Hidden Passions
Hidden Passions
Emma Holly
Digital edition
Copyright 2013 Emma Holly. All rights reserved. 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 of the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This story is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. It includes sexually explicit content that is only appropriate for adults--and not every adult at that. Those who are offended by more adventurous depictions of sexuality or frank language possibly shouldn't read it. Literary license has been taken in this book. It is not intended to be a sexual manual. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or dead is either fictitious or coincidental. That said, the author hopes you enjoy this tale!
Hidden Passions
is an approximately 74,000-word novel.
eISBN-13
: 978-0-9888943-5-8
Discover other exciting Emma Holly titles at
http://www.emmaholly.com
cover photo:
fotosearch.com
Table of Contents
The Prince With No Heart
The Assassins' Lover
Steaming Up Your Love Scenes
(how-to)
The Billionaire Bad Boys Club
Hidden Series
Hidden Talents
Hidden Depths
Date Night
Move Me
The Faerie's Honeymoon
Hidden Crimes
Winter's Tale
Hidden Dragons
Hidden Passions
SEXY fireman Chris Savoy has been closeted all his life. He's a weretiger in Resurrection, and no shifters are more macho than that city's. Due to a terrible tragedy in his past, Chris resigned himself to hiding what he is--a resolve that's threatened the night he lays eyes on cute gay werecop Tony Lupone.
Tony might be a wolf, but he wakes longings Chris finds difficult to deny. When a threat to the city throws these heroes together, not giving in seems impossible. Following their hearts, however, means risking everything . . .
Author's Note:
Tony and Chris's book happens in the background of
Hidden Dragons
. You'll enjoy it more if you read that first.
Praise for
Hidden Dragons
"Kept me completely enthralled . . . sexy & erotic"--Vicki Rose,
Platinum Reviews
"Ms. Holly delivered an amazing journey . . . a satisfying adventure that has to be read more than once."--Xeranthemum,
Long and Short Reviews
CHRIS Savoy, weretiger and fireman, hefted a case of sparkling water at the cost of a pleasant strain to his huge shoulders. He'd tended bar for tonight's rooftop party and was now packing up remains. He didn't mind cleanup duty. Their lupine hosts had cleared the rest of the trash, and Chris was no weak kitten. Never mind his gargantuan size as a tiger, in human form he was six-foot-eight of solid muscle and God knew how many pounds. His hair was shining chestnut with brighter streaks of gold. Despite a recent cut, the strands had a tendency to need brushing back. Underneath, the bones of his face looked carved, his eyes a brown that edged into orange. When his tiger rose within him, glints of demon light danced in them.
He frowned as that thought surfaced. His tiger wasn't a demon, just the animal half of him.
"You got this, Chris? We don't mind staying on to help." The question came from Jonah, his immediate subordinate at the fire station. Jonah was nearly as big as Chris, with skin like teak and dark lustrous eyes. He wasn't someone Chris really knew, except in a work sense, where the cat was reliable. Liam--yet another tiger/fireman--stood beside him, as fair-skinned and golden-haired as his crewmate was brown. The pair made a striking couple . . . not that they'd think of themselves that way.
"I got it," Chris confirmed, mentally shaking his head at himself. He was accustomed to keeping secrets, this one especially. "You two go. We're on shift tomorrow, and it's past your bedtime."
"Old men don't need sleep?" Liam joked. Chris outranked him, but the teasing proved the younger man trusted his temper.
"This 'old man' could swing you by the tail on no sleep at all." Chris set the case of water on a handcart, then reached for a box of wine bottles. There wasn't much to pack compared to the supply he'd started with. Tonight's guests had been mostly shifters, and they could put away liquor.
"That was a good party," Jonah observed, still lingering. "Considering it was thrown by wolves."
Ah
, Chris thought. This was what the terrible twosome's delayed departure was about. Jonah was third in the clan, and Liam was their omega. Jonah was one of their later adds, brought into the clan from another station around the same time as Liam. Despite the power differential, the pair was as close as littermates.
Chris wasn't someone either cat normally hung with outside of work.
"It was a good party," he agreed, settling the second case and straightening.
The roof of the converted warehouse was done up to look like a park: beds of grass, flowers, faerie lights strung between newly planted saplings in competition with the stars. Visibly debating whether to open up about what was bothering him, Liam fidgeted with the front of his dark blue T-shirt. The badge for the Resurrection Fire Department was printed in gray on it.
"That wolf really is alpha to us," he blurted. "That Nate Rivera."
"I warned you he was." Chris's tone was calm and not scolding. "When Evina couldn't force me to shift by herself, he joined his power with hers and got it done."
Evina Mohajit wasn't just Chris's closest friend. She was his station chief and their clan alpha. Recently, Chris had been badly burned while trying to rescue a pair of kids. Afterward, too traumatized to change on his own, Evina and Nate had chivvied him through the process so he could heal. His relief that he wouldn't spend his life disfigured was fresh in his consciousness.
Chris liked being an able-bodied, good-looking were more than he'd realized.
"But . . . they're engaged," Liam objected. "That wolf will be her
husband
."
Tigresses didn't often marry; they were free spirits. Nonetheless, Nate had proposed to Evina at tonight's party, and she'd accepted. The stylish wolf hadn't done the deed half-assed. He'd gone down on one knee and given her a ring, betraying nervousness and dash in equal parts. Privately, Chris found Nate's actions romantic. The chance
he'd
experience anything similar was astronomically remote.
