Wild Embrace (17 page)

Mercy shrugged, her long red ponytail sliding over the deep green of the scoop-necked tee she'd paired with her jeans. “You know the pack—the information highway has nothing on us.” She glanced at the savory muffin Desiree was devouring. “Is that one of Tammy's?”

“Yeah. Want one? There're two more on the table inside.” She'd dropped by the healer's house on her way home from her shift, hoping to grab a cup of coffee before she crashed for a few hours. It never kept her up, not after a late shift.

As it was, Tamsyn had not only given her coffee but made her scrambled eggs and bacon, then packed the muffins for her to take home. All while cheerfully managing the chaos that came with having to get her twin cubs ready for preschool on her own, since her mate hadn't yet made it home from a night shift of his own. And that was before another DarkRiver soldier dropped by, a hopeful look on his face.

“Healers are flat-out amazing,” Desiree said to Mercy when the sentinel, who'd popped inside to grab a muffin, returned with one in hand. “She doesn't blink an eye when we turn up for breakfast without warning, no matter if it's two people or ten.”

“Healers love looking after and being surrounded by family.” Mercy took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “Remember that time when Nate took the boys out fishing and the pack thought we'd give Tammy a break and not bother her, give her the day to herself?”

“Man, she was
mad
.” Desiree had never seen Tamsyn so fired up. “I heard her ask Lucas if the pack would like to kick her heart some more.” Wincing, she shook her head. “I never want to make her mad again.”

They ate in companionable silence for several minutes.

“Don't get me wrong,” Mercy said when Desiree had almost finished her muffin. “I think Felix is gorgeous and sweet, but you thought this through?”

Desiree put aside her near-empty plate, a sudden knot in her stomach. “My leopard likes him. The human half of me likes him just as much.”

“You know that might not be enough. Unless . . . is this a fling for you both? I didn't get that vibe from Felix, but—”

“No.” Desiree curled her hands tightly over the edge of the porch. “No, he's not the fling type.” He was too solid, too stable. “This is the start of a relationship.”

Mercy nodded, face solemn. “I'm not going to interfere. I know what it's like to fall hard for a wolf.” A grin that made her eyes glow golden. “I just wanted you to know I'm here if you need to unload, or if you need to talk about the possible repercussions or road bumps.”

“Thanks.” Desiree appreciated the offer, aware Mercy understood the instincts of the leopard within her better than most. “The pack stuff—”

“Not an issue,” Mercy interrupted. “After me and Riley, Hawke and Lucas both agreed that the packmates in question can choose their allegiance, and that there's no reason for either one to change packs if he or she doesn't want to.”

That took one major worry off Desiree's mind. She couldn't imagine not being part of DarkRiver, and Felix was as attached to SnowDancer. “I just . . . I have no desire to hurt him. It would crush me if I did. I'm going into this with my heart wide open.”

Mercy didn't say anything, but they both knew that wasn't enough. Because they weren't human, were changeling, their leopards an integral aspect of their nature. And while Desiree's leopard liked Felix, enjoyed playing with him, for a dominant leopard female to mate, the leopard had to consider the male its match.

It infuriated Desiree that anyone might ever consider Felix “less” in any way, but she knew her leopard might end up being the worst offender. Because sometimes, the human heart didn't win. Sometimes the untamed animal within made the choice and that choice could be a ruthless one that tore Felix and Desiree apart.

Felix didn't linger
at the work site for the first time since the replanting had begun. Driving his trusty old truck to the den, one of the lieutenants in the passenger seat, and the flatbed filled with tired but raucous packmates arguing about the plays in a recent football game, he felt cautiously happy, excited.

Desiree had messaged him earlier that day to ask him out to dinner. It was stupid how happy that made him. Part of him had been prepared to hear from her only at night, in the context of intimate skin privileges. It would've been a kick to the gut and he'd have ended things then and there, regardless of how much he wanted her, but it would have also been a painfully expected thing.

A dinner invitation wasn't.

Leopard females of Desiree's dominance liked to be chased, or that was what Felix had always believed. He'd been trying to figure out if that meant he could ask her out without stepping on her toes, but she'd beaten him to it and he felt like that damn, vulnerable puppy again. All excited and nervous and—

“Felix, slow down before this old jalopy falls apart.”

Checking the speedometer at Indigo's drawl, he eased his foot off the accelerator and twisted to glance guiltily through the back window. “Are they okay?” he said, returning his attention to the forest track.

Indigo snorted. “Hard cases, each and every one.” She stretched out her long legs. “Never seen you so eager to leave your babies.”

Felix smiled at the gentle teasing. The seedlings
were
babies—of the forest, of the land that succored them. “The soldiers on security detail have promised to babysit. Drew said he'd sing them a lullaby.”

Indigo laughed at the reference to her playful mate, her love for Drew an echo in the air. “Tell me. I won't blab.”

“Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

“I'll guess, then. It has something to do with the gorgeous Desiree, doesn't it?” A pause. “You're blushing, so I declare myself right.”

