Tangle of Need (33 page)

Painful as it was, the wild heart of him had accepted what could never be, though he couldn’t yet forget. But it wasn’t simply that, would
never have been enough. Man and wolf both, they were fascinated by the enigma of Adria. The courage he’d witnessed under fire was only a single facet of a complex gemstone. Already, he knew her harsh, prickly surface to be a facade, the woman underneath one who understood SnowDancer’s most vulnerable … and who knew how to offer comfort to a broken male without unmanning him.

Spreading his hand on her lower back, he urged her closer. “Do you know what the words to the song mean?” he asked as the busker began to sing a song in Venesiàn, a language Riaz had made an effort to pick up during his time in Europe.

She shook her head, strands of ebony silk catching against his unshaven jaw. “It sounds beautiful, though.”

Nuzzling at her, he began to translate, their clasped hands held against his chest. Her sigh at the poignant emotion of the romantic ballad was eloquent, the lips she pressed to the dip at the base of his throat lush and inviting. It stroked a low, deep sound of pleasure from him, his body primed. “Stop that if you want me to keep translating.”

A teasing feminine chuckle. “I’ll behave.”

Riaz murmured the words to her until the song ended, the busker’s voice replaced by the sweet sounds of his fingers caressing the strings of his guitar.

“We should tip him.” She moved the hand at his nape down to curve over his shoulder, her breath blowing a delicate kiss across his skin when she spoke.

“Do you want to go down?”

She looked up, violet eyes lit by amber. “Yes.”

Fingers tangled, they left the room and made their way to the busker. The tip they dropped into his open guitar case made him grin. “Come,” he invited with a flourish of chords, “dance!”

Adria’s smile was shy. “Would you like to?”

Riaz had his arms back around her before he realized he was moving, the familiar cobbled streets of Venice made new by her laughter as she navigated the uneven surface high enough to have escaped the flooding, her fingers tightening on his hand.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured.

His wolf, so long trapped in pain and confusion, pressed against her, happy. Sliding his hand down her back, he danced with her under the half moon, barely aware of passersby until an older Italian couple, the woman’s hair a luxurious mink streaked with gray, her mate’s face lined with age and life, swirled in to join them.

The dark truth he carried inside him struggled to awaken in the face of their unspoken bond, but the night was too beautiful to mar with regrets. Man and wolf, he focused every part of himself on dancing with the captivating woman in his arms. He didn’t know how long they swayed in the sultry warmth, but when they drew apart, it was in silent agreement. Leaving the other dancers, they walked back to their room, the music following them upstairs.

He’d left the balcony doors partly open, and the gauzy curtains floated in the gentle breeze. Keeping the lights off to assure their privacy, he ran his fingers over Adria’s cheek, luxuriating in the warm smoothness of her skin. “No,” he said when she went to take off her T-shirt. “Let me.” Running his hand down the curves of her body, he drew up the soft fabric with slow anticipation.

SHE
was being seduced, Adria thought, as Riaz gripped her hips and pressed a kiss to the bared skin of her breastbone, her T-shirt having crumpled soundlessly on the rich cream of the carpet.

“You taste like berries,” he murmured, kissing his way up the slope of her neck. “Ripe, lush, juicy.”

Except for when he’d asked about her fantasies, he’d never before spoken much in bed. The deep timbre of his voice hazed her mind, his callused skin on her own threatening to tangle what threads of reason remained. “You never told me your fantasy,” she whispered against his mouth.

He angled his face to rub his jaw delicately against her cheek, his thumbs shaping the vee of her hip bones. “A strong, sexy woman in my bed, mine to do with as I wish.
You.”

“That’s a very dominant male fantasy.”

Sensual amusement in his eyes, he just looked at her.

She laughed, though her pulse was a staccato drumbeat. “Yes, why am I surprised?”

His kiss was as slow, as romantic as the night, the kind of kiss a man might give to a new lover he was wooing into his bed. “Let me,” he whispered again, unhooking her bra to pull it off and drop it onto her T-shirt before pressing her against him again, big hands splayed on her back in a way that shouted possession. “Let me.” A kiss pressed to the sensitive spot behind her ear.

