Gregori swore softly and rolled over to force his body away from hers. She was making him crazy. Desperate. He was going to kill them both with his insatiable appetite. Already his fingers were curling in her hair, bunching silken strands in his fist.
Savannah heard the soft, hissing words flowing from his mouth, and her heart stood still. He had just shaken her entire world, set it on fire, and now he was angry. She turned her back to him so that he could not see her hurt. “What did I do wrong?” she asked in a small voice.
Gregori tugged on her hair to force her back to him. “You make me feel alive, Savannah.”
“Do I? Is that why you’re swearing?” She turned onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows.
He leaned into her, brushing his mouth across the swell of her breast. “You are managing to tie me up in knots. You take away all my good judgment.”
A slight smile curved her mouth. “I never noticed that you had particularly good judgment to begin with.”
His white teeth gleamed, a predator’s smile, then sank into soft bare flesh. She yelped but moved closer to him when his tongue swirled and caressed, taking away the sting. “I have always had good judgment,” he told her firmly, his teeth scraping back and forth in the valley between her breasts.
“So you say. But that doesn’t make it so. You let evil idiots shoot you with poisoned darts. You go by yourself into laboratories filled with your enemies. Need I go on?” Her blue eyes were laughing at him.
Her firm, rounded bottom was far too tempting to resist. He brought his open palm down in mock punishment. Savannah jumped, but before she could scoot away, his palm began caressing, producing a far different effect. “Judging from our positions, ma chérie, I would say my judgment looks better than yours.”
She laughed. “All right, I’m going to let you win this time.”
“Would you care for a shower?” he asked solicitously.
When she nodded, Gregori flowed off the bed, lifted her high into his arms, and cradled her against his chest. There was something too innocent about him. She eyed him warily. But in an instant he had already glided across the tiled floor to the balcony door, which flew open at his whim, and carried her, naked, into the cold, glittering downpour.
Savannah tried to squirm away, wiggling and shoving at his chest, laughing in spite of the icy water cascading over her. “Gregori! You’re so mean. I can’t believe you did this.”
“Well, I have poor judgment.” He was grinning at her in mocking, male amusement. “Is that not what you said?”
“I take it back!” she moaned, clinging to him, burying her face on his shoulder as the chill rain pelted her bare breasts, making her nipples peak hard and fast.
“Run with me tonight,” Gregori whispered against her neck. An enticement. Temptation. Drawing her to him, another tie to his dark world.
She lifted her head, looked into his silver eyes, and was lost. The rain poured over her, drenching her, but as Gregori slowly glided with her to the blanket of pine needles below the balcony, she couldn’t look away from those hungry eyes. She nodded, accepting his will for them that night.
Following the desire in his mind, she focused on picturing the necessary image. And her body began to contort. There was a curious wrenching, a strange, disorienting feeling, and then her skin rippled with glossy blue-black fur as her body rapidly changed. Soon a small, blue-eyed wolf stood in the rain, watching as a huge black wolf nudged her, his tongue lapping a rough caress along her muzzle.
Savannah turned and trotted through the dense vegetation, exalting in the freedom of the wolf’s body. Gregori glided beside her, close and protective. The wind sang, and the trees rustled. She could hear everything, feel everything, the night itself calling to her. She began to run as her body was meant to, with long, loping strides, her neck stretched forward.
She felt wild. No longer human. Free. She ran fast, swerving in and out through the trees. Gregori kept pace, occasionally touching her sleek body with his muzzle or nudging her flank or shoulder to turn her in the direction he wished to go. Savannah flushed out a rabbit, then chased it for the sheer joy of it before turning along a little-used path through heavy brush.