PLAY OF PASSION

She was here. In his territory.

Leaning against the bathroom doorway, he just watched her. Her skin was flushed with heat, so she’d taken that bath. And the hair she usually tied up in a ponytail lay sleek and damp down the back of her white T-shirt. Her soft black pajama pants hid the long length of her legs, but Andrew had memorized every lithely muscled inch of her.

“Do you want some or not?” She lifted the fork.

Not stupid enough to refuse, he shot her a smile deliberately laced with pure wickedness. “Let me put on some clothes. Unless you want me naked?”

A feminine snort. “Seen it, felt it, don’t want to buy the T-shirt.”

The insult cut. He was male, and he wanted her until he could hardly see straight. But he couldn’t let her know that, not when she already held all the cards, so he shrugged. “Fine.” And dropped the towel.

Indigo almost choked on her cheesecake as Drew walked over to the bureau on the other side of the room. Oh … my. Her eyes couldn’t seem to move off his butt. Hard and muscled and bitable. Definitely bitable.

It was all she could do not to moan when he pulled a pair of sweats over that beautiful golden skin, those taut muscles. About to ask him to take the thing off, she realized exactly who it was she was ogling. What was wrong with her? Horrified, she stabbed the fork into the cheesecake and stuffed a big gob into her mouth just as Drew turned.

There was no longer any humor on his face, and suddenly, she saw not Riley’s younger brother, not the laughing, teasing male who could charm every female in the den to get what he wanted, but the tracker who’d hunted down his prey in a storm so harsh even the feral wolves had taken shelter. And he’d never lost the scent—a task she’d have thought impossible given the mix of torrential rain and driving wind.

Shoving his hands through his hair, he walked over to the bed. The muscles at the front of his body, she thought, were as impressive as the ones in the back. But her eyes, right then, were on his face. She couldn’t read him, she realized with gut-wrenching shock, not like she could the other young males. But she knew she’d insulted him. Predatory male changelings could be very touchy about that kind of a statement from a female—but that was usually within the confines of a relationship or courtship.

Still …

He sprawled beside her, bracing his back against the wall. Turning a little, she scooped up a bite of cheesecake on her fork and lifted it to his mouth. He took it, holding her gaze as she drew the tines out from between his lips. Her body warmed with a slow burn of heat as she remembered those lips on her mouth, strong and confident … and tempting.

He flicked out his tongue to lick up a bit of the cream, his eyes never leaving hers. When he sat up and took the fork from her hand, she let him. And when he raised the cheesecake to her lips, she almost let him put the tines to her mouth. Except that the intimacy of the act suddenly hit her with blinding force.

“Drew, we’re not—” The cheesecake was in her mouth, the flavors lush and rich, the tines warm as he drew them through her lips oh-so-slowly.

Drew took a long, deep breath. “I can scent your hunger,” he murmured, his voice dropping until it scraped over her skin, raw and arousing. “I want to taste it.”

Thrown off center by the unexpected, shocking shift in atmosphere, she shook her head even as her muscles seemed to melt, her body aching in a way that had nothing to do with the hunt they’d just completed. “I don’t sleep with my subordinates.”

“And I don’t report to you.” Another bite of cheesecake lifted to her lips in teasing promise. “I’m independent of the lieutenant hierarchy.”

Her skin tingled, her palms itching to trace the sculptured beauty of his pectorals. It had been so long since she’d had a lover. The pickings weren’t exactly plentiful for a dominant changeling female in this region—though since Drew’s brother, Riley, had mated with a cat, she’d checked out the leopards, too, even gone on a date or two. None of the men had made her body spark. Not even a little.

But that body was making up for lost time now, her skin seeming to stretch as a voluptuous warmth invaded her very cells, curling through her veins to pulse beneath flesh turned unbearably sensitive. Too long, she thought, shocked at the spread of need, it had simply been too long. “Drew …”

His mouth so close, his tongue licking over the seam of her lips to steal a tiny bit of the creamy treat she’d bought into the room. “Let me in, Indy.” The heat of him was wild, fresh, young, and it stroked over her like a physical caress.

Groaning, she nudged the next bite to his mouth. “I can’t sleep with Riley’s baby brother.” She wouldn’t be able to face her fellow lieutenant when he came back from his trip to South America.