Wild Invitation

entire body was attuned to his every breath, her muscles strung tight.
    “How’s it going in this section?” he asked, his voice pitched at a level she recognized as “careful.”
    She fought the suicidal urge to throw a tool at his head. Her place in the hierarchy didn’t determine her entire personality. As with every other dominance level, submissives could be shy or exuberant, cheerful or moody, sensual or reserved. Grace might be quiet and a little shy in comparison to the majority of her packmates, but she could handle loud voices just fine—growing up with two older adoptive siblings, dominants who’d inherited a hair-trigger temper from their father, she’d heard more than her share.
    “We’re about halfway through the overhaul,” she said, wishing he’d forget her place in the hierarchy and see her simply as a woman…a woman he wanted.
    If he did, what would you do?
    Probably run very fast in the other direction.
    She twisted the wrench a fraction too hard and almost broke the tube. “Damn.” Cheeks burning, she flexed her fingers, took a deep breath, and completed the extraction with care, hotly conscious of Cooper’s watchful gaze. “There. We can recycle the components.”
    “Removed without a scratch. Impressive.” He picked up the burned-out tube. “Did you get the new shipment you wanted?”
    She tore her eyes away from his hands, face heating even further at the raw images that had formed unbidden in her mind—of those big hands on her body, on her breasts, his skin exquisitely rough against her own. Never had she responded to a man in such a way, and that it was a man whose mere presence made her wolf acutely uncomfortable? Surely, fate was having a good laugh at Grace’s expense.
    “Yes,” she managed to say in response to his question, “I did. They were high quality, as promised.” Hearing a gentle click as he returned the tube to the floor, she put down the wrench and went to pick up a—
    “Grace.” Fingers curling around her wrist.
    Her pulse spiked as she stared at that strong, dark-skinned hand so warm and gentle, the calluses on his palm a sensual abrasion. She couldn’t speak, the rush of noise inside her head too loud, drowning out all else.
    “Grace.” Softer this time. Coaxing. “Look at me.”
    Swallowing, she chanced a peek, her wolf at rigid attention. If he’d commanded, she would’ve obeyed at once, her nature such that defiance of an order from a lieutenant stressed her on a primal level. The fact that she was a changeling rather than a wild wolf meant she
had
the capacity for such defiance, but it would require bone-deep disagreement on her part, enough for the human side of her nature to override the powerful instincts of her wolf.
    But Cooper hadn’t commanded. He’d requested…in a way that made everything female in Grace come to trembling attention. Now, her eyes met the intense near black of his and skated away. When he did nothing but wait with a patience she’d never expected from him, she lifted her lashes again, her gaze locking with his.
    It sent a thrill through her wolf. To hold the gaze of a lieutenant was a bold move for any wolf, but for a submissive, it went far beyond that. In any other circumstance, it could’ve been dangerous—just as she had her instincts, dominants had theirs. If one interpreted the eye contact as a challenge, it could end badly. The fact that in the majority of cases where such a thing had happened both parties had been in wolf form didnothing to negate the danger of triggering an inadvertent violent response.
    Because a submissive would
never
come out the winner.
    Cooper’s thumb brushed over the skittering pulse in her wrist. “There you are.” The low murmur touched her in a caress so intimate, it felt as if she was bare to the skin, exposed and vulnerable.
    Inhaling a jerky breath, she broke the shocking eye contact, tugged gently at her wrist. When Cooper’s fingers tightened for an instant, her heart stuttered. He released her before the next beat. Not certain of anything, she fell back on what she knew, picking up another one of her tools to do…something. Except her thoughts were jumbled, a burn of lingering heat around her wrist. She began working on a random nonessential section of the duct, where she could easily fix any errors later.
    Beside her, Cooper shifted a fraction, the single inch he closed between them enough to have her wolf quivering and alert, with anticipation, desire, and