- "I'm proud I stood up to a lieutenant and forced him to listen."

He laughed at the adorable hint of smugness, tension snapping. "You also clawed him and he's keeping score." A nuzzling kiss that told him she was utterly unrepentant, even as her hands stroked over the already healing cuts. "But deep inside," she continued,

"the wolf already knew you're built to protect rather than hurt those like me.

The other...the intimate skin privileges...that's new, unexpected, and the vulnerability it asks for...it frightens my wolf until it forgets what we've already shared and retreats into the rules of the hierarchy."

Fingers on his nape, petting gently before worried eyes met his for another fleeting moment. "You won't give up, will you?"

"Hell, no. You're mine and I'm keeping you." Conscious all at once that she'd softened around him, and made no protest to the fact he had her pinned against the tree, his hips nestled intimately against her, he brushed his lips over hers. She opened on a sigh, her hands sliding to grip his shoulders.

Much as he wanted to use his own hands, he kept them on the tree trunk, and in spite of the fact she wore his mark on her throat, he didn't attempt to move his mouth down to that sensitive area. Not today, when he'd inadvertently frightened her wolf in his impatience.

Today, he'd just kiss her...and plan the next step in their dance of courtship.

COMING home after a midnight-to-six shift on the perimeter, Cooper crashed for a few hours. It felt as if the nightmare gripped him in its jaws the instant he closed his eyes and shook, until he woke screaming. Angry and frustrated, he punched the wall until his knuckles bled.

It took teeth-gritting control to shake off the dark effects, and he kept his distance from Grace, not wanting her to see the emotional damage with those too-perceptive eyes of hers.

Instead, he sent her miniature peanut-butter tarts to have with her lunch, got a note in return saying he would make her fat...as well as a pink cupcake decorated with their initials in a frosting heart. Laughing when he hadn't thought he'd smile today, he bit into the cupcake and sent back a note saying he liked something to hold on to in bed.

When he finally dared go to her that afternoon, her eyes danced at him and he had to steal a kiss, squeezing her hips the entire time. Her touch warmed the ice-cold places deep inside him that no amount of hot water could reach, her fingers soft against his cheek. "You didn't sleep well." She brushed at the smudges under his eyes, a frown marring her brow.

"Yeah, I'll sack out early tonight... unless you want to crawl into bed with me? Then I'm sure I could be motivated to stay awake."

The frown didn't disappear.

"You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Using sex to muddy up the waters." Cupping his face, she rose on tiptoe and kissed him until he was breathless. "Talk to me."

Declaration of Courtship Chapter 11

HE ALMOST BROKE, but he couldn't, wouldn't, taint her with his pain, didn't want her to feel caged by his need. "Why don't you talk to me? I hear you're going out with your engineering crew."

"Yes, a dinner to celebrate our early completion of the section 4B rehaul." She petted his shoulders in that affectionate way she had of touching him. "Want to come?"

Yes. "No, you have fun. Shamus and I are planning to go shoot some pool." He would not monitor her life just because it drove him insane to not be certain if she was safe. "I'll come by and say good night if we get in at a reasonable hour."

Dark eyes watched him. "I haven't forgotten."

He knew she hadn't. He also knew this was his cross to bear. "There's nothing to worry about."

The night was excruciating.

Returning from the bar, he and Shamus got stuck in a traffic jam caused by some kind of protest and didn't get back into the den till after eleven. Aware it was too late to wake Grace up, he nevertheless went past her quarters, hoping against hope to see light under the door. But she was asleep...or not in.

And there was no one he could ask to confirm without betraying too much, so instead he waited for dawn and turned up to take her out to breakfast.

Where he held her for so long, she knew something was very wrong. He dodged her questions again, though he knew it couldn't go on this way forever.

But today, he wanted only to bury himself in the wild joy of courting her.

Because she was the bright light in the dark - his wolf swaggered around the den, so delighted with the woman who was his own that he didn't care who razzed him about being smitten.

"Word is she's got you wrapped around her finger," his alpha said to him two days later, an amused look in eyes so pale, they were those of a husky given human form. "They're taking bets on what you'll do next to court her. I heard about the violinist."

"This pack has far too much time on its hands," Cooper muttered, but even sleep deprived as he was, he was in too good a mood to be mad. Because Grace was letting him chase her - and his wolf did love a challenge.

