She knew a lot about ST - SnowDancer was the majority shareholder, at sixty percent. DarkRiver held twenty and a human conglomerate named Dekell the other twenty. ST was offering her a great package and her wolf would prefer to work for the pack. Not that all ST employees were wolves. It was considered a plum company to work for by scientists and techs across the globe. The only reason ST had no Psy employees was that it competed directly with several Council-backed labs.

Sierra Tech went to the top of her list, but she hadn't made her decision. Her current frame of mind didn't exactly lend itself to the task. Even when she finished looking over the offers and moved on to repair some small comm malfunctions for packmates, her mind remained chaotic. Lunch and dinner came and went, but she had no answer to her own uncomfortable question.

Would she hold Judd if he came to her after utilizing his skills as an assassin?

She went to bed mentally exhausted but woke after only a few hours of disrupted sleep...because she could smell Judd's scent in her quarters. Getting out of bed still half-asleep, she saw it was four a.m. She walked out wearing the satin slip she used as her nightgown, her feet bare.

"Judd?" For a second, she couldn't locate him. Then her night vision kicked in and she found him seated in an armchair close to the coffee table.

He was watching her, his entire body motionless. It didn't strike her that she should be afraid or even wary. Yawning, she walked over and sat on his lap, curling her body into the armchair. His arms came around her without hesitation, one hand curving around her shoulders, the other sliding to close over the bare skin of her upper thigh.

The sensual contact brought her to full wakefulness. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she nuzzled at his throat. "Are you okay?"

His hand shifted to slide between her thighs, surprising a shocked feminine sound out of her. "Judd? Baby?" Something was wrong. With a changeling male, she would've let her body soothe him, used touch to connect. But Judd was Psy...and hers. At that moment, she knew the answer to the question that had tormented her all day - she would hold him, accept him, no matter what.

That was what mates did.

She didn't care if there was no bond - no one was going to tell her she wasn't meant to be with this man. "What do you want?" she asked, but he remained silent. Deciding to let instinct guide her, she softened for him.

His other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back in a sharp move. She went rather than resist. A woman who loved a dominant male had to know when to bend...and when to bite. His lips crushed hers, his hand squeezing her inner thigh. Moaning into the kiss, she opened her mouth. He didn't wait for any more permission, ravaging her with a sensual fury that had her trying to press even closer.

Her body craved Judd. She had no desire to back off, perhaps because she hadn't had time to be afraid, or perhaps because she could feel the hunger inside of him, a hunger only she could assuage.

He bit at her lower lip. She bit back.

His back muscles were rock hard under her palms as she splayed her hands and luxuriated in the unrestrained masculine heat of him. "No," she protested when he broke the kiss to run his lips down her jaw and over her neck. She tugged at his hair. He nipped at her neck in reprimand. Something melted between her legs and when he stroked his hand farther north, she wanted to urge him to go faster.

He cupped her. Strong. Bold. Possessive.

She felt her claws threaten to release, sparks shooting behind her tightly closed eyes. And then he began to massage her like that, while her body simultaneously tried to get closer and writhe away. Her slip rode up and her bottom came in contact with the hard ridge of his erection.

A whisper of fear fluttered in her belly.

But her panties were gone, torn off her and oh God he was touching her skin to skin and his fingers were rubbing at the entrance to her body and - Crying out, she orgasmed with an almost painful clamping of internal muscles long unused. She buried her face in his neck and he held her there with his hand on her nape as he coaxed more and more pleasure out of her body.

The scent of him coated her tongue until she licked at him, taking the salt/ice/man scent inside. Slowly, the orgasm turned into a buzz of sensual heat, leaving her sated. Murmuring her pleasure, she relaxed back into her earlier curled-up position and opened her eyes. At first, she didn't realize what it was she was seeing. Why were there pieces of wood everywhere? And did her kitchen bench look lopsided?

Judd's teeth clamped down on her shoulder, as if he knew he no longer had her undivided attention. She jerked up. "Judd. Judd!" She tugged at his hair.

His answer was an explosion of tiny telekinetic bites in very sensitive places. Her entire body arched as pleasure short-circuited her nerve endings. In the corner of her eye, she saw the kitchen bench collapse, giving one final groan of creaking distress. And then all she could hear were her own gasping breaths.

