by Nalini Singh
Growling against her skin, he let her feel his teeth. “Damn it,” she demanded, “are you awake?”
He bit down on her nipple … very, very carefully. She was still attempting to gasp in a breath when he lifted his head and sleepy gold eyes blazed at her. The wolf was in charge, she thought, and its wildness called to her own. Twisting beneath him, she hissed out a breath when he clamped his hand on her hip, his claws pricking at her skin just enough to tell her he was running the show.
Awake. Very much so.
“Get your claws off my skin.” It was the snarl of a female wolf who knew her own strength.
“I think you like my claws.” A feral smile, but he did retract the sharp tips.
His response unbalanced her wolf—men of his dominance weren’t so easily commanded.
“I also think,” he said in a dark whisper that made the tiny hairs on her body quiver in warning, “you’ll like this even more.” Sliding his hand over her navel—the skin so exquisitely sensitive her toes curled—he thrust it under the waistband of her jeans and into her panties in a single unpredictable move.
It shattered her to look down and see his muscled forearm, a sprinkling of fine black hair on the dusky brown of his skin, disappearing into her jeans … where he cupped her with stark intimacy within the tight confines of her clothing. Chest jerking, she rose up against him in a vain effort to find relief.
“Undo your jeans.” His voice edgy in her ear, the scrape of his unshaven jaw an erotic temptation.
Her fingers brushed his arm as she obeyed the order that promised to give her what she wanted. Removing his hand to rip off her jeans the second she unzipped the fly, he kicked her legs apart to settle himself in between, his jean-covered cock pushing up against the white lace and blue satin of her panties in blatant demand. “Tell me,” he said, the hairs on his chest rubbing over her already sensitized nipples, threatening to steal what sense of reason remained, “something you’ve always wanted to do in bed but never dared.”
“Why?” she asked, her skin stretched taut over a body it couldn’t contain.
“Because I want to play.” It wasn’t until the words were out that Riaz realized what he’d said. Playing with a bedmate … for a lone wolf, it was beyond friendship, beyond need, a step into an altogether different kind of a relationship.
No, he contradicted himself the second after the thought passed through his head. Neither one of them wanted a relationship, least of all Adria. They were in this to give each other a little surcease. And there was nothing wrong with playing with a friend, even if his wolf rarely played with anyone. “No?” he said when she remained silent.
Her eyes a pale, haunting amber—the wolf looking out at him—she said, “If you promise to reciprocate.”
Wolfish curiosity rose to the fore. He nodded at once.
She went to speak, halted, hot red painting her cheeks. Her sudden, unexpected shyness only deepened his curiosity—until he glimpsed the darkness that shadowed her eyes without warning. And he knew she was no longer fully with him, the past tangling with the present.
Gripping her jaw, he growled, “Me and you. No one else comes into this bed. Got it?” It was a vow as much as it was a demand.
“Yes.” Amber clashing into his. “For both of us.”
“Yes.” He closed their deal with a hot, openmouthed kiss, grazing the bottom of her left breast with his thumb as he did so.
Adria jerked away from the kiss with a gasp. “I’ve heard some women can orgasm just by having their breasts caressed,” she said, her husky voice breathless. “I’ve always wondered if I could.” Her cheeks were blazing by the time she finished.
“Somehow, I didn’t think you’d be shy.” It did something to him to know she trusted him enough to drop her guard. “Anything else you want to share about this fantasy?”
Adria shook her head, feeling naked in a way that had nothing to do with exposing skin. Allowing more of his weight onto her body, Riaz took her mouth in another kiss. A raunchy, wet, demanding one that had her digging her nails into his shoulder as she ground her body against the rigid intrusion of his cock.
“Hmm,” he said, lifting his body off the aching need of her own, “this experiment won’t work if you can do that.” He moved to lie beside her, but when she turned to face him, he said, “On your back.”
Everything in her wanted to push him to his back, ride him to erotic bliss.
“Giving up so soon?”
