Play of Passion

CHAPTER 24

Smiling, she pulled on the T-shirt and glanced over her shoulder. A drowsy-eyed male—a definite wolf—watched her with obvious sensual intent. “Indy.” It was an invitation.

It was very, very tempting to go to him. So tempting that it made her wolf back off in sudden wariness. “Give me a second.” Heading into the forest, she walked down to the stream to throw some water on her face, her fingers trembling as she thrust them through her hair. This, with Drew, it fit none of the parameters of what she knew. For a woman as used to exercising control over all aspects of her life as she was, it—

“I knew you’d be here doing this.” A hand closing over the back of her neck, a kiss dropped on her parted lips before Drew bent down to throw some water onto his own face.

Dressed only in a pair of khaki cargo pants, he looked oh-so-touchable.

“Doing what?” Rising to her feet, she curled her fingers into her palms. This inexorable sensual pull she felt toward Drew, it unsettled her—more than unsettled her, if she was honest. She was used to holding the reins in her dealings with the opposite sex.

Shaking his head in a way that was distinctly wolfish, he curved one hand around her calf, looking up with those wonderful, changeable eyes. “Worrying about all the things that could go wrong. Enjoy the moment, Indy. Enjoy what we are—”

“If you think I can do that,” she said with a wry smile, some of her tension dissipating, “you don’t know me.”

He squeezed her leg. “Yeah, that’s why I decided to haul myself awake at this ungodly hour and come rescue you.”

“It’s at least a couple of hours past dawn.” The forest was awash in the chatter of birds, the sky a pale azure with shimmering undertones of gold and pink that presaged a brilliant day.

Drew made a face, eyes on the play of sunlight dappling the water. “A couple of hours past dawn? Are you insane? Noon is when rational people wake up.”

Laughing, she leaned lightly against him as he moved his hand over her leg in a lazy caress. “How do you function when you’re on night watch or the early shift?”

“I function fine. I just prefer to lie in bed if at all possible.”

“You sure you’re a wolf?” she teased. “You sound like a big ole lazy cat to me.”

He grumbled low in his throat. “I’d throw you in the pool for that, but I’m feeling too mellow after the way you worked me over last night.”

“You’re not the one with bruises on your back.”

An unrepentant smile. “You don’t have any—I checked already.” Rising when she made as if to push him into the water, he slid his hands under her tee to cup her naked bottom. “Hey, Indy?”

Surprised by his oddly solemn tone, she looked up. “What is it?”

“How come you’re avoiding touching me?”

She glanced down at her hands to see that she’d clenched them into fists again. Groaning, she pressed her forehead against his chest. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t deserve this.

A kiss on her temple, strong hands petting the globes they’d palmed. “Have you had enough after only one night?”

She almost fell for that mournful voice—but the fiend’s eyes were dancing when she looked up. “Very funny.”

He squeezed the flesh he’d been stroking. “Freak-out, huh? I told you, I kinda expected it.”

Wrapping her arms around him, she nodded. “I’m not used to being this . . .” Close to addiction.

He dipped his head, met her gaze. “Does it help if I tell you I’m already a junkie? And that I intend to indulge as much as possible—and then do it some more? I can tie you to the bed if you like, so you can’t touch.”

Her wolf swiped a paw at him at the outrageous teasing. “I think it’s you who needs to be tied up,” she muttered darkly, but his complete ease with the hunger between them did go a long way toward making her more comfortable with the depth of her own need. “Come here.”

“For what?” he asked, suspicion in every syllable.

Her wolf laughed. “For a good-morning kiss—I’ve decided to let you live.”

His eyes gleamed. “Excellent idea.” He’d slid down to his knees and pulled her sex to the voracious demand of his mouth before she could do more than gasp in a breath. Clenching her hand in his hair, she went to pull him back up . . . but then he did something with his tongue that made her toes curl, and she found herself spreading her legs to give him better access.

A pleased rumble against her, followed by pleasure upon pleasure.

