by Josie Hunter
“Let me take you to dinner this weekend.”
She pressed her lips to his in a tender kiss. “But I’m technically your boss.”
“As you pointed out so eloquently, that doesn’t happen until Monday.”
“Okay then. Dinner it is. Saturday?”
“Yes,” he said. “Paradiso?”
“Yes. I love Paradiso. I worked there for a night.”
“Just a night?”
She laughed then gave him a serious look. “I was watching Rosa Santos actually.”
“Stalker?” he said with a grin.
She slapped his shoulder. “Undercover, you ass. I’d thought for a while her father was nothing but a cosmopolitan thug. He’s no better than that scum Diego Garcia. He needs to be stopped. Which is why I wanted on this task force. I guess we found out I was right back in July when Rosa was kidnapped.”
“Even Rosa’s testimony doesn’t help without evidence. You’re going to need a whole lot of evidence to put Esteban Santos away.”
“Which is why I wanted you on this task force,” she said with a smile. She bounced a bit in his arms as she began to talk faster, her body nearly vibrating with excitement. His cock got hungrier for her, but he tried to pay attention. “And if I can find some concrete evidence, I think I have a very reliable witness who will testify. He can place Santos in charge of everything—the Project Shimmer murders, the Viper attacks, Rosa’s abduction, all of it. Wouldn’t that be—”
“And Dylan Winston?” He hated to ruin the moment, hated even more to ruin her enthusiasm for the work, but he had to know. “Where does he fit into this?”
She drew in a deep breath and released it. “I don’t know yet, but I don’t want to talk about him right now. Is that okay?” She ran her fingers up the back of his neck and pressed her body down, forcing his cock deeper. “I can feel how hard you are inside me. It feels wonderful, hard, big, thick.” She put her mouth on his cheek. “Fuck me again, Jake. You felt so good inside of me, and it felt so good to lose myself. Make it happen again.”
So he did.
* * * *
Stephanie pushed open the door to the Catamount Dance Studio just as Rosa’s ten o’clock class was finishing up. Rosa glanced up and waved at the sound of the electronic chime. Stephanie took a seat at the bench in front of the window to watch the action.
The room was packed with women. Some were stretching on the barres and mats. Others were gyrating to the music flooding from the speakers, their bodies twisting in sinuous displays of both grace and near indignity. Three women were doing the same routine on the pole stages placed in the center of the room. One of them was Carly Lucas.
Dressed in a tight black racer top and boy shorts, the alpha’s wife climbed to the top of the pole with complete ease, tipped outside down in a V-shape, then pulled herself upright. Even three months pregnant, Carly was agile and elegant. She wound her body around the pole as she spiraled to the base. When her high-heeled shoes hit the bottom, she began to dance to the beat of the music, her hips gyrating and her body contorting with a willowy grace. As the beats of the music ended, she did a final swing around the pole and leaned back against it, bending her knees, sliding down, and spreading her legs wide. Rosa began to clap, and Carly gave her a big smile.
“That was beautiful, Carly. Perfect.”
Rosa winked then walked to another woman to give her some pointers. Rosa swung up onto the pole, executed a perfect upside-down V then dismounted to allow the long-legged deer-shifter a chance to try again. As Patsy Vickers climbed the pole, the mayor’s wife left her stage and rushed toward Carly.
Dorothy Stanford’s breasts were nearly exploding from her tight crop top, and her muffin top jiggled above her long tight shorts, which held her thighs like sausage casings. “Oh I wish I could do it like you do. No matter how much I practice I’ll never be as good as you are.”
“I think the mongoose inside me has a natural grace,” Carly said. “It certainly isn’t my own.”
Stephanie knew that Dorothy, as a warthog-shifter, would never reach even a percentage of what Carly had achieved, but she admired Dorothy’s persistence. Stephanie had to admit that muffin top looked a bit less muffin-y than the last time she’d seen the mayor’s wife in her outfit. Dorothy’s breasts, however, seemed to have gotten even bigger. It must have been all the arm workouts. Poor woman. Even when she tried to go against nature, nature went against her. Warthogs were notoriously front-heavy.