Eyes narrowed at the low-voiced challenge, she turned onto her back. When he picked up her arms and told her to wrap her hands around the bars in the headboard, she gripped the cold iron. The position left her breasts blatantly exposed, but for her braid, which had fallen over her shoulder.
Taking that braid, Riaz undid it with leisurely motions, fanning her hair out over one side of her chest. The long strands covered her breast, but for the taut peak of her nipple. “Look at that,” he murmured in that deep voice rough with an earthy sensuality that spoke to her own, “so pretty and pink.”
Her throat went dry. There was something about seeing her body through his eyes that changed everything. Each breath she took lifted her breasts, as if in invitation, her nipples begging for his mouth, shameless and plump.
“Hmm.” Riaz captured one sensitive nub between thumb and forefinger, the lightness of his touch an exquisite tease.
The instant she arched her spine in an attempt to intensify the caress, he shook his head, his fingers turning featherlight. Understanding the unspoken order, she forced herself to lie back.
The slightly rough pads of his fingers squeezed her nipple tight. “Good girl.”
She growled low in her throat. “Don’t push it.”
He chuckled, eyes gleaming. Then he dipped his head and flicked his tongue over the nipple he’d been teasing. It shot an electric current through her body, but the sensation disappeared almost before she’d sensed it, the air cold on the wet slickness of the tightly furled nub. Chest rising and falling in jerking breaths, she clenched her fingers around the metal that had warmed under her touch, and opened eyes she hadn’t been aware of closing to see Riaz pushing her hair aside to reveal her bare breast.
A kiss of air followed, his lips torturously close, his hand sliding to her rib cage. “Do you like this?” He rubbed his thumb across the bottom of the taut curve.
She shuddered, her claws pricking the insides of her skin. “More.”
The forearm of his free hand braced by her head, Riaz initiated a languid seduction of a kiss, his tongue licking lazily against her own, his thumb continuing to move slow and maddening across the agonizingly sensitive lower curve of her breast. “Mmm.” The low male murmur made her womb clench as he broke the kiss with a suckling taste of her upper lip.
Her skin shimmering with sensation, she held the wild gold of his gaze, hissing out a breath when he moved his fingers to her nipple again, rubbing and tugging with much more force.
It tore a groan out of her, her eyes fluttering shut.
A single hot breath was the only warning she had before he took part of her neglected breast into his mouth, scraping up with his teeth until he caught her nipple. A flick of his tongue and she arched up off the bed, thrusting her hands into his hair. “Forget about the experiment,” she snarled, and twisted, taking him to his back.
He’d let her do it, she knew that. Because while she was a strong dominant, he was a lieutenant, far stronger and with faster reflexes. It didn’t matter, not in bed, not with lovers who cared about one another’s pleasure. And they did. Her wolf felt happy, playful for the first time in years. It was a giddy sensation, champagne in her bloodstream.
Reaching forward, she pinned his wrists above his head, his bones solid and powerful under her hold. “It’s time for you to behave.”
A heavy-lidded look, slits of bright gold. “What’s my incentive?”
She shifted down his body until the satin of her panties, her most delicate flesh slick with desire beyond the
fine barrier, rubbed over the heated steel of his cock. “How’s that?”
* * *
HE’D seen her angry, seen her heartbroken, seen her pleasured, but this was the first time Riaz had seen Adria with sensual mischief in her eyes. His wolf responded, lunging with playful intent. Jerking up even as she began to shape and pet his chest, he flipped her onto her back again, ending up braced on his hands and knees above her. “Pretty good, but I’ve never been one to give up on a challenge.” Bending his head to her breasts, he used his teeth, nipping and biting.
She dug her claws into his shoulder. “Stings.”
Raising his head, he said, “No?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Good, I like the taste of you.” He returned to what he’d been doing, sucking on her nipples until they were ripe little berries before licking the lower curve of her breasts and taking another bite. Her legs rose up to hook around his hips, a sweet, tight prison. Not fighting, he settled heavily against her, enjoying the tensile strength of her married with the lush tang of her femininity, her breasts filling his hands.
