with one hand, she called Revel with the other. “Pia doing okay? Why was she unconscious?”
“Just the broken leg—pain put her out,” Revel answered. “She’s pretty pissed about the entire situation, says she knew that gully was there but got messed up in the rain.” A short pause, his tone holding a deep vein of affection when he came back on the line. “Sorry, Pia says she isn’t pissed. She’s fucking pissed.”
Garnet’s wolf huffed in laughter inside her. “That’s definitely Pia.”
“Yeah.” He sounded distracted. “Damn it, Pia, stop fidgeting and let Gavin do his job.” A growl rolled down the line. “Shit, sorry, Jem. My sister’s being a pa— Pia, for the love of God, behave or I’ll get Grace on the comm.”
The threat to bring in their deeply submissive younger sister wouldn’t have made sense to anyone who hadn’t grown up in a SnowDancer den—and thus didn’t know that submissives could become ferally protective when one of their people was hurt. And since Grace knew full well her sister would never harm a hair on her head, she’d take shameless advantage and force Pia to rest and to heal.
“I’m calling Grace right now unless you start acting like a woman with a fucking broken leg,” Revel threatened.
Garnet raised an eyebrow at the feminine response she picked up through the receiver. “Is my Spanish rusty or did she just call you a—”
“Your Spanish isn’t rusty.” Revel’s tone was still more wolf than man. “Our mother has threatened to wash out Pia’s mouth with soap more than once.” Another small pause before he said, “How’s Kenji? Pain-in-the-ass here is worried about him.”
“Clean bill of health.” Thank God. “Just needs some sleep.”
“It’s been a long day. We should all get some rest,” Revel replied. “We can pick up the investigation in the morning—Shane might be awake by then.”
“Agreed.” Hanging up with a quick good night, she began to rub Kenji down in earnest. He protested grumpily when she rubbed too hard on his ears. “Sorry, princess.”
A growl, a clawed paw swiping at her—only he wasn’t really swiping. He was just pretending. Smiling, she finished with the towel. “You need a blow-dry.”
The growl was louder this time and held a distinct thread of insult.
“I thought you’d be used to it with all the hair colors,” she teased, combing her fingers through his damp fur. “Do you want to sleep here or in the nice comfortable bed over there?”
His ears pricked up.
“I’m not letting you on the bed if you’re going to make it damp.” She rose, went to the cupboard, grabbed another towel.
And returned to discover a gorgeous naked man on her bedroom floor, half-asleep, his skin a flawless, luscious shade between lightest brown and dark gold. All over.
Closing her eyes because damn it, this was Kenji, the one man her body seemed unable to resist, she threw him the towel. “Wake up.”
His eyes opened a little and he began to dry off with sluggish motions when she made it clear she wasn’t going to help. A woman had limits! Since watching him run the towel over the honed ridges and valleys of his body was driving her crazy with the urge to pounce and lick him up, she ducked out to grab some food. By the time she returned, he was asleep. On the floor. At least he’d left the towel over his hips.
God, Kenji Tanaka was beautiful.
All graceful lines and hard muscle and tattoos inked through a special process that meant the ink “stuck” through the shift. Her favorite was the large kanji for “love” that he’d had inked on the back of his upper left shoulder. Now she saw that there was a line of more angular, smaller letters going down parallel to the kanji. It was highly stylized and difficult to read but she was sure the lettering was in katakana.
Kenji had studied Japanese writing as a child, not only because his parents wanted him fluent in both spoken and written Japanese, but because he loved his maternal grandfather, who had very little English. Kenji had taught her a few things back then, but after not using it all these years, she’d forgotten the meaning behind the symbols. She’d have to ask him. As she’d have to ask about the other new pieces she’d spotted on his body.
Like the ink peeking out from under the towel high on his thigh.
Garnet’s fingers itched to tug away the towel and feast her senses on the wildly sexy man in front of