Branded by Fire

"They're ooo-kay." The last word was a moan as he hit a tight muscle. "I like your hands."



He didn't say anything. Couldn't. Touching her was scrambling his brain cells. And that would surprise almost everyone who knew him. Riley Kincaid didn't get scrambled. He was the one you could count on to be snapping out cool, collected orders while the world turned to custard. Right now, it could've been raining icicles and he wouldn't have cared . . . except to protect Mercy's body.



"The bears are fine," she said, her voice pure indolent cat. "I scented a couple dead, but no signs of sickness - might be there was a fight. What did you get?"



"Same." His voice sounded like sandpaper to him, but Mercy murmured in agreement and stayed quiescent under his hands.



This, he realized, was another kind of trust. Normally, she'd allow only a packmate to do this. Under his hands, her muscles grew loose, limber. Finishing with her shoulders, he slid down to work on her back. Despite the bruises that continued to anger the wolf, her skin felt soft as satin, warm and tempting. His fingers brushed the sides of her breasts as he did her sides.



"Hey, no copping a feel."



Leaning over, he nipped her ear. "Quiet."



He saw the edge of her smile. "Do the rest."



Her languid laziness was so feline he couldn't do anything else but stroke her. After he finished her back, he swept the heavy weight of her hair to cover her. Pretty, his wolf said as he ran the strands through his fingers.



Mercy didn't hurry him up, and he realized she liked having her hair played with. It was a surprising discovery, it was such a feminine thing. But it fit her. Releasing the strands after long, long minutes, he ran his fingers down to trace the delicate lines of the tattoo at the base of her spine. It was a fine blade anchoring and twined by beautiful curling lines.



Feminine and martial.



He liked it. Just as he liked the fact that she had another tattoo on her right arm - slashing lines that echoed the markings on her alpha's face. Loyal. This cat was loyal. And that both drew him and frustrated him. But he wouldn't think about that today.



These minutes, these hours, were for Riley and Mercy. Not a lieutenant and a sentinel. Here, they were two ordinary people who happened to set one another aflame . . . and, perhaps, touch each other far deeper than either of them was willing to admit.



Drifting lower, he ran his knuckles over her buttocks. No protest. So he kneaded her muscles with careful hands, learning her far slower than he had either of the other times they'd been together.



By the time he reached the tops of her thighs, the scent of her arousal had wrapped around him like a thousand soft whispers. But he didn't push. He was enjoying having her under his hands - Mercy rarely stopped being in motion. To have her like this was a rare treat, one to be savored.



The sole of her foot hit his back lightly as she bent it in a lazy movement. He squeezed her thigh. Instead of dropping the foot, she tapped him again. So he stroked his hands back over her body and off her shoulders, bracing them palms-down beside her head as he bent to nip at her ear again. Except this time, it was gentle, a question.



Reaching up to sweep her hair off her back, she bared the line of her neck. He was agonizingly hungry for her, but he didn't immediately move to take. The other two times, he'd been in a fury. Today, he wanted to savor, to taste her in slow sips and little bites. Another nip, the graze of his teeth along her jaw. She made a complaining noise that wasn't really a complaint. "Wolf."



He stroked his hand down her side, over the curve of her breast, her hip, then back up. "Cat."



She arched into the caress, but the move was languid, relaxed. "Pet me some more."



"You always this greedy in bed?" But he was doing what she wanted - petting a warm, compliant, and sexually aroused Mercy was no hardship. Hell, if he was honest, it was an erotic fantasy come to life.



"No." She was purring under his touch. "But I'm not promising anything."



"Of course not." He got off her and the rock.



"Hey!"



"The stone's hard." And there was no way he was chancing adding to her bruises. "Come down here and I'll pet you as much as you want."



"Bribery doesn't work." But she got up with a slow, graceful movement and flowed off the rock. It was the only word he could think of to describe it. She was pure liquid silk. And then she was in front of him, her arms around his neck, her body pressed to his.



As he leaned down to kiss her, he was hit by a fantasy of her hair sliding over his skin, wrapping around his cock. Groaning, he deepened the kiss, stroking his tongue against hers. Her hands tunneled into his hair and she made little noises in the back of her throat that let him know she liked what he was doing.



"I'm ready." It was a whisper against his mouth, her lips sliding along his jaw, soft and lusciously feminine.



"I'm not." Kissing his way down to her throat, he sucked. Just enough to leave a mark.



