by Nalini Singh
The only reason SnowDancer had managed to reclaim the den was that the men and women who’d been left after the blood and death had gone out and quietly executed the small group behind the psychic rapes. No one had ever connected the deaths to SnowDancer, a deliberate choice on the pack’s part. They’d been too weak to chance a Psy reprisal. But they were no longer weak, no longer broken. “Tell Brenna the remotes are a priority.”
Judd nodded. “We also captured detailed images of the camp with the cameras hooked into our collars.”
“Mariska can clean up and summarize the footage.” The twenty-eighty-ear-old senior tech was so shy she appeared standoffish, but had a mind like a scalpel.
“I’ll drop it off to her. If you haven’t got any more questions, we should get changed and try to rest.”
“From the way Brenna kissed you at the entrance, I don’t think you’ll be doing much resting,” Hawke said, and saw Sienna’s lips tug upward a tiny fraction.
Judd, on the other hand, showed no physical reaction. “Goodnight, Hawke.” Cool, very Psy, very Judd. “Sienna, you should get to bed, too.”
Sienna glanced up, expecting Hawke to stop her, but he’d already turned away to look at something else on his desk. Deflated, she exited with Judd.
“Sienna,” he said, halting her when they would’ve split two corridors later, “you did very well.”
Her shoulders went tight at the memory of that instant before the guard had been distracted by a call. It had given Judd the time to answer her telepathic hail and ’port her out. “I could’ve gotten us both caught.”
“Things happen in the field—the mark of a good operative is how you respond to the challenge. You stayed composed and silent, the right course of action given the circumstances.”
It felt good to hear that. “Thanks.”
“How’s your rib?”
“Fine.” Judd hadn’t mentioned it to Hawke, but the work he’d done to knit the bone was the real reason he’d been so wiped out. She’d been hurt worse than she’d thought. “Doesn’t even feel bruised.”
“Good.” Leaning over, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Go shower. I’m sure you’ll be having a visitor in another ten minutes, at the absolute maximum.” His tone was so even, it took an instant for the words to penetrate.
“I’ll attempt,” he added, “not to ’port in and break his legs for having the gall to be in your room.”
She stared, stunned, after he stalked off.
Ten minutes, at the absolute maximum.
Jolted to action by the mental echo, she ran to her room, dodging any attempts by packmates to stop her. The instant she closed the door behind herself, she stripped and jumped into the shower.
She was rubbing the towel over her wet body when there was a hard knock on the door.
Definitely not ten minutes.
More like four and a half.
“Just a second!” Grabbing her dirty clothes—scattered all over the floor—she threw them into the bathroom, then raced to pull on underwear.
The knock came again, more impatient.
“I’m coming!”
Her jeans hooked on her ankles. Cursing, she managed to get them on and struggled into a forest green T-shirt, pulling her damp hair out from under the back as, breathless, she opened the door partway through the third knock. “Wha—”
The door was closed, and she was pressed up against the solid mass of it before she knew what was happening. “Hawke, I—”
His hands cupped her face, the wolf looking out of his eyes. Her words faded away, her heartbeat accelerated, and still he continued to watch her with that complete and unwavering focus. When his thumb moved over her cheekbone, she jumped.
“I,” he said in a quiet, quiet tone, “will not send you into a hot zone again.”
So easy, it would be so easy to let the overwhelming power of him take her over. “You must.” Her voice came out husky. “I was born for war.”
One hand stroked down, over her jaw, to collar her throat. “No.” A single word spoken in a warm rush of air against her skin, his body aligned to hers.
“I am what I am.” It was hard to continue speaking when he was so very hot and beautiful against her, the maleness of him a living caress. “Fire contained in a small box die—”
Hawke’s mouth stole her words, the taste of him a blast to the senses. This kiss was unlike any of the others. Moving the hand on her throat to cup her jaw, he angled her head just the way he liked, pressed his free hand to the door beside her head, kicked her legs farther apart . . . and then he took her.
