“That was nothing.” Flowing up into a kneeling position on the end of the bed, she tugged off his belt and threw it to the floor. “You’ll be whimpering by the time I’m through with you.”

“Yeah? We’ll see.” He stepped out of reach and unzipped his pants, turning to give her his back. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“I’m shy.”

Something hit him in the back, and he realized she’d thrown one of the small cushions piled up beside the pillows on the bed. “Demon.”

His wolf smiled at the way she said that—with open, sensual affection. Not saying anything in response, he pulled off his pants and threw them to the side.

Indigo sighed at the sheer gorgeous perfection of the man in front of her. “Come here so I can take merciless advantage of you.” His body was all smooth golden skin and toned muscle, his butt just made for her teeth.

When he turned, his fingers circling his erection, she felt her own body grow impossibly more ready for him. Looking into his eyes, she saw pure blue flame . . . and something else. A deep, inexorable possessiveness. Her wolf didn’t snarl, not this time. Because whatever the future held, she’d claimed him as hers, too. This was the trade-off, and if she was honest with herself, she didn’t mind belonging to someone who was happy to belong to her.

“On your back,” he said in a voice gone rough with desire.

She slid up the bed until she lay half braced on the pillows, her legs bent, her knees together. “I thought I was the one taking advantage.”

Releasing the rigid length of his erection, he got on the bed and put one hand on each of her knees. “Later.” Spreading her thighs with open sexual intent, he slid his hands down to the exquisitely sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

Her body arched up in shameless welcome.

Shifting closer, he thrust in. The blunt penetration was exactly what she craved. Moaning at the shock wave of pleasure, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pushed her fingers into his hair. When his gaze met hers, she saw eyes of wild copper looking back at her. Wolf. Tugging down his head, she nipped at his lower lip before sucking it into her mouth.

He growled against her, and then he began to move.

Hard and fast, until she had to brace her hands against the headboard to keep from being pounded right into the wood. But, oh, it felt gooood. Meeting him thrust for thrust, she felt one of his big hands close over her breast, squeezing and petting with a proprietariness she’d never allowed anyone else. And the kisses . . . he sucked and licked and nipped at her mouth, her neck, throughout, making her feel unbearably cherished even as he sexed her brains out.

CHAPTER 37

Afterward, she lay crushed under hard male muscle, almost certain her heart would regain a normal rhythm sometime in the next century. Curving one hand around the back of Drew’s neck as he lay slumped over her, his chest rising and falling in gasping breaths, she nuzzled at the side of his face. “I do believe I’ve just been royally tumbled.”

His lips curved against her. “Tumbled?”

“It seems like the right word. I feel like the country maid who got her skirts thrown up over her head.”

“Next time.”

Biting lightly at his ear, she rubbed the now bare heel of one foot over his buttocks, enjoying having him all to herself.

For a while, they just lay there, soaking in each other’s scents. When Drew did move, it was only so he could spoon her body with his. “Indy?”

Catching the oddly solemn note in his voice, she ran her hand over the arm she was using as a pillow. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry.” It was a stark statement. “I shouldn’t have done what I did in front of the others. I won’t do it again, no matter how hard I have to fight my wolf.”

She didn’t brush off the apology this time. Because it was important. Not simply what he’d said—but that he’d said it after she’d already come back to him. “You were right about something, too,” she said, opening herself up in a way she’d never done for any other man. “You might be younger, but you are very much a dominant male. I’m sorry if I made you feel—”

“Hush.” A kiss on her neck. “We’re good.”

God, he was so generous, he’d spoil her terribly if she let him. “No,” she said, “let me finish. This mule-headed woman might not say it again.”

A husky chuckle, but he didn’t interrupt her this time.

“In spite of what I told myself, I’ve been burying my head in the sand about you,” she said with brutal honesty, “because it was easier to deal with this thing between us if I stripped you down to just the younger, less dominant male.” So long as he was that, she could justify maintaining a subtle emotional distance under the masquerade of caution. “I won’t be doing that again. I’m going to learn to deal with you exactly as you are.” And that man, she thought, was more than a match for her wolf.