Her fingers wove into his hair again, fisted.
Releasing her breast, he rubbed his unshaven jaw against the soft curve. She uttered a stark sound of pleasure and attempted to slide her delicate heat against the painful rigidity of his cock, but wise to her tricks, he pinned her to the bed with his greater weight. She made her frustration clear in the claws he felt biting into his skin.
Slicing out his own claws, he squeezed her hip in warning.
A snarl.
Kissing his way up the center of her chest, he sucked a mark on her throat. It made her moan, the snarl transforming into a husky sound of pleasure. He squeezed one breast, dipped back down to rub his jaw over the other, the creamy flesh marked by his attentions.
A jolt shook her frame. “Riaz.”
Hearing the fracture in her voice, he bit down just a little too hard on one nipple as he rolled the other between his fingertips. She shattered with a sudden, shocked cry, her thighs clenching around his hips, one hand fisted in his hair, the nails of the other digging into his shoulder. A hint of blood scented the air and his wolf bared its teeth, not in anger but in primitive satisfaction.
Breaking her hold, he pulled down her panties, got rid of his own remaining clothing and slid into her in a single, deep thrust. She welcomed him with a wild tangle of a kiss, her body continuing to ripple with aftershocks of pleasure that squeezed his pulsing cock, the pressure dragging him to the edge.
He broke the kiss, gasped in a jagged breath. Two long, hard thrusts and he felt his spine lock. Gritting his teeth, he tilted her so that his pubic bone would press against her clitoris, and then he thrust again.
Tiny muscles spasming anew around his cock, a molten fist.
His mind went black.
Chapter 33
THOUGH VASIC TELEPORTED directly into Anthony Kyriakus’s office, the Councilor’s patrician face didn’t display any hint of surprise. Leaning back in his chair, the silver threads in his hair glimmering in the sunlight pouring through the window behind him, he met Vasic’s eyes. “It’s been a while.”
“Yes.” His goals had once aligned with Anthony’s, but Vasic’s loyalty would always be to the Arrows. “The Council is fractured.”
“It’s not yet common knowledge,” Anthony said, putting down the laser pen he’d been using to make notes on a datapad.
“No—but rumors are beginning to spread.” He studied the comm screen on the wall to his right, currently displaying the logos of a number of companies, some well known, others discreet powerhouses. “Satisfied clients?” Anthony controlled the largest network of foreseers in the world. Corporations paid millions to get predictions from a NightStar F-Psy before making decisions on everything from investments to product development.
“Very.” Anthony didn’t rise. “Do the Arrows require a prediction?”
Vasic had always wondered if Anthony had a touch of the F ability, though he was listed in the official records as a high-Gradient telepath with a minor illusion ability. An ability he’d apparently passed on to his daughter, Faith. “Pure Psy has moved on from licking its wounds—indications are it has an operation in progress.”
“I see.” Rising from his chair, Anthony turned to walk to the window.
Vasic joined him, his eyes on the landscaped park below, the grass jewel green, the trees lush with foliage. “An unusual view.” Psy corporations preferred to be in city centers, in high-rises created from glass and steel. The internal NightStar compound, by contrast, was all low, earth-toned buildings designed to flow into the environment.
“Events have led NightStar to question the need for isolation in order to guard the mental health of even our most powerful F-Psy, but foreseers do have unique requirements in comparison to the other designations.” Anthony nodded at a sturdy-looking man who’d walked out of the opposite building to take a seat beneath the spreading branches of a large oak. “He’s obviously had a strong prediction, and it’s drained him. I find my Fs function better—thus increasing our profits—if they have not merely soothing surroundings, but the freedom and space to recover.”
Vasic could understand that need better than Anthony would ever know. He often teleported to deserts cloaked in moonlight, because it was only there, surrounded by an endless nothingness that was strangely alive, that he could truly think. “Some would say such a need is an emotional response and should be conditioned out of your foreseers.”
