Nina sighed and turned her back and saw Lex moving back into the room with alarming speed. “What is going on?” he demanded. “Are you all right?” He looked to Melissa and Tracy accusingly.

“She’s fine, Lex. She held her own just fine.” Tracy patted his arm and laughed as she and Melissa moved away. Frowning, he pulled Nina out into the hallway, away from the crowd.

“I was only gone for six minutes! Damn it, Nina! I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“Lex, chill out or you’ll pop a vein for god’s sake. Everything is fine. It was a stupid girl thing. One of your chippies wanted to try and tell me you’d f**ked her. As if that was news. You can’t rush to my aid when stuff like that happens, it undermines me.”

“Nina…”

She put her fingers over his lips. “Why don’t you show me the rest of the house?”

He sighed and held his arm out and she took it. Once they were in the business office she shut the door and locked it. She moved to him and embraced him tightly, her lips going to his ear.

“We don’t have time for that,” he said teasingly as his hands went to her ass.

“Get over yourself. You have to leave me alone long enough to talk with people or this won’t work,” she said quietly into his ear.

He stiffened. “This is too dangerous. You saw how hostile Carter was earlier.”

“That wasn’t hostile, that was stupid. Anyway, we’re in a house full of people, no one is going to hurt me. But I can’t even start poking around if you won’t leave me alone for two minutes. Go find Cade and leave me to mingle.”

“Nina, you don’t know werewolf culture very well. You would unwittingly offend or start something and it could go off the rails before you know it. You have to watch yourself and what you say. And Cade is…busy.”

“Ahhh, gotcha. I thought I saw him making eyes at that chick with the cute jeans and pretty eyes.” Nina pulled back and looked into his face. She twined her arms about his neck. “Well, I’d tell you to do what you normally do at these things but I have a feeling that involved you getting busy and since I’d have to kill you if you even thought about f**king another woman, I’ll have to advise you to mingle or take a phone call instead. I’ll be good. I promise not to start a war or anything.”

He looked dubious but sighed because he knew she had her mind set on this stupid plan. “You have ten minutes, Nina, and I’m not leaving the room.”

She tiptoed up and kissed his lips quickly. “Okay.” Grinning, she bounded out of the room and he followed her out, glad she couldn’t see him roll his eyes.

But Melissa only wanted to talk about where Nina got her boots and Eric was too busy staring at her br**sts to say anything interesting. Nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, Lex showed up at her side and put his arm around her waist.

Carter came around then, slobbering all over Lex. “So wow, congratulations, Lex! Who’d have thought huh? Rey’s sister? Under your nose all this time and everything.”

He turned to Nina and gave her a look that was supposed to be pitying, but was really so artificial that she wanted to gag. “Welcome to the Pack, Nina. How come we’ve never seen you before? Were you and Rey close?”

Nina hated this ass**le with the heat of ten thousand suns. How smarmy can you be? He was clearly fishing and using her dead brother to do it. “Rey and I were close in our own way. He came to me when he had a problem. But once he got bit he was very involved with Pack life and I had a business to run.” She squeezed Lex’s hand tight. “But I’m so glad he came to me at the end with that laptop.”

Melissa’s eyes lit with interest as Carter leaned forward. “Laptop? Do you mean you have something of Rey’s? That could help find who killed him?” Carter said this, his voice filled with faux concern for Gabriel.

“We don’t know what’s on it but we hope so. He said some stuff, thought some answers were on the laptop. Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t say anything else.” Nina tried her best to sound clueless about the laptop.

Lex watched Eric’s indolent posture change as Nina spun the story. He saw Melissa’s interest and Carter’s barely restrained curiosity.

“Well, I know a little bit about computers if you want help,” Eric said, his eyes straying yet again to Nina’s br**sts.

“Will you excuse me a moment?” Nina asked them.

Lex looked down at her with alarm. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head at him and laughed. “Yes, I’m fine. I just need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back. Stop being such a mother hen.” She reached out and touched his face briefly and sauntered out.

Lex watched her until she turned the corner and had to ruthlessly hold himself in place to keep from following her. His mate was trouble and she invited it wherever she went but if he followed her to the bathroom, she’d kick his ass.

Instead he took his frustration out on Eric. “Pup, I appreciate the offer of help with the computer but if I ever catch you looking at my mate’s br**sts like that again, I’ll rip your head from your body and beat you with your spine. Are we clear?”

Eric’s blinked several times and he swallowed and dropped his gaze. “Yes, Enforcer.”

Melissa laughed. “She’s quite lovely, Lex. Strong. She’ll be good for the Pack. Will she change soon?”

“That’s for Nina to decide and not right now. She just lost a brother and her house was burned down by one of our own. You can’t blame her for not trusting us completely,” Cade said this with a bit of an edge in his voice as he came to stand next to Lex.