Felix cursed his inability to keep his cool where Desiree was concerned. “We're going on a date.”

“Anyplace I know?”

He shrugged, trying not to betray the depth of his excitement. “It's a surprise.”

“You know what they say about cats and surprises,” Indigo said darkly.

Felix shot her a startled look, conscious she was good friends with Mercy, and realized he'd been had. “Very funny.”

A wicked grin that lit up the vivid purple-blue of her eyes. “Hey, I had to do it.”

He parked in the den garage a few minutes later and though everyone else took off with shouted thanks or quick slaps on the back, Indigo fell in beside him. “Want some advice?”

“No.”

Of course, packmates being packmates, that didn't stop her. “Dominant or submissive, a woman likes feeling wanted.”

Felix thought of the way Drew had courted Indigo so outrageously, until the entire den had been on tenterhooks waiting to see what the other man would do next. “You liked all the things Drew did?”

“He did drive me a little mad,” Indigo admitted with a slow smile, “but I never wondered if he found me attractive. Something to be said about that.”

Her words circled in Felix's brain as he showered. It wasn't that he didn't know how to make a woman feel good—he did. Only, most of the women he'd dated after returning to the den had been submissives like him. There was no question of hierarchy between them, of who should lead the dance. But that, he thought, didn't make Indigo any less right.

He dressed carefully in clean jeans and a chocolate-colored shirt that brought out his eyes, according to the young designer who'd gifted it to him after Felix did a show for him gratis. It had horrified Felix's booker, but Felix had already known he was about to leave the modeling world for good, having been accepted into a horticultural apprenticeship.

Why not go out doing a show for a designer he liked who needed a hand up?

Ready and with several minutes to spare, he ducked out to one of the pack's two massive greenhouses. Both were concealed from aerial view courtesy of some very clever positioning and creative camouflage that nonetheless didn't block the sunlight needed by the plants—and Felix was the one in charge of how the greenhouses were utilized. The pack had asked him to take up a position with them after he'd qualified, and he couldn't have been more delighted to accept. He loved working in SnowDancer territory, loved that everyone came to him for anything to do with plants.

Four years on and he'd been promoted to the head of the horticultural team when his boss retired. Today, at thirty-one, he managed a staff of five, their primary task to make sure SnowDancer had an independent source of fresh fruits and vegetables notwithstanding
the season. That self-sufficiency became especially important in winter, when heavy snow could bog down the roads out of the Sierra Nevada and make supply runs difficult.

As for the flowers he and his staff nurtured—they weren't for the stomach but the heart.

Smiling at the thought of some of the floral requests his team had fulfilled for packmates, he worked quickly to make a special bouquet. This wasn't usually his job—he had a teenager on his team who was training as a florist—but he wanted this to come from his own hands . . . his own heart. It took him longer than he'd anticipated and he was a little breathless when he met Dezi just outside the White Zone, where she'd parked her vehicle.

Dressed in black jeans that hugged her legs, paired with black ankle boots and a V-neck red T-shirt made of a silky-looking fabric, she took his breath away. And that was before she shot him a smile that dazzled. “Are those for me?”

He located a few of his brain cells, worked out how to speak. “Yes.” Wanting to kiss that smile into his own mouth, he passed across the bouquet of sweet pea blooms and Chinese hellebore and blackberry lilies. The blackberry lilies glowed with the colors of sunset, the petals dotted with dark spots like those of a leopard.

Touching a petal, he said, “I was late because I was hunting for this one. I wanted the bouquet to be unique and beautiful . . . like you.”

Desiree's eyes grew wide, her hand pressing to his jaw as she rose on tiptoe to touch her lips to his in a sweetly tender caress. “No one's ever given me flowers before.”

Man and wolf both stared. “But you should get flowers every day.”

•   •   •

Desiree
found herself lost for words. Men found her exciting, a little wild, strong . . . but no one had ever looked at her as Felix was
doing. As if, along with the strength, she was also the pretty, feminine type of woman due flowers as a matter of course. It wasn't something she'd ever really thought about before, but she had the feeling she could become addicted to getting flowers from this brown-eyed wolf, and most of all to the way he looked at her when he gave them to her.

As if she was the most wonderful thing he'd ever laid eyes on.

Wanting to kiss him senseless, she brushed her fingertips over the velvet and color of the flowers he'd put together just for her, then satisfied her need by taking his hand. “Come on or we'll miss our reservations.”

Felix laughed when she brought the car to a stop halfway down the mountain. “Reservations?”

She grinned and went to grab the picnic basket in back, but he'd already seen it, lifting it out with an easy strength that made her want to shape her hands over every taut, muscled inch of his body. Damn, but the man was hot. And sweet and smart and good with his hands to go with it. Was it any wonder she wanted to sigh and pounce on him at the same time?

Touching her fingers to one of the blooms in the bouquet she was leaving safely in the car, she picked up the picnic blanket with a racing heart, tucked her arm into his, and led him to a stunning glade she'd discovered a month before while on a solo run late one night.

