“Oh, Dee-Ann.”
She could hear the horror in his voice and she forced herself not to cringe. “Look, I ain’t got time to put in fancy furniture and clean up. It’s not like I’ve had much time these last few months.”
“Dee-Ann, a couple of crates does not true furniture make.” He hit the switch for the lights—lights that didn’t come on. “Is the Group not paying you enough?”
Dee cringed. This was getting worse by the second. “Of course, they are. You are. I just haven’t been back here for a while and I haven’t had time to set up the apartment bills to be automatically paid online. It’s not a big deal. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“It’s roasting in here. The middle of summer. No electricity, no AC. You’ll overheat.”
“I’ll pant.”
“You’ll be like a dog locked in some idiot’s car.” He took several steps farther in. “And you’re still living out of your bags?” He faced her, his eyes naturally reflecting the light coming from a streetlamp outside her apartment window, which had no curtains or blinds. “How long have you had this place?”
Months, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “It’ll be fine.”
She walked past him to her window. Her eyes narrowed and she opened the window, leaned out, and gave one of her vicious snarling-barks at the males circling around Van Holtz’s car. They took off running and Dee turned around to find Ric . . . cleaning her floor?
“What in hell are you doin’?”
“You’re not staying here. I am not letting you stay here.”
He wasn’t cleaning her floor, he was shoving the few clothes she had here back into her duffle bag. Dee rolled her eyes in an attempt to hide her mortification at this current situation.
“That’s real sweet of you, Ric,” although she had to work hard not to sound bitter, “but I don’t need you to . . . what are you looking at?”
Still crouched on the floor next to her bag, he was staring off in a dark corner near her barely used closet. Standing, he walked over, spun around, and came right back, picking up her duffle bag.
“We’re out of here.”
“What is it?”
“Vermin. You have vermin.” He looked at her duffle bag, flung it to the floor. “I’ll buy you new clothes.”
“Darlin’, this is New York City. There’s vermin everywhere. They were just circling your car.”
“I’m not talking human vermin, Dee-Ann. I can handle human vermin. This kind of vermin . . . I can’t handle.”
Surprised a wolf would openly act so freaked out about a goddamn rat, Dee-Ann walked over to her closet to show Van Holtz how a Smith handled a little ol’ vermin problem.
Ric stood by the door, foot tapping impatiently, his entire body coiled and ready to make a crazed sprint out the window and to the safety of the unsafe street below. But, as much as he might want to, he would never leave Dee-Ann alone to face that . . . that thing she had living in her closet.
It was a known fact around the world that there were two things the Van Holtzes hated universally, whether it was the American Van Holtzes, the German, the Italian—whatever. And those universally hated things? Roaches and rats, the bane of any restaurant’s existence.
For the Van Holtz Pack the hatred went far deeper than that. It wasn’t unexpected that one of their restaurants would be shut down for weeks if there was any sign of vermin. Even the health department’s more scummy inspectors, willing to take a payoff to overlook things, didn’t bother to try to elicit bribes from any Van Holtz. What was the point when the whole group reacted to any sign of mold, fungus, or vermin with an intense violence rivaled only by actual house cats? In fact, a few Van Holtzes, including Ric, were known to hire feline line cooks just so they could deal with any rodent problems. But there could be no playing with the vermin, as some felines liked to do—especially those mountain lions and leopards—they were there to kill, kill, kill. One of Ric’s favorite grill men was an Ecuadorian cheetah who went after vermin with an almost psychotic glee. When he finally left the restaurant to run his own kitchen—Ric cried a little.
Sighing dramatically, Dee ambled across the room to see the horror that lay in wait. He knew what she was going to do. Or what she’d try to do—show Ric what a big wuss he was being. Well, let her try, he thought, seconds before she fled back to his side, panting, eyes wide in fear.
“It hissed at me,” she said, her voice a tad higher than he’d ever heard it before.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Are rats supposed to hiss?”
