Dancing with Cooper
"Grace."
Her toes curled at that deep, familiar voice. She and Cooper had been mated for several months now, and she still couldn't believe it half the time. Turning in the passenger seat to face him, she just admired her mate for a second--big and strong and gorgeous and wonderful. "Yes?"
"Put on some music, baby," he said, reaching out to brush his thumb over her lower lip before returning his attention to the road.
Her wolf rubbing against the insides of her skin at the contact, she located his favorite band on the playlist. The sexy, throaty sound of a sax filled the SUV a second later. "I'm excited to visit the main den," she said, tracing his profile with her gaze, the scenery that had momentarily caught her attention no longer of interest.
"Yeah, me too." One hand confidently on the steering wheel, he grinned. "I'm so damn happy for Hawke."
"Yes, I can't wait to celebrate with him." Their alpha, a man who'd put his life on the line countless times in order to protect his pack, deserved happiness. "I'm curious to see Sienna, too." Grace had met their alpha's mate before, but that had been over two years ago. The slender girl she'd known had grown into a woman strong enough to take on an alpha wolf.
Grace could barely wrap her mind around the idea of any woman being able to handle a male of Hawke's overwhelming dominance, much less someone so young...but then again, Grace had ended up with a lieutenant who should've sent her running in the opposite direction. Instead, he'd coaxed and petted her until she not only trusted him with his teeth at her throat--because Cooper did love to bite--but with her heart.
Her lips curved, her mind filling with memories of the way he'd nipped at her neck to wake her this morning, his big body hot and muscled at her back as he ran his hand down her front. Cooper could be demanding, but Grace liked him that way, liked that he never subdued his natural personality for her.
"Hey." It was a rough growl of sound. "What are you thinking?" His nostrils flared.
Pressing her thighs together, she tried to fight off the betraying flush under her skin. "Nothing."
"Liar."
She gave in to temptation and slipped one hand under the sleeve of his white T-shirt to stroke her fingers over his biceps while she drew in the scent of wild earth and dark amber. God, but she loved her mate's scent. "I want to bite you."
Not in a million years could she have imagined saying that to any man a year ago, never mind to a dominant who could eat her alive and not even notice. But this was Cooper. Her Cooper. Who let her do whatever she liked with his body, and who was utterly delighted when she made demands of her own.
Now, however, he narrowed his eyes. "Bad, bad wolf," he growled. "Tormenting your mate when he can't pull off the freeway and haul you over onto his lap."
Grace laughed, the sound sensual and private. "We exit in twenty-eight more miles."
A quick glance out of near-black eyes ringed with feral yellow as his wolf rose to the surface. "Are you trying to seduce me into a quickie before we reach the den?"
Toes curling and cheeks blazing, Grace said, "Um...yes."
Cooper groaned, before picking up her hand and bringing it to his mouth...to nip sharply at the fleshy pad below her thumb.
The sensual punishment went straight to the pulse between her thighs. "Ouch."
Licking lazily over the spot, Cooper said, "Weren't you shy once?"
Well aware he adored it when she was open with her desires, she said, "I'm still shy. Just not with you." He'd taught her that there was nothing he wouldn't do for her, her wolf's awareness of his dominance inciting a sense of pure safety inside her--because Cooper would never turn his strength against her, would use it always to protect and to cherish.
"Good." Her mate kissed the same spot he'd bitten.
"Now"--he very deliberately placed her hand on her thigh and both of his own on the steering wheel--"sit there and try to look like a cabbage or something else equally unappetizing so my hard-on doesn't kill me in the next twenty-seven miles."
Her eyes dipped. Her stomach clenched. And Cooper's growl filled the car.
Twenty seven miles and an additional twenty minutes of driving down back roads later, Cooper found a private spot in a secluded grove. A second after that, Grace was straddling her ravenous mate's lap with her dress shoved around her hips and his teeth at her throat. Shuddering, she decided she could do her biting later.
