Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(48)

“Wise little lioness,” he said, because it was all getting too deep, and soon she’d have him talking about the terrible history of the Harte/Vasiliev family and what it meant for Alexei.

Just as well that they arrived at the compound a bare minute later. The only ones up and around under the wet sky were the Arrows. “Home sweet home.”

Home.

Memory didn’t know what that meant anymore.

Light glowed from the windows of the cabins around Memory’s. Inside those cabins were empaths. Memory’s peers. Normal people who hadn’t grown up in a cage.

Her fingers curled into her palms just as Alexei came around to open her door. Leaning both arms up against the top of the car, he looked at her . . . and his eyes, they glowed slightly in the dark.

“Oh,” she whispered, her fingers rising of their own volition.

She jerked them back the instant she realized what she was about to do, but then Alexei deliberately lowered his head, just far enough that she could reach. And Memory found that she was weak where a certain golden wolf was concerned. Heart tight, she ran her fingers through the heavy silk of his hair.

It was cool from the misty rain and slipped like water through her fingers. She didn’t stop with one stroke, caressing him in the same way Sascha had caressed her mate that morning. “I like petting you,” she said, because hiding it was impossible.

When he made a rumbling sound in his chest, she found herself exerting more pressure, and running her nails along his skull. The eyes that met hers were pure amber now, the look in them distinctly feral.

Memory shivered, but didn’t stop the touch. Moving one hand, Alexei brought it to her face; her pulse kicked, her breath became shallow. He cupped the side of her face, ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. That lip immediately felt plumper, more sensitive.

“You have very kissable lips,” he murmured in a voice that wasn’t wholly human. “But I would be a very bad wolf if I took advantage of you today.”

Memory fisted her hand in his hair, suddenly full of hot, burning energy that pumped her veins with fire. “I’m not a weakling to be taken advantage of,” she said, her voice hard. “Not a child to have my decisions made for me.” Twisting in her seat so that her feet hung out over the edge of the vehicle and she was face-to-face with Alexei, she went to kiss him to show him that she was the one making the decisions . . . and realized that she had no idea what to do.

Watching comm shows on which people kissed, it turned out, didn’t prepare you for the reality of such intimate physical contact. A thick, dark heat began to creep over her skin, a far different thing than the fury that had erupted inside her on the heels of his words. Then Alexei rubbed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip once more, scrambling her thoughts all over again.

“If I get in trouble because of this,” he drawled in a gritty voice, “I’m going to punish you.” His hand slid from her cheek to her nape, the subtle pressure he exerted telling her exactly how to angle her head to put herself in perfect position for his kiss. She was in no way prepared for the brush of his lips against her own.

Sensation jolted through her, a thousand lightning bolts.

Breaking away, she sucked in a breath. Amber eyes watched her, predatory in a way that made every tiny hair on her arms rise in primal warning and her thighs clench. The tight, pulsing feeling between her legs ached and felt good at the same time.

When she didn’t make any move to take her hand from his hair, or to get out of the vehicle, he smiled slow and dangerous. “More?”

“More,” she rasped out, suddenly aware that he could get away with a whole lot if he aimed that smile in her direction. She’d be putty in his strong hands . . . and under his mouth. This time, he held the contact longer, the pressure warm and firm and causing sensations in her abdomen that had her twisting in her seat. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, he closed his teeth gently over her lower lip and tugged.

Memory jerked back, bracing both hands on the seat as she gasped in gulps of the cold night air.

The wolf who’d just kissed her smiled. “Teeth are a known hazard when tangling with wolves.”





Chapter 22


Unlike big, burly bears with their adorably soft hearts that us wild women have to be careful not to bruise, wolves have egos that are titanium over iron. It takes a great deal to insult a wolf, so if you manage it, kudos to you. He’ll probably give you ten thousand orgasms in revenge. You poor, poor thing.

—From the December 2079 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”


HIS E LOOKED delicious. All huge eyes and plump lips that he wanted to devour. It had taken incredible willpower on his part to keep the kiss so gentle—and even then, he hadn’t been able to resist that playful bite at the end.

He was a wolf, after all.

He should’ve felt bad for kissing a woman so recently out of bondage, but as she’d said, she wasn’t a child to have her decisions made for her. Memory was a survivor. A fighter. A woman who looked him in the eye and dared him to make anything of it. And she’d definitely wanted to kiss him. Her arousal was a sweet, sexy musk in the air . . . but her eyes were lost now, her fingers clutching at the leather of the car seat.

She’d chosen to kiss him, but she was having difficulty processing the aftermath. As for Alexei’s own arousal, it would have to remain a frustration. It still made his wolf smug to know that he’d been her first kiss, but that was where things would stay until she was ready for more.