longer if I learned to bite my tongue occasionally.
So I waited, without saying a word, for Adam to decide what he wanted to do.
The room wasn't cold, but I was shivering a little anyway - it must be nerves. If Adam didn't hurry up and do something, though, I was going to be throwing up in the bathroom. I'd spent too much time worshipping the porcelain goddess since Tim had made me overdose on fairy juice to view the thought with any equanimity.
He wasn't watching me, but he didn't need to be. Emotions have a scent. He swung back to look at me with a frown. He took in my state with one comprehensive look.
He swore and strode back to me, wrapping me in his arms. He pulled me tight against him, making low, soothing sounds in the back of his throat. He rocked me gently.
I took a deep breath of Adam-scented air and tried to think. Normally, this wouldn't be difficult for me.
But normally I wasn't all but naked in the arms of the hottest man I knew.
I'd misunderstood what he'd wanted.
To double-check, I cleared my throat. "When you said you needed my answer to your claim today - you weren't actually asking for sex?"
His body jerked involuntarily as he laughed, rubbing his jaw against my face. "So, you think I'm the kind of person who'd do something like that? After what happened just last week?"
"I thought that's what it took," I mumbled, feeling my cheeks heat up.
"How long did you spend in the Marrok's pack?"
He knew how long. He was just making me feel stupid. "Mating wasn't something everyone talked to me about," I told him defensively. "Just Samuel..."
Adam laughed again, one of his hands on my shoulder, the other moving in a light caress on my butt, which should have tickled but didn't. "I just bet he was telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth right then."
I tightened my grip on him - somehow my hands had landed on his lower back. "Probably not. So all you needed was my agreement?"
He grunted. "It won't help with the pack, not until it's for real. But with Samuel out of the way, I thought you'd be able to decide if you were interested or not. If you weren't interested, I could regroup. If you agreed to be mine, I can wait until Hell freezes over for you."
His words sounded reasonable, but his scent told me something else. It told me that my reasonable tones had soothed his worries, and his mind was now on something other than our discussion.
Fair enough. Being this close to him, feeling his heat against me, feeling his heartbeat race because he wanted me... someone told me that knowing someone desires you is the greatest aphrodisiac. It was certainly true for me.
"Of course," he said, still in that curiously calm voice, "waiting is much easier in abstract than reality. I need you to tell me to back off, all right?"
"Mmm," I said. He brought a cleanness with him that washed the feel of Tim off my skin far better than the shower did - but only when he touched me.
"Mercy."
I lowered my hands, sliding them beneath the waistline of his jeans and digging my nails lightly into his skin.
He growled something more, but neither of us was listening. He turned his head and tilted it. I expected serious and got playful as he nipped at my lower lip. The roughness of his teeth sent tingles to my fingertips, zings past my knees and down to my toes. Potent things, Adam's teeth.
I brought my suddenly shaking hands around to worry at the button on his jeans, and Adam jerked his head up and put a staying hand on mine.
Then I heard it, too.
"German car," he said.
I sighed, slumping against him. "Swedish," I corrected him. "Four-year-old Volvo station wagon. Gray."
He looked at me in surprise that quickly turned to comprehension. "You know the car."
I moaned and tried to hide in his shoulder. "Damn, damn. It was the newspapers."
"Who is it, Mercy?"
Gravel shooshed, and headlights flashed on my window as the car turned into the driveway. "My mom," I told him. "Her sense of timing is unreal. I should have realized she would read about... about it." I didn't want to name what had happened to me, what I'd done to Tim, out loud. Not while I was mostly naked with Adam, anyway.