Wolf Castle (Sinful Wolf Pack Romances)

While I am sleeping my college roommate creeps into our room with a man again. I wake up to hear them whispering and laughing. I’m worried that if I say anything it will end in an argument. I pretend to be asleep, hoping that she will pick up some of her things and they will leave soon.

She has done this increasingly frequently since the start of college. Recently my pretending to be asleep has made her brave enough to start having sex while I am in the room. I had asked her to stop bringing guys back to our room but she had laughed at me and said that just because I was still a virgin didn’t mean I had to be a prude.

Now I can hear them kissing and making out, and then the squeak of the mattress as they fall into it. He makes a growling sound and murmurs something to her, and suddenly all the hairs on my body stand on edge.

Werewolf.

I don’t know how I know this. I just do. I have long suspected that Uncle Max, one of dad’s friends, is a werewolf. That growling sound Roxy’s lover just made reminded me of him.

Roxy has never bought one of them back to the room before. It has been bad enough when the guy has been human. I’d been too worried to switch on the light and tell them to go find somewhere else to have sex. Now that I know he’s a werewolf, I don’t dare.

My heart is beating really fast. I am so afraid of the werewolf will notice that I am awake. But he and Roxy are so busy getting it on and fortunately neither of them pay any attention to me. In the dark I hear the throaty cry she makes as he thrusts himself inside her.

My mouth goes dry. He is pounding into her and she is groaning louder and louder and talking dirty to him. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine what it must feel like, a man on top of me, pleasuring me. I don’t care if it will hurt the first time. The sound she is making convinces me that it will be worth it.

I slide my hand slowly down to between my legs and find that I am moist. I feel too guilty to play with myself here with them in the room. Roxy makes it no secret she thinks I’m a prude. I have never had much experience of dating, and I’ve never met a boy that I found attractive enough to go to bed with.

It’s a legacy of the fact that my mom raised me to be a good girl, which was hypocritical seeing as she left us for her lover several years back.

I’ve never been able to shake off my desire to be thought of as a good sweet girl by the man that I fall in love with. Which is why I am alone in this bed listening to my roommate get what I wish I could have.

Feeling horribly frustrated, both at Roxy for being so inconsiderate and at myself for not standing up for myself, I pull my pillow over my head and somehow manage to fall back asleep.

When I wake up in the morning he is gone. Roxy springs out of bed. “Did you hear us last night?” she giggles. “A werewolf. Can you believe it?”

Despite not wanting to encourage her, I find myself asking, “What was it like?”

“He was so thick. It was incredible. I’ve never been screwed like that in my whole life.”

She must see something in my face because she giggles and throws her pillow at me. “Does little Miss Virgin want some?”

I shrug.

“You do!” she says in scandalized delight. “Well maybe if you’re nice to me I can help you get some.”

“What are you talking about?”

Roxy never could keep a secret. “He invited me to a party in Otherworld! They having a ball and drinking and dancing at a huge castle.”

I gasp. “You can’t really be thinking of going to Otherworld!”

“Don’t be such a pansy. It’s going to be amazing. You want to come or not?”

My heart is beating really fast. These past few years it seems to have become more normal for some humans to visit the Otherworld, but in the past it’s been seen as dangerous and sordid.

Even though vampires and werewolves and otherkind have been well integrated into our world this past couple of decades, mixing between us and them tends to happen only if you’re a celebrity or really rich.

But that hadn’t stopped Jenna, one of my best friends, from going to Otherworld recently. She said it had been nothing like she had expected. She’d come back so in love with her boyfriend that I’d be envious if she wasn’t such a great friend.

Dad had always been careful never to let me spend any time alone with his friend Max and had certainly never told me Max might be a werewolf. Dad had met Max when his business had started doing better these past few years.

I find myself biting my lip, remembering one time when Uncle Max had looked me right in the eye and how a thrill had seemed to run through my entire body. I hadn’t been able to tear my gaze away from him.

Dad’s other three best friends had been in the room and they had been so amused by it. Uncle Max had given me a wolfish grin that had made my heart beat really fast. Finally, when dad came back into the room, he had done me the mercy of looking away and I had been able to make my escape.

Roxy has been watching my face. “You do want to come!” she says looking pleased. Then she gives me a cool look. “I’ll see if I can get you an invite.”

Her cool expression makes me feel slightly anxious. When Roxy and I first met she had not liked me and had let me know it.

She had taken one look at my wavy blond hair and my dark-lashed hazel-green eyes, at my slender body with my round breasts and curvy bottom, and decided that I must be something I am not.

I know it was my looks that bothered her because she made plenty of catty comments about my body, frequently in front of others. Perhaps she knew how self-conscious it made me of my body. I’ve been embarrassed of my curves since I’d developed earlier than all the other girls in school.

Over time Roxy had realized that I wasn’t any competition for her, and that I spent more time trying to put boys off than trying to attract them, and she has softened towards me. Roxy looks like a young Demi Moore. She’s never had a problem getting any guy she wants.

Roxy comes to sit beside me on my bed and puts her arm around me. She turns my face towards her.

“If I get you an invite, do you promise to come?” There is a challenge in her eyes.

I remember the way Uncle Max had made me feel, as if his gaze had invaded my entire body. The way my nipples and my clit had tingled as if he was touching me. I’ve dreamt of him for years, but he is the one man I cannot have.

I won’t admit, even to myself, of what else I’ve dreamed of.

But maybe in Otherworld there will be another man who could make me feel that aroused. Then finally I’d be happy to give up my virginity, and get on with having a normal college life.

I find myself nodding, even though until that moment I hadn’t made up my mind.

She smirks. “And do you also promise to make the most of the moment and let go? There’s no point you going there if you’re going to be coming back a virgin.”

I shrug. “The most I can do is promise to have fun.”

“That’s my girl. And what are you going to tell your dad? Wasn’t he expecting you home at the end of the semester?”

“I can say that I’m staying with you. He won’t really miss me. He said he was going to be away for part of it because of a business trip.”

I head off to the bathroom while Roxy makes a phone call. When I get out of the shower, all wrapped up in my fluffy towel, she tells me triumphantly that she is managed to get me an invite.

“But it’s only because they were short on service staff, so you’re going to have to work for part of it. You can meet me in the evenings to party though.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling a little relieved. If I have to work then there is less pressure for me to have to find a man, and that suits me fine.

As Roxy heads into the bathroom, I call dad. I am relieved to get his voicemail. I leave a message saying that Roxy has invited me to stay with her.

I’m glad it is a voicemail because dad might have heard something in my voice and gotten the truth out of me, and there is no way he would ever approve of me going to Otherworld.

And nor will most of my other friends, so I won’t tell them either.