Fifty Shades of Gray…Werewolf, by Bonnie Vanak

by Bonnie Vanak, author of Incubus Wolf (Harlequin Nocturne Cravings, September 2012)

Dominic is the gray werewolf hero of my latest Nocturne Craving. Incubus Wolf features plenty of heat, sexual tension and action between the sheets, plus a room filled with mirrors and bondage tools.

Men view Dominic as a sexual deviant, while women just want to hop into his bed. His pack is rumored to indulge in the wildest sexual pleasures.

But that’s not what drives the story.

What does drive the story is the romance, and the underlying theme of acceptance. Each werewolf in Dominic’s outcast pack in remote Alaska has suffered a difficult past. Despite their internal or external scars, each werewolf is accepted and treated with respect.

Dominic has many shades to his fur. He’s complex and haunted, gentle and highly assertive, and a fierce hunter. He’s also extremely confident in pursuing what he wants, and he wants Alex, as evidenced in this scene from Incubus Wolf:

In a handsome wood rocker, Dominic sat, regarding her intently. he looked sexy and dangerous, dressed in a thin black shirt and tight black jeans.. Firelight glinted off his black hair and amusement danced in his bright blue eyes. He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops. “The sleeping princess awakens at last, in time for the handsome prince to give her the kiss she’s longed for,” he murmured.

A woman would want to run her hands through those thick locks of dark hair, clasp him close as he devoured her mouth and laid her on the bed…

Alex shuttered the thought and made a quick assessment. No weapons. He’d stripped off her knives and gun. But she had the only weapon necessary. Her glamour. Dominic must never find out her real identity.

“Try kissing me. I bite.”

“Promise?”

“I never make promises I can’t keep.”

“Pity. I have several places on my body I’d like your mouth on.”

“In your dreams. What am I doing here? And where is here?” Alex scanned the room, searching for a weapon.

Dominic cocked an eyebrow. “Saving you. You would have died out there. You’re in the House of Eros, the lodge of my pack.”

Tension knotted her stomach. The infamous playhouse, whispered to host the darkest sexual proclivities. They said he had a basement with walls lined in fur, tables where he liked to tie up willing females and tease them until they screamed with pleasure…

Definitely not a hotel she wanted to stay at. Alex tested her ankle, rotating it around and winced. Still a little painful, but healing. But that didn’t make her helpless. Or stupid.

Dominic advanced, his big body taking up all the space in the room. Alex fisted her hands, fighting the instinctual urge to turn from the sensuality flaring on his face. Remember his hands stroking slowly over her skin that first time ten years ago…

She gestured to the pajamas, with little pink bunnies on them. “Nice clothing. Is this what you make all your women wear when you strip off their clothing?”

“They’re Claire’s. Freshly laundered. She and the other females undressed you and got you into bed.”

He tossed back the covers, studied her ankle. “It will heal. I applied a poultice of herbs and special lotion. Should be fine in a day or two.” Dominic pulled the covers back.

“You applied it?”

“With my own two hands.” His voice dropped to a dark whisper. “I enjoyed every moment of having them on you. Although I prefer my lovers to be conscious.”

Her lower belly tightened as she thought of Dominic smoothing the lotion over her ankle, lingering and slow, a sensual caress as he rubbed and stroked…

Not. Going. There. “I’m not your lover.”

“You will be.”

Dominic is a very sexy wolf, but what defines him is his intense, honorable devotion to Alexandra. He doesn’t treat her like last year’s cast-offs. Dominic is highly sexual, very dominant and very protective of those under his care. And he wants Alexandra. Badly. In his bed. In his life.

Yet as much as Dominic wants Alex, he knows he has to deal with her baggage. Everyone has baggage, but Alex, well, her baggage could fill an Amtrak train.

Alex is a Fae bounty hunter who needs to bring Dominic back to the demon prison he escaped from. A secret stains her soul, a secret that has humiliated her for years. Alex thinks she is ugly, and hides from the world by cloaking herself in Fae glamour. It will take Dominic’s gentle coaxing and patience for Alex to open her eyes to her real self.

In the end, Alex finally does learn to accept her real self. And there are no shades left to either Dominic or Alex. There are only two people who fully accept, understand and love each other, each one bared of all secrets and their deepest feelings for each other.