Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(36)

As a purely unintentional side effect, watching him pull off his shirt was very much like watching someone pull a sheet off a great work of art. Muscles bunched and slid as he dropped the shirt and took off his jeans and underwear.

“Mmm,” I said.

He smiled—and the tiredness around his eyes melted away. “Mmm back,” he said, putting a knee on the bed.

And after a while, with me lying on him like a sweaty limp noodle, he fell asleep. I lay very still to let him rest—and soon fell asleep, too.

Something was moving me around, sliding me across the sheets—but I was tired and buried my face in a pillow with an indignant and not-awake grunt. Warm hands on my rump hesitated. A big warm body—naked male body—pressed into my back.

“No?” he said.

I wiggled my hips in invitation, still mostly asleep.

His head moved next to mine. His mouth tickled my ear as he said, “Nudge.” And it wasn’t a question because he picked up my hips and slid inside.

I laughed, not because I was amused at anything—or at least not just because he amused me. I laughed because he made me happy. He gripped my hips and I joined the dance.



* * *



? ? ?

I woke up sore, rested, and frantic because one of the blinds was up and I could tell that it was well past noon. There was a note on the pillow next to me. Written on it in thick black Sharpie and pretty decent calligraphy was:


AND SO IS THE FATE OF ALL THOSE WHO AWAKEN THE NUDGE.



On the other side of the paper, in regular pen and Adam’s angular all-cap printing, was:


THANK YOU, SLEEPING BEAUTY. HEADING TO THE OFFICE. WAS AFRAID IF I WOKE YOU UP I WOULD NEVER GET OUT OF THE ROOM.



The effect of this morning’s exercise, a few hours of needed rest, and the note was that I smiled all the way through my shower. The hot water eased the edge of soreness nicely, and by the time I got out I was ready to go to work.

It had been a lovely cease-fire, but I knew that the morning had not solved anything except, maybe, given Adam some happiness and rest in the middle of an unknown battlefield. I would know when Adam had worked out whatever was bothering him because he would tell me—and he would open up our mating bond, which was once again shut as tightly as a drum.

I dressed and pulled out the phone to text Tad that I was on my way—and found I’d missed a phone call from Stefan last night. He hadn’t left me a message. There was also a text from Jesse: Out with friends—took Aiden with. My friends think he is cute—if they only knew :P Back for dinner. Dad was cheerful when he came down! Go you!

I felt my cheeks heat up. But I knew that seducing Adam in the middle of the day was not going to be a secret.

I texted Tad and started out—pausing at the spare bedroom where Renny had been installed. But the room was empty and the bed was made. I texted Mary Jo to see if everything was okay, though I expected that it was. Had there been more trouble, or had Renny not recovered as well as expected, I wouldn’t have been allowed to sleep in this late.

Mary Jo texted back: Renny’s fine. Headache. Sorry to have missed his own kidnapping. He doesn’t remember anything at all. Poor Renny.

There was no one home downstairs, either.

I found a note from Lucia on the table:


Took Joel out to check on the progress Adam’s contractor is making on our house.



Their house had been trashed when Joel had been cursed with the volcano spirit that kept him in dog form a large percentage of the time. It had taken him and Lucia a while to decide what to do about it.

Once the insurance policy kicked in, they finally hired Adam’s go-to contractor to fix their house. Until Joel had better control of his fiery half, they would have to stay with us at pack central because Aiden was able to stop it when Joel’s spirit decided to lose its cool. But they had options. They could rent the house out, sell it and buy another later, or just keep maintaining it empty and let it wait for Joel to recover.

Medea yowled at me and stropped my leg, broadcasting the information that no one had fed her. Cats lie, and I was pretty sure she was lying. But feeding her made me happy and made her happy.

Tad called as I was putting away her kibble.

“Nice to hear that you got some” was the first thing that he said.

I disconnected. My cheeks might be bright red, but I had a grin on my face. I had indeed. But that didn’t mean that I’d accept teasing without fighting back.

He called again and the first thing he said was “Jesse said her dad looked like the cat who ate the canary.” A pause.

I decided he was waiting for me to hang up again, so I didn’t.

“If you ask me if I’m a canary, you’d better sleep with your lights on,” I warned him.

He laughed. “Okay. So if you are coming to the shop anyway—the parts we’ve been waiting on are in, but they dropped them off at another garage over in Pasco by mistake. They can redeliver but it will take them two days. The other shop offered to drop them by tonight when they close down.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’ll pick them up.” I wrote down the address of the other shop. It would take me out of the way, but someone had to pick them up. And I was pretty hungry; I could stop at a fast-food place on the trip. “Do you want me to bring some food?”

“Mercy, it’s three in the afternoon,” he responded with stentorian disapproval.