Later, after he’d teased her to the point that she’d been driven to threats of murder, they took a dip and ate.

“Since we’re both up at this ridiculous hour anyway,” Drew grumbled afterward, “do you want to hike up to Wolf Point?”

Wolf Point, so named by the first wolves who’d settled in this region, offered a breathtaking view across the lakes that dotted the area. On a day like this, the sky up there would be an excruciating blue, the sun’s rays bright and harsh. Her skin tingled in sensory pleasure. “Yes, let’s.”

“Take our packs so we can camp up there?”

At her nod, he began to roll up the sleeping bags while she turned off and packed the laz-fire. “We should go back to the den tomorrow,” she said as they finished.

“Yeah.” Drew’s gaze was serious. “We left Hawke short-handed. You think we should head back now?”

Mentally reviewing who was in the den and able to fill in, she shook her head. “I have my cell—he’d have called if he needed us.” She wanted more time to explore this unexpected bond between her and Drew. Because there’d be no hiding it when they returned to the den, not with the intimacies they’d shared—and would continue to share. Wolf noses would sniff it out in about one second flat.

“Do you want to hide it?” Drew asked without warning.

Hearing the absolute neutrality of his voice, her spine went stiff. “What?”

“This. Us.”

It startled her that he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts, but her answer was immediate. “No.” She was unsure and confused, but she was no coward—not now that she’d made the decision to dance with him. More, she was proud of the male she’d chosen. Whatever happened, he was hers, and other women would do well to keep their paws off him. “I’ll give you one phone call to warn your harem you’re now off-limits.”

A surprised expression . . . that segued into pleased arrogance. “No one’ll dare come near me now that you’ve made a claim.” A pause. “You’re worried about the nosey parkers?”

“Maybe they’ll have worked it out of their system with Riley and Mercy,” she said in a burst of hope. “We’re two wolves—no big deal.”

Drew snorted, leaning over to pat her ass with casual proprietariness. “You’re so cute when you’re deluding yourself.” Easily dodging her responding punch on the arm, he grabbed her pack and handed it to her. “They’ll have a field day—the lieutenant who can drop a man in his tracks with nothing but the ice in her gaze, and . . . Drew?” He made a confused, disbelieving face.

Snorting, Indigo put her arms through the straps of her pack. “I’ve known you forever, and I still don’t understand that thing you do.”

A questioning look as he went to pick up his own pack.

“Making people think you’re harmless.” She clicked the support straps across her hips. “You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Harmless.”

“It’s a gift.” Pack on, he walked over to click the second support strap above the UC Berkeley emblem on her sweatshirt as she did the same for him.

“Thanks, Indy.” A casual comment, but right then, the blue of his eyes hit her in the heart.

He could hurt her. Really hurt her. And they’d barely taken the first step into this unexpected relationship. “You’re welcome,” she said, fighting the wolf’s wariness with the memory of how he’d teased her earlier by the stream.

Taking care of her.

Her wolf froze at the realization, and she had to consciously kick herself into gear as Drew turned to lead the way out of camp. She’d never have allowed him to care for her if he’d tried to do it straight out, but she’d been fooled by his playfulness into missing the protective drive beneath.

You’d think she’d know better by now, she thought with an inward shake of her head, but he continued to surprise her with that quicksilver mind. If she was being honest, his keen intelligence was one of the most attractive things about him—even if it did mean he had a way of catching her off guard. The thought made her frown, consider something else. “Drew?”

When he looked over, she said, “Is it because you’re the pack’s tracker? That you make such an effort to appear harmless?” It was a question she’d never thought to ask before—because he was so very good at making people forget what he was.

Drew’s hand tangled with her own, his expression solemn. “I didn’t really think about it consciously when I was growing up,” he said, “but as an adult, yeah, that’s part of it. I’m wolf—I need to be a full part of the pack.”

And, she understood, he couldn’t be that if everyone was afraid of him.

Nodding, she let it go at that—this relationship was too new to push him to share such an intensely private aspect of himself. But Drew squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Indy. I don’t mind talking about it. Hawke and Riley make me do it on a regular basis.”

