Wild Invitation

them a nod.
    Walker acknowledged the greeting with a raised hand as Judd said, “It’s good to be home, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.” The powers in the PsyNet no doubt considered his family even more of a threat after the revelation of Sienna’s power, might yet attempt to harm them, but that was a fight that would wait. At this moment, everyone he loved was safe, and he was tied to the woman who was his heartbeat by a bond as strong and as tender as Lara herself.
    He only hoped that as the days passed, Lara wouldn’t begin to regret the choice she’d made to bond with a man who still carried the shadow of Silence in his every breath.
    •   •   •
    LARA woke to a kiss on her neck, slightly rough night-cool hands on her sleep-warmed skin. “You’re home.” Turning into Walker’s embrace, she nuzzled at his throat, drawing in the intoxicating scent of dark water hiding a thousand mysteries. “…time is it?”
    “Just after six.” A kiss, hot and wet and carnal, his body shifting to cover her own, his hands pushing up her silky thigh-length nightgown, the color a shade of plum so dark it was almost black. “I like this.”
    “I know.” Feeling lazy and sleepy and sexy, she lay boneless as he peeled off her panties and returned to his position above her, his body pressed intimately between her thighs. It made her moan, rise sinuously against him. “Come inside me.”
    He didn’t argue, simply stroked her with his fingers to check her readiness before pushing into her slow and easy. Her gasp was swallowed up in a kiss, her nipples rubbing against the crisp hairs on his chest as he lifted himself up enough to tug off the nightgown before returning until they were skin to skin.
    It was something she’d realized about her mate. Now that she’d broken through the barriers that kept him so remote, heloved skin contact, whether or not it was sexual. He’d never be comfortable with skin privileges when it came to the majority of people—but with her, he was both demanding and so giving it made her heart ache.
    Playing her fingers through the hairs that brushed his nape, she locked her ankles at his back and moaned softly at the exquisite feel of him stretching her, filling her. When he dipped his head to lick at her nipples with languorous ease, her nails dug into his back. “More, darling.”
    The sense of a masculine murmur, though she heard nothing with her ears, and then he gave her what she wanted. She arched under the sensations, her fingers fisting in his hair. Tugging him up when the pleasure became too much, she kissed her way up his throat and along his jaw to that spot under his ear that always made him shudder. A wet flick of her tongue, a husky request, and slow and lazy turned slow and relentless.
    Pleasure rippled over her—not in a crash, but in a languid wave, her orgasm endless. She felt him stiffen, shifted her mouth to his throat, kissing and petting him through his own orgasm until he collapsed on her, a delicious weight.
    “That was some wake-up call,” she murmured much later, when he roused enough to shift to his back, with her sprawled half on and half off his body.
    He drew circles on her back with his fingers. “I’m glad you approve. As you know, I was a virgin not long ago.”
    She laughed at the teasing reminder of how she’d offered to be gentle with him. “You’re a fast learner, Mr. Lauren.” Yawning, she dragged up the sheet to cover them. “How was the watch?”
    “Trouble free,” was the concise answer, but then he said, “Judd was there for a while.”
    Sensing he meant more than he was saying, she spread her fingers over the taut heat of his chest. “Did he want to catch up?”
    Walker was quiet for a long time. “We talked about a boy I once knew. A trainee Arrow.”
    And then, as the final vestiges of the night faded from the sky, her mate spoke to her about the schoolroom that had been his for so many years, told her things she understood without asking that he’d shared with no one else, not even his brother.Tears clogged her throat at all that he had witnessed, the pain of the children…and the realization that her mate was inviting her into a part of his life she’d only glimpsed till now, sharing one of his secrets with her.
    •   •   •
    THAT morning marked the day the pack shifted into high gear, all of the remaining evacuees scheduled to return within the next forty-eight hours. While not needed to heal injuries, Lara was