He grinned, thinking of the surprise he'd left her.

GRACE had to physically fight a hot red blush when she walked into her office to see the black box tied with a pink ribbon sitting on her desk. That wasn't what had heat blazing over her skin. It was the discreet symbol on the bottom left corner of the side facing the door - of a high-end lingerie shop.

Vivienne whistled from beside her.

"Oh, now the man is playing hardball." Grace had heard about the male wolves' exhibitionist tendencies during the mating dance, but Cooper knew very well she was shy about certain things.

"I'm going to kill him," she muttered, trying to avoid the chief's and Paul's eyes as they walked past her office for the third time, necks craning.

"Don't murder the man until you see what's inside."

"I am not opening this here."

"Come on, Grace."

Vivienne nudged the door shut in the men's faces.

"There, see? We're all private." Someone knocked.

When Vivienne scowled and opened the door a peek, Emma poked her head inside, the glossy dark of her bob swinging across her cheek. "I had time before a class, and I heard..." Her eyes lighting up when she saw the box, she came in, shut the door, then hit the lock for good measure. "God, he really did do it. Even my guy wasn't this shameless."

Grace's stomach did a little flip.

My guy. That sounded nice. She'd like to call Cooper her guy. After she killed him. "He could've had this delivered to my room."

"Please, Grace." Vivienne snorted.

"The lingerie might be for you, but the message is for everyone else. Hands off sexy Grace. She's all miiiiiiiiine. Grr and snarl and grr some more."

Grace glared at her as Emma dissolved into giggles...but when Vivienne started beating her chest, her teeth bared, it was all over. It was some minutes later that she wiped the tears from her eyes and, giving in to their wheedling, tugged on the ribbon.

"Breathe a word of what's inside and I'll make sure the lighting in your room gets stuck on bright noonday sun all week."

"Done."

Emma hesitated. "Can I tell Shamus? Please." She pressed her hands together. "It might, you know, give him ideas."

"Not a word."

"Okay, okay." Miming zipping her lips, the other woman said, "Open it before I explode."

They crowded around as she lifted the lid to reveal fine white tissue paper.

Nestled within was a garment that made all three of them exhale in sheer pleasure.

Rather than anything scandalous, Cooper had bought her a thigh-length nightgown in midnight blue, the straps ribbon-thin, the material cut so it would hug her body in all the right places, the fabric itself pure sin.

"Oh, this makes me want to purr." Emma rubbed the midnight blue between her fingertips. "I'm dragging Shamus to this store until he gets the hint." Vivienne sighed again. "The man gets serious brownie points for taste." Grace stroked her hand over the garment, in love. She'd never have bought it for herself, would've considered it too decadent, too expensive. "Maybe I won't kill him," she admitted in a dreamy voice, imagining Cooper's big, callused hands sliding the straps from her shoulders, his stubbled jaw rough against her skin, his lips possessive.

Vivienne nudged her shoulder, a knowing gleam in her eye. "Aren't you going to open the other packages?" She pointed inside the box.

"No." Cooper only had a limited store of good behavior, and she was dead certain he'd used it all up on the nightgown.

Her friends made disappointed sounds, begging pitifully, but Grace held firm, ushering them out the door, and locking it behind the two before returning to the box and surrendering to her own wild curiosity. She'd been right to worry.

"I would," she muttered to him later that night, as she straddled him in the backseat of the SUV he'd signed out of the garage, "have to be in a very, very, very good mood to put on that teddy. It might as well be made of tissue." Instead of impossibly delicate red lace that would cup her breasts and glide over her abdomen with no intention of hiding anything.

Cooper, sprawled half naked and magnificent against the seat, grinned. "I liked the hooks."

"That's because they're on the back." Making it clear it wasn't a garment a woman was meant to either put on or take off by herself. "And what do you call that last piece?"

"Panties." Knuckles running down the naked line of her breastbone to her abdomen, exposed due to the fact the sexy male beneath her had talked her into unbuttoning her shirt for him.

"Definitely panties."

Her thighs clenched. "What exactly is that teeny, tiny scrap of red meant to cover?"

"Hopefully not much." He tugged at the waistband of the floaty knee-length skirt she'd dressed in tonight in a conscious decision that made her feel naughty in the most adult way. "Tell me you're wearing them."