Kiss of Snow

“Did you really think I’d let you fall?” A bite lower down on her neck. Harder this time.

She jerked, hand clenching on that shoulder heavy with muscle. “You can’t go around biting me whenever you feel like it.” It was very alpha male behavior, and he hardly needed any more encouragement.

He licked his tongue over the mark. “Cut the vine.”

This time, she didn’t question him, using a targeted laser of cold fire to sever the trap. He caught her so fast she didn’t even experience the sensation of falling for an instant. Lowering her to her feet, he held her against him as she got her balance back, one of his hands on her lower back, the other playing with strands of her hair.

When she looked up, he was watching her with an absolute focus that stole the air from her lungs. “You’re a good playmate,” he said, dipping his head to speak against her lips. “You get to pick the next game.”

Stealing tiny kisses as she stood with her chest pressed to his, she felt the vibration of his growl in every inch of her. “When?” she managed to get out, her nipples hard little points, her breasts so sensitized she wasn’t sure she’d be able to take it if he touched her.

“Tomorrow.” Leaning down, he nuzzled at her, only taking a small bite before rubbing his lips over the spot. “Time to go back.”

“Just a minute more.” Scared this was a dream, she dared to wrap her arms around his neck, stroke her fingers over his nape. He was much taller, but he stayed in position so she could hold him, his breath hot against her skin. Just for a minute.





LARA wasn’t surprised to see Walker in her office that night. He’d come to her the previous evening, too. The part of her that was still bruised had her keeping a wary emotional distance, but that same part held her complex, painful feelings for the quiet Psy male, and they left her unable to ask him to leave—especially when she sensed a subtle difference in him, a lessening in that wall of reserve.

However, not wanting to set herself up for another fall, she’d brought up something she was sure would have him making a fast exit last night. “You never talk about Marlee’s mother.”

To her shock, she’d gotten an answer.

“Her name was Yelene,” he’d said, his expression telling her nothing of his emotions toward the woman who had borne him a child. “We lived together in a family unit, both of us of the opinion that psychologically speaking, it was the most secure way to bring up Marlee and, later, Toby.”

Such a cold rationale on the surface, and yet beneath it was a love that had led him to walk into near-certain death on the slim chance that the children would find sanctuary. “I’m sorry about your sister.” She knew Walker was the eldest of the three siblings, Judd the youngest. Sienna and Toby’s mother had fallen in the middle . . . and died far too soon.

“Kristine was gifted but troubled.”

“I’m glad Toby had you to turn to.” Because Walker, he would’ve understood a child’s pain at the loss, even in Silence.

“I couldn’t protect Sienna”—dark, edgy words—“but I wouldn’t have allowed anyone to seize Toby from us.”

Devastatingly conscious of what it must’ve cost him to see Sienna taken by Ming, she hadn’t asked the question on the tip of her tongue yesterday. Tonight, however, as they sat at the small table in the break room, his long legs encroaching on her space, she couldn’t contain it any longer. “Yelene,” she said. “What was she like?”

“Our genes were a good match.” His big body betrayed nothing of his inner thoughts as he gave her that nonanswer. “It was predicted that we’d create high-Gradient offspring, and Marlee is living proof of the veracity of the geneticists’ predictions.”

Lack of overt body language or not, Lara knew he wanted her to back off. But she had no intention of turning back the clock, of returning their relationship to what it had been before the kiss—when she’d allowed him to dictate the boundaries in that subtle way of his. “You felt something for her, didn’t you?” Every instinct she had urged her to touch him, to connect with him on the most basic level, but Walker hadn’t acceded her those skin privileges, and even if they had had more between them than this strange friendship, he wasn’t the kind of man with whom a woman could demand.

“I was Silent,” he said, his jean-clad leg brushing her own in a rough caress that made her breath catch in spite of her warning not to let herself read too much into his visits, his words. “I felt nothing.”

“Walker.”

He put down the coffee she’d made him. “There was no love or affection—not as you feel it. But there was, I believed, a true commitment and loyalty to the family unit. I was wrong.” So cold and final, the statement told her the subject was now off-limits.