"how remiss of me." her smile was full of pure sensual temptation as she reached down and pulled the t-shirt he'd given her-the t-shirt that had covered her in his scent-off over the top of her head.

his mouth dried up, his brain cells scrambled like so much spaghetti.

dear god but she was stunning, her breasts lush against the toned and sleekly muscular build of a woman who was a snowdancer lieutenant. her skin was lightly tanned, her nipples darker, the plane of her abdomen having the slightest curve that he had every intention of laving with his tongue before moving lower to nuzzle those dark curls that hid the moist, earthy scent of her desire. he'd part her delicate folds and stroke and lick and pet until she screamed his name.

as he watched, entranced, she shifted back to her position between his knees and began to tug at the tab of his zipper. he sucked in a breath, sucked in his abdomen, and hoped he wouldn't fucking embarrass himself. lights flashed behind his closed eyelids as his erection sprang mercifully free, and he felt more than heard indigo urge him to lift up his body so she could tug off his jeans.

opening his eyes, he obeyed, and the jeans went flying somewhere to the side. indigo put her hands on his thighs, her gaze on his erection. "i want to . . ." she began, but he reached down and pulled her up.

the damp heat of her stroked over his abdomen and he had to grit his teeth to keep from blowing like the fourth of july. "i get to taste you first." he squeezed her hips. "then i get to do it again."

she was straddling him, her knees on either side of his chest. when he urged her higher, her eyes went huge. "like this?"

a chuckle broke its way through the sensual haze. "don't tell me i've shocked the unshockable lieutenant."

"i should've expected you'd know all sorts of debauched things." but she obeyed him and shifted up . . . until all he had to do was hold her in place with his grip on her thighs, draw in the dark heat of her passion, and lap at what he'd been aching to taste.

indigo's spine arched at the first touch, and she realized the damn wolf had her in a steely grip, would not allow her to wriggle away. the pleasure was excruciating. her claws sliced out of her skin. she fought to pull them back in, failed.

"no more." she'd been hungry too long, and it only took a few wicked caresses to have her body riding a near-painful edge. "drew."

he let her escape with one final lick. his eyes were pure wolf. "next time," he said in a voice gone husky and deep and in no way human, "you're going to lie still until i've finished tasting you."

a growl rumbled in the back of her throat. "am i?"

"fair's fair."

her wolf didn't understand his logic, its mind too torn with the hunger for the most intimate, most luscious, of skin privileges. "what?" sliding down his body, she brushed herself against the velvet steel of his arousal.

drew's abdomen was taut as rock under her palms, his cock even more rigid. "because," he said in that gravelly, inhuman voice, "i'll lie here and let you do whatever you want, too."

her wolf froze, looked at him, licked its lips. big and gorgeous and dangerously aroused, he made her want to . . . the words wouldn't come, her body too hot, too needy. ending the teasing play of her body against his, she said, "now."

his hands tightened on her hips, and then he was flipping her so she lay beneath him, her legs spread wide to accommodate his bigger, heavier body. his skin shimmered with perspiration, and the tension in his muscles had turned them to steel. but though he nudged at her with the blunt head of his erection, the shaft pushing eagerly at the entrance to her body, he stopped long enough to give her a wet, openmouthed kiss that was all licks and little bites, tender and affectionate and sexy all at once.

and then, as her body arched up, he thrust into her in a single hard push.

her scream fell into his mouth, her fingers clenching on his biceps.

neither of them moved for the next few seconds. she could feel his heart pounding beneath her palms, and it echoed the frantic pace of her own. realizing her claws were out just a tiny bit, just enough to blood him in the throes of passion, she went to pull them back.

he bit her lower jaw. "i like it."

taking him at his word, she scratched lightly at him as she tried to get used to the feel of him inside her. hard and thick and deliciously long, he stretched her to the limit, but they fit. oh, they fit very, very nicely. "guess," she managed to gasp out after several seconds, "the rumors weren't exaggerations."

he didn't answer, his entire body trembling with the effort it was obviously taking for him not to pound her into the earth.