Hot and wet and open-mouthed, it was a devouring kind of kiss, the kind of kiss that made it plain he considered her his.
Sienna shuddered. He was so big, so gorgeous, so close that her hands didn’t know where to land. Gripping at the back of his black shirt, she tried to make herself taller, to offer up more of her mouth, taste more of his.
A growl rumbled out of his chest as she moved her body, and she realized that somehow, she was riding his thigh. Another time, it might have embarrassed or shocked her, but tonight . . .
More, she thought, give me everything. She might never hold all of him, but this she would claim. His lost mate had never touched this wild, hungry part of him, never caressed the powerful body that pinned her against the door, never tasted the dark heat of that demanding mouth. This fire between them, it was for her and her alone.
“Why aren’t you wearing a bra?”
Shocked by the rough question against her lips, she sucked in a gasping breath. “You didn’t give me time.”
A wolfish smile. Kisses over her jaw, along her neck. She braced herself for a bite, but it didn’t come. Instead, he slid his hand down to her lower back and nudged her more firmly onto his thigh. She couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her throat.
Yes, she knew about sex—quite aside from her clinical lessons in health studies, the women’s magazines in the novices’ common room had proven extremely instructive. But no amount of research could’ve prepared her for this. Never had she understood what it would be to be so very, very close to him, the muscled strength of him rubbing against her most intimate place.
“Such big eyes.” That was when she felt teeth.
On her lower lip. A slow, sexy bite that dared her to retaliate. Shifting her hold to around his neck, she clenched her fingers in the thick silk of his hair and arched up to claim his mouth. She was Psy, her mind her greatest asset—she’d made note of what he liked without realizing it, used the data, and was gratified at the growl that rolled into her mouth . . . vibrated against the stiff peaks of her nipples.
Jerking back, she looked down at the soft cotton of her T-shirt. And wondered what it would feel like if they were skin to skin.
But Hawke hadn’t had enough of the kiss. Tugging her back with a grip in her hair, he reclaimed her mouth. Darkly intense, a searing brand. His free hand stroked down to grip her thigh as he urged her to move on him. “That’s it, beautiful.” Husky words against her lips as her body began rubbing against his without her conscious control, a tight kind of need unfurling in her abdomen.
More kisses, strokes along her thigh. “Open your mouth.” She obeyed because she didn’t want him to pull away, to leave her bereft when she could almost taste—
The seam of her jeans pressed onto her clitoris and everything fractured. Even the agonizing pain of the second level of dissonance wasn’t enough to blunt the impact.
HAWKE saw the flickers of dangerous red and lethal yellow out of the corner of his eye, plastered his body to hers. “Baby, you hurt?”
“Wh—what?” A dazed sounding question. “Hurt?”
“Did the fire touch you?” Reaching down, he stroked her hair off her face.
Huge obsidian eyes looked up at him, devoid of the stars that denoted a cardinal. “Only inside.”
“What?”
“The fire only touched me inside.”
Figuring out what she was talking abo
ut, he grinned, then took mental inventory of his own body. No burns. “Interesting,” he murmured.
Something in his voice—likely the smug arrogance—had her blinking, trying to come back. He didn’t want her thinking coherently yet. She was all loose and sated right now, and he wanted nothing more than to hold her, to pet her as he wished. Shifting before she could stop him, he sat down on her bed with her cuddled into him. “You sure got a quick trigger, Sienna,” he teased, in control for the simple reason that she was in his arms, under his protection again.
A solemn look. “Is that bad?”
He couldn’t help it. He kissed her, indulging himself in the vibrant life of her. She wasn’t dead in some Pure Psy camp, hadn’t come back bloody and broken. “No,” he answered. “I like making you come. I plan to do it often and well.”
Color swept up on a red tide over her face, and she pressed it down against his chest. So young, he thought, feeling the raking claw of conscience. But he was no hypocrite. He’d sent her into an enemy camp, sent her into a situation that could’ve resulted in death. If she was old enough to die for the pack, she was old enough to choose who she wanted as a lover. “Tell me,” he said, weaving his fingers through her damp hair, “about the operation.”