"Evina loves him," he said with a wisp of dryness. "And he'll make a good father to her cubs. She was bound to get over that idiot ex of hers sometime."
"I get that," Liam said, because no one could argue their alpha's ex hadn't appreciated her. "The problem is, what does him being alpha mean to us?"
"Well, it doesn't mean he'll be our boss at work," Chris assured their junior man. "He's a wolf. A cop. He can't do a fireman's job, and I doubt he'd want to."
"What about the rest of the time? You felt his energy. He's as strong as Evina. Is he going to try to boss us in our personal lives?"
"I don't know," Chris said. "But Nate Rivera doesn't strike me as that sort of man."
"Evina wouldn't let him overstep." Jonah almost sounded sure of it.
"No, she wouldn't," Chris agreed. "She respects our boundaries."
"He's not alpha to the wolves," Liam put in. "He's not even his pack's second."
This was an oddity Chris could not explain. Strictly speaking, a wolf shouldn't be anything to a tiger clan. He shrugged philosophically. "This is Resurrection. Magic works the way magic works."
"Doesn't him hooking up with her bug you?" Jonah's dark eyes were watchful, as if he had a stake in Chris being upset. "You're Evina's beta. We always thought, someday, you'd put the moves on her."
Chris couldn't hide his amusement. Jonah and Liam were like kids hoping Mom would marry their soccer coach. Little did they guess how inappropriate the match would be. "Evina and I have never been more than friends."
"But you're great together. All the stations say they wish their first and second functioned as smoothly as you do."
Again, Jonah watched him closely. Shrugging off the effect, Chris clapped him on his thick shoulder. The heat Jonah radiated was typical for shifters. "We'll work it out. Even if Nate weren't alpha, we'd have to adjust to him being in Evina's life. We're used to having her to ourselves. In the meantime, if you have a problem with him, bring it to me. Evina has enough to deal with settling into being a family with him and the cubs."
Jonah held his gaze and then nodded, for which Chris was grateful. If his subordinates had questioned his ability to handle the newcomer, he'd really have been bugged. Authority was a mental game, based as much in belief as muscle to back it up. Chris would go claw-to-claw with anyone he had to, but physical clashes hurt morale, and morale was important in firefighting.
The metropolis where they plied their trade was a "Pocket" city. Located in--but generally invisible to--the human state of New York, Resurrection mixed the mysticism of the land of Faerie with the humans' more stable reality. In a place like this, where a blaze might as easily be magical or mundane, citizens depended on them performing cohesively.
Clear heads, clear hearts, clear spirits
was the RFD motto.
Cool cats knocked down infernos. Hotheads got their fur singed off.
Liam, the young Irish lunk, was as hotheaded a tiger as Chris had on the crew. Luckily, he respected Chris as much as he did their alpha.
"You got it, boss," he said. "If you can stand Rivera, so can we. And as long as he keeps that gay cocksucker away from us, he won't hear any guff from me."
Chris wasn't prepared for this comment. Realizing his jaw had dropped, he shut it. Resurrection's shifters were notoriously macho. For a wolf to come out as Nate's packmate had was rare. Homosexuals existed of course, probably in the same percentage as among mundanes.
Don't ask, don't tell
was a survival tactic Chris was familiar with.
"His pack has accepted him," he advised Liam carefully. "Be smart enough--and polite enough--not to insult him where he or they can hear."
"I mean it," he added when Liam pulled a face. "Forget talk like that not being diplomatic. If you act homophobic, people will think you're gay as well."
Chris saw he'd gotten through. Considering his own situation, the irony of his words didn't escape him. He bumped Liam's shoulder with his fist. "He's just a guy. You can like him or not for who he is."
"He's a guy who sucks dick," Liam said, apparently fixated on this horror.
"You like girls who suck dick," Jonah pointed out, too impish to let it lie.
"That's different," Liam retorted stubbornly.
"Sheesh." Chris didn't attempt to stop his eyes from rolling. "Both of you get out of here. I'd have a more intelligent conversation with a gargoyle."
"Can gargoyles be gay?" Jonah wondered as the pair trailed away toward the door to the roof access.
Chris couldn't decide if Jonah entertaining this possibility was a sign of enlightenment. Then again, how enlightened could Chris claim to be? Like a lot of the city's gays, he was firmly closeted. Jonah and Liam had no idea the number of people they looked up to who were attracted to their own genders. Until they did, they had no reason to change their attitudes. Of course, that their attitudes
would
change wasn't guaranteed. Chris himself wasn't always comfortable with his preference.
Sighing at the dilemma, he returned to stacking leftover bar supplies on the steel handcart. Wolves and tigers had a longstanding and, for the most part, amicable rivalry. Cats comprised the bulk of the RFD, while wolves dominated the police force. Traditionally, firemen were more popular with the public--a fact the RFD didn't let their cop counterparts forget. Grudgingly, Chris gave this particular pack credit for generosity. They'd paid for everything tonight, treating Evina and her tigers like honored guests. Chris had tended bar, and two of their men had pitched in to cook, but other than that all that had been asked of them was that they enjoy themselves.