The Beast in Him

  May laughed in disbelief. “I can’t believe you said that about his head.”

  “Well, it was large!” Jess argued to the four people she was closest to in the universe. The original members of their forty-strong Pack.

  “I mean that thing was huge. I’d sit there…under the bleachers…hiding, terrified…and I’d think to myself, ‘If he tips his head to the side, will he completely fall over? Like the Elephant Man?’”

  “Oh, my God, Jess!”

  “What? You ask a lot of weird questions when you’re hiding under bleachers.”

  Danny found a fabulous parking spot right outside the diner.

  “You guys think I’ll see him again?”

  “No,” they answered in unison.

  Jess sighed in relief. “Good.” She waved at her outfit. She’d borrowed the dress and fur coat from Sabina, but unfortunately, she’d paid good money for the shoes.

  “I can’t keep this up on a regular basis. And I hate these shoes. My feet are freezing and I fell on my ass in the bathroom.”

  “Those shoes make that outfit,” Phil complained. “So suck it up.”

  “Give me my sneakers, May.”

  “You’re going to put sneakers on with that dress?”

  “When did you become Karl Lagerfeld?”

  Phil leaned into his wife. “They’re being mean to me, my love. Destroy them.”

  “I’m hungry,” Sabina said. “I want waffles and I want them now. Or someone will pay dearly.” She looked at Phil and they all knew she meant that “someone” was him.

  “Okay. Okay. My little Russian love bug. Calm yourself.”

  While the others got out of the Hummer, Jess pulled on her sneakers. Yeah, it was over. No matter how good Bobby Ray Smith might look, she was over her little “wait until he sees me now” moment.

  Christ, though, the man did look good. Tall with mile-wide shoulders and his entire body rippling with muscles under his black midlength leather jacket, black turtleneck, and black jeans. And those watchful, amber eyes staring out under that dark brown hair, most of which reached to his collar. Probably a relief after so many years in the military.

  Yeah, the man still looked damn good.

  She wished she could say she truly had no idea he’d be attending this party, but her Pack never did business with anyone they hadn’t thoroughly investigated. And although she knew Mace through his sister and their mutual charity activities over the past five years, it wasn’t until Danny gave her the information on his business that she saw Bobby Ray Smith’s name listed as his partner.

  At that point, she knew what she had to do. As childish and ridiculous as it seemed even to her, she couldn’t resist. And, as always, her Pack had been more than willing to join in.

  But now it was over. She’d showed him exactly how far she’d come, and it felt great. Yet, she had more important things to deal with now, moving Bobby Ray Smith officially into her past.

  Although there definitely remained a part of her that still wished she’d gotten a chance to kiss him that night in the gymnasium. Just so she could stop wondering what it would be like. By now she felt certain she’d built it up to gargantuan proportions the poor man could never live up to.

  The passenger side door opened and Jess grabbed hold of Danny’s hand so he could help her from the huge vehicle. Now that she was back in her normal footwear, she didn’t need the help, but she wouldn’t turn it down either.

  Laughing and happy, the Pack walked into the diner to feed.

  Chapter 2

  Smitty sat back and watched the high-powered activity of the busy kitchen. He always loved hanging out at this restaurant. The chef, first cousin of the Van Holtz Pack Alpha Male, always made him feel welcome and, more important, fed him.

  “So how’s the business?” Adelle Van Holtz asked as she handed a waiter two plates of food.

  “It’s okay. We’re getting more clients. Had a big job last night that worked out well.”

  “Good. Good. I told my brother about you guys. He may have some work for you.” She reached around him and grabbed a bottle of water. “As you know, the Van Holtz Pack doesn’t like to sully our fingers with common wolf activities.”

  “The Smiths are all about the common wolf activities. And being sullied. So we’re more than happy to help. Especially if it involves my favorite restaurant,” he finished with a wink.