***
Despite their unplanned detour, they arrived at the Sierra Nevada den in plenty of time to hide out with the other lieutenants, in the trees not far from the den. Hawke didn't know his most senior people had decided to disobey his order that they were to remain in their own territories.
"As if we'd miss his mating ceremony," Alexei said with a shake of his head.
The blond lieutenant, all golden hair and blade-sharp cheekbones, was astonishingly handsome. Grace would've been intimidated by him even if he hadn't been a powerful dominant. But now he looked at her and smiled.
Blushing, she averted her eyes, her wolf uncomfortable with holding his gaze. Cooper squeezed her shoulders where she was tucked up against him. It wasn't that she didn't love her dominant packmates, but this forest clearing currently held nine lieutenants. It was a little overwhelming.
"Stop flirting with Grace," Cooper muttered after nuzzling the top of her head with his chin, his words clearly directed at Alexei. "Don't you have a harem of your own?"
"Fuck you, Coop," Alexei said easily, and shifted so he was in Grace's line of sight. "Introduce me to your beautiful mate so I can ask her to save me a dance."
Hand curving over the back of Grace's neck, Cooper stroked his thumb over her pulse. "Grace, this is Alexei, the Russian Bridegroo--" He laughed and barely avoided the punch Alexei threw at his nose. "Hey, no messing with the face. Grace'll get mad and then no dance for you."
Grace's lips twitched at the interplay; obviously her mate and the youngest SnowDancer lieutenant were good enough friends to be rude to one another. Not only that, but Alexei had a reputation for being reserved--a trait nowhere in evidence at this instant. "Hi," she said with a smile and a quick instant of eye-contact.
"How about that dance, Grace?" Alexei asked gently. "Coop's been keeping you to himself all this time."
Grace looked up to meet Cooper's gaze, saw quiet encouragement in them. "Yes," she said. "I'll save you a dance."
"Coop!"
Cooper released her to exchange a back-slapping embrace with Riaz, the dark-haired lieutenant having just arrived. Alexei remained beside her. "You realize I'm not the only one who's going to want to dance with you?" he bent down to murmur.
Grace nodded. Cooper had mentioned it to her, though she'd already kind of expected it. He was a lieutenant and these were his friends. It would've been unusual if they hadn't been affectionately nosy about his mate. "I'm prepared," she said. "Though you might want to watch out for your feet."
Her wolf bared its teeth in a grin inside her when Alexei laughed. She could handle these dominants, she thought, even en masse.
"Grace." Cooper held out his hand. "Come say hello to Riaz."
Sliding her hand into her mate's, she smiled at Cooper's best friend, while around them, the other lieutenants caught up with one another. "It's so nice to see you, Riaz."
In reply, the lieutenant rubbed the back of his knuckles over her cheek in a caress between packmates.
Not long after that, they got the word to be quiet, as Judd was leading Hawke into the ambush. "Should I sneak away?" she asked Cooper, not wanting to intrude on the reunion between the alpha and his lieutenants. "The other lieutenants' mates aren't here."
Cooper shook his head. "Since they're all based in this area, they're helping cover things so we ca
n have this meeting. You, on the other hand, Hawke hasn't seen since our mating ceremony." A tap on her nose. "He'll expect you to be right here with me."
Then their alpha burst into the clearing and it erupted in sheer, wild joy. Delighted and excited, Grace's wolf strained against her skin, wanting to see and scent everything. When she found her face cupped in the hands of the alpha himself a quarter of an hour later, she chanced meeting the pale, pale blue of Hawke's gaze for a single second of quivering alertness.
She was wolf. She was a SnowDancer. Wolf and woman, both parts of her loved the SnowDancer alpha, as did every other packmate in this clearing. That didn't mean he wasn't a primal force of nature--one who understood his people, dominant and submissive both. He held her with a gentleness at odds with his powerful presence, a smile in his voice as he spoke.
"Is Cooper treating you right? I'll beat him up for you if he isn't."