Shuddering, she wove her fingers into the thick silk of his hair, willing to be petted and caressed and adored enough to surrender the reins to this man she trusted not to betray her faith.

It had been
so long
.

“Yes.” It was the barest whisper, but he heard her.

Fingers on her jaw, another gossamer kiss, his body so big and hot. “Hold on.” With that, he reached down and swung her up into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom … and to the bed made up with soft white linen on which some romantic soul had scattered rose petals. They were velvet bites against her back when he placed her on the bed, the faint light spilling in from the balcony the only illumination.

They were wolves. It was all they needed.

“We should turn down the bed,” she said, her eyes on him as he reached back to strip off his T-shirt, baring a body she craved even more today than the first time they’d shared the most intimate skin privileges.

“No sheets,” he said, kicking off his shoes and reaching down to tug off his socks with curt male efficiency. “I want to see you.” He came around to get rid of her boots and socks as quickly, before prowling up over her, his hair falling across his forehead. “You are so beautiful.” He sounded almost … surprised, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

Perhaps he was, because she didn’t quite know this lover either. The one who touched her with sensual fascination and wanted to discover her every secret pleasure point. “Riaz,” she whispered when he kissed his way down her navel, having tugged off her jeans and panties to discard them over the side of the bed.

“Mmm.” A wet kiss pressed just above her pubic bone, his hands pushing her thighs apart, the roughness of his skin a shock that made her quiver.

It was the most intimate of kisses, his patience exquisite. Her soft cries lingered in the air, shimmered on the fine layer of perspiration that turned her skin into a mirage. And still he petted her with a slow attention to detail that made it crystal clear that while she was the one who trembled and broke, this was very much his pleasure, too.

His fantasy.

The realization was more intoxicating than any wine. Surrendering to the sensations, she was still gasping for breath when he finally made his way up her body to nip at her throat hard enough to leave a mark. All the while, he petted her breasts, her abdomen, the tops of her thighs with hands both proprietary and demanding enough that she knew his control wasn’t as impeccable as it appeared.

She opened her mouth to his kiss, her legs to the jean-clad thigh he pushed in between. But he withdrew it after only a second, muttering, “Skin,” before rolling away and stripping off his clothing to return to her, a big, dangerous predator who had decided to pet her to pleasure such as she’d never before felt.

This time, he settled himself over her, his erection pushing aggressively against her abdomen. He allowed her to close her fingers around the heated steel of him, the skin that sheathed him paradoxically soft. She wanted to taste him, please him as he’d done her, but tonight, she was his to do with as he wished. It wasn’t in the nature of a dominant female to give in so utterly in bed, but Adria hadn’t ever felt so treasured by a lover. It threatened to make her afraid, but she refused to submit to the insidious emotion, refused to taint a night she knew would become a memory she’d cherish.

His mouth at her breasts, licking and tasting. His hand between her legs. His fingers sliding deep into her, his way eased by the molten heat of her need. She squeezed, attempted to hold him, but he withdrew … and then he was nudging her thighs apart and pushing into her with the thick intrusion of his cock.

“Let me,” he whispered once more, sliding one hand under her head to fist it in her hair, stroking her leg up over his hip with the other.

She could do nothing else, her body his instrument. Rocking home with a grunt, he claimed another kiss, this one hotter, more demanding, but continuing to hold that lazy edge that said he had all night to love her. And when he began to move, it was with the same languorous rhythm, their bodies locked in a slow dance that seared pleasure through to her toes.

Seduced … she was being seduced.

Chapter 41

HAWKE LOOKED ACROSS
the cabin to where his mate sat curled up in bed with a datapad. She was reading a paper her lecturer had recommended, while he had Kenji and Riaz’s joint report on the BlackSea negotiations. He’d rather have been in bed beside Sienna, but she’d barred him from it. “We won’t get any work done otherwise.”

Sprawled in the armchair he’d added to the cabin a couple of weeks ago, he tried to figure out why he was so damn happy when by rights, he should’ve been feeling a little surly.