“Oh what I wouldn’t give to be anything but what I am,” Dorothy said with a sigh.
“You don’t mean that,” Carly said gently. “We all have our own strengths and talents, and our inner animals help us fulfill both our desires and destinies.” Carly wrapped her arm around Dorothy. “Your warthog gives you wonderful mothering skills. I don’t know a better mother in this whole town.”
“You’re sweet, Carly, thank you.”
“You’re also smart and determined. George would be lost without you. We all know you practically run this town. If that’s not destiny, I don’t know what is.”
The mayor’s wife blushed. “Oh, you do have a way of making me feel better.”
As the alpha’s wife and Dorothy moved toward the locker room, Stephanie realized Dorothy was right. Carly did have a way of making everything right with anyone’s world, and maybe she was right. Maybe Stephanie just needed to listen more to her inner animal.
Rosa had begged Stephanie to join the class, but Stephanie had been reluctant to let her wild side back out. Maybe now that she’d allowed her little rabbit out to play, even if only her outward appearance—and the sex, don’t forget the sex—she would reconsider. Her inner animal had been tamped down so long the tension had begun to make Stephanie’s daily life almost impossible. She knew it wasn’t good to suppress one’s true self for long. Maybe it was time to embrace her destiny and accept what she was. Surely she could find a way to be the woman she needed to be and the animal she was.
Stephanie stood and had begun to make her way to Rosa’s office through a sea of women when she caught a flash of blonde hair from the corner of her eye. She twisted around to see her sister sliding down a pole with the ease of a stripper. Claire looked as beautiful as ever, her petite body hard and toned, her core muscles strong and defined between the fuchsia cami and shorts that hugged her gentle curves. The twinkle of a small sapphire jewel caught Stephanie’s eye. Her sister had gotten her belly button pierced.
That hypocritical tramp.
Claire climbed the pole once again, hung upside down for a moment, and then did a flip and spiraled down.
Every argument they’d had in the last three years flooded through Stephanie’s mind. Every horrible word Claire had said to her echoed in her ears. Every condemning look that had passed over Claire’s face exploded on her eyelids. Once again, she felt the burn of shame, the agony of disappointment, the loss of her best friend.
What a hypocrite her sister was. A pole dancing class? A belly button ring? A slutty outfit? In fuchsia no less. Stephanie wanted to race across the room and yank her sister’s hair right out by the roots.
Instead, she lifted her chin and continued walking until she was safe in Rosa’s office. She slumped into a chair and pressed her hands to her hot face. When Rosa came in and closed the door, she laughed, and the first words out of her mouth were, “You sly little rabbit, did you have sex?”
Stephanie sighed.
“Uh-oh, what’s wrong?” Rosa asked as she slipped behind her desk.
“I had a terrible surprise this morning. I don’t even know where to start.” Stephanie’s gaze went to the window between the office and studio. “But seeing that doesn’t help.”
“Ah, you saw her,” Rosa said.
“Kind of hard to miss Slutty McSlut Slut.” Stephanie slid to the edge of the chair, her hands squeezed into fists. “What the hell is she doing here? You know how she is, or was. What the fuck?”
Rosa shrugged. “Her Tomcat duties include shadowing Carly everywhe
re, so Carly suggested she take the class, too. In Carly’s opinion, Claire needs to loosen up a bit.”
“Take the stick out of her ass is more like it,” Stephanie muttered. “My sister has been so uptight there was a time I thought she’d put us both in a convent. She’s worked all her life to hone her precious control, and she abraded me any time she had the chance because I kept slipping. Do you know what my life was like growing up with her?”
“Sí, I can imagine.”
“The convent would have been easier.” Her gaze shot back to the window. Claire was still swinging around the pole like a chimp on steroids. “She’s such a hypocrite. Did you see the way she’s dressed? She’s wearing pink for crying out loud.”
“You’re wearing pink, too, chica,” Rosa pointed out helpfully.
“Well, yeah, but I have reasons. Did you see the way she’s moving?”
“It is a pole dancing class, Steph,” Rosa said with a laugh.
