A soft smile, eyes wolf-sly. “Riaz.” Moving her body in a sinuous curve that enticed, she broke his hold on her wrists with a single wrenching move, went to slam her claws into his chest. But he wasn’t stupid, and he knew damn well who he was dealing with—a trained and honed predatory changeling female out to win. Mercy was not something she understood. Not here. Not now.

Twisting at the last moment, he used her own momentum to pin her to the bed on her front. He manacled her wrists on either side of her body before she could catch her breath, pressing down on her with his much heavier frame. She was smart, she was strong, but in a contest of sheer brute strength, she would never win.

When he sank his teeth into the smooth curve of her shoulder, she bucked. He continued to hold her until she stilled, her entire body quivering with tension. Releasing his grip on her shoulder, though he continued to pin her wrists, he licked at the mark, then nuzzled aside her hair to press a kiss to her jaw, her face turned sideways on the pillow. “Say it.”

The sound of teeth grinding.

Driven by possession and grim determination both, he allowed more of his weight to fall on her as he licked at the mark he’d made, using slow flicks of his tongue. It was a taunt, and the growl that rumbled up from her chest told him she knew it. But he had her good and pinned, and regardless of how much she strained, she couldn’t throw him off.

“I yield,” she finally gritted out.

Not quite trusting her—not in this mood—he released her wrists one at a time before bracing himself above her on one forearm. Using his free hand, he brushed aside the damp tangle of hair from her face and neck, baring the clean line of her profile. “Want me to get off you?” He continued to run his fingers through her hair, petting her to calmness.

A slight pause before she shook her head.

“Tell me when I get too heavy,” he murmured, easing his lower body into the lithe curves of her own.

Her lashes came down over eyes that remained a haunting wild amber, then rose again. “It feels good.”

Sliding his hand to her shoulder, he rubbed his thumb gently over the bite mark before reaching up to massage her nape, her scalp. Slow, long minutes passed, but she relaxed at last, going boneless under him. Pressing a hotly possessive kiss to the curve of her jaw, he squeezed her neck. “We’re not just sex.”

Riaz had made up his mind to pursue this indefinable, wonderful thing that had grown between him and Adria when neither one of them had been looking, and he wasn’t going to allow the damage done to her by another man to destroy that. “Are we?” It was a question heavy with demand, his fingers tightening.

She dug her nails into the sheets, her jaw set. He knew she wasn’t physically scared by him being on top of her—they both understood he’d release her the instant she made it clear she wanted out. No, her fear had an altogether different cause, her panic one he could taste in her skin when he licked out at her, the sheen of perspiration that covered her a fine sparkle. “Adria.”

ADRIA jerked at the unrestrained dominance in that command. For the first time, she realized exactly how careful he’d been with her in their sexual encounters to date—he might have been tender, passionate, and urgent in turn, but he hadn’t allowed her to see into the heart of the black wolf within. This man, the one who was speaking to her in a soft tone that was a hot blade over her skin, this was the primal core of him.

His fingers moved against her neck, a silent reminder that he held the reins. Her wolf wasn’t happy with that … yet it was. The confusion of it caused a chaos of emotion inside her. So long she’d been with a man who had forced her to silence and stifle her true self in a hundred small ways because he hadn’t been strong enough to handle her. Now, she was with a man who not only didn’t have a problem accepting her strength, but who was also strong enough to overpower her in every way that mattered to a changeling.

Panic burned her gut like acid. She was the one who had always been in control, the one who could stop things before they went too far, before they pushed her too deep into painful emotional territory. “I changed my mind,” she said, her tumult a smoldering blaze inside her skin, swamping all rational thought. “We need to break it off.”

Releasing her nape, Riaz began to stroke his hand through her hair again, slow and easy and unmistakably, unbearably possessive. “I can scent your panic.” A kiss on the mark he’d made when he’d bitten her. “Talk to me about it.”

She couldn’t do it, couldn’t expose the naked, vulnerable girl inside the skin of the woman. However, when she went to turn her face away, he lifted his body off her. Another kind of panic stung her, the sense of loss devastating. But she was being turned onto her back before she could react, Riaz’s heat covering her once more as he brushed her hair out of her eyes with his free hand, his other one braced by her head.