“They do?” She blinked.

“Uh-huh.” A grin. “I think they want to make sure I’m not going to crack under the pressure.”

It was then, looking into those amused eyes, that she realized the incredible depth of strength inside him. “It must be beyond hard to know that you could be called upon to track and execute a packmate at any time.”

He didn’t deny it. “The thing is, I was born with this uncanny ability to track my packmates, better than even Hawke’s—so it was obvious what role I was meant to play in the pack. I had to either learn to deal with it or, once I was old enough to understand, give over the mantle so someone else could be trained.”

Though she hadn’t understood until today why he cultivated that air of irresponsibility, she’d known him far too long not to have seen beneath the surface years ago—and to the wolf who was one of the most trusted in the pack. “You never even thought about giving it up, did you?”

“When wolves go rogue”—quiet words, powerful words—“they do things they’d never have countenanced had they been thinking. They attempt to hunt, to slaughter their packmates, children included. If that happened to me, I’d want someone like me on my trail, someone who could find me before I did harm, and offer mercy.”

Emotion a knot in her throat, Indigo stopped and reached up to cup his cheek. He rubbed against it. “Don’t look that way, Indy.” Fingers on her temple, tugging at a flyaway strand of her hair. “SnowDancer is a strong, coherent pack. You know that while I’ve tracked a lot of people, I’ve only had to execute one wolf once I found him—and I don’t think he would’ve judged me for it.”

“He was old,” Indigo said, remembering the sorrow in the den at the elder’s passing. “He had a disease of the mind that somehow evaded the health checks.” But he’d lived a long and happy life before that, been a great-grandfather three times over. “No, he wouldn’t have wanted to harm those he’d spent his life protecting.”

Drew tugged at her hand, his touch warm and solid. “Come on.”

As they walked hand in hand, she considered the titanic shift that had just occurred inside her when it came to this man. Always before, she’d simply not understood a large part of what made him who he was—but now she knew . . . now her wolf knew.

A glimpse of color, woman and wolf both stilling in wonder.

“Look up,” she said to Drew, “very, very slowly.”

When he obeyed, she said, “To your left a little. Do you see it?”

A long, slow exhale was her answer. “Beautiful.”

The blue-gray bird sat proud and imperious on a snow-dusted branch, its claws providing a firm grip. “Northern goshawk?”

Drew hummed in agreement. “Has the eyebrow stripe, tail looks to be the right size—would love to see that beauty fly through the trees.”

As they watched, the bird angled its head to tell her and Drew it saw them, but that they were beneath its notice. Laughing softly, she was startled when Drew brought their clasped hands to his mouth, dropped a kiss on her knuckles.

It was an affectionate act, a possessive one, too. Her wolf considered it alongside all else she’d gleaned about his nature. “Don’t think I’m not noticing all your ‘mine’ gestures,” she said to see what he’d do.

His lips were on hers an instant later, his free hand cupping her cheek as he made a thorough exploration of her mouth. “That was one, too.”

Her lips twitched. Jerking up a hand before he could avoid it, she slashed a very careful line on his cheekbone. His wolf flared in his eyes in a blaze of wild copper before the human smiled, touched the small hurt. “It’ll heal before we return to the den.” A complaint.

“No, it won’t.” She almost couldn’t believe she’d done that, marked him so openly—there’d be no end of ribbing from her packmates now. “And if it does, I’m sure all the claw marks on your back will do the job.” Predatory changeling men were terrible exhibitionists when it came to flaunting their claim over a woman.

Satisfied by that, Drew moved back and they continued on their trek. “Look,” he murmured almost half an hour later, pointing out a delicate white blossom where it peeked out from between two rocks.

She was about to draw his attention to a fossilized shell in one of the slabs of rock when he froze to predator stillness. Indigo went quiet with him, tilting up her chin in a silent question mark.

Eyes gone wolf-copper crashed into hers as he mouthed, “Psy.”