And his hold, it was proprietary in the extreme.
It was, she had to admit, some kind of wonderful to be kissed so deliciously by the only man who’d dared play with her cat with the intention of winning.
He bit her lower lip.
Her eyes snapped open. “Kiss it better.”
“No.” He nipped her again. Sharp. Sexy. “You make me so fucking insane, I want to mark you all over. So everyone knows you’re mine.”
The leopard growled in her throat. “Not yours.” She was her own person, a predator same as him.
“We’ll see about that.” This time, he dipped his head . . . and bit her neck in a suckling kiss that made her moan and thrust her hand into his hair, tugging him back.
“Stop that.”
Instead of obeying, he reached up to squeeze her breast through her T-shirt, as if he had every right to be fondling her in her own office. And maybe glancing down to see that big, tanned hand on her body was mind-blowingly erotic, but . . . “Oh.” He’d stopped nibbling at her neck and now nipped at her ear.
Mercy was astounded at the discovery that her earlobes were exquisitely sensitive. “Again,” she ordered, one hand in his hair, the other on his shoulder.
“No.” He raised his head, eyes glittering. “You can’t have everything you want unless you give me what I want.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play games with a cat.”
“Who else am I going to play them with?” A squeeze of her breast, a kiss pressed to her parted lips. “Play with me.”
It was the one invitation he could’ve made that soothed the cat, made her want to relax, maybe tease him a little. But first—“You said you were going to try last night. Are you going to take this, take us, for granted because of the mating dance?”
“No.” His hand was still around her throat, his fingers stroking in a possessive caress. “It’s not just about having a mate.”
“Then what is it about?” She pushed off the hand on her breast and stood upright. That free hand immediately settled on her butt. Pushy. But she liked him that way.
Leaning down, he locked eyes with her. “It’s about having a mate who adores you.”
She didn’t know which one of them he was talking about, whether it was a promise or a declaration, but she did know that no woman could’ve resisted him at that moment. “Then we dance, wolf.” A slow, teasing smile as she raised her arms to wrap around his neck, even as something deep in her screamed in warning—there was a danger she wasn’t seeing, a shock she’d never be able to bear. But Mercy was too caught up in the lush hunger of the mating dance to listen. “Let’s see if you can catch me.”
He skated his hand from her neck and down her body to close over her hip. “I already did, remember?”
“New game.” She pressed a kiss to the base of his neck, a spot she was becoming very fond of. Especially since he always blew out a breath when she licked her tongue over it. Like now. “New rules.”
“Tell me the rules.” He didn’t seem to realize he was holding her head against him.
Hmm, she thought, Riley really liked having his neck kissed. She was so going to take him necking out in the woods. Smiling, she began to nibble on that strong column, feeling her cat purr as he shuddered and angled his head to give her better access. “The rules,” she whispered, drawing the warm, masculine scent of him into her lungs, “are that there aren’t any rules.”
He froze for an instant, then groaned. “You’re going to drive me to the asylum.”
She smiled. “That’s the point.” Riley liked rules. She didn’t. Let’s see if her wolf could drop his guard enough to tantalize a cat.
Sascha sat in her home “office”—the balcony outside the aerie—and stared at the book her mother had sent her. She kept hoping for a distraction so she wouldn’t have to open the pages, wouldn’t have to consider why Nikita had done this, whether it was a trap or a peace offering.
As if on cue, the comm panel chimed. Relief washing through her like a rainstorm, she answered using the handset she’d placed on the balcony table. “Sascha speaking.”
“Sascha, it’s Nicki.”
“Hiya, kitten.” Looking away from the book, she stared out at the trees. “What’s up?” Nicki was only eighteen, but had recently become apprenticed to the pack’s historian, Keely, after it became obvious she’d been born for the role.
“Keely asked me to do some research—she said you were interested in Alice Eldridge?”
The feeling of buoyancy deflated. “You found something already?”
“I got super lucky with the first person I spoke to—one of Keely’s contacts.” The sound of rustling, as if she was settling papers. “Sorry,” Nicki said. “I never expected to be given something this cool so soon—it’s exciting.”
Sascha made a murmur of agreement and waited.