Burning Up by Nalini Singh, Meljean Brook, Virginia Kantra, Angela Knight

unbuttoned the first three buttons on her shirt.
    “Emmett!”
    “It’s to make the bad memories go away.”
    Giving a burst of stifled laughter, she thrust her fingers through his hair as he pressed a kiss to the delicate skin between her breasts. “God, you’re pretty, mink. I’m gonna kiss you all over next time.”
    “I like that song.”
    “Me, too.” Another kiss before he straightened. “So, everything’s going to plan. Problem is, Vincent’s smart. He’s got the immediate area around his truck set up with sensors. No way to get to the truck without alerting him.”
    “But you were sure he was in there?”
    “We saw him come out earlier in the day—”
    “How did you know what he looked like?”
    Smart question. Nothing less than he expected from his mate. “No need. It was obvious he was the alpha dog.”
    “Go on.”
    He ran his finger down her bared skin, undoing a few more buttons along the way. His leopard rose to the forefront, possessive and oh-so-hungry.

TEN
    B reathing past the desire to simply take, he continued. “It was clear we wouldn’t be able to get into the truck even if we somehow got past the alarms—thing was armored like a tank. No windows, no visible vents. So we threw something at the back doors.”
    Ria blinked. “High-tech.”
    “All we needed was one of the goons to open the doors. Soon as he did, we shot in so many canisters of tear gas, they couldn’t throw them all back.” He’d finished unbuttoning her shirt, but she was too involved in the story to notice. The cat grinned. “Bastards had to come pouring out eventually. But the morons came out shooting, even though they couldn’t see a target.”
    “You got shot by accident ?” she asked, as if it was his fault.
    “I got shot by morons .” He bent to press kisses along the creamy upper curves of her breasts. “Aside from two lucky shots, they were useless. We had them down on their knees in seconds.”
    “What did you do to them?”
    Looking up, he met her gaze. “I’m a leopard, Ria. I protect what’s mine.”
    “I know.” Absolute acceptance in her eyes, her face.
    “I was the one to take Vincent down—and maybe he got a little banged up in the process, but we turned the whole lot of them over to Enforcement.”
    “Really?”
    “Scout’s honor.” He smiled, letting the leopard out to play. “Turns out the Crew killed two cops in cold blood only a few hours before our takedown. Enforcement was real happy to take them in.”
    “Two birds, one stone,” she murmured. “Vincent never again sees the light of day, and you make friends in Enforcement.”
    “And,” he said, knowing she needed to know everything, “by taking down the Crew so completely, we gave notice to the Psy Council that we’re here to stay.”
    Ria’s eyes darkened. “They’ll make trouble for you if they think you’re a threat.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Good thing you cats are so tough.” A soft whisper that told him she’d stand by him, no matter what.
    Proud of her courage, he said, “We did let one goon go.”
    “Why?”
    “So he could take a message to the famiglia up north. Anyone else comes down, we’ll be sending them back in little tiny pieces. And then we’ll come up and do the same to those who gave the orders.”
    “Would you really?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think family comes first.” She smiled. “You did something else. I can tell.”
    He began to slip her shirt off her shoulders. “We have some expert hackers. Maybe the big bosses found their data compromised and pictures of leopards as screen savers.”
    Ria’s body began to shake as the shirt dropped to the floor. Her laughter was infectious—the leopard purred into her mouth as he took it in a slow, deep kiss. She kissed him back with an intensity that was pure Ria, then slid her mouth over his jaw and up to nibble on his ear. He was stroking his hand down to cup her breast when she screamed and jerked back.
    He knew she was saying