Situated beside a small, clear spring that burbled water out over smooth rocks, it was private and lit with the last faint glow of the setting sun as they walked to it, but she'd snuck up here earlier and added solar-powered fairy lights. Those lights flicked on three seconds after they reached the spot, pretty dots of color in the dark.

Felix froze.

Desiree's skin burned. Shit, who was she to try to be all romantic—but it was too late to take down the lights. Ready to fire back a flippant
response if Felix teased her or if he laughed, she heard: “You did this?” It was a rough whisper. “For
me
?”

His unhidden pleasure was like sunshine in her blood.

“First time ever,” she admitted. “I'm not very good at romantic gestures.” Being one of the boys had always come much easier.

Felix wrapped a careful arm around her waist. “I think you're really good at it.”

Drawing in his scent, she felt her cat stretch out in a pleasured arch, a purr caught in her throat. “Let's set up the blanket.” She forced herself to separate from him and flicked out the tartan blanket; her reward was to see him set the basket to the left and lie down on the blanket, his eyes on the fairy lights above.

A shy glance before he raised his hand toward her. Her blood warm and heavy, she came down onto the blanket and—careful to watch for his responses—placed her head on his chest, her fingers spread over the warm strength of him. He didn't jerk, his arm coming around her, and they lay together in contented silence for long minutes.

When Felix began to play with her braided hair, his fingers brushing her nape now and then, she couldn't restrain her purr. He halted . . . but only for a second. Boneless after several minutes of the lazy petting, she luxuriated in the rumble of his chest when he spoke to ask, “Who does these braids?”

“I do.” It took some calisthenics, but she was pretty good at it now.

“I've never seen your hair out of them.”

She ran her hand down his side. “It's much neater and easier to handle like this while I'm working.” Her hair was all exuberant waves otherwise.

“Would you . . .” A pause, his chest rising. “Would you wear it unbraided for me one day?”

A thousand butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Anytime you ask.”

When wolf song rose on the air minutes later, she almost felt Felix's wolf prick its ears in interest, but he didn't join in. “They'll figure out where we are,” he said to her when she asked why. “Nosey parkers.”

Laughing, Desiree rose up on her elbow to look down at him. His gaze connected with hers for a powerful instant, skated away long before she'd had a chance to drink in his gorgeous eyes. Patience, she counseled herself not for the first time. In being with her, she was asking Felix to go against his most deeply rooted instincts. If her leopard was confused by what was happening between them, so was his wolf.

“So wolves are the same as cats in that respect at least,” she said lightly. “Pack gossip runs fast and hot.”

He spread his hand on her lower back, a delicious, heavy weight. “I lived in private apartments and hotel rooms while I was working as a model,” he told her. “No Drew poking his head in to tease me, no Madison knocking to ask if I wanted to treat her to takeout, no one hassling me about my life or bending my ear about their own life.” A deep breath, his next words quiet and potent with emotion. “I
hated
it.”

Desiree stroked her fingers through his mink-dark hair, the strands cool, heavy silk. “Why did you travel so far? Everything I know about you says you're a man who prefers home and family.”

He folded one arm behind his head. “You might have noticed I'm a little shy.” Color on his cheekbones.

Desiree couldn't help it. She reached down and kissed each blade-sharp cheekbone in turn. His lips tugged up at the corners. “I used to be much worse,” he told her. “It frustrated me until I couldn't breathe sometimes. I'm happy being submissive—I have no desire to become a dominant—but I
hated
being so shy. It was crippling.”

“So you decided to take up one of the most aggressive and brutal jobs in the world as far as self-esteem is concerned?”

He shrugged at her dry comment. “I had to figure out some way to make myself get over the shyness or I knew I was going to end up imprisoned in the den.” Shaking his head, he said, “It would've made me resent the place and the people I loved and I couldn't bear that.”

His decision displayed a deep internal strength that had her leopard paying careful attention; this man, the animal realized, was far more complex than simply being a sweet, smart playmate. “How long were you away from the den?”

He didn't immediately answer, his gaze connecting with hers again for a fleeting instant. “Your eyes have gone leopard.”

“My cat likes you, wolf.”

Hand flexing against her lower back, he made eye contact again, holding it for long, beautiful seconds this time.

“I was gone five years,” he said after breaking the intimacy of the connection. “Even though I couldn't return home often, I stayed tightly connected with my family and the pack. After that, I spent two years apprenticed to a horticultural expert in another state—but that was close enough that I could visit the den regularly.”

Desiree petted his hair again, loving the feel of it, loving even more how his eyes closed in unspoken trust and his breathing evened out. “Do you ever miss it? That jet-setting life?”

“No.” Simple. Absolute. No room for doubt. “What about you? Do you like to travel?”

She wanted to kiss each one of his lashes where they lay in a dark fan against his skin. Man, she was so sunk. “I roamed for a couple of years when I was younger,” she said, her voice huskier than usual. “Most leopards do.” It was part of their nature. “But while I liked seeing the world, visiting other packs, it was fun only because I knew I could come home anytime I liked.”