Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(66)

Having been the result of a casual night of sex and grown up belonging to no one - I believed that, too. Oh, I'd fooled around a bit, but I didn't much anymore.

Would it be so bad to be Adam's mate? All that I had to do to let this relationship go one step more was nothing.

"My college roommate had grown up helping her parents run their tattoo shop and she put herself through college by doing tattoos. I tutored her in a few subjects and she offered to give me the tattoo in return," I told him, trying to distract one of us.

"Still scared of me?" he asked.

I didn't know how to answer him because that wasn't it, really. I was scared of the person I became around him.

He sighed and leaned back until none of his skin touched mine before coming back to his feet. He tossed the damp towel on the floor and stepped back out of the stall.

I started to get out, too.

"Stay there."

He grabbed another towel and wrapped me in it. Then he picked me up and set me on the counter between the sinks.

"I'm going to change out of this wet stuff and find something for your feet. There's glass scattered all over downstairs and everywhere you walked. You stay on this counter until I get back."

He didn't wait for my agreement, which was probably for the best as I would have choked on it. That last sentence would have made me bristle even if his tone of voice hadn't been military-sharp. Why was it that I was always trying to handle the werewolves instead of the other way around?

Maybe because Adam's other form had big claws and great big teeth.

I could reach Jesse's clothes without leaving the counter and so I ditched the towel and scrambled into the sweatpants and then the T-shirt. My T-shirts were the old-fashioned thick cotton kind, but Jesse wore fashionably thin ones that clung to every curve. Since my skin was still damp and the shirt was tight, I looked like a refugee from a wet T-shirt contest.

I snagged the towel and used it to cover my assets just as Adam strode back in. He was wearing clean, dry jeans and a different pair of tennis shoes. He hadn't bothered putting on a shirt: after two changes in under an hour, his skin must feel raw, like a bad sunburn. The shower wouldn't have helped that.

I focused on his feet and clutched the towel a little closer to my chest.

To my surprise, he took a good look at me and laughed abruptly. "You look so meek. I don't think I've ever seen you meek before."

"Looks are deceiving," I said. "What I am is exhausted, scared, and stupid. I'm sorry I brought it here and endangered Jesse."

I watched his shoes as they approached the counter. He leaned close, enveloping me in his power and in his scent. His face rubbed against my hair, and the faint trace of stubble caught on the wet strands.

"You have a few cuts on your scalp," he said.

"I'm sorry I brought him here," I told Adam again. "I thought I could lose him in the chase, but he was too fast. He has another form, some kind of horse, I think, though I was too busy running to look."

His head stilled and he took a deep breath, assessing my mood.

"Exhausted, scared, and stupid, you said." He paused as if he were evaluating what I'd said. "Exhausted, yes." If he could smell exhaustion, his nose was a lot better than mine, which I didn't believe. "And I can catch a faint trace of fear, though the shower took care of most of that. But stupid I don't believe. What else could you have done but bring it here where we could handle it?"

"I could have led it somewhere else."

He tipped my chin back and forced me to look into his bright gold eyes. "You'd have died."

His voice was soft, but the wolf's eyes were hot with the fire of battle.

"Jesse could have died...you almost did." For a moment I felt the gut-wrenching twist of seeing him disappear under the water.

He let me hide my face against his shoulder so he couldn't read my expression - but I felt the power that had been buzzing against my skin drop a notch. My reaction to his near-drowning pleased him.

"Shh," he said and one of his big, calloused hands slid under my hair and around the back of my neck to hold me against him. "I coughed up a gallon or two of river and am as good as new. Much better than I'd have been if you'd gotten yourself killed because you didn't trust me to take care of one lone fae."

Leaving my head tucked against him was as dangerous as anything I'd done tonight, and I knew it. I just couldn't seem to care. He smelled so good and his skin was so warm.

"All right," he said at last. "Let me take a look at your feet."

He did more than that. He washed them in hot water in the sink and scrubbed them with a brush he pulled out of a drawer that would have been uncomfortable even if my feet hadn't been all cut up.

To my yips, he purred a little, but it didn't slow down his scrub brush. Nor did I have a chance of pulling a foot out of his hand because he kept a firm grip on my ankle as he worked. He doused my feet in hydrogen peroxide and then dried them off with a dark towel.

"You're going to end up with bleached spots on the towel," I told him, pulling my feet away.

"Shut up, Mercy," he said, catching an ankle and dragging me over until he could hold the foot with one hand and use the towel to wipe my foot off with the other.

"Dad?" Jesse peered carefully around the door. When she got a good look at us, she trotted through the door and held out a cordless phone. "You have a phone call from Uncle Mike."