reaches the door before I do and closes it without slamming it somehow. His speed, strength, and careful coordination are impressive.

I’m trapped in the basement with a massive man in a wolf mask, who is trying his level best to fucking scare the hell out of me.

“Tell me you are going to stop this investigation,” he says, closing the distance again, making me back up against the door. I could scream.

“Or what?”

It’s not the smartest thing to say, but it is the first thing I think of. I don’t like being treated as if I deserve to be afraid. I don’t like to be scared. I don’t like to be told what to do.

“Or I will make you.”

“You can’t make me.”

He’s so close now I can smell him. Rough. Male. Animal. No deodorant and cologne, but bracken and pine and woods. He smells like the outdoors. He smells like the wild.

He lowers his head toward me, and puts his lips to my ear. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to whip your ass and fuck your pussy. If you don’t want me to do that, all you have to do is agree to look into something else. Anything else.”

I take a deep breath and try not to show how much that threat affects me. It’s not just the hair on the back of my neck that is standing up. Every bit of chemistry inside me is being unleashed at once. Adrenaline and more disturbing—arousal.

He takes a deep breath, and when he next speaks, I hear a smile in his voice. A deep rough growling voice that is throatier than ever.

“You like that, don’t you? The idea of being taken, here in the dark, vulnerable to a creature, a man you don’t really know, but who your body already senses it belongs to?”

He runs his hand down the side of my body, his palm brushing the side of my breast then going lower still to find the curve of my hip.

That’s where his hand settles, where he grips me and pulls my hips forward hard against his pelvis.

I feel the ridge at the front of his jeans, that rock-hard promise to carry out everything he just told me about.

I feel my clit tingle as I shift slightly and the friction between us sends bolts of pleasure through me.

I’ve never been with a man. I don’t really like them that much. They tend to be smug and… fuck, I can’t even think about all the reasons I don’t like them right now because my body is telling me that I like this one very much.

“You don’t scare me with your sex threats,” I tell him.

“They’re not threats. They’re promises. I can smell you. You’ve been wet since you bumped into me. And now you’re practically begging me to fuck you.”

“I am not.”

He reaches down between us and runs his hand between my legs, pressing his fingers against my pussy through the slick fabric of my underwear. Why did I wear a skirt today? I’ve made his access so easy.

I should resist, tell him no, but I can’t make myself do it. I am wet. He was right. My body is hot for him and there’s no avoiding it.

He grips the whole front of my panty-clad pussy, fisting my underwear away and to the side. I feel my wetness clinging to the gusset, but he easily bares my pussy.

“Wet,” he says, displaying the soaked scrap of fabric to me, holding the remnants of my underwear under my nose. “Are you going to deny your arousal?”

“No,” I moan.

“And are you going to drop the story?”

“No.”

“Then you’re going to be getting fucked, aren’t you?” The same hand that just ripped my panties to pieces unzips his fly. I hear the sound of the zipper sliding down and then I feel it, the thick and heavy presence of a cock in very close proximity to…

“Wait… what…”

“You could have avoided this if you didn’t want it,” he says. “You still can, if you agree to drop the story.”

“I’m not going to drop the story.”

“Then I’m taking this wet little pussy for my very own,” he says as the thick, hot head of his cock runs along my slit as I squirm in his grip.

I’m a virgin.

And I’m about to lose my innocence.

At twenty-three.

To a stranger.

I could stop him. I could tell him I won’t keep looking at werewolves.

I could say whatever I have to say, but the heat of his cock against my pussy feels right in a way nothing has ever felt right before.

My senses are overwhelmed by the sensations he’s creating for me, his touch, his scent, his very presence.

I feel as though a switch has been flipped inside me, deep in a place that has never been touched before.

“You were looking for a monster,” he growls. “And you’ve found one.”

He emphasizes that rough point with a thrust that buries his cock several inches inside me. I feel a hot flash of pain as the remnant of my innocence is taken from me. I wail at the intrusion, but he makes soft little soothing sounds as he pushes the rest of the way in.

“God,” he mutters. “You were pure.”

I try to say something smart, but all that comes out is a soft sob.

His fingers grip my chin and turn my head up to him. His cock is deep inside me, and I feel my pussy gripping him, muscles I’ve never realized I had before suddenly being used.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you’d stop?”

I don’t answer him. I won’t. I can’t. There’s nothing sensible about this encounter. This feels like it is happening outside of reality. It’s another one of those things that after it is done, it will feel like it never happened at all, though it will leave its mark on me forever.

He moves inside me and my response is a moan. He’s a monster, and I am having my first sexual experience with him. I am in danger, and somehow I am safer for it. My pussy is starting to relax now. It’s not as tight and it doesn’t hurt as much as it did.

“Be a good girl,” he murmurs softly, giving up on waiting for me to answer his questions. “Take my cock. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Fuck you,” I curse, feeling my face flush with heat.