Wild Invitation

sensed her distress. “Good.” She met the deep gray of his eyes for the barest second. “I know it’s late. I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to Tarah and didn’t think about the time.”
    “She’s up. Hold on.”
    Tarah took a seat in front of the comm a second later, her eyes the same vivid hue Grace remembered from childhood, her voice brimming with joyful welcome. “It’s so good to see you, Grace.”
    They chitchatted for a few minutes before Tarah turnedthose perceptive eyes off-screen. “Darling, give us a few minutes, will you? Girl talk.”
    Abel snorted. “If I know you, it’ll be more like an hour.” Coming into view, he tipped up Tarah’s head to claim a kiss, then glanced at Grace. “You make sure you drop by if you’re ever in the area.”
    “Now,” Tarah said once her mate was gone, her face holding a kindness that was innate, “what’s the matter?”
    Grace forced herself to describe what had happened, found herself on the brink of tears again by the end. “How can I be with him if I can’t trust my wolf not to regress to instinctive behavior? As if I don’t know him, don’t have faith in him?” His lover’s trust was integral to a dominant’s sense of self. Steal that from Cooper and she might as well stab him in the heart.
    Tarah’s expression was sympathetic. “It’ll take work, I won’t lie about that. But it
is
doable, and when it works.…Abel is my rock and my heartbeat.”
    The haunting depth of love in that statement made Grace yearn. “Is there anything you can tell me that might help?”
    “Compromise is the magic word, just as it is in most relationships.” A wry smile crept over her face. “Though I should warn you, a dominant’s idea of compromise is sometimes very ‘flexible.’”
    Grace’s laugh was a watery sound. “I can imagine.” Taking a shaky breath to settle herself, she said, “What worries me most is the level of control he has to keep over himself. It’s constant. Does—” She halted, suddenly conscious of how intimate a question she was about to ask.
    Tarah tapped the comm screen as if tapping the nose of a recalcitrant pup. “Ask what you need to—and to answer that last question, Abel doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t need to, because my wolf
knows
he never expects submission from me, even when I’m at my most defenseless.” A penetrating gaze. “You can’t rush the development of that trust, because it’s not a conscious choice. It comes from the animal within—for the wolf, learning to judge a predator is a survival mechanism.”
    Tarah’s words made too much sense. “Thank you for being so honest.”
    “You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Her long-ago teacher gave her a mischievous smile. “Tease him, Grace, play with him,give him the chase he needs, and take the time you need. There’s something to be said for anticipation.”
    Later, considering everything Tarah had said, Grace stripped and shifted. It was agony and it was ecstasy, the shift separating her into a million particles of light and color before coalescing into the wolf that was her other half. She shook herself to settle her new skin, then hopped onto the bed and allowed the animal to rise to the surface of her mind, felt it sigh at the freedom, sigh, too, at the lingering scent of dark amber and wild earth.
    Ours.
    Yes
, agreed the human part of her,
he’s ours
.
    •   •   •
    COOPER decided he must hate himself as he walked into his bedroom at just past one a.m., after attempting to wear himself out in the gym. He knew Grace couldn’t help her reaction—and that had been fine until the dreams. He’d had the strength to be patient, had actually been having an intoxicating kind of fun coaxing her to him kiss by kiss. Now, however, he had a hell of a time maintaining his hold on his more primitive emotions.
    Showering under a cold spray in an effort to control his rebellious body, he shook himself off wolf fashion afterward and pulled on some sweatpants. Then he slumped on his back in bed. Sleep, of course, was a vain hope with his cock in a vise, and it wasn’t as if he’d wake well rested.
    Christ, what was he going to do when he and Grace did become lovers?
    No way would he ever leave her alone afterward, but he couldn’t fall asleep, didn’t want her to hear him screaming like a child. “And how long do you think you can function without sleep, genius?”
    Growling, he got up and decided to make someone else miserable, too, the comm