Wild Invitation

His voice vibrated where her breasts pressed against the strength of his chest, making her nipples ache. “Don’t say no.”
    Releasing her hand when she remained silent at the rough-voiced request, he tipped up her chin with his fingers and suckled on her juice-drenched lower lip. The sweet, hot sensation was over almost before she knew it, her eyes fluttering open. He returned for another suckling taste, coaxing her closer as he did so. “Mmm.” It was a sound of deep male pleasure, his hand sliding from her chin to cup the side of her neck. “You taste delicious.” This time, his lips covered hers, the kiss an intimate seduction.
    She clenched her hands on his chest as she rose toward his sinful mouth, felt the flex of warm, tensile muscle beneath the cotton of his T-shirt. Groaning, he licked his tongue across the seam of her lips, one of his hands coming to lie against her lower back, the rigid heat of his erection pushing against her abdomen—
    Claws pricking the insides of her skin, the wolf threatening to take control.
    Jerking back, she gasped in the cool night air. Her breasts felt swollen, the place between her legs damp, and she had no doubt Cooper had scented the musk of her arousal. But that wasn’t the sole emotion in play, her wolf’s sudden, wrenching realization of the violent strength of the predator who held her a visceral punch to the gut.
    The wolf didn’t want to run. It knew such an action would never work, that it would only enrage the predator. Instead, it demanded she lie down, let Cooper do what he would, its deep-rooted survival instincts colliding against her human need to make a conscious choice. It was all she could do to hold back the impulse to bare her throat to the male whose scent lingered rich and wild in her mouth; to whimper in primal submission—a submission that would end this relationship before it began, because that kind of mindless surrender would humiliate her and horrify Cooper.
    “This isn’t going to work.” The words came out ragged, regret a hollowness inside her chest that caused a true physical hurt. “I’m too submissive.”
    Cooper, having remained motionless thus far, shifted to pluck a berry off the plant near him and pop it into his mouth. She watched him swallow, wanted to trace the movement down the tendons of his neck with her lips, lick up the dark amber and rich earth of his scent. When she finally dragged her eyes back up to his face, his lips were curved. “It’ll work,” he murmured, eating another berry. “It might require lots and lots of foreplay, but it’ll work.”
    “Cooper.”
Turning away from the raw sexuality of him, she shoved a berry into her own mouth to give herself time to think. “If—”
    “No ifs,” he murmured in a tone that spoke of the dominant he was. “Not yet. Even if you can’t trust me in any other way, trust me in this—the instant your wolf overwhelms you without your conscious volition, I’ll stop.”
    She felt him come closer, but he didn’t bury his face in her neck as she craved, even though she knew her wolf was in no state to accept the searing intimacy of having him near herjugular. Even now, it buried its head in its paws, sad and scared and wanting all at once. “How will you know?” she asked, unable to hide the tremor of hope in her voice.
    “I guess it’s part of what makes me a lieutenant—being able to sense when the wolf is close to a packmate’s skin.”
    She shuddered in relief. “Always?”
    “Always.” The barest touch on her hip. “Have you eaten?”
    “No.” Her stomach had been too full of butterflies after that scorching instant of eye contact in the training arena. “I’m hungry.” A hesitant invitation, should he want to take it.
    Knuckles brushing down her cheek. “I can’t wait to feed you.” A low purr of a statement that made her breath catch, her heartbeat accelerate.
    “You earned your reputation, didn’t you?” It came out husky.
    He tapped her lower lip with a finger. “Play with me and I’ll teach you all sorts of bad, bad things…but you’re only ever allowed to do them to me.”
    Grace knew she was in trouble. Big, sexy, dangerous trouble.

Chapter 5
    AFTER DRIVING GRACE home from dinner in the pounding rain that was the leading edge of an unforeseen storm front, Cooper had expected to spend the night tossing and turning as a result of extended sexual frustration. And hey, he wasn’t against some hot, erotic dreams featuring his