Wild Invitation by Nalini Singh

www.nalinisingh.com

In Beat of Temptation, innocent Tamsyn has always had a place in her heart for Nathan, a blooded DarkRiver sentinel. But is she ready for the fierce demands of the mating bond?

In Stroke of Enticement, a wary young teacher, skeptical about love, arouses the man—and the animal—in an aggressive leopard changeling who must prove his affections are true.

NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED

 



In Declaration of Courtship, Grace, a shy submissive wolf, finds herself pursued by the last man she ever would have imagined: a SnowDancer lieutenant said to be “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

In Texture of Intimacy, SnowDancer healer Lara discovers the searing joys—and unexpected challenges—of being mated to quiet, powerful Walker, a man used to keeping his silence.

Declaration of Courtship

Chapter 1
Cooper had been good.
Very good.
More good than he’d ever before been in his life.
He’d stayed away from his sexy new systems-maintenance engineer for over six months. Six months. It might as well have been a decade, as far as he was concerned. A dominant predatory changeling male did not do patient when he decided on a woman, but circumstances had forced patience on him, and it was a patience that had worn his wolf’s temper to a feral edge.
With her curvy body and that soft ebony hair he wanted to fist in his hands while he used his mouth, his teeth, to mark her creamy skin, she spoke to his every male instinct. The wolf who was his other half was in full agreement. Both sides of him wanted to claim her until no one had any doubts that she belonged to him.
He’d gritted his teeth and fought the primal urge, however, aware that as the lieutenant in charge of the satellite SnowDancer den located on the northern edge of the San Gabriel Mountains, Grace was under his protection. His status wouldn’t have put the brakes on his pursuit had she been even a moderately strong dominant, but Grace was one of the most submissive wolves in SnowDancer. Cooper knew damn well submissives didn’t automatically obey dominants, but the impulse was a visceral one.
Added to that, Grace had been deeply vulnerable immediately after shifting into a new den. Cooper had known he couldn’t go after her until she’d formed new friendships, created a support system that would give her the strength to reject him if his courtship was unwelcome.
His claws pricked the insides of his skin at the thought, but man and wolf both knew that if she said no, he had to back off. At once. Because where a dominant female might run to incite a man to chase her in a challenge that came from the wild heart of her wolf, if a submissive ran and it wasn’t open play, she was trying to escape.
Don’t run from me, sweetheart, he thought as he took the final steps to her. I only bite a little.
Not quite true, but he was planning to be on his best behavior until she trusted him enough to handle the aggressive sensuality that was an integral aspect of his nature. “Grace.”
Grace felt her heart kick against her ribs at the sound of that deep masculine voice as darkly delicious as it was dangerous to her senses.
Get a grip, Grace. You’re being ridiculous.
It was the same thing she’d been telling herself over and over since her first day in the San Gabriel den, when Cooper had welcomed her to the region. Big and deadly and gorgeous as he was, it wasn’t hard to see why he’d knocked the breath out of her at first sight. The man was a living, breathing aphrodisiac. If they’d been alone, she wasn’t sure she’d have survived that meeting without doing something very stupid.
Like attempting to claim skin privileges from a male she was certain no one dared touch without his explicit permission.
Yet even in her stunned state, she’d known the attraction to be a wild impossibility. While dominants mated or bonded with submissives often enough that it wasn’t considered unusual, the dominance gap between her and Cooper was too wide. They were literally at opposite ends of the hierarchy—her wolf knew Cooper could chew her up and spit her out without noticing.
And still, every time he came near her, her entire body went taut with expectation.
“Hi,” she said, without looking up from her kneeling position in a corner, beside a heating conduit that needed a minor refit.
Akin to the den in the San Rafael Mountains where she’d spent her teenage years, and on a smaller scale than the central den in the Sierra Nevada mountains, this den had literally been carved into and below a mountain, then reinforced with stone walls. The tunnels were wide and spacious, the rooms generous, but underneath the raw natural beauty of the stone pierced with threads of glittering mineral lay a highly complex technological heartbeat, one that Grace helped maintain.
“Has there been a malfunction in one of the critical systems?” she asked, guessing that was why Cooper had taken the time to personally track her down. With both the chief and deputy chief of her department away at different tech conferences, Grace was currently the one in charge. “I can look at it straight away—this isn’t urgent.”
“No, everything’s fine.” He crouched down beside her, immediately taking up all available air in the vicinity.
Concentrate on the job, she ordered herself, attempting to focus on the digital wrench she was using to remove a fried tube . . . but her entire body was attuned to his every breath, her muscles strung tight.
“How’s it going in this section?” he asked, his voice pitched at a level she recognized as “careful.”
She fought the suicidal urge to throw a tool at his head. Her place in the hierarchy didn’t determine her entire personality. As with every other dominance level, submissives could be shy or exuberant, cheerful or moody, sensual or reserved. Grace might be quiet and a little shy in comparison to the majority of her packmates, but she could handle loud voices just fine—growing up with two older adoptive siblings, dominants who’d inherited a hair-trigger temper from their father, she’d heard more than her share.
