Kiss of Snow

The tone made every muscle in her body go tense, but she’d been trained by a cold-blooded Councilor. Fear was something with which she had intimate familiarity—and it wasn’t hot, not like the emotion that burned through her veins at this moment. “You think I should just keep doing as I’m told?” she asked. “Is that what gets you off?”


“One,” he said with such calm, she knew she was in the vehicle with a predator barely on the leash. “I’ll give you one free pass because you’re drunk—”

“I didn’t have a single alcoholic beverage.” Alcohol had unpredictable effects on Psy abilities, and she couldn’t afford to lose even an ounce of mental control. “I’m angry at you because you get to win all the arguments by using your alpha status to shut me down.”

A dangerous pause. So dangerous that Sienna snapped her mouth closed, swallowing the words that wanted to escape.

Until he brought the truck to a halt deep in an unfamiliar part of den territory. The night was pitch-black, starless, and moonless, the trees murky shadows that seemed to form an impenetrable wall around them. “Why are we stopping?”

“You wanted to talk. We’ll talk.”

Her palms went damp at that smooth, silky tone.

“I’m putting aside my ‘alpha status.’ ”

Oh, he was furious.

“So let’s see if you can win this argument.” Turning in his seat, he leaned his arm along the back of hers. “Now explain to me how you would’ve stopped a massive fistfight in the bar tonight.”

“That’s not on me,” she said, trying to breathe past the sheer power of him. “The women were an excuse—the males were itching to go at each other since the minute we walked in. They’re always playing dominance games.”

“So you knew that, and still you amped up the sexual energy in the room?”

The truck was suddenly too small, too confined, Hawke’s hotly masculine scent seeping into her very pores, touching parts of her no man had ever stroked. “It wasn’t my responsibility.”

“Oh?”

“No.” A sudden crash of anger. “I’m not accountable for everyone! Maybe I wanted to have fun for a change. Maybe I wanted to not be in control for a few short minutes! Maybe I just wanted to dance.”

Hawke’s lashes came down. When they lifted back up, his gaze was night-glow, a brilliant ice blue shot with light. She sucked in a breath, realizing she was talking to the wolf now.

“You want to dance?” Husky words that stroked along her skin like the softest fur.

She nodded.

“Then we dance.” Reaching out, he switched on the vehicle’s sound system and input a selection before stepping out.

Her door opened as a slow, smoky ballad began to play. “Come.” An invitation—but mostly a demand.

“My shoes,” she blurted out, anger buried under a wave of nervous anticipation.

“The ground’s dry. They won’t sink in.”

Not sure this wasn’t all a dream, she placed her hand in his and, fighting the wild rush of sensation engendered by his touch and his scent, allowed him to tug her around to the front of the vehicle. Breaking the hold, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her forward, his breath a heated caress across her cheek as he bent to speak against her ear. “Arms around my neck.”

The command released her voice. “I thought you weren’t being alpha here.”

“I’m not.”

Oh.

As she raised her arms, she realized her boots gave her enough height to cup his nape with one hand, while she placed the other on the muscled warmth of his shoulder. When he shifted position so that his jaw rubbed against her temple, her heart began to thud fast as a jackhammer.

This close, he was all hot, hard heat. Pure muscle and strength . . . and temptation. Always, he’d been her temptation. He was the reason her Silence had shattered into innumerable shards the instant she’d walked into SnowDancer territory. She should’ve kept her distance, but she couldn’t. Just once—just for a little while—she wanted him to be hers.

Teeth nipped at her ear.

She jumped.

“Pay attention.” A rumbling growl.

Her nipples tightened to stiff points she hoped he couldn’t feel. It was beyond tempting to spread the hand on his nape upward, into the thick, silver-gold silk of his hair, but she didn’t dare break the moment. He had such beautiful hair, the same color as his pelt in wolf form. That told her more about how close his wolf was to the surface than anything else.

“Sienna.” A deep murmur against her skin, his lips brushing her temple. “This can’t be. You know that.”

Her blood was thunder in her ears, her skin stretching taut over a body hypersensitized by a raw, near-painful craving. “Is it because I’m Psy?” she forced herself to ask. Hawke hated the Psy—that much she knew, though she didn’t know the reason behind the depth of his animosity. The fact that he’d accepted the Lauren family as deeply into the pack as he had was nothing short of miraculous.

A low growl that had her going motionless. “It’s because you’re barely grown.” He stroked his hand down her back, as if in reassurance.