By the time she came back down this time, she was lying crosswise in his lap, her slip puddled around her waist, the straps snapped. Judd wasn't touching her exposed flesh, just looking at her breasts with hunger that was close to madness.

Giving a sob, she placed her arms tight around him once more, eyes wide as she watched the violence over his shoulder. "Stop. Please, baby, stop." Small pieces of broken furniture circled the room in a savage storm. "Judd, darling."

Chapter 31

His entire body shuddered. "Brenna." It was a raw sound stripped of his usual control.

"Yes." She hugged him harder, her breasts crushed against the cool softness of his leather-synth jacket. "I'm here."

"Did I hurt you?"

Hurt her? "You pleasured me." The exquisite heat of it continued to spiral through her.

He withdrew his hand from between her legs and she had to fight her moan. "Baby, the furniture..." The pieces hadn't stopped flying.

One of his arms remained clamped around her back as he raised his head. "Critical breach." He was beginning to sound close to normal. "Power sent outward instead of focusing on you."

"You didn't hurt me," she repeated. "Even out of control, you didn't hurt me."

"Not this time." The broken pieces of furniture began to settle on the floor.

She pulled back, wanting to meet his eyes. They were dark, devoid of those sparks of gold. "What happened?" He was never going to believe he wouldn't hurt her - she'd have to rely on time to fix that. "Talk to me." Brushing the hair off his forehead with one hand, she pulled up her slip with the other.

His eyes fell to where she clutched the slippery material above the curve of her breasts. "You need to get dressed first."

She might have argued with him if the ruins of the bench hadn't chosen that instant to compact with a groan, sending up dust she could taste. "I'll be quick." Wriggling off his lap, she blushed. "You're still - "

"Go."

She went. Sometimes, discretion really was the better part of valor. Dropping the slip and pulling on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt took maybe two minutes. She ran back out. "Oh!"

Judd had turned on the light and already cleaned up most of the mess using his telekinetic abilities. As she watched, the last broken pieces settled down into a neat pile by the door. "I'll replace everything."

"I'm not worried about that." Walking over, she fought the urge to touch him. He was all coiled muscle and intensity. Dark. Dangerous.

Take him as he is.

Her spine straightened. "Now tell me what happened."

His tone was flat as he told her about the PineWood pack. "We went in, cleaned out their den. A number of them were compromised - I had to undo the programming."

Relieved he hadn't been forced into using his more covert skills, she blew out a breath. "There's no need for you to beat yourself up about that. You did something good."

"It's not that." A bead of sweat rolled down his temple and she remembered the pain. The dissonance. But before she could speak, he told her the rest. "What our contact didn't know was that the Psy had attempted to place commands on immature minds, too."

"Children?" Her voice shook. "They tried to do that to babies?" She wanted to bury her head in the sand and not hear the rest of what he had to say - she'd almost died after having her mind raped. And children were so much weaker. "How many?"

"One died before we reached their den." His cheekbones stood out like blades against his skin. "I was able to remove the programming on the others but two are damaged. Their brains couldn't handle the pressure and battered themselves bloody trying to get out."

"Oh, Judd." She could feel his hurt inside herself. "There was nothing you could have done."

Another bead of sweat, the only indicator of the amount of pain he had to be in. "There was no reason for them to mess with the children's minds. No reason. They were too young and weak to provide assistance in the plot. It was done as a message."

The most visceral kind of fury exploded in her. "They've crossed the line. But" - she stared him in the eye - "you haven't."

"I know."

Startled, she snapped her mouth shut. "Then why...?" She waved her arms at the ruin of her living room and kitchen.

"Don't you recognize rage when you see it?"

"Oh." She wasn't sure what to say to that blunt admission. "You've broken Silence?" Something in her said it couldn't be that easy.

His next words proved it. "If I had, you wouldn't have been able to bring me back." His eyes traced over her body and though she was demurely covered, she felt her nipples peak, her thighs press together. "I can still taste you on my lips."

She put a hand on the wall to steady herself, certain her knees were about to buckle. "You pushed your anger into sex." Burning it up without causing harm to living creatures.

"It wasn't planned." He couldn't seem to take his eyes off her lips. "I was about to leave your home when you walked out. I should have never come here in the first place."