Destined Predator by Bailey Bradford

Book 2 in the Wild Ones series

General Release Date: 29th June 2021

Word Count: 46,821
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 189

Genres:

CONTEMPORARY,EROTIC ROMANCE,GAY,GLBTQI,PARANORMAL,WERESHIFTERS

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Book Description

Never in his wildest dreams.

Rhett Tucker, a rough, tough, meat-and-potatoes Wyoming rancher, has just about accepted that shifters exist. His little brother Jack is now mated to one, Ben, whose family are the only coywolf—wolf-coyote hybrids—shifters in existence.

Rhett’s also accepted the fact that he’s gay, even if he’s never been with a guy. What he can’t deal with is Ben’s big brother, the swaggering, dominating, permanently smirking Casey. The head of the Akers pack might be their alpha, but he’s not Rhett’s and never will be.

Casey has never met a challenge he didn’t leap at, and he sure wants to jump the handsome rancher’s bones. He sees that under all the bluster, Rhett yearns to submit, and Casey’s more than happy to fulfil Rhett’s needs…when the stubborn man’s ready to admit to them.

But when both humans and coywolves are under attack, there’s no time for Rhett and Casey to do anything but join forces to find out if the inter-shifter battles are starting up again, or if the pack and the Double T Ranch are facing a new and deadly enemy.

One thing’s for sure—any relationship between Rhett and Casey is gonna be wild.

Casey’s gaze had been drawn to that particular booth since he’d walked into the saloon. He’d recognized the taller, broader-shouldered occupant right off, despite only seeing the back of his dark-haired head.

Rhett Tucker.

The husky rancher looked all wrong sitting there, hunched over a little plate of food like that. It wasn’t the setting that was wrong—Rhett fitted into this rough-and-ready cowboy-type ambience. He didn’t have his name on a bar stool or his own pot glass behind the bar, like some did—as far as Casey knew—but he was better suited to sitting up at the long wooden counter, shooting the shit with Bard or whoever was around than huddled away in a corner with some blond surfer type.

Despite wanting to go over there straight away, Casey had ordered a Bud and downed it in one, as usual. Now, though, he was standing practically toe to toe with Rhett, like they were squaring up to each other. Which ain’t far off the truth.

“I…what?” Rhett asked, when he’d finished opening and closing his mouth a couple of times.

“I said—”

“I heard what you said. I wanna know what you mean.”

Casey liked that the rancher was no pushover. This was going to be fun. “Foosball.” He jerked his chin to the side room, or alcove, seeing as the space had no door. “Up for the challenge? Or up to the challenge?”

“Foosball?”

Rhett sounded as though he’d never heard that word before. Casey waited him out. If Rhett had expected something more cliched, like pool, he didn’t know Casey. Casey liked fun in his hunts.

“I’m with someone.” Rhett half-turned to indicate Greg.

“Sure, I can make a team, too. Hey, Dan!” Casey raised his voice a little so the electrician and general electrical maintenance worker he knew from jobs could hear. “Up for foosball?”

“Hell, yeah,” Dan called back, getting to his feet. “C’mon, before Charlie and Norris get to foosing and hog the table.”

“You heard the man.” Casey stepped back and gestured for them to go ahead of him.

Rhett chose to stand his ground, however. “Look, this”—he began, indicating Greg, who shrugged—“is crazy.”

“Oh? You scared I’ll whop your ass…or hoping?” Casey asked, his gaze zeroed in on Rhett.

“What?” Greg stood.

“More like I’ll school your ass!” Rhett snapped.

“Well then.” Casey gave a nod, holding in his pleasure. “Guess the only thing left to do is to choose blues or reds, right? As in, first team at the rods gets the choice?” Now he walked away, confident Rhett would be on his heels. Casey grinned. The rancher hadn’t said no to him. Good start.

He didn’t have long to wait before Rhett, with Greg tailing him and gabbing about having played a lot in college, joined him and Dan in the side room, where Dan had commandeered the foosball table.

“Blue,” called Dan, as was his right for having slammed in the token to release the small plastic ball. “Guess I’ll let you take point.” Meaning he was on the defense three-bar and two-bar, leaving the offense, the five-bar middle row and the three-bar striker row, to Casey.

“Heads or tails?” Dan asked, a coin ready to flick.

“For what?” Greg asked.

“Starting the kick-off.” Dan didn’t waste any more time but called tails and won the toss.

“Nice.” Casey tucked a lock of hair behind his left ear and prepared to place the ball to the left of the middle man in his five-bar.

“Oh?” Greg stopped spinning his handles and pointed to the hole in the side of the table. “Don’t you have to drop the ball through there to start?”

Casey hid a smirk—Greg had just revealed how long it’d been since he’d last played. “The rule changed,” he explained, gripping his handles. “Set?”

“Set,” Dan echoed.

“Ready,” Rhett said, his eyes on the game. “Greg?”

“Er, yeah?”

Casey tapped the ball three times between two of his five-bar men then pulled it across to the outside man and kicked it through into a wall pass, trapping it between his outside three-player and the wall. A simple move, to gauge his opponents’ skill and speed. An equally simple push kick from there to between his middle and inside three-player, and he’d used his middle man to kick the ball into the goal, giving the game its first score, and them their first goal.

Dan hollered.

“One,” Casey said, his eyes on Rhett. Rhett’s grip tightened on his handles.

“Gives us the serve, though,” he answered, calling “Ready?” and tapping the ball away almost before they’d answered. He passed to Greg.

“Hey, the time limit’s not changed,” Casey said, when Dan hesitated. “Still only ten seconds to shoot or pass.”