Instead of pointing out that Judd had already done so, she gave him a step-by-step debrief. “I know I shouldn’t tell you the next fact because it puts me in a lesser bargaining position,” she said, “but I was scared.”
He squeezed her thigh. “I’d be more worried if you hadn’t been—fear keeps us alive, keeps us alert.” Now if he’d just listen to himself instead of feeling a feral anger at the idea of her afraid and alone in the dark.
Sienna sat up, one hand braced on his chest. “That’s not true. Arrows feel no fear, and that makes them strong.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But an Arrow won’t have a kiss waiting for him at the end of a hunt, no warm body next to him when a nightmare strikes.”
A steady look—no longer that of the girl who’d blushed, but of the woman who had taken him on more than once. “Hawke?”
“Yes?”
“What does this mean?”
He curled a strand of ruby red around his finger. “It means you have to learn to deal with me.” There was no going back. Not from this.
Furrows on her brow. “Perhaps you should learn to deal with me instead.”
His wolf bared its teeth in a feral grin. “Baby, I’ve been trying to master that trick since the day I met you.”
“Liar,” she said. “Your wolf thinks it can control me.” A shift of her lower body as she got more comfortable.
He hissed out a breath. “Easy.”
“You’re aroused.” Such a cool statement, but he could scent the earthy warmth of the damp heat between her legs, hear the rising pulse of her heartbeat.
Leaning forward, he nuzzled at her throat, licking up the salt and spice of her. “I can handle it.” His wolf had had a taste, was starving for more, but it understood that to claim her to the deepest level, man and wolf both would have to move carefully. Neither part of him ever wanted to see fear in her eyes when she looked at him, especially in bed.
SHIVERING against the impact of those slow, wolfish licks, Sienna clenched her hand in Hawke’s hair. “Your hair is beautiful. You know it, don’t you?”
She felt his lips curve against the sensitive skin of her neck before he nipped at her. Jerking, she curled her other arm tighter around him, her cheek pressed against the abrasive stubble of his. Then she did what she’d wanted to do for so long. She petted him, stroking her fingers through the heavy strands of silver-gold until he relaxed . . . and switched their positions so she found herself flat on her back with him stretched out on top of her, his weight braced on his forearms.
For a second, she halted in her caresses, overwhelmed by the sheer, wild masculinity of the wolf in her bed. He growled low in his throat . . . and her skin stretched tight over her body. Sucking in a breath, she began to pet him again, this gorgeous, powerful man who wore his wolf so very close to the surface. One of his own hands settled on her hip, heavy and warm and possessive.
“What was it like?” she dared ask. “To have the wolf in charge while you were in your human skin as a teenager?”
Nudging her legs apart, he settled more heavily against her. “It just was.” A very wolf-like answer. “The wolf sees in black or white, no shades of gray. At that time, that was what was needed.
“And,” he continued, surprising her with his willingness to talk, “I was always present. The wolf didn’t truly take over, so much as allow the boy to borrow its strength for a while.”
Sienna parted her lips to ask about the Psy, what they’d done to SnowDancer, closed them before the words could escape. That darkness had no place here, no place in this room, in this bed. Instead, she continued to stroke him, not realizing until several minutes later that her own body had relaxed under his, one leg raised at the knee to press against his side.
Smart wolf.
He began to kiss the sensitive slope of her neck again, slow and wet and a little rough.
Sexy wolf.
Chapter 32
HAWKE’S WOLF WAS drunk on the taste of Sienna, on the scent of her, but it halted, clawed at the human half until it paid attention. Raising his head from her neck, he shook it, trying to find a glimmer of rational thought.
“Hawke?” Sienna’s hands stroked up his nape and into his hair, the spot so sensitive that had he been a cat, he would’ve purred. “Why did you stop?”
