Slowly, she became aware of the weight pressed warmly against her back, but it wasn’t a man or a half—human/half—animal man like the one she’d felt in her dreams. It was just Buck.
The huge wolf was still curled behind her, half under the covers, his big furry body radiating heat. One massive paw was draped over her hip as though he’d pulled her close in the night, and his muzzle was pressed against the back of her neck.
Kiera’s eyes flew wide with realization–no wonder she’d had such a crazy dream.
She could still smell him—cedar and fur and masculine spice—and feel the warmth of him against her, hard and protective and strangely comforting. Her pulse kicked again, and she swallowed hard, suddenly, acutely aware of the way her own body had melted against his in her sleep.
“Oh boy,” she whispered faintly into the darkness. “What’s wrong with me?”
She would have thought she needed to take care of her urges before going to bed but she had–she’d let the pleasure blooms give her a really good, satisfying orgasm.
So why had her sleeping mind decided to turn her new pet into a sentient male who wanted to pleasure her? The whole thing was so weird–so strange she couldn’t wrap her head around it.
Buck made a sleepy little whuff against the back of her neck and tightened his paw on her hip—just slightly, just enough to make her breath catch.
Kiera frowned–should she push him away? Make him sleep on the floor again?
But it wasn’t his fault she’d had a weird dream.
Maybe I’m just lonely, she thought with a sigh. After all, she hardly ever saw anyone except for her neighbor, Higgs, and after that one disastrous date, she’d been avoiding him like the plague. She did have occasional excursions with Iyanna to get new animals, but those were pretty rare.
She lay still, staring into the darkness, her cheeks burning as she thought about the dream. Maybe it was time to try and meet someone…though how she was going to manage it, she didn’t know.
She lay still in the darkness, her heart gradually beginning to slow as the heat from her strange dream started to ebb. She was trying to sleep but the dream wouldn’t leave her.
But that’s all it was–just a dream, she told herself firmly. A crazy, too—vivid dream brought on by having a huge, warm, furry body pressed up against her in bed. That was all–nothing more.
Still, she couldn’t deny that it had felt astonishingly real.
She could still feel the phantom brush of furred arms around her…could still remember the deep, rumbling voice whispering in her ear and the hot, rough tongue licking at her throat. She was still tingling all over—especially between her legs—and that was more than a little embarrassing.
Buck shifted behind her and let out a soft, sleepy whuff. One big paw was still resting possessively on her hip, and she had a sudden, absurd thought that if she turned over, she would find not a wolf at all but a huge, furry man with golden eyes and a wicked mouth.
Get a grip, girl, she scolded herself silently. You’re losing it, Kiera.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax. Buck was just a wolf. A very large, very smart, very strange alien wolf, perhaps, but still just an animal. He was warm and comforting and he smelled ridiculously good, but that didn’t mean she ought to be having erotic dreams about furry men in the middle of the night.
She sighed and let herself sink back into the soft support of the living mattress. At last, she finally drifted off again…
And that was when a loud pounding shook the front door of her home-dome.
13
KIERA
WHAM—WHAM—WHAM!!!
Kiera jerked awake so hard her whole body jumped.
Beside her, Buck was up and on his feet at once, a low growl rumbling from his deep chest.
“Oh my God,” she gasped, sitting bolt upright. “Who the hell could that be?”
WHAM—WHAM—WHAM!!!
The pounding came again—loud, angry, and insistent. It echoed through the rounded walls of the dome and made her heart leap into her throat.
For one awful second, she thought something had gone wrong with one of the enclosures—one of the predators had gotten out somehow or one of the work—bots had malfunctioned and had gone berserk.