  The Van Holtz Steakhouse restaurant chain had been neutral ground for shifters for years, although cats didn’t come by very often. Yet every breed of wolf or canine could come and indulge their need for rare steak and hang with the other wolves. Only problem, the Van Holtz Steakhouse was in no way cheap. So Smiths didn’t come very often since they didn’t exactly roll in money like the Van Holtz and Magnus Packs did.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Adelle said with a smile. “Now tell me what’s wrong, baby boy?”

  Smitty liked Adelle a lot, the two of them becoming impossibly tight after she’d hired Smitty to beef up her restaurant’s security and figure out which of her staff had been stealing from her. It turned out to be the arctic fox busboy.

  At least twenty years older than him, Adelle wasn’t as snobby as most Van Holtzs, and she really knew how to cook up a steak. She had a mothering streak a mile long, and she loved to baby Smitty. With his momma in Tennessee and his sister a pain in the ass, he sometimes needed that.

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

  She reached up and stroked his cheek. “You know you can’t hide anything from me. Is it a She-wolf problem?”

  “Nah.” He kind of wished it was. She-wolves were real simple to understand if you followed three simple rules: Don’t irritate them, don’t stare them down unless you’ve got a death wish or you’re sure you can take them, and don’t irritate them. You followed that simple logic, you’d do just fine. But Jessie Ann wasn’t a She-wolf, and there was nothing simple about that woman. Not a damn thing. “Just met an old friend last night and she acted like she didn’t even know me.”

  “Well—”

  “And how could she not?” he continued. “I’m amazing.”

  Adelle patted his chest. “That you are.”

  After the job and breakfast with Mace, Smitty didn’t get back to his apartment until well after six A.M. He’d stripped and dropped into bed, expecting to be asleep within seconds. Instead, he’d stared up at his ceiling for a good hour wondering how Jessie could so easily forget him. True, it wasn’t like they spent every hour of every day together when they both lived in Smithtown, but he was closer to her than he was to most anybody else except his sister. He’d even listened to her when she’d go on and on about some book she read. The fact that he’d endure conversations about elves and dragons and guys with swords still amazed him. But he’d done it for Jessie Ann.

  Hell, maybe she was still mad. He knew females could hold a grudge like no other. Especially predators. Maybe she hadn’t forgiven him for walking away, for leaving her alone in Smithtown. But what else could he do? It’s not like the Navy would have let him bring a sixteen-year-old girl with him because “my sister and her friends use her like a chew toy.”

  What annoyed Smitty even more? That he cared. He cared whether Jessie remembered him. He cared that she might have been hurt when he left. Why the hell should he? But dammit he did, and he could hear his daddy as if the man were standing right next to him: “You always were a big pussy, boy.”

  A waiter stopped in front of Adelle and she quickly examined the tray full of food. She nodded and sent him on his way. “So you hot for this little chickie?”

  Rearing back, Smitty shook his head. “Lord, no. She’s just a friend. Someone I used to be close to, but I could never…we could never…” He shook his head. “No way.”

  “Huh. Flustered. I’ve never seen you flustered before.”

  “I am not flustered. You took me by surprise is all.”

  “Of course. That must be it.” Adelle patted his shoulder. “You want
another steak? It’ll make you feel better.” He’d already had two.

  “I could eat again.”

  She smiled and grabbed a plate off the tray of a passing waiter.

  The waiter stopped. “That’s for table ten.”

  “So?”

  “They’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes.” Saturday nights were the busiest nights for the Van Holtz restaurants, yet Adelle didn’t move any faster or do any more than she did on the slowest night of the year.

  “Are they important?”

  Now Smitty laughed. “Adelle.”

  “What? It’s a valid question.”

  The waiter leaned close to Adelle and whispered, “It’s Jessica Ward, boss.”

  Smitty blinked in surprise. “Jessica Ann Ward?”

  “Yeah.” The waiter grinned. “Another one of her first dates if I’m guessing right.”

  Pushing past the two females, Smitty opened the door and glared across the restaurant.

  “I really don’t know why the woman bothers,” Adelle sighed behind him. “She has to be the pickiest canine on the planet. She’s had some hottie-hots in here and she leaves ’em standing at the corner—alone—every time.”