He ran a hand over her hip, the touch warm and affectionate. “You know this means I get a free pass on certain actions that are likely to drive you insane.” Light words, and yet there was a grain of truth in them.

Stroking his arm, able to feel the caress of the crisp hairs beneath her palm, she said, “No free pass. I’ll get mad. I might even yell.”

He hugged her closer to him. “That I can take. Hell, I like arguing with you.” A kiss on the curve of her shoulder. “But I won’t let you put up those walls of ice between us again, Indy. Fair warning.”

“What do you mean ‘let me’?” she asked in a tone that she knew was disgruntled. “You call bombarding me with roses, kisses, and adorable soft toys ‘letting me’? I’m not even going to mention my cell phone or the closet.”

A chuckle. “Yes—now imagine how much worse I can get.”

Unable to resist smiling, she shook her head. “You’ll probably come up against the ice walls again in the future,” she said, knowing herself. “But you have full permission to do your worst.”

His laughter was warm and open. “Snuggle closer to me.”

“I can’t get any closer.” But she pressed deeper into him, her wolf still sprawled out in abandon inside of her from their recent loving. Andrew Kincaid, she thought sleepily as Drew continued to run his hand over her hip, his breath steady against her hair, had some serious moves.

He also had an endless supply of energy.

She woke in darkness to his nibbling kiss along the line of her neck, his fingers playing between her thighs. Melting, she pulled his head down for a kiss. When he lifted up her leg and slid into her, it made her nerve endings sizzle with delight.

It was a lazy loving this time, Drew rocking her to a long, deep orgasm before coming in a pulse of heat inside her.

Andrew knew he had a smug arrogance to his step when he walked back into the den with Indigo by his side, but he couldn’t help it. He was so damn happy, the joy bubbled through his veins. Even when Indigo gave him a scowling look that said “behave,” all he wanted to do was grin and shout to the world that she was his.

And he was keeping her, mating dance or no mating dance.

“What’re you doing today, Lieutenant?” he asked after they’d gotten changed.

“I’m going to check up on Silvia.”

Andrew had looked in on the girl the previous day, happy to see that she was conscious and well on the road to recovery. “I’ll come with you. Lara’s certain now that she won’t have any long-term injuries.”

“Damn lucky, given the height she fell from.” Wrapping an arm around his waist, she said, “Did the cats’ little healers have anything to do with it?”

Andrew shook his head, curving his own arm around her shoulders. The “little healers” were two very gifted children—whose talents DarkRiver had only divulged to a tight group in SnowDancer because the kids often came to play with their friends in the den, and the wolves needed to know to keep them away from the infirmary. “Everyone’s in agreement that those two need their childhood,” he said. “I think the cats have decided to put them off-limits until they turn eighteen.”

“Good. Pups need to be pups.”

“And,” Andrew added, “might be, the kids can’t heal all physical injuries. Lara and the DarkRiver healer are starting to think their gift may be linked directly to traumatic brain injuries.”

“Makes sense,” Indigo murmured, “since the Psy are so cerebral.”

Andrew nodded in agreement as they neared the infirmary. “There goes Brace.” The boy was heading in the other direction.

“I hear he’s been skipping classes to go sit with Silvia.”

“Boy’s got it bad. Teachers are letting it slide for the moment since he’s normally such a good student.” Smiling at the way she walked close enough to him that their bodies occasionally brushed, much as courting wolves walked in the wild, he drew in the scent of her skin—which now carried his own so deep and true, there’d be no more talk of it fading.

Indigo shot him a warning glance when they headed out of the infirmary after visiting Silvia. “We’re doing the outside run with the novices today. Riaz is helping me.”

His wolf snarled, but Andrew wasn’t stupid. She was waiting to see what he’d do. Maybe it would’ve been better to pretend he didn’t still want Riaz’s blood, but he wasn’t about to lie to the woman he wanted by his side forever. Showing her his teeth, he said, “Then I’ll make sure I’m not in the vicinity.”

Indigo paused in the corridor. “You’re going to behave?”

“Maybe.” He let his wolf rise to the surface. “We both know who and what I am. Therefore, we both also know I don’t think too straight when another male is near the woman I consider mine. So I can’t promise you completely rational behavior, but since you let me tumble you so thoroughly, I will try.”