“It’s not a farm rat, Dee. It’s a Manhattan rat.”
“It’s the size of my cousin’s dog!”
“And has a nest it’s protecting, so I suggest we just get the hell—”
It came skidding out into the middle of the room, all long and ripped like it had been on steroids for years. It hissed at the pair again, beady eyes red and pulsating with rage. And, going on instinct alone rather than rational thought, the two wolves made a crazed run for it, right out the door and into the hall, Ric slamming the door shut behind them. They stood with their backs against it, their shoulders pressed together, both of them panting, even shaking a little.
On the other side, that thing slammed its entire body against the wood, small claws viciously digging. The pair jumped and Dee, the She-wolf who had faced the meanest predators in this country and others, grabbed Ric’s hand and yanked him away and down the stairs, jumping over trash and drunks until they reached his car, which he was glad to see was still there.
He unlocked the doors with his remote and yanked the driver’s side door open. That’s when Ric looked up, sensing they were being watched. He’d give anything to see some terrifying human standing there, maybe with a high-powered rifle, ready to shoot them both dead. But it wasn’t some terrifying human.
“Dee . . .”
Slowly, Dee looked over her shoulder and up. The rat—a female with babes to protect—stood on the sill of that open window, glaring down at them with those beady rat eyes. Then it hissed again, showing a mouthful of fangs.
They both scrambled into the car.
“Go!” Dee yelled. “Go, go, go!”
He did, starting the car, and tearing out of that spot, grateful that the German car gods had created his car so that it went from zero to sixty in six seconds flat.
Ric didn’t stop driving until he was forced to by traffic and a red light several blocks away.
Still panting, he gripped the wheel. “You’re never going back there,” he told her, unconcerned that he was ordering her around about her personal life, a line he rarely ever crossed with anyone. Yet he simply didn’t care. “That rat and her family own that apartment now. We’ll find you something else. Something nicer.”
Dropping back against the seat, Dee nodded and said, “Okay.” And left it at that.
The light changed and Ric headed back to his place, where there was furniture, electricity, and absolutely, unequivocally, no vermin.
CHAPTER 9
“I’m not dirty.”
She couldn’t even look at him she was so mortified. Mortified and embarrassed.
“Sorry?” Van Holtz said, all politeness. But she knew what he must be thinking. What she’d be thinking if the tables were turned.
“I said I’m not dirty,” Dee-Ann repeated. “I know that’s what you must be thinking after seeing that . . . thing in my apartment, but it’s not true.”
“Why must I be thinking that?”
“Gee, I don’t know. ’Cause there was a colony of rats in my place?”
“I’d probably be more concerned if you actually lived there, Dee-Ann. But you clearly haven’t been.” He stepped next to her and placed a plate in front of her. It was filled with a hunk of that angel food cake with white icing that he had at his restaurant. A cake that had become her all-time favorite. So did Ric just happen to have her favorite cake lying around? He preferred German chocolate cake from what she could tell.
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“Except for the few clothes and your bag,” he went on, “your scent had faded. I didn’t see any weapons and Christ knows you’d have needed them in that place. So I’m in no way assuming you are some filthy rat-meister who breeds rats for your vicious army that will one day take over the world. Milk?”
Dee blinked, snorted a little. He’d made her laugh. At this moment, no less. For that alone, she might just love him a little. “I would like some milk. Thank you very kindly.”
Ric walked to the fridge and brought over an unopened carton of whole milk. “You can sleep in the room Lock used to use when he didn’t have his apartment yet. It’s got a bear-size king.” He filled a tall glass with milk, but left the carton. Dee knew she drank milk like a growing fourteen-year-old on the junior high football team, and Ric always seemed to make sure to have several fresh cartons in his apartment for when she dropped by to talk business. “And you can wear one of my T-shirts.”
“I sleep naked.”
She saw him swallow.
“And feel free to keep doing so.”
She laughed again. “All this fuss isn’t necessary. I don’t need to stay here.”
