Wild Invitation

a good dose of panic all mixed in.
    “You don’t ever have to fear anything from me, Grace.” It was a rough murmur, a verbal pet of her senses. “If you want me to stop anytime, anywhere, the only word you ever need to use is ‘No.’ Okay?”
    She jerked her head up and down, her throat as dry as the shimmering sands of the Mojave.
    “But,” he continued, “I don’t intend to go away until you tell me to do so. I’m planning to court you.”
    The tool fell from her nerveless fingers to clatter to the floor. Reaching over, Cooper picked it up, put it back into her toolbox. “I’ll leave you to your work…but Grace? I’ll be seeing you again soon.” With that promise, he rose and was gone, his powerful body moving with a wild strength kept in fierce check as he strode down the relatively narrow access corridor and out into the den proper.
    Heart crashing against her ribs hard enough to hurt, her breath jagged in her throat, Grace collapsed against the smooth stone of the wall. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh,
God.
” Her chest rose and fell in a harsh, uneven rhythm as she attempted to take in air, clear her head.
    The effort failed.
    Reaching blindly for her water bottle, she swallowed.
    The cool liquid wet her throat but did nothing to calm the fever in her blood.
    “I’m planning to court you.”
    Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought Cooper would speak those words to her. The furthest she’d dared had been improbable erotic fantasies that left her sweat-soaked and aching for completion, fantasies in which they lay skin to skin, her lips on his throat, his hands gripping her hips as he pinned her under him in readiness for his possession. In real life, she’d almost certainly panic if she was ever in that position, her wolf seizing her mind to present quiescent submission to the predator in bed with her, but the hard reality of the hierarchy didn’t matter in her fantasies.
    Had Cooper invited her to his bed, those fantasies may have given her some kind of a foundation in which to ground herself, ephemeral though it would’ve been. However a changeling male like Cooper didn’t use the word “court” when he was welcoming a woman to share his body and his bed, whether for the night or longer. No, he was
serious
.
    Big, dangerous, beautiful Cooper wanted her as his.

Chapter 2
    ALMOST READY TO believe she’d imagined the whole thing, Grace lifted the inside of her wrist to her face, drew in the wild earth and dark amber of Cooper’s scent from her skin. The complex notes made her want to nuzzle her nose into his throat and breathe deep, until she could separate out the elements that made up the decadent whole.
    Even now, the lingering whisper of it caused her skin to prickle, her mind cascading with sensory memories of the dark heat of his muscled body, the deep bronze of his skin, the black hair he’d taken to shaving so close to his skull that she had to constantly fight the urge to reach up and brush her hand over the bristles. Like those on his jaw.
    What would that jaw feel like rubbing against skin she bared only in the privacy of her bedroom?
    Groaning, she took another drink of water. It didn’t do much good, adrenaline continuing to pump hard and urgent through her veins until it felt as if her skin was going to burst from the frenetic energy ricocheting within her body, her wolf as dazed as the human side of herself. So when she heard someone else enter the access corridor, her brain seized on the distraction. And when she scented Vivienne a second before the tall, slender woman appeared around the corner, she wanted to sob with joy.
    Ice-cold beauty, that’s the initial impression Grace had had of her fellow engineer with her ruler-straight black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail and almond-shaped eyes of brown, cool against flawless white skin. Then Vivienne had smiled—as she did now—with infectious warmth, revealing the joyousreality of her spirit. “Hey, boss. I’m on my way to begin the rehaul of the comm system in this grid—the issue with the 7B comm line was nothing but a slight glitch.”
    Grace touched the space beside her. “Have a break.” Critically for both their working relationship and friendship, while Vivienne was a dominant—albeit on the lower end of the power scale—she had no problem taking orders from a submissive supervisor. The level of such flexibility possessed by each individual, no matter his or her place in the hierarchy, was a