“Shifters are dangerous, sweetheart,” Bowman was saying. He leaned against the back of a dusty SUV and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. Bowman’s arms were folded, both shutting himself off and giving the groupie and Kenzie a view of his sculpted muscles. He hadn’t bothered with a coat—Bowman often didn’t. “Better be sure you know what you’re getting into.”
He was angry, even if his slow drawl didn’t betray it. He hated anyone spying on his Shifters, and with good reason. The young woman couldn’t scent his fury as Kenzie did, but some instinct inside her knew to be worried.
“I’ve always wanted to do a Lupine.” The pseudo-groupie was trying to sound as though she stalked Shifters to have sex with them all the time, but Kenzie—and Bowman—knew better.
Bowman remained silent and motionless for a long moment, while the girl grew more and more nervous. Then Bowman moved—the movement was slow and casual, but all the more devastating for that.
He reached down and undid his belt, the clink of it coming to Kenzie. Next, she heard the whisper of his jeans’ zipper.
Kenzie froze, riveted in place, as Bowman languidly slid his jeans and underwear halfway down his thighs and leaned back again on the SUV.
Kenzie couldn’t breathe. His half-lifted shirt showed a slice of hard abdomen, and his large Shifter cock stood straight up between his strong, sun-bronzed legs. The brush of dark hair that cradled his shaft was lost in shadow, but Kenzie knew exactly what he looked like.
The young woman made a strangled sound that Kenzie wanted to echo. Bowman erect was a beautiful sight.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Bowman said impatiently. “I haven’t got all night.”
The young woman opened and closed her mouth a couple times and took a few shaky steps backward. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
Bowman came off the SUV with a suddenness only a Shifter could manage. One moment he was reclining, ready, and the next he was nearly on top of the woman, his big hands on her shoulders.
“Here’s what I know,” he said in a fierce voice. “You came to look at Shifters, for whatever reason. So here I am. We look human, but we aren’t—not even close.” His jeans were still around his knees, his tight backside bare under the lights of the parking lot. But he didn’t look ridiculous—Bowman never could. He was as decadent and enticing as ever. Kenzie’s mating need, never very far away, flared.
The groupie’s words choked in her throat, her nervousness turning to full-blown fear. “I wanted . . . I just wanted to talk . . .”
Bowman shoved her away. “I know what you wanted.” He leaned down and pulled up his jeans, taking his time. “You wanted to come here and get all up in our shit and go tell the world about it. I don’t know if you’re a reporter or a detective or a do-gooder, but I want you out of here, away from my Shifters.”
The pseudo-groupie had the presence of mind to point out the obvious. “You don’t own this place. This isn’t Shiftertown. You can’t tell me to leave.”
Her breathless groupie eagerness had gone, replaced by the hard, nasally voice of a woman who liked having her own way. Bowman wasn’t impressed. His hands clamped down on her shoulders again, and a very wolf growl came out of his throat.
“I might not own the bar.” His voice went low, as it did when he was truly angry. “But I know the owner, and he doesn’t like people coming here and giving Shifters trouble. Let me give you a tip—I’m way nicer than he is. So get out, or I’ll let him and his bouncers take you off the property in a more forceful way.”
“Now you’re threatening me?”
Bowman said nothing. He only looked at the pseudo-groupie, and Kenzie scented the wolf in him getting ready to come out. Bowman was careful, but he was still pretty close to wild, and he didn’t like his authority challenged in any way.
He hadn’t said so—the woman wouldn’t understand—but Bowman considered this roadhouse to be part of his territory. Humans might have confined Shifters to Shiftertowns and restricted them from owning places like this bar, but true Shifter territory stretched from one Shiftertown to the next. There was another Shiftertown far to the west of them in the middle of Tennessee, and Bowman considered that his territory ended about fifty miles from that, where the other leader’s territory began.
By Shifter thinking, Bowman had a perfect right to sling this woman out. Humans wouldn’t see it that way though.
The woman started to reach for something in her purse. Pepper spray? A gun? Bowman caught her hand, his growl rumbling across the empty parking lot, vibrating the ground.
Shit. If Bowman hurt the woman, or even scared her bad enough, the human cops would be all over this place in a heartbeat. Bowman would be dragged away in cuffs spelled to contain Shifters, and probably every Shifter in the roadhouse would be arrested along with him.
Only one thing to do. Kenzie hurried out of the shadows, making for the two of them. At the last minute, she slowed and pretended to be out for a nonchalant stroll. She put a sway in her hips as she eased herself up to Bowman and draped her arm around his neck.