"drew," she whispered, nipping at his ear, "i'm not fragile."

wolf-copper eyes met hers, nothing of humanity in them. "no, you're mine." gripping her hip with one hand, he braced himself over her with the other, and then he rode her.

there was, indigo thought as her senses exploded, no other word for it. it wasn't any kind of sophisticated mating-it was raw and hard and primal, the power of drew's thrusts sending shock waves through her entire body. she'd have been shoved off the sleeping bags more than once if his grip hadn't pinned her to the earth, if she hadn't locked her legs around him and given in to the heat and strength and driving sexual hunger of him. she'd never had a lover as abandoned in her life, and she loved it. adored it.

adored him.

clawing at his back, she lifted her hips to meet his strokes, but his rhythm was too fast, too aggressive, and her body was already tightening into an explosive bow. it didn't matter-it was impossible to halt the movements of her hips now, her flesh claiming and releasing his in an abandoned sexual rhythm that drove him impossibly deeper. somewhere in between, she realized the fingers of his free hand were locked with hers as it lay palm up beside her head.

the tension built inside her. tighter. hotter. agonizing. "drew!" it was a scream as the pressure reached boiling point and exploded.

her last thought was that drew, too, had finally let go.

she roused some time later to find that he'd flipped them again, so that she lay sprawled on his chest. her right hand remained entangled with his, while her left hand was curved around the back of his neck. she'd hooked one leg over his hip; the other lay stretched over one muscular male leg, the hairs on his skin deliciously abrasive against her sensitized flesh.

his own hand stroked up and down her back, a little rough, all perfect. "wake up, indy."

"mmm." shifting a fraction, she felt his renewed erection against the skin of her inner thigh. "even changelings can't recover that fast." her heart was still pumping from the ecstasy of the first ride. she was fairly sure the stars dancing in her vision had nothing to do with the ones in the sky.

he turned her onto her back, one of his arms cushioning her head. "see," he said, "this is what you get for choosing a younger lover." that cocky, teasing light was back in his eyes.

she hadn't realized how much she'd missed it, missed him.

swinging her leg back over his hip, she pulled him down until he was braced on his elbows above her. "is this where i have to lie still?"

"yes." he pushed up her other leg so it was bent at the knee . . . and slid into her in a blunt thrust.

her spine arched off the sleeping bag. "drew!"

freezing, he brushed her hair off her face. "you weren't ready?"

she heard the naked concern, saw the wolf flicker in his eyes. stroking her arms around his chest, she nipped at his jaw. "oh, i was ready-but a little warning might be nice."

a slow smile spread across his face, the wolf continuing to glow in his eyes, but amused now in the most sensual of ways. "no, i don't think so." taking her mouth before she could snap at him for that adorably arrogant statement, he began to move in her.

she'd enjoyed the hell out of their first ride, expected hard, rough strokes again; he was a young (younger!) male and finesse wasn't exactly a strong point at that age. except this was drew-unpredictable, wild drew. his strokes were long and slow and deep this time, and her claws were digging into his shoulders by the fourth, her body undulating beneath his.

he closed his teeth over her lower lip in playful reprimand. "you're not lying still." one hand cupped her breast, fingers tugging at the taut peak of her nipple.

inhaling a gasping breath, she opened her eyes to fire a retort . . . and saw the wolf looking down at her. "hello," she whispered.

his answer was to kiss her, his tongue pushing inside her mouth in audacious demand, his body strong and beautiful above her as he drove her stroke by slow stroke to another shimmering peak. this time, she held him as he shattered, his body going taut above her.

when he collapsed on top of her, she nuzzled him close, one leg wrapped around him, the other raised at the knee by his side. it felt sinfully luxurious to lie here so very, very sated with a man who made her body sing . . . and who apparently, she thought, licking her tongue over a few of the claw marks on his shoulders, had no trouble with the fact that she got more than a little wild during sex.

to be honest-her grin was wide and bright-it would be pretty much impossible to be too wild with a lover as unrestrained and as enthusiastic as drew. rubbing her cheek against the side of his head, she ran her fingers through his hair, massaging his nape.

stirring a little, he relaxed even more heavily on top of her.

and with that much muscle, he was heavy. but she wasn't made of glass-and there was something to be said for being covered by the hot blanket of a sated male wolf. smile curving her mouth, she tugged the top of the sleeping bag over him so he wouldn't freeze, and then she continued to pet him, this wolf who'd made every one of her preconceptions come crashing down around her ankles.

now . . . now they'd see what the future held.