Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(29)
Author: Patricia Briggs

I took Jesse by the hand. "We’ll use Adam’s bathroom…" I couldn’t actually remember if he had a bathroom, but I couldn’t imagine that this house didn’t have a master bedroom suite, and besides, he’d come out of it with a washcloth. "Since Adam has chosen to remodel this one." Sure my tone was a little snide – but if he was irritated with me, he wasn’t going to be thinking about finding Jesse’s assailants.

Jesse followed me through the crowded hallway and into Adam’s bedroom. There was an open door on the far side that could only be a bathroom. I tugged her into it and shut the door.

Then I whispered, very, very quietly, "You need to shower and get rid of their scent before your father thinks of it – if he already hasn’t."

Her eyes widened. "Clothes?" she mouthed.

"Everything," I said.

She gave her tennis shoes a rueful glance, but turned on the shower and stepped into the big stall, shoes, clothes, and all.

"I’ll go get clean clothes," I told her.

Adam met me at the hall doorway. He jerked his chin toward the bathroom, where anyone could clearly hear that someone was showering. "Scent," he said.

"Her clothes were very dirty," I told him a little smugly. "Even her shoes."

"Sh – " He bit it off before he could complete the word. Adam was a little older than he looked. He’d been raised in the fifties, when a man didn’t swear in front of women. "Shoot," he said, the word obviously not giving him the satisfaction to be gotten out of cruder terms.

"Cheeses crusty, got all musty, got damp on the stone of a peach," I agreed. He looked blank, so I repeated it with proper emphasis. "ChEEZ-zes crusty. Got Al-musty. Got DAMp on the StoneofapeaCH. My foster father used to say those around me all the time. He was an old-fashioned sort of wolf, too. He especially liked the Stoneofapeach. ‘Stoneofapeach, Mercedes. You don’t have the sense God gave little apples. "

Adam closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the door frame.

"Gonna be expensive if you break another wall," I offered helpfully.

He opened his eyes and looked at me.

I threw up my hands. "Fine. You want to support the Carpenters’ Union, that’s your business. Now move, I told Jesse I’d be back with clothes."

He stepped back with exaggerated courtesy. But when I walked past him, he swatted my rump. Hard enough to sting.

"You need to be more careful," he growled. "Keep interfering in my business and you might get hurt."

I said sweetly as I continued to Jesse’s room, "The last man who swatted me like that is rotting in his grave."

"I have no doubt of it." His voice was more satisfied than contrite.

I turned to face him, yellow eyes and all.

"I’m thinking of picking up a parts car for the Syncro. I have plenty of room in the field."

Someone listening in might have thought my last comment was off topic, but Adam knew better. I’d been punishing him with my Rabbit parts car for several years. Clearly visible from his bedroom window, it now sat on three tires and had various pieces missing. The graffiti was Jesse’s suggestion.

If Adam hadn’t been as uptight, it wouldn’t have worked – but he was one of those "everything in its place and a place for everything" kind of people. It bothered him – a lot.

Adam grinned briefly in appreciation, then his face sobered. "Tell me you, at least, had the brains to catch their scent."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that? Then instead of harassing Jesse, you’d be tormenting me."

One of them had been a stranger to me, but the other…there was something about his scent that was ringing a bell, but I’d wait until I was out of here before I tried to work it out.

He gave a bark of fierce laughter.

"Liar," he said.

He took two quick steps forward, wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, and held me for his kiss. I hadn’t expected it – not while he was still so close to changing. I’m sure that’s why I didn’t pull out of his hold.

The first touch of his lips was soft, tentative, asking where his hands had demanded. The man was diabolical. I could have resisted force, but the question of his kiss was an entirely different matter.

I leaned into him because he asked with the light touch and the gentle withdrawal of his lips that begged me to follow where he led. The heat of his body, welcome in the overcooled house, rewarded me as I leaned closer to him, as did the hard planes of his body, so I was drawn to press even tighter against him.

He danced like that, too. Leading instead of pulling. It had to have been deliberate, something he worked at, because he was as dominant as they came – Alphas are. But Adam was more than just dominant: he was smart, too. And he didn’t play fair.

Which is how he ended up against the wall with me plastered all over him when someone…Darryl, quietly cleared his throat.

I jerked free and hopped back to the middle of the hallway. "I’ll just get Jesse’s clothes now," I told the carpet on the floor and then took my red face into Jesse’s room and shut the door. I didn’t mind getting caught kissing, but that had been a lot more carnal than a kiss.

Sometimes good hearing isn’t a blessing.

"Sorry," Darryl said, though his voice carried more amusement than apology.

"I bet," growled Adam. "Damn it. This has got to stop."

Darryl gave a full-throated laugh that lasted quite a while. I’d never heard him laugh like that. Darryl was pretty uptight usually.

"Sorry," he said again, sounding more apologetic this time. "Looked to me like you’d rather it not stop."

"Yeah." Adam sounded suddenly tired. "I should have gone after her a long time ago. But after Christy got through with me, I wasn’t sure I wanted another woman ever. And Mercy is more gun-shy than I ever was." Christy was his ex-wife.

"Then Samuel came to compete for the prize," Darryl said.

"I am not a prize," I muttered.

I knew they both heard me, but all he said was, "Samuel has always been the competition. I prefer him here, so at least I’m competing with a flesh-and-blood man, and not a memory."

"If you’re going to talk about me behind my back," I told Adam, "at least do it where I can’t hear you."

They must have followed my request because I didn’t hear any more of their conversation. The shower was still going, so I sat down in the middle of Jesse’s room – pulled a bottle of nail polish out from under one hip – and then took the opportunity to pull myself together. Adam was right; this had gone on too long.

Samuel had been behaving himself like an angel, for the most part – and Adam had been likewise. But it seemed to me that Adam had been more restless than usual and his temper more uncertain.