"I know what you're doing."



He smiled. And bit her. Her body jerked but she kept her claws sheathed. "Behave, Riley." A lazy warning.



"You, telling me to behave?" he asked, dipping his head to tug a nipple into his mouth.



Her hands clenched in his hair. "Mmm." That purr was vibrating against him, setting off a thousand small charges in his nervous system. His cock throbbed.



She began to slide one hand down his body. He caught it, brought it back up to his shoulders. Pulling his head up, she pointed to her lips. It wasn't a hard order to follow. And her kiss . . . oh, but her kiss. All heat and lush, seductive pleasure. It was a promise, that kiss, a promise of a slow ride to oblivion.



"So patient," she murmured against his mouth. "Will you be patient for me?"



He blinked. "Er . . ." And then told the blunt truth. "I'm not good at giving up control in bed."



A chuckle, a glimmer of amusement in those golden eyes. They'd turned leopard on him, he realized, but she was a leopard well pleased, willing to let him play. "Where are you good at giving up control?" A flick of her tongue over the pulse in his throat. "Obviously not in the forest. Hmm, how about on the kitchen table - "



As if he needed any more erotic images to torment him at night. "Mercy."



" - in the shower - "



Mercy's skin, all wet and slippery. Her body pinned to the wall by his. His hand clenched in her hair and he took her mouth with raw possession. When they parted, her lids were at half-mast, that teasing smile still curving her lips. "Definitely the shower, then."



Shuddering, he ran his hands over her back to squeeze her buttocks. "You trying to make me crazy?"



"Everyone needs a hobby."



His fingers touched her core. Hot. Slick. So ready. She moved against him, her words breathless when she said, "Now, Riley."



Since he was about to burst out of his skin from the molten buildup of pleasure, he took her down to the grass without argument. Except this time, he made sure he was on the bottom. She braced herself over him, all red hair and sexy, sexy mouth. That mouth curved again as he closed his hands over her hips. "I need a Stetson."



He waited.



"So I can ride you like a cowgirl."



The visual almost made him come. "I'll buy you one for Christmas." He didn't know where he found the willpower to say that, because she'd raised herself up on her knees and was brushing the damp heat of her core over and across him. "Mercy." He pulled her down to sheathe him. She could've resisted. She didn't.



Instead, she moved above him in a sinuous curve of fire and gold, her beauty bathed in sunshine. The fire fractured minutes later. And Riley's wolf could do nothing but watch her as pleasure gripped him tight, then broke him wide open.



Chapter 26



In an ordinary - if coolly upmarket - section of the city, not far from the Palace of Fine Arts, a brown-eyed, brown-haired man walked into a corner store and paid the extravagant markup on a number of cleaning supplies. "Emergency," he told the old lady who whispered to him that he could get a better deal at the supermarket a few blocks away. "New apartment has slime mold." He made a face. "My girlfriend's threatening to go back to her parents if I don't clean it up right now."



The old lady smiled and patted his arm, wishing him the best of luck with his girl. He grinned and tipped his baseball cap at her. There was nothing at all remarkable about him. The corner store manager forgot him as soon as he walked out, and had he, for some reason, needed to check the security footage, he'd have found that the stranger had somehow managed to either have his back to the cameras or his head bent, shadowed by the bill of his cap.



The same scene, or a variation of it, was repeated throughout the city. The customers all bought different things. Innocuous things. So long as you didn't put them together.



Chapter 27



Mercy nuzzled her face into Riley's neck and breathed deep. He smelled of earth and forest, heat and man. Beneath her, his body was warm, muscled, the silky-rough hair on his chest teasing the sensitive skin of her breasts.



He lay there and let her kiss his neck, the line of his shoulder, the dip below his throat, his hand lying loosely on her lower back. She wasn't fooled. It was a possessive touch. But she figured she'd let him get away with it this once - he'd earned it. And he'd earned more than a little petting.



When she raised her head and nipped at his jaw, he lifted his lashes a fraction, but didn't say anything, his hand stroking over her bottom.



"So," she said with a slow smile.



He raised an eyebrow, his gaze now holding a distinctly wary look.



"How do I compare with wolf females?"



"You're hoping I'll tie my tongue into knots trying to answer that, aren't you?"



"Damn." She propped her chin on folded hands. "Busted."



He pinched her butt.



"Hey!"



"You deserved that."



Maybe she did. But - "You didn't answer my question."

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