“I saw a cactus in the desert once,” he said, his voice low and deep and a hum over her skin. “Called Queen of the Night. It had this exquisite creamy flower, and the scent, it intoxicated my wolf. But it only opened at night—you had to be patient to see it.” Eyes of beaten gold. “I’m very patient.” Suckling her upper lip into his mouth in an unexpected kiss, he tore her T-shirt on one side with his claws and—holding her gaze—shaped his hand over her bare rib cage.

Shivers raced over her frame. She tried to arch into him, sliding her hand around his body to push up his own tee so she could touch the hot, muscled skin of his back. “Please.”

But he shook his head. “Sex is easy.” He rocked against her, the hot steel of his erection pushing against the slick, needy flesh between her thighs. “I breathe your scent and I’m ready.”

“Then why are you doing this?” she whispered, one hand fisting against his chest. “Let’s keep it easy, as it was.” No demands, no expectations, no heartbreak. Because she’d been wrong—she wasn’t brave enough to chance more scars, more bruises. Not when this time around, she knew the agony would be so much worse.

Her wolf had never adored Martin as it adored the black wolf with the golden eyes.

Leaning down until his face was a bare inch away, his breath hot against her skin, Riaz said, “Because it’s too late for that, and you’re not the casual type. You never have been. Just like me.” Crushed rocks and broken glass in his voice.

It was instinct to curve her hand over his nape, to pet him as he’d petted her. He let her touch him, let her claim skin privileges that were becoming ever more complicated. She’d thought she’d figured everything out in Venice, but tonight, what he’d done, it had touched the secret, idealistically hopeful part of her she’d allowed no one to reach for so long, it was a forgotten memory. The fact he’d already done so, when their relationship had hardly begun, it had her stomach in knots, her heart thumping against her ribs.

And then there was his dominance.

He spread his hand on her throat just then, curving it in a gentle hold. “What’re you thinking that’s got your wolf so wary?” he asked in a low murmur, rocking once against the molten heat of her.

She twisted up in instinctive response, had the pleasure of hearing him hiss out a breath between clenched teeth. But though he stroked his hand down to lie possessively over her unfettered breast, he didn’t take the next step, the one that would’ve left them tangled and sweat soaked. “I got used to bending,” she admitted, fighting her pride to expose what a fool she’d been.

“With Martin. I had to bend to make him happy.” It had taken place so slowly, she hadn’t understood the corrosive ugliness of what was happening. Small things, she’d thought, things that didn’t really matter—after all, the man had risked everything to save her life. Until she’d realized she’d begun to bury Adria to please Martin. “He was nowhere near as strong as you.”

Riaz snorted. “You’ve been busting my balls since the instant we met—I sure as hell don’t think you’re suddenly going to flutter your lashes and simper at my every word.”

Wolf and woman both blinked at the ridiculous image. “It’s not that simple.” She tried to find the words to explain. “Martin made me weak … No. That’s not fair.” There had been two people in that relationship. “I weakened myself to make him happy. I’m terrified I’ll do the same with you.” That was her flaw, no one else’s.

Molding her breast with strong fingers, Riaz leaned down to take her lower lip between his teeth, releasing it oh-so-slow. “So you want to end things before they begin?” A harder squeeze, a deeper hint of teeth along her jaw. “That’s the real weakness.”

She dug her claws into his back when he bit her again. “Do that one more time and I’ll give you a nice new tattoo.”

Lips curving against her neck. “Yeah.” His clean-shaven jaw was smooth over her skin. “I’m not real worried about you bending for me.” Pushing up into a kneeling position straddling her hips, he ripped off his T-shirt and threw it to the floor before coming down over her, hands on either side of her head. “Open your mouth for me.”

“Is that a request or an order?”

A lazy smile that reached his eyes, his mouth capturing hers in hot demand. She rubbed her tongue against his, felt him growl deep in his chest. Shuddering, she pressed her hands to his chest, his muscled body hers to explore. But when she ran her knuckles down the tantalizing line of hair below his belly button and to the top of the jeans that hung sexily low on his hips, he only allowed her to open the top button before tugging away her hand.

“I get to play first.”

He’d ripped her T-shirt to shreds and was tugging off her pajama bottoms and panties before she realized she was his intended toy. Not resistant to the idea and with a few of her own, she pressed a foot to his chest the instant she was bare to the skin. “Get naked.” Very much an order. “I want full skin privileges.” She craved the sweet, hot slide of his body against hers, the hard male angles and delicious weight of him.