“We’re about halfway through the overhaul,” she said, wishing he’d forget her place in the hierarchy and see her simply as a woman . . . a woman he wanted.
If he did, what would you do?
Probably run very fast in the other direction.
She twisted the wrench a fraction too hard and almost broke the tube. “Damn.” Cheeks burning, she flexed her fingers, took a deep breath, and completed the extraction with care, hotly conscious of Cooper’s watchful gaze. “There. We can recycle the components.”
“Removed without a scratch. Impressive.” He picked up the burned out tube. “Did you get the new shipment you wanted?”
She tore her eyes away from his hands, face heating even further at the raw images that had formed unbidden in her mind—of those big hands on her body, on her breasts, his skin exquisitely rough against her own. Never had she responded to a man in such a way, and that it was a man whose mere presence made her wolf acutely uncomfortable? Surely, fate was having a good laugh at Grace’s expense.
“Yes,” she managed to say in response to his question, “I did. They were high quality, as promised.” Hearing a gentle click as he returned the tube to the floor, she put down the wrench and went to pick up a—
“Grace.” Fingers curling around her wrist.
Her pulse spiked as she stared at that strong, dark-skinned hand so warm and gentle, the calluses on his palm a sensual abrasion. She couldn’t speak, the rush of noise inside her head too loud, drowning out all else.
“Grace.” Softer this time. Coaxing. “Look at me.”
Swallowing, she chanced a peek, her wolf at rigid attention. If he’d commanded, she would’ve obeyed at once, her nature such that defiance of an order from a lieutenant stressed her on a primal level. The fact that she was changeling rather than a wild wolf meant she had the capacity for such defiance, but it would require bone-deep disagreement on her part, enough for the human side of her nature to override the powerful instincts of her wolf.
But Cooper hadn’t commanded. He’d requested . . . in a way that made everything female in Grace come to trembling attention. Now, her eyes met the intense near-black of his and skated away.
When he did nothing but wait with a patience she’d never expected from him, she lifted her lashes again, her gaze locking with his.
It sent a thrill through her wolf. To hold the gaze of a lieutenant was a bold move for any wolf, but for a submissive, it went far beyond that. In any other circumstance, it could’ve been dangerous—just as she had her instincts, dominants had theirs. If one interpreted the eye contact as a challenge, it could end badly. The fact that in the majority of cases where such a thing had happened, both parties had been in wolf form, did nothing to negate the danger of triggering an inadvertent violent response.
Because a submissive would never come out the winner.
Cooper’s thumb brushed over the skittering pulse in her wrist. “There you are.” The low murmur touched her in a caress so intimate, it felt as if she was bare to the skin, exposed and vulnerable.
Inhaling a jerky breath, she broke the shocking eye contact, tugged gently at her wrist. When Cooper’s fingers tightened for an instant, her heart stuttered. He released her before the next beat. Not certain of anything, she fell back on what she knew, picking up another one of her tools to do . . . something. Except her thoughts were jumbled, a burn of lingering heat around her wrist.
She began working on a random non-essential section of the duct, where she could easily fix any errors later.
Beside her, Cooper shifted a fraction, the single inch he closed between them enough to have her wolf quivering and alert, anticipation, desire, and a good dose of panic all mixed in.
“You don’t ever have to fear anything from me, Grace.” It was a rough murmur, a verbal pet of her senses. “If you want me to stop anytime, anywhere, the only word you ever need to use is ‘No.’ Okay?”
She jerked her head up and down, her throat as dry as the shimmering sands of the Mojave.
“But,” he continued, “I don’t intend to go away until you tell me to do so. I’m planning to court you.”
The tool fell from her nerveless fingers to clatter to the floor. Reaching over, Cooper picked it up, put it back into her toolbox. “I’ll leave you to your work . . . but Grace? I’ll be seeing you again soon.” With that promise, he rose and was gone, his powerful body moving with a wild strength kept in fierce check as he strode down the relatively narrow access corridor and out into the den proper.
Heart crashing against her ribs hard enough to hurt, her breath jagged in her throat, Grace collapsed against the smooth stone of the wall. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” Her chest rose and fell in a harsh, uneven rhythm as she attempted to take in air, clear her head.
The effort failed.
Reaching blindly for her water bottle, she swallowed.
The cool liquid wet her throat but did nothing to calm the fever in her blood.
“I’m planning to court you.”
Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought Cooper would speak those words to her. The furthest she’d dared had been improbable erotic fantasies that left her sweat-soaked and aching for completion, fantasies in which they lay skin to skin, her lips on his throat, his hands gripping her hips as he pinned her under him in readiness for his possession. In real life, she’d almost certainly panic if she was ever in that position, her wolf seizing her mind to present quiescent submission to the predator in bed with her, but the hard reality of the hierarchy didn’t matter in her fantasies.
Had Cooper invited her to his bed, those fantasies may have given her some kind of a foundation in which to ground herself, ephemeral though it would’ve been. However a changeling male like Cooper didn’t use the word “court” when he was welcoming a woman to share his body and his bed, whether for the night or longer. No, he was serious.
Big, dangerous, beautiful Cooper wanted her as his.

