Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

were interested or not. If you weren’t interested, I could regroup. If you agreed to be mine, I can wait until Hell freezes over for you.”
    His words sounded reasonable, but his scent told me something else. It told me that my reasonable tones had soothed his worries, and his mind was now on something other than our discussion.
    Fair enough. Being this close to him, feeling his heat against me, feeling his heartbeat race because he wanted me ... someone told me that knowing someone desires you is the greatest aphrodisiac. It was certainly true for me.
    â€œOf course,” he said, still in that curiously calm voice, “waiting is much easier in abstract than reality. I need you to tell me to back off, all right?”
    â€œMmm,” I said. He brought a cleanness with him that washed the feel of Tim off my skin far better than the shower did—but only when he touched me.
    â€œMercy.”
    I lowered my hands, sliding them beneath the waistline of his jeans and digging my nails lightly into his skin.
    He growled something more, but neither of us was listening. He turned his head and tilted it. I expected serious and got playful as he nipped at my lower lip. The roughness of his teeth sent tingles to my fingertips, zings past my knees and down to my toes. Potent things, Adam’s teeth.
    I brought my suddenly shaking hands around to worry at the button on his jeans, and Adam jerked his head up and put a staying hand on mine.
    Then I heard it, too.
    â€œGerman car,” he said.
    I sighed, slumping against him. “Swedish,” I corrected him. “Four-year-old Volvo station wagon. Gray.”
    He looked at me in surprise that quickly turned to comprehension. “You know the car.”
    I moaned and tried to hide in his shoulder. “Damn, damn. It was the newspapers.”
    â€œWho is it, Mercy?”
    Gravel shooshed, and headlights flashed on my window as the car turned into the driveway. “My mom,” I told him. “Her sense of timing is unreal. I should have realized she would read about ... about it.” I didn’t want to name what had happened to me, what I’d done to Tim, out loud. Not while I was mostly naked with Adam, anyway.
    â€œYou didn’t call her.”
    I shook my head. I should have, I knew it. But it had been one of those things I just couldn’t face.
    He was smiling now. “You get dressed. I’ll go stall her until you’re ready to come out.”
    â€œThere is no way I’ll ever be ready for this,” I told him.
    He sobered, put his face next to mine, and rested his forehead against me. “Mercy. It will be all right.”
    Then he left, shutting the door to my bedroom as my doorbell rang the first time. It rang twice more before he opened the outside door, and he wasn’t being slow.
    I grabbed clothes and desperately tried to remember if we’d done the dishes from dinner. It was my turn. If it had been Samuel’s turn, I wouldn’t have had to worry. It was stupid. I knew that she could care less about the dishes—but it gave me something to do other than panic.
    I’d never even considered calling her. Maybe in ten years I might feel ready.
    I pulled on my pants and left my feet bare while I searched frantically for a bra.
    â€œShe knows you’re here,” Adam said on the other side of the door—as if he were leaning against it. “She’ll be out in a minute.”
    â€œI don’t know who you think you are”—my mother’s voice was low and dangerous—“but if you don’t get out of my way right this instant, it won’t matter.”
    Adam was the Alpha werewolf in charge of the local pack. He was tough. He could be mean when he had to—and he wouldn’t stand a chance against my mom.
    â€œBra, bra, bra,” I chanted as I pulled one out of the dirty-clothes basket and hooked it. I pulled the thing around so fast I wouldn’t be surprised to discover I’d given myself a rug burn. “Shirt. Shirt.” I ransacked my drawers and found and discarded two shirts. “Clean shirt, clean shirt.”
    â€œMercy?” called Adam, sounding a little desperate—how well I knew that feeling.
    â€œMom, leave him alone!” I said. “I’ll be right out.”
    Frustrated, I stared at my room. I had to have a clean shirt somewhere. I had just been wearing one—but it had disappeared in my search for