Wild Invitation

of his knuckles over one ripe mound. “Those particular marks would be for my eyes alone. I’d lick at each until it faded, suck another.”
    Her arms rose, one going around his shoulder, the hand of the other on the back of his head. “Stop talking.”
    The breathless command made his lips curve. “But you like it.” Her arousal spiked with every one of his words. “When I have you open and wet under me, I’ll make it a point to tell you—”
    Her mouth closed over his. Groaning, he held her in place, devouring her lips, sucking on her tongue, drowning in the scent of her until she pushed at his shoulders. “Air,” she gasped.
    Flattening his hands on the cold metal of the hood, he heaved out breath after breath, his head hanging low. He wanted another kiss, wasn’t sure he could control himself from going further. Not with her so aroused and soft around him. But he knew she wasn’t ready, wasn’t at the point where she’d trust him not only in front of her, but at her back. He wanted everything before he tumbled her into bed, because there was no way he was going to be able to resist fulfilling his fantasies about watching her move against him as he mounted her.
    Warm fingers on his nape. “Why did you shave off most of your hair?”
    “Don’t you like it?” His wolf stretched out.
    “I didn’t say that.” She continued to stroke him. “You look good either way.”
    He wasn’t a vain man, but he enjoyed being petted by Grace. “For convenience.”
    “I like the way the bristles feel.” Her cheek rubbing against his temple. “Did you really get this scar”—a single finger trailing over his cheek—“from fighting a rabid bear?”
    “Yes,” he admitted. “I was young, a bit of an idiot.” A juvenile, he’d come upon the bear chasing two petrified young wolves. He’d thrown the pups onto a high branch and taken on the bear when it became clear the maddened animal wouldn’t allow itself to be led away from the children. “I managed to avoid getting bitten, but it clawed me. This wound and the one on my back didn’t heal right for some reason.”
    “They only make you sexier.”
    He arched his neck in a silent invitation, had the pleasure of feeling her suck hard enough to leave a mark. Possessive wolf.
    “And,” she said, licking over the mark that delighted him on every level, “there were pups’ lives at stake.” Nipping kisses along his throat, the scent of peaches warmed against skin a sensual caress. “You’d do it again if necessary, wouldn’t you?”
    “Yeah, I guess I’m still a bit of an idiot.” He held her face against him, hissed out a breath as she bit down over his pulse. “That’s three, bad girl.”
    Her thighs squeezed…and this time when she tipped back her head, there was only anticipation in the arch of her spine.
    That was when he felt it, the wild howling from his wolf that sounded the start of the mating dance.

Chapter 10
    GRACE STARED AT the mark on her throat the next morning.
    “Now everyone will know you’re mine.”
    Shivering at the memory of the way he’d run his finger over the spot when they finally got home after making out like teenagers, Grace decided not to cover it up with makeup. She was proud to be Cooper’s. And it wasn’t as if her packmates had any doubts about his intentions, she thought with a delighted laugh, her entire body humming with anticipation for the night to come. The fact her wolf had accepted him at her throat…
    Happy and excited and a little bit terrified—in the breathstealing way of a woman who knew a sexy, dangerous man would soon be in her bed—she went to work with a smile on her face, ready to handle the teasing.
    What she was not ready for was for her brother and sister to turn up. The two took one look at the unmistakable mark on her throat and lost it, their eyes turning an identical wolf amber swirled with green.
    “Are you insane, Grace?” Pia yelled, having dragged her out into the sunshine-drenched forest so they could talk without being overheard, her petite size no indication of her temperament. “The man is a lieutenant! Not only that, he’s a lieutenant with a reputation for being a total hard-ass. He eats submissives like you for breakfast!”
    Slender Rev was more elegant in his choice of words but no less violent in his repudiation. “You need someone gentle, someone who knows to treat your wolf with care. Thank Godwe talked Dad out of coming with us—he’d be ready to