“Pack your backpacks for a couple of days. The driver will be waiting in ten minutes.”

“That girl is driving me insane!” Irene snarled after slamming the bedroom door.

“She didn’t mean to make things difficult for your student.”

Irene gave a dismissive wave and began pulling out the laundry. “I mean, did you see that poor boy? He’s like nine feet tall, two thousand pounds, and he looked absolutely terrified.”

Holtz stretched out on the bed. “He wasn’t terrified. He just knew it would be a painfully long drive home.”

“You can get that smirk off your face, Van Holtz.” She dropped the laundry basket by the bed and crouched next to it to retrieve his socks. “I saw the looks passing between you two. And how do you get your socks so far under here?” She knelt down and reached under the bed.

“Sorry, baby.”

“You’re so anal retentive about the mess in your precious kitchen, but you and your damn socks . . .”

“I know. It’s so sloppy. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Socks in hand, Irene sat up, blinking when she came face to face with Holtz. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“I still think you put these socks under here just so you can stare at my butt.”

“Dr. Conridge! What a horrible thing to say.” Then he gave her that grin. The same grin that, even after all these years, still knocked her on her proverbial ass.

Of course, the fact that he still wanted to watch her butt amazed her like the discovery of uranium. And it was one of the reasons she didn’t let the cleaning staff touch their laundry.

“And stop telling people I set your car on fire and stabbed you. Did you see that poor boy’s face?”

“But you did do those things.”

“They were accidents,” she growled.

“So you say. And Conall Víga-Feilan is not a boy. Although why he’d involve himself with a midget, I’ll never know.”

“Miki Kendrick is not a midget. And he’s with her because she’s brilliant and dangerously unstable.”

“Like you?”

“I am not dangerously unstable. Those tests proved it,” she groused.

Laughing, Van grabbed Irene’s arm and dragged her onto the bed. He pinned her to the mattress, arms above her head. “I’ve got an idea, doc.”

“What?”

“That once we get the kids off, we spend the next forty-eight hours completely naked.”

“You act like only the kids live in this house.”

“Trust me. The Pack will find other places on the territory to stay this weekend.”

“Ogre.”

“When it comes to this pussy, you’re damn right.”

She sighed thoughtfully. “It amazes me how that kind of talk sexually arousesme.”

Holtz leaned down and nipped her breasts. “It amazes me that I find you saying that so goddamn hot.”

Irene’s back arched as he sucked on a nipple through her T-shirt and the lace of her bra.

“Perhaps you’re delusional,” she groaned.

“No. I just love knowing this pussy belongs to me and no one else. Doesn’t it, doc?”

“It seems to. I find all other men repulsive.”

“And it better stay that way,” he teased, grinning up at her, his chin resting against her breastbone. “I don’t share what’s mine.”

Digging her hands into his hair, Irene pulled him up until they were face to face. “Wolves.” And she gave him that smile no one ever saw but him. “So damn demanding.”

“Geniuses,” he sighed back. “So damn hot.”

Wicked Ways

Cynthia Eden

For Megan and Laura—thanks, ladies, for all that you do.

One

Miranda Shaw had understood that she was on the date from hell ever since the appetizers were served at the too-expensive restaurant and she’d caught sight of the tiny bugs crawling over her cocktail shrimp. But she didn’t truly realize just how bad the situation was until her date took her home and then attempted to bite her with two-inch-long fangs.

“Oh, my God!” She caught sight of the teeth just in time. She’d thought Paul Roberts was just in macho-aggressive mode. Moving in for a lick on her neck. Miranda had fully intended to jerk away from the guy before he made contact—

Then she saw his teeth.

Oh, hell, no.

The scream that burst from her throat should have deafened him. Or at least broken one of the lovely glass picture windows that lined the front of her house.

But it did neither.

When she tried to run, Paul grabbed her arms, holding her tight. “Don’t make me hurt you,” he growled, and Miranda wondered if she were in the middle of some kind of really, really vivid nightmare, because there was no way that her boring, all-I-can-do-is-talk-about-myself date had just sprouted those deadly fangs.

Things like this so didn’t happen in nice, normally quiet Cherryville, Florida.

She twisted her body, trying to break free, but the guy’s grip was too damn strong. Shit. “What are you—Ow!”

His teeth had pierced her neck. Torn the skin. She shoved at him again, harder, and those teeth of his just seemed to cut deeper into her flesh.

Then she heard the muted sound of him swallowing.

He’s drinking my blood. The freak is actually drinking my blood.

Weakness began to trickle through her body. His hold was too powerful. Fear made her dizzy. This shouldn’t be happening. She’d done everything right. Talked to the guy over the Internet for a good two months before she’d met him in person.