Texture of Intimacy

Excerpt from Chapter 1
Lara woke skin-to-skin with a long, hard male body, her head tucked under his chin, her hands against his chest, her legs intertwined with his. Lean muscle and a rough masculine heat, he surrounded her, possessed her.
As she did him.
Eyes still closed, she luxuriated in the scent of dark water and snow-dusted firs . . . and the exquisite tug of a bond that tied her inexorably to the quiet, powerful telepath who was the only man she had ever wanted to call her own.
Mine.
Opening her eyes on that primal thought, she flexed her hand on the tensile strength of Walker’s chest, the firm surface covered with a sprinkling of dark blond that was an invitation to her senses. Her wolf rubbed up against the inside of her skin, unable to contain its delight, wanting only to touch, to pet.
“Unconditional skin privileges.”
That’s what her mate had given her. And she had every intention of taking advantage, her thirst for him endless. How could it be otherwise, when he was such an intelligent, dangerous, beautiful man? The ease of sleep did nothing to hide the fact that he was built lean and strong. Wide shoulders, ridged abdomen, taut muscle, and a will akin to steel, this was a man who would stand unflinching against any wind. And he was hers, touched her with a devotion that was breathtaking in its passion, piercing in its honesty.
Shivering at the painful beauty of the bond that connected them, she shifted to look down into a face that was all clean angles and sun-golden skin, which betrayed how much time he spent out of doors. His lashes threw crescent shadows on his cheeks, his dark blond hair threaded with the finest sprinkling of silver.
Butterflies in her stomach.
He was, she thought, one of those men who would only become better looking with age, the determined force of his personality reflected on his face. Given that he was already the sexiest man she knew, she was going to be in serious trouble as the years passed—a single look, and she had the feeling she’d fold like cooked spaghetti.
The thought of growing old with him made her blood turn effervescent, the natural dark tan of her skin radiant with warmth. Unable to hold in the happiness, she pushed back her unruly curls and leaned down to brush her mouth over his, felt his lips curve the slightest fraction. “I knew you were awake.” The wolf that was her other half scampered playfully inside her mind.
He ran his hand up and down her back. “Is it time to get up?”
Lara wouldn’t have bothered checking the time if not for Marlee and Toby, pups who were under Walker’s protection . . . and now her own. Her family. One was his daughter, the other his nephew, but he was father to them both, this man who had been willing to give up his life on the slim chance that the children would find sanctuary in SnowDancer.
“No,” she said after a quick glance at the small comm unit on the bedside table. “It’s been less than an hour.” An hour of peace, the battle won, the enemy routed so decisively they’d prove only a lack of intelligence should they decide to return.
Lashes rising, irises of a striking light green meeting her own. Not soft. Walker would never be that. But his gaze was . . . open in a way it had never before been. Until she felt invited into him.
Body aligned with the dark heat of his, she ran her finger through his hair and asked, “Are the kids okay?”
He continued to stroke her back, the calluses on his palm creating sensual friction against her greedy skin.
So long she’d waited for Walker’s touch.
It had torn her to pieces, made her bleed when he’d told her this could never be, his soul too scarred by the emotionless chill that was Silence. Now she knew that though the power-hungry Council had attempted to condition emotion out of him, they had never succeeded, his heart so powerful he’d managed to love even in the pitiless cage of the PsyNet.
His daughter.
His niece and nephew.
His lost sister.
His brother.
They had been, and were, a family because of Walker, because he’d refused to allow them to fragment, refused to give up on any one of them, whether cold-eyed assassin or heartbroken child.