It was the answer to his own confusion, putting the wolf’s hesitation into words. “Because,” he murmured, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the hollow of her throat, “you’re tired on both the physical and psychic levels.” His need for her was a wild thing, but for her first time, she deserved better than a frantic coupling.
Scowling, she tugged at his hair. “I don’t need you to make that decision for me.”
He settled his lower body flush against her, growled in satisfaction when she made a hot little sound in the back of her throat. “I need to make this decision for me.” No regrets, that’s what he wanted to see in her passion flushed face after their first time together.
Fingers going motionless, she searched his eyes. “All right.” It was a solemn whisper, as if she’d read his thoughts. “Kiss me before you leave.”
“Baby”—a nip of that lush lower lip—“I have plans to do a lot more than that.” He wouldn’t take her, not tonight, but neither was he noble enough to walk away without indulging himself with a long, deep taste.
Her nails dug into his nape. “How far?”
So serious. It turned his wolf playful. “I intend to get to second base.”
When her chest rose up in a jagged breath, he knew full well she understood the sexual reference. “What’s second base on a man?”
Blinking, he raised his head, having never had cause to consider that question. “The same, I guess.”
“Then take off your shirt.” She undid the first button, went for the second.
A hundred images flashed into his mind, all of them involving the sweet heat of her breasts rubbing against his bare chest. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed her hands in one of his and pinned them above her head. “No touching.”
“Hawke—”
Kissing the complaint off her lips, he slipped his hand under her T-shirt to spread his fingers over the taut silk of her abdomen. Her skin quivered as he moved that hand up to settle over her ribs, her heartbeat jagged under his skin. “Yes?” he whispered, nuzzling a kiss to the tender spot beneath her ear. “It’ll feel so good.” For both of them.
Her wrists flexed in his grip, but she didn’t attempt to pull away. “Yes.” Husky acquiescence.
Lifting his head from the intoxication of her skin, he held her gaze as he moved his hand up just enough to brush his thumb along the underside of her breast. She came up off the bed, pushing her soft flesh into his touch. Shuddering, he cupped her,
squeezed her, rolled her nipple between his fingertips to her restless movements, her erotic cries. His mouth watered to push up her T-shirt, taste the hard little nub.
It took every ounce of will he had not to reach down, undo the damn zipper on his jeans and put her fingers on him. Patience. Patience. He chanted the word at the back of his mind as he moved his hand to her neglected breast, as he petted her to piercing need . . . and found he was rocking his cock against the feminine arousal he could taste so earthy and rich on his tongue.
Shit.
Sienna stared up in disbelief as he jerked up and out of the bed. Her nipples peaked against the soft cotton of her T-shirt, taunting him. “You can’t just—”
“Leave you hot and frustrated?” Leaning down with his hands braced on either side of her, he closed his teeth over one provocative nub, wetting the cloth with his tongue. Her cry was sharp, her arousal a lash against his senses. “I damn well can,” he said, raising his head, “when my cock is about to break in half.”
Chest rising and falling as she gulped in air, she shook her head. “Not my fault.”
“All your fault.” Not daring another kiss, he cupped her jaw, stroked his thumb over her lower lip. “Damn, but I like making out with you Sienna. Let’s do it again tomorrow.”
He left to the sound of a feminine snarl. It made his lips curve into a feral smile.
SASCHA was in the large, comfortable chair in the living room, Nadiya in her arms when Lucas stepped out for a second. He walked back in with an envelope in his hand. “Kit said this was delivered to the office by courier earlier today. Addressed to both of us.”
Smiling at the thought of the youth who was growing into a strong, wonderful man in front of her eyes, she said, “Has he gone?”
A nod. “He had a perimeter shift, but he’s going to drop by in the morning before he heads home. Not to see either of us, of course.”
Laughing, she watched Lucas tear open the letter, scan it. His own grin faded. “According to this,” he said, “an anonymous benefactor has opened a trust fund worth five million dollars in Naya’s name for her education, the balance to be paid out when she’s twenty-five.”