“I have tons of room.”
Yeah, he had tons of room all right. His place was huge, with high ceilings and extremely wide rooms. It was a place he’d bought himself and he only lived on the top floor. He leased out the rest of the building and made a fortune doing it. And not once, since Dee began showing up at all hours to meet with Ric about the Group, had she ever felt like she belonged here.
“I can crash at my cousin Bobby Ray’s place.”
“With the wild dogs?”
He had a point. “I can stay with Sissy Mae. She’s rarely there anyway.”
“But when she is, Mitch Shaw is with her and you’ll get the joy of dealing daily with a demanding lion male.”
Damn him, but he was right. More than once Dee had wondered how Sissy put up with Mitch Shaw and had often found herself daydreaming about all the ways she could tear pieces of him off his body without actually killing him.
“Guess it’ll be Rory then.” Great. More females she’d have to kick out on a daily basis, no matter how many times the man promised the latest one-night stand was the last. “He won’t mind.”
“I bet he won’t,” Van Holtz muttered, slamming his own plate of cake down as he sat cattycorner from her.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“No. Not at all. Crash at Reed’s, if that’s what you want. Hope you two are very happy together.”
“Just because I’m crashing at Rory’s place don’t mean we’re doing anything together . . . and why am I explaining this to you?”
He stared at her and asked, “Why do you think?”
Dee thought about it a minute. “You’re interested in Rory Lee?”
Ric lowered his head, his eyes shifting from human to wolf. They were blue when wolf. Like an Arctic wolf’s. “You cannot be that clueless, Dee-Ann.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“You know what? Forget I said anything.” He pointed at the cake she hadn’t touched yet. “Are you going to eat that?”
“When I feel like it.”
“You don’t have to get snippy. I brought the cake from work for you.”
“Did I ask you to?” she snipped at him.
“Fine. Don’t eat the cake. I’ll eat it myself.” He reached for it and Dee, feeling really difficult, shoved it out of his way.
“Didn’t say I wouldn’t eat the cake, Van Holtz.”
“Then eat the damn cake and call me Ric.”
“I’ll do what I want.”
“And what is that exactly? Do you even have a clue?”
“Yeah. I have a clue.”
“Then for God’s sake, do it already!”
Pissed off more than she could remember, Dee did exactly what Van Holtz suggested and “did it already” by wrapping her hand around the back of his neck, yanking him forward, and kissing him dead on the mouth.
Ric didn’t know what was happening. One second he was blindingly jealous of some oversized wolf who seemed to live his entire life being referred to as “one of the Reed boys” while wearing a myriad of baseball caps. And the next second . . .
He felt the anger in Dee’s kiss but Ric simply didn’t care. He’d been waiting way too long to kiss this She-wolf. Way too long to find out the depth and dimensions of this mouth, the heat. And to be quite blunt, Ric had grown tired of waiting.
With their mouths still fused together, Ric slid off the kitchen stool and caught hold of Dee around the waist with both hands, yanking her up and off her chair, pulling her in tight against his body. She groaned a little, her body jerking in surprise when Ric’s tongue dove in to her mouth.
God, she tasted perfect. Perfect for him.
The wolf inside him responded immediately, having already decided that Dee was the one for Ric as soon as they’d seen her amble into Lock’s hallway. Dirty, loose-fitting jeans hanging low on her hips, boots scuffing Lock’s hardwood floor, worn jacket that had seen better days hanging off a strong, powerful body.
Yet Ric fought the wolf’s need to make Dee-Ann his forever. He fought it because while his wolf ran on instinct and need, the man ran on logic and sense. Dee-Ann was not some female sitting around, waiting for her mate to show up. She was a wolf who didn’t like boundaries or limitations. She didn’t like feeling, to quote her, “hemmed in.” He knew that she didn’t automatically feel that a mate of her own meant she was trapped for eternity, but she did feel that she had to find the right mate. She had to find the one who understood that sometimes she’d wander off for no reason other than she needed some air. That she might disappear for days or weeks either to handle a job or because she needed to roam the forests and woods of the closest hunting ground. That she might stop talking for a few hours or days for no other reason than that she had absolutely nothing to say.
