I located a novelty store, and after snooping around for a half hour, found a long plastic chain and a leather collar. Ideas for my next performance were bubbling, but I hadn’t quite figured out how to tie it all together. When I discovered costumes in a back room, I practically threw my money at the store clerk.
Bags in hand, I happily stepped onto the cracked sidewalk and caught a cool breeze that ruffled my hair. As I approached my car, which was parked off the main street, my pace slowed to a stop.
Someone had slashed my tires. I walked to the other side of my car and realized they had slashed all four of them. Annoyed, I looked up and down the street, wondering why no one had seen it and called the police. I pondered calling them myself, just so I could flirt with a man in uniform. We didn’t involve humans in our business, but I sure loved any opportunity to interact with the men in blue.
A loud engine roared in my direction and a gunmetal-grey Camaro screeched to a stop. “Get in, kitty cat.” Wheeler draped his tatted arm across the car door.
Was this a joke? If Austin had sent Wheeler to act as my bodyguard, then I was just going to have to—
“Whoever sliced up your tires still has a big knife, and now you don’t have a ride. I suggest you get in before I change my mind.”
I narrowed my eyes and walked toward him like a woman who had just caught her lover cheating with another woman. How was a man like him going to protect me? Wheeler came from Planet Asshole and didn’t even like women! I pulled open the heavy door, tossed my bags in the back, and got in. Before I had a chance to buckle up, his foot dropped onto the gas pedal like a stone and we took off.
“Is this how you normally pick up women?” I said, struggling to buckle my seatbelt.
“Look, I’m not about cloak and daggers,” he began. “Austin told me to watch you like a Peeping Tom, but that ain’t how this is going down. I chased the asshole who slashed your tires, but halfway up the street, I realized that might have been a diversion to get me away from you. And then I return to find your dumb ass hanging out in the street by the car, practically saying Take me! I’m all yours!” he said in a feminine voice, wiggling his fingers.
I removed a small clock that was adhered to his dash and tossed it out the window.
The car lurched. “What the hell did you do that for?” he snarled.
Cool air swirled through my hair and I leisurely straightened the wrinkles on my dress. “Each time you speak to me in that manner, I’m going to punish you, be it destroying something personal or striking you with my hand. But I won’t allow any man to berate me in such a patronizing tone. If Austin chose you, then I trust his judgment. But keep in mind your Packmaster wouldn’t approve if he found out you were harassing his mate’s best friend.”
He slanted his eyes my way. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise. Perhaps you should direct all that hostility toward the men who are slashing my tires with a sharp instrument.”
I jerked forward when he slammed the brakes at the red light and leaned over, getting right in my face. “And mayhap your impassive tone is what’s setting me off. So why don’t you drop some of that self-righteous attitude you carry around like you’re better than everyone else and just sit quiet for the rest of the ride? ’Preciate ya.”
His words cut me more than I allowed him to see. I feigned indifference and looked out the window while inside my heart constricted. I felt more devotion toward those I loved than he could ever fathom. Maybe I was too tough for some men to handle, but it was the only way to gain control in a world of dominant men. Wheeler had never proven himself to be anything but a man who held contempt for women, and he must have assumed because I was a dancer that I didn’t have a brain cell in my head.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked.
He slid on a pair of black shades. “Your place. I’ll have someone fix your tires and drive your car over.”
“Don’t you need my keys for that?”
He eased down in his seat, widening his legs a little. “Sweetheart, I’ve got friends with skilled hands.”
“That I don’t doubt.”
“Why is everything an innuendo with you?”
I chuckled softly. “I can’t help it. When someone is so uptight about sex, it just opens a door. Yours just happens to have a welcome mat in front of it.”
Wheeler’s cheeks flamed and I looked away in surprise. He really was uptight about sex. Sometimes I just liked to rile men up because they secretly enjoyed it, but now I was beginning to see the truth: Wheeler was sexually repressed. How curious coming from a wolf. I let my curiosity slide when we eased up to my apartment building.
“Stay here and keep the doors locked,” he said, tossing his sunglasses onto the dash. “Give me your keys, and I’ll make sure the slasher isn’t up there making himself a bologna sandwich.”
“All yours,” I said, dangling them in front of his face. One of the key rings caught his eye—a silver figure of a couple in a sexual position. He snatched them from me and stalked toward the apartment.
“Hmm. All that pent-up frustration,” I murmured, watching him climb the stairs. “This should be interesting indeed.”
Chapter 6