Casey scored the second goal too, this time with a bank shot, kicking the ball hard enough at the wall to make it bounce off and into the goal.

“Sorry!” cried Greg. “I thought he was doing the same move, going to trap the ball there. I’ll know for next time.”

He didn’t—not enough to stop Casey pulling the ball across the table and shooting for goal using the same player.

“You play a lot,” Rhett commented, setting the ball in the circle.

“Oh, I’m an experienced player,” Casey agreed. “Know what I’m doing. Got a lot of technique.”

“Yeah?” Rhett tic-taced the ball between two of his five-bar players then tapped it forward to his three bar to pass it from one to another there too, his control solid. He shot at goal—

—only for Casey to grab the defensive rod from Dan and catch the ball on the back of the two-bar, flip the foosball in the air toward the opposite goal…and score.

“Woah!” Greg threw up his hands. “I’ve never seen such quick reflexes. It’s like you made your move at the same time Rhett did.”

“Like he knew what I was gonna do,” Rhett said, lifting his head to glare at Casey.

Casey stared back for long seconds, noting the tiniest of green flecks in Rhett’s hazel eyes…and the light of challenge in them. “What, you think I read your mind?” he drawled. “Nope. If I did, what would I see there?”

“Me doing this,” Rhett answered, calling “Set?” and not waiting for an anyone to answer before he launched into an attack, keeping one of his men in front of the ball at all times, making Casey—and Dan—adapt their defensive play until it became random moves. He scored.

“About time,” Casey said. “Feels good to get started, huh?” He thought he’d got the measure of Rhett’s style and went on the attack, within a minute flustering Greg in goal with a snake shot.

“Sorry!” Greg apologized again after the ball shot past him.

“Not your fault,” Rhett assured him, his eyes on Casey.

They started again, the play fast and Dan’s hollers loud.

“Yes!” Greg started to shout when Rhett arieled the ball the length of the table, shooting at the blue goal—prematurely. Casey caught the foosball on an almost horizontally oriented man, then flipped it through the air over the rods toward the opposite goal…and in.

“Looks like you won. Congratulations, blues.” Rhett lined his rods up carefully.

“Yeah, well done.” Greg gave a clap. “Experience counts.”

Casey cocked his head. “I got some tips I’m happy to show you.” Once again, he spoke only to Rhett. “Help you with rod and ball control.” He didn’t think he was imagining Rhett shifting a little and glancing down…at Casey’s crotch.

And Jesus, if he wasn’t imagining Rhett getting hard, and himself peeling down the zip of his jeans to take out Rhett’s cock. It would be big, and juicy. “So, how about it?” he almost whispered. “Wanna go again, just you and me this time?”

“It was practically just you two this time.” Greg’s voice came out harsh, breaking whatever spell Casey was weaving.

“Casey?”

He liked the way Rhett said his name, in his deep voice. He raised an eyebrow,

“Can I see you out back for a minute?” Rhett finished.

There was no please and it didn’t come out like a request, nor did the way Rhett jerked his head toward the rear exit and hauled ass that way. Rear. Ass. Casey gave himself a mental head shake. Paging Dr. Freud…

Casey followed, out through the fire door to the smokers’ patio, where, as soon as he was outside in the corner under the overhang, Rhett rounded on him. Casey figured that if he’d been anyone else, Rhett would’ve slammed him up against the wall. Not gonna happen. Not when Casey preferred to be the one doing the slamming. He held eye contact until Rhett dropped his raised hands.

“What the hell was that in there?” Rhett gritted out. “All that talk about handling the rods and fingering the balls and slamming one in the hole and whatever the fuck else crap you came out with or were meaning?”

“Don’t cuss. Warned ya about that before,” Casey replied automatically, while trying to pick apart the notes in Rhett’s voice. He heard confusion and disbelief as the loudest, which went some way toward helping him get the rancher’s measure. Rhett wasn’t bold and brash, for all he was big and broad, and he wasn’t exactly coming on to Casey. This needed a different approach.

“That? That would be me flirting. With you,” Casey threw in, in case of doubt, because he sensed a lot of doubt in this man.

“What?” Rhett stumbled back a step. “You were coming on to me? Me? Who you called ‘a foul-mouthed, short-tempered, narrow-minded hick’?”

His perfect but partial recall had Casey smirking. “I did,” he agreed. “You left out that I also said I want to fuck you…which still stands.”

Rhett didn’t reply, but not for lack of trying. He opened his mouth, and, when nothing came out, closed it again. Which was when it struck Casey. Rhett wasn’t…well, he was out, but not experienced.

“You’ve never been with a man?” he asked, before he could stop himself. “But that supermarket guy…” Is his first date with a man. The words sounded as loud in his head as if someone had spoken them in his ear, and his skin crawled at the thought of that blond surfer dude being Rhett’s…first.

“…is all wrong for you, and you know it,” he finished, a slow smile tugging at his lips. “You ain’t gonna let him fuck you, when you know I’m a better man for you.”

 

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Bailey Bradford

A native Texan, Bailey spends her days spinning stories around in her head, which has contributed to more than one incident of tripping over her own feet. Evenings are reserved for pounding away at the keyboard, as are early morning hours. Sleep? Doesn’t happen much. Writing is too much fun, and there are too many characters bouncing about, tapping on Bailey’s brain demanding to be let out.

Caffeine and chocolate are permanent fixtures in Bailey’s office and are never far from hand at any given time. Removing either of those necessities from Bailey’s presence can result in what is known as A Very, Very Scary Bailey and is not advised under any circumstances.

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