Because she’s here. My mate is here with me, safe, doing something utterly ordinary.

It was a gift he couldn’t have anticipated a few months ago, and one he’d let no one tarnish with fear.

Sienna looked up at that instant. “You’re not working.” Touching her finger to the screen of her datapad, she primly turned a page.

“And you’ve been on the same page for ten minutes.”

“Drat.” Laughing, she put the datapad on the comforter and threw her arms apart. “As Ben would say, ‘Hi! Want to play?’”

Always.
“Not outside.” It was raining, and while his wolf could function fine through snow and sleet itself, both parts of him liked being warm and dry.

“Some tough guy.”

“Come here and say that.” Putting down the report, he crooked a finger.

Instead of obeying, Sienna gave him a secretive, slightly guilty look. He’d
seen that same look more times than he could count while she’d been a juvenile. Tempted to pounce on her, he said, “Do I want to know?”

“I want to make cookies.”

He grinned. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

She threw a pillow at him. “I brought the ingredients in my backpack. So, can we?”

Lobbing it back, he cocked his head. “We have the night to ourselves”—a mission to accomplish even with the current relative peace—“and you want to make cookies?”

She was suddenly very interested in the pillow. “Lara does it and it looks fun. Marlee and Toby like it.” She picked at the stitching of the pillowcase. “I’d like to know how … for the future.”

In case we have children one day.

She could’ve asked Lara, Evie, Tarah, but she’d waited to ask him. It made him her slave all over again. “Another memory for your box?”

Her smile was the sun coming out of the clouds. “I have chocolate chips.”

“Then I guess”—getting up, he held out a hand—“we’re making cookies.”

Determined to succeed, they pulled up recipes on the Internet, watched demonstration videos, and substituted cranberries for raisins, because neither one of them was a fan of “shriveled grapes.”

The best thing that could be said about their maiden effort was that it was edible—and that Sienna had melted chocolate on the tip of her nose he had to lick off.

They managed to burn the second batch—in a no-burn oven.

The third batch, however … “These are mine.” He made an imaginary line down the tray that put ninety percent of the cookies on his side.

Throwing her arms around his neck, Sienna kissed him, smiling all the while. “Fine,” he murmured. “I’ll give you two.”

“Are you saying my kiss only rates a two?”

“I could be persuaded to reconsider.”

Later, after he’d fed her warm cookies while she promised him all sorts of favors, they drank milk and brushed their teeth to make up for the sugar currently swimming through their bloodstreams, and got into
bed facing one another. Rain continued to pound on the roof, a transient shield around their own private world that made the cabin seem even more snug.

“I had fun.” It was a sighing comment from his mate.

Running a fingertip around the shell of her ear, he said, “I think we should try muffins next. I like banana bran.” Because he’d had fun, too, the long-forgotten boy in him rising to the surface. He’d made cookies with his mom long ago, had lost the memory under the weight of the pain that had come later, but it was once again a radiant jewel in his mind.

“I was thinking marble cake,” Sienna said, expression sparkling with excitement.

He whistled. “Ambitious.”

Rubbing her nose against his, she whispered, “No one will ever know if we end up with a vaguely mud-colored cake instead.”

He chuckled, grabbing her and turning onto his back so that she ended up lying along his body. “Look at us, we’re talking about something so domestic.” No guns. No enemies. No tension.

She beamed. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.” Danger stalked his mate, but this moment, it was theirs, private and safe and with the scent of cranberries and melted chocolate in the air.

ADRIA
woke up feeling better than she had in years. She’d spent the night tangled around a sexy, gorgeous man who’d laughed with her in the midnight hours, his voice a delicious rasp over her skin, and who’d made love to her again sometime before morning. He’d been more demanding the second time, but no less tender. She was feeling terribly petted and spoiled.

When she poked her head up from the sheets to see him walking into the room dressed in nothing but a towel hitched around his hips, a cup of coffee in hand, she simply stopped breathing for a second. “Come here,” she murmured once she could speak again. He smelled of soap and man and coffee, and she wanted only to rub her face against his chest, indulge the deep sensory need he both created and filled in her.