Any male who wanted to claim Dee-Ann as his own would have to understand these things—and Ric did. He understood these things about Dee-Ann and loved her more because of them. But he also knew she wasn’t ready to believe that Ric was the one for her. She wasn’t ready to grasp the depth of their connection yet.
In other words, she was going to be difficult to get. Not in his bed, but permanently in his life.
Faced with that realization, Ric quickly analyzed the situation, coming up with a big-picture question that would need to be answered. The question? How did a nice wolf-next-door lure the most dangerous She-wolf alive into his life for good? Astounding sex was the most immediate answer and, based on this kiss alone, Ric had no doubt that would be obtained with little effort on either of their parts.
Perhaps romantic declarations of love? Expensive gifts that sparkled? A whirlwind romance filled with exotic locals and high-end hotels complete with staff?
Heh. If Ric weren’t busy finding out how talented Dee was with her tongue, he’d laugh at that. All of it. Because none of those things mattered to Dee-Ann Smith. Words, money, glamour—to Dee, he might as well be speaking Cantonese. In fact, Ric was pretty sure doing any of that would only make his She-wolf run from him faster than a gazelle from a cheetah.
While his mind turned, he thought about the woman currently in his arms. This woman, this female, was a predator. A hardened predator that appreciated a meal more when it put up a fight. And that was true about Dee-Ann in every other facet of her life. She’d accept the easy meal, the half-eaten carcass lying in her path, waiting to be devoured. But that wasn’t nearly as fun as the moose calf hiding behind its pissed off mother.
No, if Ric merely bent Dee over the stainless-steel island in the middle of his kitchen, took her from behind, and told her she was his and they would be together forever, she’d laugh, take her orgasm, and go. He’d never see her again, even if he marked her with every fang in his head. He knew that with the same certainty as he knew how to breathe.
And that left only one option for the
first phase of making Dee-Ann a permanent part of Ric’s life. A risky option Ric really didn’t want to take, but he had no choice. He wanted Dee forever, not just now, for tonight.
So Ric did the last thing he ever wanted to do.
He pulled away.
“Dee,” he forced himself to say around all that panting and a cock that was so hard it hurt and made it almost impossible to think straight. “We really shouldn’t be doing this.”
Yellow, predatory eyes watched him for a moment, her brain trying to wrap itself around the idea of a male, any male, stepping away from what she’d clearly been offering. First, it was confusion he saw in her eyes. Then, it was realization. But it wasn’t until those cold eyes narrowed the slightest bit, her gaze locking on Ric with an intensity that took his breath away that he understood something very important . . .
He was now running away simply so he could be caught.
CHAPTER 10
D ee had to admit she was damned confused. What was Ric doing? He was panting, had a hard-on, and looked ready to eat her alive. So why was he pulling away? Someone else might guess he didn’t want the good Van Holtz name sullied by having a Smith in his bed, but she knew that was not Ric’s way of thinking. This had nothing to do with money or lack of money or fancy names or any other prestige bullshit. Besides, who had to ever know? They were two people in this apartment, alone, and horny. It all seemed perfect to her but still . . . here was Ric, pulling away.
If she thought for a second he simply didn’t want her, she wouldn’t worry about it. She’d head off to bed and quietly masturbate. In her estimation it was one of the reason’s the Lord gave them all fingers—just for this scenario.
But he did want her.
So maybe he was shy? She’d known him quite a few months now and although he spent a lot of his time around other females, from what Dee could tell, he hadn’t put a move on any of them. Good, ol’ friendly Ric. Kind of funny since a good chunk of these women went after Van Holtz like a wild dog went after a tennis ball. Canines, felines, full-humans—they all went after Ric and that perfectly sculpted face. They all wanted him but none had been able to get him.