  Smitty spotted the “couple”—he almost choked on that—immediately, his eyes narrowing when he saw the bastard take Jessie’s hand.

  Didn’t she know she had to be careful in this day and age? The scrawny bastard probably just wanted one thing from her and she didn’t even realize it.

  “What’s wrong, baby boy?”

  “Nothing. Give ’em their food.”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “No, thanks, Adelle.”

  Adelle shrugged and placed the plate back on the tray.

  Yup, Phil was right again. Sherman Landry of the Landry wild-dog Pack was really boring. Almost painfully boring and with a case of OCD the likes she’d never seen. And hoped to never see again.

  He adjusted the butter knife on the table for the fourteenth time in the last forty-five minutes, and asked, “So do you have any plans for the long weekend coming up in a couple of weeks?”

  Uh-oh.

  “As a matter of fact, I do. With my Pack.”

  “Oh.” He looked so disappointed. Like a Labrador that just got his bone taken away. “And the charity ball at the museum?”

  Good God, Jess! Think of something. Something! She couldn’t do this again. Not again. Dating was hard enough, but dating a guy this irritating was asking too much of her.

  To be honest, Jess didn’t know why she bothered anymore. She’d been dating wild dogs solidly for the past year. Some of them coming from Europe and Asia to take her out. Most of them were nice, but none of them got her all sweaty and squirmy. And the thought of breeding with any of them left her cold. Jess would admit it, she was ready. Ready to have her own pups. Her own mate. She’d helped raise her Packmates’ kids for fifteen years, and it was time she had her own little nightmares to contend with. But the thought of Sherman Landry’s obsessive-compulsive nature helping to raise any of her kids did nothing but make her feel a little ill.

  “I’m going with my Pack.”

  “Of course,” he said, his disappointment evident. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that tone when talking about her Pack. As much as they didn’t like him, Jess sensed he didn’t like them either.

  Too bad for him. Her Pack meant too much to her to bring in someone who’d cause nothing but problems between them.

  “Yeah…well.” Since she had nothing else to say, Jess wiped her mouth on a linen napkin. “I’ll be right back. Need to go to the ladies’ room.”

  She stood up, forcing a smile when he stood up as well. Say what you would about Sherman, he was definitely polite.

  Jess walked toward the back until she hit the ladies’ room, which she always called “the marble palace.” She brought nearly every date to this restaurant because she knew even if the date sucked, the filet mignon was always perfection.

  As she washed her hands and used the thick paper towels to dry them, she realized she couldn’t put in another hour on this date. She’d finished her steak, now Sherman wanted dessert. And all she wanted was to get back to the office. The last week of preparation for Friday night’s party had put her behind, and she realized now this Saturday date had been a huge mistake.

  She pulled her cell phone out of her way too small purse—she’d give anything to have her backpack with her—and sent Phil a text message. It was a simple one:

  GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!

  Confident her friends would come through with no further prompting, Jess dropped her cell back into her bag and spun around—right into the brawny chest of some guy. A guy in a ladies’ room.

  Letting out a strangled scream, she started swinging. As usual, it wasn’t pretty, much more a flailing wildly. She’d never been a very good fighter when human.

  But the man caught hold of her, pinning her arms to her sides. Her fangs slid out and she started to go for his neck when she heard, “Jessie Ann! Would you calm down!”

  Shocked, she leaned back and stared up into the face of Bobby Ray Smith. Damn him! Why did he have to look so freakin’ good?

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “Why are you in the ladies’ room?”

  “Can’t a man use a ladies’ room if he feels like it?”

  “No, he can’t. And do you mind getting your paws off me?” He did and Jess stepped back, but her ass hit the sink. Trying to look casual and not fall on her ass, she sauntered around him and tossed out her paper towel.

  “How long were you standing there anyway? Or is this some weird kinky shit you’ve started doing since you joined the Marines?”

