Wild Invitation

his T-shirt across his shoulders, “I’ll fall in with your cunning plans.”
    “You always were a good boy, Cooper, even during your hellion juvenile years.” Her smile was an echo of his mother’s, caused a familiar ache in his chest. “Now go, before they inhale lunch. You’ll be lucky to find a few bones to gnaw on.”
    The teenagers had in fact resisted the lure of the sandwiches, cake, and fruit, and were checking the final section of the stream with industrious eyes when he arrived. Visibly perking up at his presence, they clustered around to show him what they’d done.
    “I’m proud of you,” he said after listening to their explanations of the project, his wolf in pleased agreement.
    The juveniles beamed, tugged him to another part of the stream.
    When two younger kids showed up in pup form a few minutes later, he scooped them up before they could poke their curious noses into the picnic baskets. “Behave or it’s back to the nursery with you.”
    The miscreants pretended to claw him, growling and snarling. Laughing, he tapped their noses in a light reprimand and put them on their feet, where they leaned their small, warm bodies against his legs as he finished speaking to the teenagers. By the time the group sat down to lunch—the two pups shifting form to curl up against him and eat more cake than was good for them—the tension had left his muscles.
    Nothing could alter the fact that he was an aggressive dominant, but as the pups and juveniles showed, he had the capacity to earn the trust of even the pack’s most vulnerable. It would take time with Grace, the trust he asked of her a piercingintimacy, but Cooper had been called a stubborn bastard more than once. It wasn’t an unfair accusation.
    And he was determined to seduce, pet, and coax Grace into his arms.
    Where he planned to keep her.
    All night.
    All day.
    Always.
    •   •   •
    HALF relieved, half disappointed that she hadn’t seen Cooper again since his declaration of courtship, Grace put her tools away in her office, then stripped off her black coveralls to reveal the jeans and sleek black tank she wore underneath. She was hungry after the long day, should’ve gone home. But pulling on her favorite blue sweater, the fabric fine rather than heavy, she checked her hair and face in the mirror, then turned in the direction of the indoor training arena where she’d heard Cooper was working with some of the novice soldiers.
    Seeing the access door up ahead, she used her palm print to get through, then shut it behind her. The good thing about being in systems maintenance was that she knew all of the hidden nooks and crannies of the den. This particular accessway led to another door on the inner wall of the training arena, and that door had a window to ensure maintenance personnel didn’t accidentally walk out into a dangerous training situation.
    Grace made her way to that window with quick steps, happy to see that it was clean, as mandated by the safety regs. Beyond the glass, it appeared the novices had been split into two teams and were “at war,” though she could see kicks being pulled and punches turned into light taps. Still, people occasionally went down—someone was calling points she realized, and a certain number equaled incapacitated or dead.
    She saw a disappointed novice go to his knees before her attention was captured by the adult male who came over, hauled the lanky youth to his feet, and proceeded to show him where he’d gone wrong. Cooper’s actions were powerful, his expression intent. The younger man nodded, copied the moves Cooper had demonstrated while compensating for his own lighter bodymass, and grinned when his intelligence earned him a slap on the back.
    Grace couldn’t keep her eyes off the lieutenant, a problem she’d had since the day she moved into the den. It was amazing how many times she could find a fault that needed checking right next to where Cooper might be running a training session or working out on his own. Now, she saw him call the battle to a halt, and from the victorious cheer that thundered over the left side of the room, he’d declared a winner. A minute later, the novices cleared the floor to position themselves against the walls.
    Into the open space walked a senior soldier who’d been helping to supervise the session. As she watched, Shamus stripped off his T-shirt and threw it aside. She wrenched her head toward Cooper to see if he was doing the same. He was.