“She’s pretty good, isn’t she?” Stephanie said grudgingly.
“She is. You could be good as well.”
Stephanie heaved a sigh. “Maybe. But I don’t understand this. Why is she here? Why would she listen to Carly Lucas when all her life she’s had that stick up her ass like a badge of honor and insisted I have one, too? Even my mother told her she was too rigid, too prudish. Mother always said we couldn’t, or shouldn’t, go against our natures.” She rolled her eyes. “But no, Claire, perfect uptight Claire, said the only way to achieve our goals was to force our natures into submission and become something else.”
“And do you believe that?”
Rosa leaned forward and put her chin in her palm, studying Stephanie so hard it made her uncomfortable. Stephanie finally shifted her gaze away from her friend, back out to the studio, where Claire was wiping the sweat from her face with a fluffy towel.
“Do you believe that?” Rosa repeated.
Stephanie shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought…Yes, I did believe it. Claire believed it, and she made me believe with her.”
“You realize you’re allowed to be yourself, don’t you?”
“Well, yes…no!” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know that at all. According to Claire, I was everything I shouldn’t be. Always. I could never make her happy.”
Rosa continued to study her. “Why do you feel the need to make Claire happy?”
Stephanie gave a small laugh. “When did you get your psychology degree?”
Rosa smiled and flipped her dark ponytail over her shoulder. “I’m just trying to help you, chica.”
“I’m not sure why I always try to make Claire happy. We were a team for so many years, the Cooper Girls. We moved around so often we had no one to rely on but ourselves. We did everything together, had the same interests, had the same goals. From the time we were small, we wanted nothing more than to become part of Special Forces like Daddy. We played with toy guns the way other girls play with dolls. We wore fatigues when other girls were wearing princess dresses. We made a pact to never wear pink.”
“People change, Stephanie.”
“We weren’t supposed to change. Not the Cooper Girls. We were supposed to be strong, in control, always. We adored our father and just wanted to be like him. He’d overcome his nature. He’d buckled down and proven himself capable of skills beyond those of the usual rabbit-shifter. He was a highly decorated soldier, but you know that.”
“Sí, you’ve told me. I know how proud you are of his memory, and how devastated you were when you lost him.”
Stephanie nodded, feeling the prick of tears behind her eyes. She sniffed and straightened, refusing to go there. Thinking about her father made her soft and weak, like the old Stephanie. Anytime she opened her heart, weakness poured out and flooded her soul. She suddenly realized she might have made a terrible mistake with Jake Westin, thinking she could let the rabbit out to play. When she did that, she opened her heart, and opening her heart outside of her own house was something she rarely did.
“Haven’t you achieved your goals, Steph? Hasn’t Claire achieved hers?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not embrace that you both like pink? Be who you are, let Claire be who she is, and accept your differences. Why do you continue to be at odds?”
“She won’t forgive me!”
Rosa rose, came around the desk, and sat in the chair next to Stephanie. When Rosa took her hand, Stephanie felt warmth envelop her whole body.
“Why do you need her forgiveness, chica?” she asked gently.
“For ruining our plans, for ruining everything.”
“But you both have lives, wonderful lives with wonderful careers. And you have even more, your gorgeous little girl.”
“Yes, and Claire will never forgive me for that weakness, for falling in love, for having a child, for breaking up the Cooper Girls, for…abandoning her.” She dropped her head down.
“Ah, querida, you are so sad.”
Stephanie lifted her face. “Am I?”
“Aren’t you?” Rosa looked at her with a frown.
“No.” Stephanie shook her head. “I’m angry with her, Rosa. I’m angry because she refuses to acknowledge the best thing I’ve ever done, the best part of me. She has never once seen my daughter. She refuses.”
“I didn’t know,” Rosa said softly.
“It didn’t seem so bad when she was here and I was in Boston, but now we’re in the same town, walking the same streets. We know the same people. We’re even working toward similar goals. And now, well, I’m not even sure who I am. I woke up one way this morning, and now I feel like a different person.” She took a deep breath. “I fucked Jake Westin an hour ago.”