  “The Navy, Jessie Ann. I joined the Navy.”

  “Whatever.”

  Bobby Ray looked at the door, then back at her. “Did you not know I was in here with you the entire time you were washing your hands—and mumbling to yourself like my crazy Aunt Ju-ju?”

  Dammit. She really had to work on the talking to herself thing. “I knew.”

  “But not until you turned around.”

  “Look, I’ve got a lot on my mind. I can’t be aware of everything constantly.”

  “But…” He looked so adorably confused all she wanted to do was punch him in the face. “You’re one of us. How could you not know I was right behind you?”

  “I—”

  “You couldn’t scent me? Hear me? Are you still that oblivious?”

  How did he manage to do it again? Turn her into a sixteen-year-old? She clearly remembered getting these long lectures from him about being safe and aware of what was going on around her. “You can’t live your life in them books, Jessie Ann,” he’d always tell her. Like she’d want to spend a second of her day facing her reality. She usually received these lectures while she hid under bleachers or up in trees. The leopard family that lived near Smithtown territory thought she was “just the cutest thing” because she actually knew how to climb trees.

  But that was a very long time ago. She wasn’t that battered little girl hiding from a bunch of ravening She-pups. She was Jessica Ann Ward, CEO of Kuznetsov Security Systems and Alpha Female of the Kuznetsov Pack. And yet, here she stood, getting lectured to by this giant-headed mangy wolf.

  Sure, she could yell at him. Scream at him even. But that wouldn’t register with Bobby Ray Smith. No, there was only one way to get under a Smith’s skin. Especially this Smith.

  “Look, Bubba Ray—”

  His eyes narrowed to glowing-amber slits. “It’s Bobby Ray, as you damn well know. My daddy is Bubba.”

  “Bubba. Bobby.” She gave a dismissive wave. “Sweetie, does it really matter?” For a brief second, she though he might hit her.

  When he didn’t, she patted his shoulder. “It’s really sweet of you to care. Really. But I actually have someone waiting for me and,” she wrinkled up her nose and whispered, “not to tell you your business, but shouldn’t you be watching the front door? I wouldn’t
want you to get fired.” When he stared at her with his mouth slightly open, she innocently asked, “You are restaurant security, right?” Frighteningly entertained, Jess rubbed his sweater-covered bicep a bit. “Well, I do have to go. You take care now, Bobby Joe.”

  Jess walked to the door and pulled it open. As she stepped into the hallway, she heard him growl, “It’s Bobby Ray.”

  Smiling and feeling like she’d won the lottery, Jess sauntered back to the table. Before she could sit down, her cell phone went off.

  She flipped it open. “This is Jessica?”

  “I’m calling to rescue you from a fate worse than death. Dessert with Sherman the Dull.”

  “Oh, my God. Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he’s really dull—just like I warned you he would be,” Phil went on smugly. “You never listen to me.”

  “Okay. Okay. I understand. I’m leaving right now.”

  Jess closed her phone and gave Sherman her best pout. “I’m so sorry, Sherman. But I have to run. Trouble at the Pack house.”

  “Of course, of course.” He stood and she waved him back into his seat. “My car is waiting outside. You have dessert and I’ll talk to you later.” She thought about kissing him on the cheek, but the thought made her wince, so she patted him on the shoulder instead. “Thank you for a lovely dinner.” Then she headed for the door. The maître d’, whom she knew on a first-name basis, already had her coat on his arm. She snatched it from him, rolled her eyes at his grin, and charged out of the restaurant. Her driver already had the car door open and she practically leaped inside.

  “Home?” her driver asked.

  “Nah, office. I’ve gotta salvage this crappy evening somehow.”

  Although torturing Bobby Ray Smith would definitely go down as the highlight of her night…if not her year.

  He didn’t move until Adelle walked into the bathroom and tugged on his sweater. “Are you all right, Bobby Ray?”

  “She called me Bubba. She keeps thinking I was in the Marines.” He finally looked down into Adelle’s concerned face. “Has the universe gone insane?”