Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(65)

The door opened again and there was a quiet murmur of voices.

Even over the drowning spray of the water, I heard someone say, "I'll take care of it." Honey's husband again, I thought, because the werewolves can't talk in their wolf shape and he was the only one who had stayed human. Some of the wolves could have changed back by now - but without a good reason to do so, they'd probably just stay wolves for the night. Except for Adam.

Changing so quickly to fight the fae I'd brought him, the actual fight, then changing back in under an hour weren't going to leave him in a cheerful mood. I hoped he'd eaten something before he came up here - changing cost a lot of energy and I'd rather he not be hungry. I was bleeding too much for that to be good.

Telling Adam to take care of Fideal's car was supposed to have given me enough time to get out of the shower and wrap up in a towel, but I couldn't work up the energy to do anything but stand in the shower stall.

The big glass door swung open, but I didn't look up. Adam didn't say anything, but turned me with his hands on my shoulders so I was facing the showerhead. I bowed my head farther and took a step forward so the spray hit the top of my head rather than my face.

He must have picked up a comb, because he started to comb my hair free of glass. He was being very careful not to touch me anywhere else.

"Watch it," I said. "There's glass all over the floor."

The comb hesitated and then resumed its task. "I have my shoes on," he said. The rumble of his growl told me that the wolf wasn't far away no matter how human or gentle the hands that worked through my hair were.

"Is everyone all right?" I asked, though I knew he needed quiet now.

"Ben's hurt, but nothing that won't heal by morning - and nothing he doesn't deserve after jumping through the window. Glass is heavy and sharper than a guillotine's blade. He's lucky he didn't cut his own throat - and luckier still that all you have are cuts."

I could feel the anger vibrate through him. Werewolves, in their wolf form, are not always angry - just as a grizzly bear is not always angry: it only seems like it. If what Honey had told me was correct, Adam's temper was even more uncertain than usual. The fight wouldn't have helped it.

All that meant I couldn't cover my own uncertain state by pricking his temper - it wouldn't be fair to him. Damn it.

I was too tired to be playing the kind of games that kept werewolves calm - and keep him from knowing just how scared I had been at the same time.

"I'm not hurt," I said. "Just tired. That fae could run."

He growled at the mention of his recent opponent, and it wasn't a human sound.

I swore, though I usually tried not to do that in front of Adam, as he had the sensibilities of a man raised in the nineteen fifties when nice women didn't swear. "I'm too tired for this. I'm going to shut up now."

He resumed combing my hair and I waited patiently until he was satisfied that he'd gotten all the glass out. He shut off the water and got out of the shower stall to grab a towel out of a cabinet beside the door. I looked at him then, while his head was turned away so there was no chance of catching his gaze. Though he'd taken his shirt off, he was dressed in a very wet pair of jeans and tennis shoes.

As soon as he shifted his weight to turn, I dropped my eyes. He came back to the shower stall and dried me with a fluffy, sweet-smelling towel. It had spent too much time with a dryer sheet, so it wasn't very absorbent, despite the thick nap. I bit my lip so I wouldn't tell him so.

This close to him, I could smell how near his temper was to the surface, so I kept my gaze on our feet and made myself stand submissively while he worked off his temper by taking care of me.

I can fake submissive with the best of them. It's a survival technique around werewolves.

He paused when he came to my belly. He let the towel drop away and dropped to one knee until his face was on level with my navel. He closed his brilliant eyes and pressed his forehead against the vulnerable softness under my rib cage.

The flesh of the belly is soft and sweet, unprotected. But my nose told me that he was definitely not thinking of food. For a breathless moment we both waited.

"Samuel told me about your tattoo," he said, his breath warm against my skin.

Hadn't he seen it before? Being very careful not to tease him meant that I kept my clothes on around him - so maybe not.

"It's a coyote paw print," I told him. "I had it done when I was in college."

He raised his face until he was looking up at me. "It looks like a wolf print to me."

"Is that what Samuel said?" I asked. I wasn't unaffected by the close contact - I couldn't help but let the fingers of one hand slide through his hair. "What did he say? That I'd marked myself his property?" Oh, he wouldn't lie, not to another werewolf; it doesn't work. But a hint here and there was just as effective.

Adam pressed his head against me until all I could see was the top of his head. His cheek and chin were prickly, which should have tickled or hurt, but that wasn't the sensation that I was feeling. His hands slid up my legs to my rump, where they tightened, pulling me harder against his face.

His lips were soft, but not as soft as his tongue.

This was about to go one step further than I was ready for - and for a long moment I considered it. I closed my eyes. Maybe if it had been someone other than Adam, I'd have let him. But one of the things that the Marrok had taught me is that with werewolves you are always dealing with two sets of instincts. The first belonged to the beast, but the second belonged to the man. Adam wasn't a modern man, content to hop from bed to bed. In his era you didn't have sex unless you were married or getting married and I knew that he believed that.