Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(53)
Author: Patricia Briggs

I could feel the anger vibrate through him. Werewolves, in their wolf form, are not always angry – just as a grizzly bear is not always angry: it only seems like it. If what Honey had told me was correct, Adam’s temper was even more uncertain than usual. The fight wouldn’t have helped it.

All that meant I couldn’t cover my own uncertain state by pricking his temper – it wouldn’t be fair to him. Damn it.

I was too tired to be playing the kind of games that kept werewolves calm – and keep him from knowing just how scared I had been at the same time.

"I’m not hurt," I said. "Just tired. That fae could run."

He growled at the mention of his recent opponent, and it wasn’t a human sound.

I swore, though I usually tried not to do that in front of Adam, as he had the sensibilities of a man raised in the nineteen fifties when nice women didn’t swear. "I’m too tired for this. I’m going to shut up now."

He resumed combing my hair and I waited patiently until he was satisfied that he’d gotten all the glass out. He shut off the water and got out of the shower stall to grab a towel out of a cabinet beside the door. I looked at him then, while his head was turned away so there was no chance of catching his gaze. Though he’d taken his shirt off, he was dressed in a very wet pair of jeans and tennis shoes.

As soon as he shifted his weight to turn, I dropped my eyes. He came back to the shower stall and dried me with a fluffy, sweet-smelling towel. It had spent too much time with a dryer sheet, so it wasn’t very absorbent, despite the thick nap. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t tell him so.

This close to him, I could smell how near his temper was to the surface, so I kept my gaze on our feet and made myself stand submissively while he worked off his temper by taking care of me.

I can fake submissive with the best of them. It’s a survival technique around werewolves.

He paused when he came to my belly. He let the towel drop away and dropped to one knee until his face was on level with my navel. He closed his brilliant eyes and pressed his forehead against the vulnerable softness under my rib cage.

The flesh of the belly is soft and sweet, unprotected. But my nose told me that he was definitely not thinking of food. For a breathless moment we both waited.

"Samuel told me about your tattoo," he said, his breath warm against my skin.

Hadn’t he seen it before? Being very careful not to tease him meant that I kept my clothes on around him – so maybe not.

"It’s a coyote paw print," I told him. "I had it done when I was in college."

He raised his face until he was looking up at me. "It looks like a wolf print to me."

"Is that what Samuel said?" I asked. I wasn’t unaffected by the close contact – I couldn’t help but let the fingers of one hand slide through his hair. "What did he say? That I’d marked myself his property?" Oh, he wouldn’t lie, not to another werewolf; it doesn’t work. But a hint here and there was just as effective.

Adam pressed his head against me until all I could see was the top of his head. His cheek and chin were prickly, which should have tickled or hurt, but that wasn’t the sensation that I was feeling. His hands slid up my legs to my rump, where they tightened, pulling me harder against his face.

His lips were soft, but not as soft as his tongue.

This was about to go one step further than I was ready for – and for a long moment I considered it. I closed my eyes. Maybe if it had been someone other than Adam, I’d have let him. But one of the things that the Marrok had taught me is that with werewolves you are always dealing with two sets of instincts. The first belonged to the beast, but the second belonged to the man. Adam wasn’t a modern man, content to hop from bed to bed. In his era you didn’t have sex unless you were married or getting married and I knew that he believed that.

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."