“My dogs are hiding from you, Llewellyn. And I wanna know why. Or you can get the fuck outta my house.” Christ, less than twenty-four hours around Mace and Bronx Dez came roaring back. But her intense anger kept her from feeling ashamed.

Mace watched her from under a mass of hair practically covering his eyes. Hair that had not been there the day before.

What in the hell is going on?

Damn dogs ruin everything. Typical. If he told her anything but the absolute truth, Dez and her detective mind would see through it in two seconds. That would be it for him too. For them. Dez needed to trust her partners, Mace knew that just from the few precious hours he’d spent in the woman’s company. He couldn’t lie to her. Not if he ever wanted her screaming his name while she came.

So, throwing centuries of Druid tradition and secrecy out the window, he faced Detective Desiree MacDermot head-on and told her the truth.

“I’m a shapeshifter. Specifically lion. My Pride is descended from Welsh Druids. Your dogs sense that and that’s why they’re hiding under the bed. That and they’re big pussies.”

She stared at him. He could almost read her thoughts. She was thinking, I have a nut in my house. How do I get the nut out of my house? He was expecting her to start inching toward the door any second. Or pull her gun and shoot him between the eyes.

But she didn’t. Instead, Dez crossed her arms in front of those beautiful red lace–covered tits. “Prove it.”

Mace gaped at her. “What?”

“Is this a full moon kind of thing?”

He stifled his roar. Insulting little bitch. “I’m not a werewolf.”

“Then prove it. Right here. Right now.”

“You want me to prove it?”

“Right here. Right now.”

Mace smiled. “If that’s what you want…”

Yup. Leave it to Dez to find the one rich nut in New York City who wasn’t afraid to drive out to Brooklyn. The one rich nut who thought he was a—what was it?—shapeshifter? Oiy.

Of course, Dez didn’t grab the phone, lock herself in the bathroom, and call 911. No, she challenged the nut to “prove it.”

Sure. Why not? Besides, she was wearing her gun and she had a lovely shotgun in her closet. Plus, it wasn’t like she hadn’t dealt with nuts before.

Still her dogs’ whimpering, heard clearly even though they were still under her bed, gave her the first clue something really wasn’t right. Mace’s eyes started to look different too. Becoming glassy and reflective. And his scent became stronger. Filling the room, swirling around her.

Dez uncrossed her arms and let them hang loose by her side as she watched Mace carefully. She blinked several times, her brain unwilling or unable to process what she thought she was seeing. Jesus Christ, were those fangs!?

She stopped breathing when the hair on hishead spread across his entire body. The gold locks burst into a full-on mane while spreading across his back. The brown hair that tumbled from under the gold covered his chest like a thick winter sweater. Then his limbs altered so he went on all fours.

The whole process took all of forty-five seconds, but it seemed like years. And with a shake of his body, Mace’s unnecessary clothes flew across the room.

With those gold eyes she’d recognize anywhere staring straight at her, he shook out his mane and roared.

Her dogs bolted from under the bed and out the bedroom door. Dez wasn’t sure she’d ever see them again.

She analyzed the situation quickly. Her .9mm probably wouldn’t do any good. Nope. Not with this one. She needed the shotgun.

Dez shot off the bed and made it to the closet in record time, but before she even had her hand on the doorknob he slammed her up against the hard wood. The body against her, though, wasn’t lion, but human. And all male if the erection pushing into her back was any indication.

“Breathe, Dez. Just breathe.”

Breathe? How was she supposed to breathe? She leaned her head against the door and wondered why she couldn’t pass out like any other normal woman. She shouldn’t be strong. She should be weak and frail. By the time she woke up, he’d have eaten her legs off and she could die from loss of blood. Anything had to be better than dealing with the reality of this situation.

“I don’t think you’re breathing.”

“Get off me, Mace. Now.” Amazing. She sounded completely calm and rational. She tried to push away from the door, but that big, hard body refused to budge one inch. His hands held her hands flat against the wood so she couldn’t go for her weapon. His naked flesh practically seared her exposed skin with its heat.

“You said you wanted me to prove it,” that low voice purred in her ear. “And that’s what I did, Dez.”

He was right, of course. The fuck. Although he didn’t have to sound so haughty about it. But who knew the world actually had people who could shift into something other than human? She happily went through life thinking people who believed in vampires, werewolves, and witches were nutcases. As a cop, she believed what she could see and it always had a plausible explanation.

Of course, a lot more things made sense now. All those weird “quirky” things that Mace always used to do so clearly spoke of…well…an animal. Smelling the back of her neck. The growling. The purring. That time he actually bared his fangs at a sophomore who tried to take his grilled cheese sandwich in the cafeteria.

Yet none of that made any of this easier. Especially not with her body being pinned by a guy who three minutes ago had shifted himself into the king of the jungle. A guy who scared her one-hundred-and-fifty pound Rottweiler dogs to death.