Nervousness breaking into laughter when Cooper snarled behind her, she impulsively hugged her alpha, overjoyed that he'd found his mate. His arms came around her at once. It wasn't like being hugged by Cooper--Cooper was hers, made her feel safe and protected and happy all at once.
Hawke occupied a different sphere; her wolf's trust in him was absolute, but she also knew there were certain lines she couldn't cross when it came to this man with his ice-blue eyes and hair of silver-gold. The rules of hierarchy were critical to the health of a changeling wolf pack. But there was no hierarchy between mates--there were no lines she couldn't cross with Cooper, no areas where she couldn't tread.
"My brother already made the offer," she said when she drew back.
That made Hawke grin and kiss her on the lips before releasing her to Cooper--who nipped her ear in a show of possessiveness that made her want to pet him. "We better go find your damn brother and the rest of your family soon, before they decide to send out a hunting party."
"They love you." Grace's mother, especially, adored Cooper.
Ten minutes later, Milena squeezed Grace into a warm maternal embrace, then did the same to Cooper before making him bend so she could kiss him on both cheeks. "You make my Grace happy. You're a good boy."
Cooper, who outranked her mother a gazillion times over, just smiled and said, "Yes, ma'am." Then, he shook hands with her father, exchanged a "man" hug with her grinning brother, and even lifted her sister up off her feet in his arms.
Pia squeaked, then laughed, hugging him back. Her siblings might've initially worried about Cooper's strength in comparison to Grace's, but now--"The way that man looks at you," Pia had said during a flying visit three weeks ago, "he'd gnaw off his own arm before he ever hurts you. Hell, Gracie, I think he'd stand still and let you stab him through the heart if that's what you wanted to do."
"I might as well stab myself through the heart," Grace had replied, eyes burning and throat thick.
Without Cooper, she wouldn't have a heartbeat.
Today, they caught up with her family around a tableful of snacks organized by her mother, before separating to get ready for Hawke and Sienna's ceremony. That ceremony was beautiful, made Grace tear up at the loyalty and passion of it.
"Hey." Cooper caught a teardrop that had rolled down her cheek. "Why the tears?"
"It's so wonderful," she choked out. "And it makes me think of our ceremony." Theirs had been smaller and held under the midday sun rather than at night, but it had been drenched in the same sense of love, of pack.
"Yeah." A glint in his eye she recognized. "My favorite part came that night though, in the back seat of the SUV."
Grace's skin heated up and it had nothing to do with embarrassment. "I can't believe you brought that up in public," she whispered under her breath, her mind bombarding her with erotic memories of exactly what her wicked mate had talked her into that long, lazy night.
"Why not?" Cooper cupped her cheek, his smiling kiss long and slow and addictingly sinful. "I think we should repeat the experience tonight."
Grace rubbed her nose against his, her hands fisted in his hair. She knew how to play with her teasing, dangerous wolf. "Okay."
The yellow ring returned around his irises, his gaze nightglow in the shadows where they stood and his body hard. "We're leaving right now."
Laughing, Grace shook her head and kissed her scowling mate's mouth, the jagged scar on his left cheek a familiar accent. "No, we're not. Tonight is about pack."
Cooper demanded one more kiss before turning back to the Pack Circle. "Yeah, it is."
The rest of the night passed in joyful celebration. She danced and drank champagne toasts and laughed with her packmates. The tech contingent invited her for a private drink around ten-thirty, and she left Cooper talking to one of the lieutenants while she connected with her friends, but they met up again later that night.
"My dance, I believe," her mate said, tugging her against him as the slow, sultry sounds of a romantic ballad filled the air.
Her cheek pressed to his chest and her heart beating in time with his own, Grace closed her eyes. My Cooper, she thought...just as he rubbed his cheek against her temple and murmured, "My pretty, sexy Grace. I'm so glad you're mine."
Nalini Singh, Dancing With Cooper
(Series: Psy-Changeling # 11.20)
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