“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 theanger 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.