Walker rolled and swept her feet from under her. She went down again — barely — and he threw one leg over her and wrestled her wrists to the mat above her head. “Should we count it off?” he panted.
“I don’t submit,” she snarled, but something other than anger laced the words. Desire. Heat. A heat reflected in her eyes, in the way her body twisted beneath him, not so much testing as teasing. “It has been too long since I fought for survival. I am becoming soft.”
He only wished that were true, that she’d reached a point — found a place — where she could afford to let go a little. “You’re tough as nails and you know it, Zola. I’m just stronger, that’s all.” Stronger but stupid, because he couldn’t help responding to the soft press of her body.
“I’m faster. Speed should balance strength.” Her voice dropped to a husky whisper that invited him to test more than her strength. “It would have, too, if the lion didn’t wish to be caught. She does not have my pride.”
Blood thundered in his ears as sense memory overtook him. He’d had her under him like this before, a mostly innocent situation that had turned to painful awareness in a heartbeat. She had kissed him that time, the awkwardness of the advance eclipsed by her eagerness — and by his own desire.
Memory clashed with adrenaline and the feel of her body against his, and Walker’s dick hardened. He would have rolled away, but that hot invitation in her eyes kept him motionless. Riveted.
The world upended in a surge of sleek muscle. She moved fast, rolling them in a tangle of limbs that ended with her straddling his hips, hands planted on either side of his head. Echoes of that same memory were reflected in her eyes, along with wariness. “If you want that innocent girl, you won’t find her here. I’m a grown woman.”
He hadn’t wanted to want that innocent girl any more than he wished to complicate Zola’s life by desiring her now. “I know who you are.”
“No, you don’t.” She nuzzled the line of his jaw and back toward his ear, her cheek smooth against his face. Her breath blew warm over his earlobe just before her lips brushed his skin, an electric contact. “If you stayed, you could learn. All the things you used to know, and the things you never discovered.”
The most dangerous issue of all was how Walker wanted to respond to the sweet temptation of her offer. He could stay. He had—
No idea what the fuck is going to happen, he reminded himself coldly. He’d be risking her heart again if he promised something he couldn’t deliver, though his body didn’t care. It yearned towards her, desperate to augment his memories with a thousand things he’d never felt. “Zola.”
She closed her teeth on his throat with a purring growl.
Heat streaked through him, and Walker flipped her without thinking. He pinned her hips with his and almost returned the sharp, instinctive caress. Instead, his mouth descended on hers.
He hadn’t known he was going to kiss her until he did, his tongue parting her lips before slipping into her mouth. He’d missed this the most, but instead of trembling under him like she had all those years ago, she bit the tip of his tongue with a needy little snarl and kissed him like she’d forgotten how to do anything else, teeth and tongue and desperate gripping hands, pulling him closer.
They didn’t know each other anymore, but that could change in a moment. A heartbeat. And it would be all too easy to lose himself in her.
Walker tore his mouth from hers and struggled for control as he panted against her bare shoulder. “We have to stop this.”
“Alec will be here soon,” she said, and it might have sounded more like agreement if her body wasn’t still hot and pliant under his.
He rocked back to his knees, scrubbing both hands over his face. “Are you hungry?”
A rough knock sounded from below before she could answer, and Zola sighed and rolled away. “That will be him.”
Resenting the other man’s intrusion was ridiculous, especially since he’d only come to help. Walker rose, his body still painfully tight. “Later, we need to talk about this.”
“We’ll see.” She came to her feet in one graceful movement, hands already smoothing her dishevelled clothing. Trying to erase any visible sign that he’d touched her, though it would take days for his scent to fade from her skin.
It pleased him more than it should have.
Another impatient knock rattled the front door. Walker bounded down the stairs two at a time and dragged it open to find a tall, imposing wolf with dark hair, dark eyes and a dark scowl that faltered when he dragged in a deep breath.
Confusion flickered through his eyes, then he tilted his head, eyeing Walker with obvious appraisal. “So. I hear you’re John’s half-brother. Didn’t realize you were so friendly with Zola, too.”
He held out his hand. “We go way back. I’m Walker Gravois.”
“Alec Jacobson.” The wolf had a firm handshake, strong, but not overly aggressive. “Zola here?”
“Upstairs. She’ll be down in a second.”
“Ah.” A knowing little smile. “Can I at least come in? You and I can talk.”
“Yeah, sure.” Walker locked the door behind him and pulled the shade tighter. “Did you manage to reach the Southeast council?”
“Skipped them.” Alec leaned against the desk. “Got some hush-hush info from the Conclave instead. Your group — the Scions? They’ve already petitioned the Conclave for permission to extradite you.”
“I’m not surprised.” If he’d gone straight to Conclave sources, he had to be more connected than Walker had realized. “What about the rest of the pride?”
“They seem focused on you, for now. The Conclave. .” Derision filled Alec’s voice. “Well, off the record? They’re spinning their wheels. Some of them want to hand you right over, and the rest don’t want to get involved at all, because it’s not a wolf matter. Right now, they’re looking for an excuse to say it isn’t their business.”
He’d already thought of it. “Like if the pride belonged to someone else. Someone who’d never crossed the Scions.”
“Like if the pride belonged to Zola.” Alec nodded shortly. “Here’s the deal, Gravois. The Conclave might order that we give you up, but they know we won’t. Not if Zola doesn’t want us to. New Orleans is pretty much off the grid right now, and the Conclave isn’t ready to force a confrontation. But they can’t exactly admit to your Scions that they’re so powerless that they can’t hand you over. So if they’ve got a reason to stay out of it — like Zola being in charge and you being one of her people now. .”
“Then they’ll stay out of it.” Walker’s gaze drifted to the stairs. “The Scions will come anyway. For me, at least.”
“Does she know?”
“I told her they’re not going to give up.” Walker squared his shoulders and turned to face Alec. “I protected Tatienne when they came for her. She may have been nuts, but she was one of us. I killed a few of them, and now the Scions have a personal score to settle with me.”
The stairs creaked behind him, and he marked Zola’s passage easily by the whisper of bare feet on hardwood. “I am hearing you both quite clearly,” she said when she reached the ground level.
Alec responded to her irritated tone with a lazy grin. “Never figured you couldn’t. Just catching your friend up on the lay of the land, darling.”
He addressed her with irritating familiarity, but it was the way Zola reacted to the endearment that made Walker grit his teeth. She stared at Alec, flat and hard. “Behave.”
The wolf raised both eyebrows in a clear What did I do? expression. Zola snorted and turned to Walker, speaking in French. “He’s testing you. He tests everyone. He seems to think it makes him very clever.” She looked to Alec and switched back to her deeply accented English. “We do not have time to play your wolf games, Alexander Jacobson.”