motionless as his wolf tried desperately to calculate his next move. But he couldn’t calculate. He was too fucking happy. “Now I know your cat likes me,” he whispered through a throat scraped raw with emotion.
Tilting her head slightly to the side, Desiree rolled her eyes. “Of course my cat likes you. Who do you think bit you?”
He smiled, feeling just a bit wicked. “Come here, cat. I want to pet you.”
Smile playful, she stretched out her upper body over him as they kissed. He couldn’t stop grinning and when she raised her head, suspicion painted her expression. Nipping at his lips and jaw, she growled in the back of her throat. “You look like you have a secret.”
Grin even wider, he tried to flip them, was stopped by the senior soldier now scowling at him. He laughed. “You really hate not knowing, don’t you?”
“Grr.”
“God, I love you.”
Her eyes shifted from cat to human. Nuzzling him affectionately, she allowed him to flip them this time, their ensuing loving slow and deep and full of soft whispers. “Dezi?” he murmured when she was once more boneless in his arms.
“Hmm?”
Holding her gaze, he smiled again. “We’re in the mating dance.” It was a changeling truth that the male always knew before the female so he could figure out ways to hold on to his wild mate, but until the dance had kicked in, Felix hadn’t known if that would hold true for a submissive male paired with a dominant female. “Your cat really likes me,” he said as Desiree’s mouth fell open.
“You sneak!” She threatened to claw furrows down his back. “That’s why you had that smug happy look on your face.”
“Yes,” he admitted, smug and happy.
Wrapping his arms tight around her, his wolf in his eyes, he growled at her. “I’m going to catch you, cat.”
“Do your worst, wolf.” Slitted green eyes. “This cat doesn’t plan on being easy prey.”
That was a serious challenge from a dominant female, but Felix was playing for keeps. “I never expect easy with you,” he said, dipping his head and biting her exactly where she’d bitten him, his wolf as possessive of her as she was of him.
And that wolf knew she’d permit the aggressive caress.
She did, her purr vibrating against him.
Now we dance.
• • •
Felix was still dazzled and overwhelmed the next morning, his wolf ecstatic. But he also knew he had to push himself even more than he’d already done. Dezi wanted to be with him, but he had to win her, had to convince her cat their lifelong dance would be worth it.
He thought of what he’d seen his packmates do to court their mates. Drew with his tricks that had annoyed Indigo, then made her laugh; Hawke throwing Sienna over his shoulder and carrying her out of a bar—though, admittedly, Felix wasn’t sure Sienna considered that part of their courtship; Cooper with his messages and song requests on the packwide radio frequency.
All those acts had fit the man in question and the woman he wanted to claim.
The thing that would fit Felix and Desiree . . . it would take a little planning.
“Hi,” he said to Desiree that night, after meeting her at the end of her watch. “Want to go for a run?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You want to go for a run? After ignoring me the entire day?”
“Sorry. Busy day.” She had no idea. “We could run to your place.”
“Yeah, why don’t we do that?”
Then she took off. This time, she wasn’t playing—and she was fast. That was fine with Felix. He enjoyed tracking her . . . and thinking about the look on her face when she reached home.
• • •
Desiree was steamed. There were rules to the mating dance. Well, okay, maybe there weren’t actual rules. It was different for every couple. But if written rules had existed, the one thing the rule book would say in bright flashing neon letters was that you weren’t supposed to just ignore it!
Her leopard snarled. It adored Felix, but right now, it could’ve cheerfully clawed him bloody. She wasn’t expecting high romance, she thought with a stabbing pain in her heart. Felix knew she wasn’t good with the girly thing, maybe figured she didn’t really need any of the trappings of the dance. Her eyes burned. Stupid. He was amazing. Just because he didn’t want to dance with her didn’t mean that she should be angry.
Only she was. Really, really angry. And sad. Mad and sad . .