“No,” Anthony said without looking away from the recovering F-Psy. “Nobody would dare—my people are too necessary to the continuing success of the businesses run by the most powerful. Something I make certain no one ever forgets.”
And that was why Vasic had first agreed to work with Anthony—the man was ruthless, but he had the same kind of loyalty to his foreseers that Vasic had to the Arrows. “Do your F-Psy know anything about the Pure Psy situation?”
“A number have foreseen what they call a cataclysmic change in the Net,” Anthony replied. “The visions are so violent the medics have had to intervene in three cases to bring the foreseers safely out. If they hadn’t been under supervision”—the slightest pause—“we’d have lost them.”
Vasic wondered if the pause had been an unconscious reference to Anthony’s daughter. Faith NightStar was the most powerful F-Psy in or out of the Net, the reason the squad had kept a covert eye on her since her defection to DarkRiver. Her Silence broken, there was a strong likelihood she’d been one of the foreseers Anthony had referenced. While Faith was no longer under M-Psy supervision, she was connected to her jaguar-changeling mate by a type of psychic bond Vasic didn’t understand. Perhaps that bond protected her in some way. “No details?”
Anthony shook his head. “But it’s worse than anything they saw prior to the battle with the changelings. The scale of the deaths will be catastrophic.”
Chapter 34
FEELING MORE HIMSELF than he had in months, Riaz was out looking for a wind-fallen tree he could mine for a hunk of wood when something caught the sunlight—and his eye. He bent down, picked up a twisted piece of metal. Seeing the scorched and broken tree trunks around him, he realized he was at the spot where one of Henry Scott’s stealth craft had crashed prior to the final confrontation. It wasn’t surprising the small piece had been missed, the debris had been spread over such a large area.
Placing it into one of the pockets in his cargo pants, he decided to do a quick grid search to see if there were any other fragments. It didn’t take long under the bright Sierra sunshine. The techs and novices had done an excellent job—but for the damage to the environment, the area was pristine. That damage, too, would heal. SnowDancer would make sure of it.
Satisfied, he took a quick glance at his watch, saw it was four. Since he’d already found a small chunk of the type of wood he needed, he was about to head back to the den to complete his review of SnowDancer’s international business plan, when he caught a v
ague hint of a scent that shouldn’t have been there.
Metallic. Cold. A Psy drenched in Silence.
It could be nothing, a remnant attached to another piece of debris, though the probability was low taking into account the time that had passed. And all the penny-ante annoyance hits to date had taken place on the edges of den territory. Why would any Psy want to seriously antagonize SnowDancer now, after the pack’s decisive defeat of Henry’s army?
Tracking the scent on silent feet, he came to the top of a small rise. Here, the lingering scent was as thick as soup to his changeling senses. He frowned. The position offered the watcher no strategic viewpoint in terms of figuring out SnowDancer’s weaknesses. All he or she would see was a small, naturally open field surrounded by scrubby bush that merged into a stand of lodgepole pines.
A curvy young female with lush black curls—Maria—jogged across the clearing at that very second, accompanied by a dark gray wolf who spotted Riaz a second before Maria did. The soldier waved, while the wolf howled a greeting before they both disappeared into the pines.
Hmm…
Psy had been known to use SnowDancer land for meetings, which wasn’t as stupid a move as it sounded, not given the spread of den territory, and how simple it was to teleport into isolated sections. This spot might qualify, except as Maria and Lake had just proven, anyone on this hill would be silhouetted against the sky, openly visible to a passing sentry.
Gut-certain he was missing something, he kicked off his boots and stripped. His sense of smell was acute even as a human, but nothing beat the wolf’s nose. Circling the area after shifting, he checked twice to make sure he had it right, then changed back into human form and quickly got dressed.
Racing to the den, he pushed into Hawke’s office without waiting for an invitation. “We need to talk.”
The alpha turned from the comm screen where he was talking to a man who wore a neat three-piece suit, his graying hair combed sternly back to reveal a defined widow’s peak. “We’ll have to continue this another time, Mr. Woo.”