“Yes, they’re fine,” he said in response to her question, no change in his expression to betray the fact he was in telepathic communication with the kids. “Toby and his friends are shooting hoops with Drew, and Marlee’s with Ava.”
“Ava’s a good friend.” Given the speed and accuracy of the pack grapevine, the other woman had likely heard that Walker Lauren was inside Lara’s bedroom about two minutes after the event. Lara knew her best friend would ambush her later for a debrief, but until then, Ava was doing her best to ensure they had some more private time.
“Marlee just told me Ben’s snoring in wolf form, she made him so tired.”
Laughter bubbled up in her throat, an image of an utterly exhausted wolf pup curled up nose to tail forming in her mind. “Poor Ben.”
Ava’s son adored Marlee, the unexpected friendship between the two innocent and joyful. Ben was five and a half, Marlee four years older, but in spite of the age gap, they made each other laugh until they ended up rolling around on the floor, holding onto their stomachs. Lara wasn’t the only one in the pack who wondered if the friendship was an indicator of a far different relationship in the future, but they were babies yet.
Before she could give voice to her thoughts, Walker’s eyes caught hers, held them. “I’m not likely to be an easy mate.”
The stark statement was unexpected, but she knew her answer, “I think you’re wonderful. My perfect mate.”
“Remember that,” he said, continuing to hold her gaze, the intensity of him a near physical touch. “When you ask yourself what you’re doing with me.”
A sudden fear gripped her, an amorphous, cold thing born of his certainty that their mating would be no simple dance. Shoving it away before it could take her hostage, her wolf’s teeth bared in a snarl, she held onto the glory of a bond that came from a place beyond fear or doubt, a place untainted by the shadows of the past.
All she said, however, was, “All right,” because she knew Walker. He’d been marked deep within by the life he’d lived, the choices he’d had to make. It would take him time to trust in happiness, in a forever where he no longer walked alone. “But make me a promise?”
Watchful attention, his hand stilling its caressing strokes.
“That you’ll talk to me if there’s a problem. Don’t close up on me.” It was what she feared most. She knew that while in the PsyNet, Walker had managed to maintain the fiction of total Silence, of unrelenting emotionlessness, icy and without heart, even as he fought to save his family. His fidelity to them had been unwavering, his dedication absolute. And throughout it all, no one had suspected that Walker Lauren was anything but loyal to the ruling order.
That kind of a will could turn into a stone wall.
Walker’s answer was no simple agreement. “I’ll try, Lara.” His hand pressed her closer. “But the quiet, if not the Silence, is a part of me.”
“I like your quiet.” He was so centered, so solid that he’d become her anchor. “The only thing that’ll hurt me is if you use that quiet as a weapon.”
“That won’t happen.” A vow, simple and binding.
She smiled and knew it held everything of what she felt for him, her soul stripped bare. Some would say she was at a huge disadvantage in this relationship, her emotions naked while his were shielded behind a thousand layers of control, but she knew differently. Never would she forget the day he handed her his heart.
“It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.”
Scarred and battered it might be, but Walker’s heart was a gift beyond price.

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Review

 

 

As the rest of you I'm in love with whatever Nalini Singh writes. I'm such a fan, that even though I already own two to the stories in this book, I had to buy it for the two new ones. It's well worth the money. I not only read the new ones, I also read the to older ones that I read before. Singh's has a way with words. She makes you laugh, cry and even sometimes yell at the characters in the book. When your done reading Wild Invitation, you'll be left wanting more by Singh, right now! Happy reading!