“Jake is a very good man,” Rosa said.
“He seems to be,” Stephanie said, “but…”
“You are allowed to have a life, mi amiga. You are allowed to be happy, and you’re certainly allowed to have sex. In this town, it is almost a mandate. Tell me of your morning with Jake.”
Stephanie gave her a blow-by-blow description of her time with Jake Westin. As she told the story, Stephanie felt those same feelings of desire move through her, reawakening her animal. Her animal sniffed, trying to capture Jake’s scent again.
“What prompted this? Didn’t you just meet Jake?”
“Yes, but I’ve always had this thing for wolves. It’s completely unnatural for a rabbit to be drawn to a wolf. I know that, but it’s a weakness I’ve had for a while. I felt drawn to Jake from the first moment, and well, my nature just seemed to take control. Plus I was feeling a bit overwhelmed earlier. I told you I had gotten a terrible surprise this morning.”
“Sí.” When Rosa nodded, Stephanie told her of Gabe’s phone call and his visit to the office.
“When Gabe arrived, trailing behind him was my old college boyfriend, Brandon Carlisle. Only he wasn’t Brandon any longer. He apparently has a brand-new life and is calling himself Dylan Winston. I have no idea why he’d be in witness protection or be placed on my team. I was totally caught off guard, in complete shock really, and I ran. I didn’t even ask questions.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Stephanie I know. It sounds as though you need to go back and straighten out a bit of the backstory. Surely you can work with this man if you’ve had a prior relationship.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.” Stephanie gathered her courage and said the words she’d never told another soul, not even her mother, though she suspected Rusty might have come to the conclusion years ago. “Brandon…Dylan is Laura’s father.”
Chapter 6
She picked up lunch for everyone, but when she got back to the office, it was deserted. Part of her was relieved because she wasn’t sure how to approach Brandon—Dylan. They obviously needed to have a discussion, if only to clear the air. She really did need to know why he had just disappeared from her life, and she wanted to know why he had landed in witness protection. That sounded like some serious business.
She ha
d no intention, however, of telling him about Laura. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
Though there was some relief in having the office to herself, the other part of her, the tenacious and determined part that made Stephanie good at her job, wanted the whole thing over with. So when she saw an empty office, she was pissed.
She slammed the carryout bags on her desk and rummaged in her purse for her phone. She intended to find everyone to eat the damn food. That’s when she heard the noise coming from down the hall. The aroma of fresh paint hung in the air—it seemed a constant these days. The smell almost took her breath away. Several of the windows were open, but because the air outside was so hot and oppressive, it seemed to be doing little more than gluing the stench to the air. She practically had to wade down the hallway through the stinky miasma.
Several of the doors were ajar, and Stephanie peeked inside the rooms to find both of them empty. She passed the restroom doors and came to the last private office. The door to this room was open, and Stephanie stepped through it into Wonderland.
“Oh my God.”
Rusty was hunkered down, working a screwdriver against a length of metal. He glanced up when he heard her voice, his long, lanky body unfolding like an accordion. “You caught me.” He held up his screwdriver and gestured to the almost-assembled elliptical machine. “This was the last thing I had to do. I thought you’d be gone longer.” He gave her a goofy smile.
The smile she gave him back was probably just as goofy. Stephanie felt as though she’d died and gone to heaven.
The whole room had been transformed into a bright, airy dojo. Rice panels, framed by dark mahogany, covered two of the walls. One wall of the room was filled with three sliding-glass doors. The blinds were open, allowing the autumn sun in to splash across the floor in washes of bright light. What lay beyond the doors called to her like a siren’s song. Outside, he’d built a small deck. It held ceramic pots filled with bright cheery flowers and a table and two chairs. Two steps below that was a small Zen garden. A pathway of flat stones wound through glistening white sand. White pebbles and green sprigs and blossoming plants surrounded the small area. A small pond meandered through the foliage, and a fountain bubbled near the edge of the garden. Stephanie slid open the door and heard the peaceful murmur of the water. Several small ceramic rabbits hopped or nibbled foliage near the pond.
