Psy & Changelings 06 - Branded by Fire

tensing with the need to come, to take him with her, she cried out.
    And the world exploded.
     
     
    Mercy surfaced to the awareness that she was lying on something soft. Touching it, she realized it was what remained of her and Riley’s T-shirts. He’d made her a nest. Aw. Turning, she propped herself on one elbow and looked down at the male lying beside her. He had his eyes closed, and for the first time, she noticed that he had the same rich chocolate brown lashes as his brother, Andrew. Long and lush and curling slightly at the ends. Pretty lashes.
    Delighted by the discovery, she leaned over and rubbed her nose gently against his. His lips curved but his eyes remained closed. One hand ran in a slow glide up and down over her back. “How was your nap, kitty?”
    She nipped him on the chin. “Don’t push your luck, Kincaid.”
    His lashes lifted, to reveal warm brown eyes full of languor. “You’re purring.”
    “Yeah, so?” She dared him to make something of it.
    Of course, since it was Riley, he did. “So I made you purr.” A smug smile.
    She frowned. “This is now officially a two-night stand.”
    “It’s not night.” He kept stroking her back.
    His big, deliciously callused hand felt so good on her that she almost sighed. “You know what I mean.”
    “Why?” The lazy lover was rapidly being replaced by the Riley she knew and . . . lived to irritate.
    “Okay,” she said, “maybe you’re not the spawn of Satan as I originally thought—”
    “Thanks.”
    “But”—she glared at him for the interruption—“you’d be hell to be in a relationship with. HELL. In capital letters.” Part of her own mind vehemently disagreed—sleeping with him last night, it had been something special, an experience that wrapped around her heart and made her want to take the wildest of chances. But that Riley might never again make an appearance, not if the lieutenant decided to contain him using his formidable self-control.
    “I do have an ego, Mercy.”
    Hearing the warning in his voice, she ran her fingers through his hair. Beautiful and thick, it slid over her hands like water. “Riley, you still try to order Brenna around, and she’s mated, for chrissakes.”
    “She’s my baby sister. I’ll try to order her around when she’s eighty and a great-grandmother.”
    “See!”
    “No, I don’t see. There’s a crucial difference between you and Brenna. You’re not my sister. Thank God.”
    Mercy made a sound of frustration and sat up on her haunches. “It’s not about that. It’s about the fact that you’re anal about control. You’d try to handle me.” And she was not a woman who’d take kindly to that. More . . . it would hurt her if she gave him her trust and he abused it by attempting to turn her into something she wasn’t.
    Sitting up, Riley looked at her for several long minutes. “How about if I promise not to treat you as anything but my lover?”
    “You can’t,” she said, curling her fingers into fists to stop from reaching out to caress him. “You’re a dominant wolf male.” Possession was in his blood.
    “Fine.” He scowled. “But the fact is, we burn up together and we both have no one else that we see as a potential partner. What’s wrong with helping each other release the tension until we find our mates?”
    Mercy wanted to snap at him for that blithe assumption. But the truth was, he probably would find a mate. His chances were higher than hers—dominant males had no problem mating with less dominant, or submissive, females. And Riley, of course, was looking for exactly that type of woman. “What if I don’t want to be your fuck buddy?”
    He kissed her. Slow and wet and openly possessive. “You do.” Another kiss, a quick nip at her lower lip. “Do the words ‘nose,’ ‘spite,’ ‘face,’ have any meaning to you?”
    She was not cutting off her nose to spite her face. She wasn’t. Okay, maybe she’d considered it. “If we do this, you have to know—the instant you go ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ on me, I’m kicking your wolf ass out of my bed.” Her hands closed over his shoulders, claws kneading. “Understood?”
    “I understand you’ll try to kick me out.” A smile that began as a bare curve of his lips, and ended up creasing his cheeks with lean male dimples. “Maybe you’ll win.”
    Since when did the sight of his smile tug at things low and deep in her? “Maybe you’re delusional—and I’m undeniably insane for even considering