Nate baulked, folding his arms over his chest. “Nope. That’s not how it’s done. First meetings are always public meeting spaces. No hotel rooms. Those are the rules.”
“It’s fine, I promise,” Liz said, with something like desperation in her voice. “Please?”
Nate almost said no.Almost. But he’d always trusted his gut, and he wasn’t getting any kind of serial killer or kidney-stealing accomplice vibe from Liz. It was more like she was trying to keep somebody very, very important happy. “This guy, is he…special? Like, the big werewolf cheese or something?” He couldn’t think of any other reason for her to suggest the break in protocol.
“Or something,” Liz said, biting her lip. “The normal rules tend not to apply where Mr Hudson is concerned. But I promise you, Nathan, it’s all above board. And you’re still free to say no.”
A sensible person might have turned and walked away, but Nate’s curiosity was piqued now. And Liz’s reminder that hecouldsay no meant he didn’t feel like he needed to. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going in alone. He squared his shoulders. “Fine. Let’s go meet your werewolf Howard Hughes. But I’m expecting you to make sure everything’s above board, and also to leap in and use your claws to defend me if heisa serial killer.”
“I will,” Liz said, “but he’s not.” Still, her eyes flashed gold, and Nate found it more reassuring than he wanted to admit.
Liz wasted no time leading the way to the elevators, and shepherded Nate inside like she was afraid he might change his mind, and before long they were standing in front of a door on the top floor. Liz knocked, and a deep, velvety voice called, “Enter.”
Fuck. If this guy looked anything like he sounded, Nate was one hundred percent going to sleep with him—even if hedidend up at the bottom of a well.
Liz swiped a key card and opened the door. Nate followed her inside. He was greeted by the sight of a tall, broad figure with his back to them, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Perth cityscape. Threads of afternoon sunlight glinted off dark blond hair that brushed the collar of the man’s shirt in a way that suggested the length was a deliberate choice. He had wide shoulders that tapered down to a trim waist and long, long legs. One hand was in his pocket, which pulled the fabric of his suit pants in a way that highlighted thick thighs and a stunning arse.
Nate barely had a moment to wonder if the mysterious Mr Hudson was this attractive from every angle before the man himself turned, and Nate almost forgot how to breathe.
Seriously, who gave this guy permission to be that good looking?
Mr Hudson looked to be somewhere in his thirties—although with werewolves, it was almost impossible to guess—and he was younger than Nate’s other selections, but he exuded an air of authority. The way he looked Nate up and down, like he was starving and Nate was the main course, almost had Nate’s knees buckling under him with a sudden urge to submit, to bare his throat to this stranger.
The man’s blond hair was threaded with the slightest hints of silver, which for Nate, added a whole other layer ofhnnnghto his appeal.Hazel eyes sparkled with mischief and—Lord have mercy—when he smiled, his pleasure at Nate’s appearance obvious, the corners of them crinkled in a way that should be illegal for reasons of excessive hotness.
His smile made the werewolf look almost rakish, revealing perfect teeth and a dimple in one cheek, just above his carefully sculpted stubble. He had a killer jawline, and Nate lost focus for a second there as he envisioned kissing all along it and nibbling at the pretty ears peeking out from under that glorious hair.
He snapped back to attention when the man stepped forward, his smile sharpening into something well, wolfish, that promised one hell of a good time. He extended a broad palm. “Nathan, I take it?” he asked, his voice a sultry burr.
“That’s, yeah. I am. Me.” Nate took his hand, and even the strength and heat of the man’s grip was enough to have his heart beating faster and his dick perking up. “And you’re…D973?”
The man let out a low chuckle, and Nate held back a groan. That voice was going to be the death of him.
“Call me Cooper. If we’re going to do this, I think we should be on a first name basis.” He raised one eyebrow and leaned in close, placing one hand on Nate’s shoulder. It was the most erotic innocent touch Nate had ever experienced. “That is, if you haven’t been put off by the unconventional circumstances?”
This man. Fuck.
He was everything Nate had ever wanted in a man—suave, gorgeous and charming—and from the way he kept looking Nate up and down, his tongue tracing his bottom lip, the attraction was mutual.
Nate wanted nothing more than to kiss him and see if that stubble felt as good as he suspected it would brushing against his skin, but Liz was still hovering, hands fluttering as she cleared her throat. Nate knew she was going to interject with rules and provisos and reminders—just like he’d asked her to. And while under normal circumstances Nate would be all about that, right now he was desperate to see what was hiding under Cooper Hudson’s suit, run his hands all over him, and maybe lick him from head to foot.
He shot Liz a look that he hoped saiddo not ruin this for me,andbefore he could overthink it, said, “Yeah, we’re doing this. You can call me Nate.”
Chapter Two
Cooper Hudson knew he should feel bad for playing the system, but looking at the young man in front of him with his messy dark hair, wide eyes and kissable mouth, he couldn’t bring himself to regret what he was about to do.
Never once in the past five years had he used his position to step outside the parameters, bend the rules or mess with the bidding process. But then, nobody had caught his eye in quite the way that Nathan Watson had.
Somewhere along the line after the launch of Shiftercorp Companions, it seemed that potential applicants had discovered that there was a tendency amongst werewolves to choose partners who had a smaller build than them. That had somehow morphed into a universally accepted truth thatallwerewolves wanted their companions to be slender, delicate creatures. The result had been a wave of applicants who fit that sylph-like, dainty stereotype perfectly—which was fine. A lot of the werewolves who signed up for a companiondidlove that.
But Cooper found that the parade of pretty little things just didn’t do it for him. The applicants all had a terrible sort of sameness to them, like the contestants in toddler beauty pageants. There was no way to know what they were like underneath the layers of Photoshop, filtering and spray tan. In fact, although he didn’t advertise it, Cooper had never bothered with a companion. It wasn’t that he was uninterested, so much as he hadn’t been tempted to indulge.
His job kept him busy enough that it wasn’t practical to take weeks at a time off just to scratch an itch, but another part of it, as outdated as it seemed, was that Cooper wasn’t comfortable taking just anyone to bed—or rather, hiswolfwasn’t.
Cooper’s shifter side had definite preferences.
So when Nathan Watson’s profile picture had popped up on Cooper’s screen with a query about the credit rating of bidder D973 and it had made Cooper’s wolf sit up and take notice, that in itself was rare enough that he’d decided to investigate further.
