Wheeler had his right hand on the steering wheel and peered over his shoulder at me. “Touché,” he said in a silken voice.
He turned onto another street, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his tattoos. I was tempted to trace my fingers across the patterns that blended into a uniform piece of art. Why would someone get so many tattoos and seal them with liquid fire? Alphas did it to be recognized, but most avoided the notion of tattoos. It was something humans did to be different, but we already were different.
“You can look at them if you want,” he said.
“Do you have them all over your body?”
I wasn’t a woman who blushed, but I did feel a subtle warmth rising in my cheeks. Could I have been less tactful? I risked a glance and saw he was focused on the road ahead.
“I have a few more,” he replied in words as thick as honey. Wheeler had a low register, but not overly baritone. Just a little smoky and mysterious, and only when he got upset did it sharpen in volume and clarity. There was power behind his words when he wanted there to be.
Why on earth am I sitting here thinking about his voice?
I fumbled with my purse and pulled out a stick of gum. “Would you like a piece?”
He snatched the stick and sniffed out a quiet laugh. “I never turn down a piece.”
“I see I’m rubbing off on you.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something and then snapped it shut.
I chewed on my cinnamon gum and leaned toward the window—the sunshine felt enormously wonderful. Days like this made me regret my panther couldn’t bask in the warmth of a summer’s day. A truck pulled up beside us and the guy did a double take. His friend leaned over and smiled wide. Then the driver shaped his fingers like a V and put them under his mouth, flicking his tongue up and down.
“Working the pole tonight?” he asked.
“Not for you, sugar,” I said. “Why don’t you take that tip money you’ve been saving up and splurge on a bag of potato chips?”
I turned away and noticed Wheeler’s eyes were sharp and fiery as he leaned across the car, checking out who I was talking to.
“They recognize me from work,” I said smoothly. “I get that every so often from the cheap customers who like to make me work extra hard for their dollar.”
“How ’bout you roll up your window and I won’t have to come over there and crush your skull?” Wheeler barked at them.
“Please, just ignore them.” I touched his arm, which extended in front of me and gripped the door.
Without thinking, I traced my index finger over a chain inked on his bicep that circled around but didn’t close. The final link was broken. Near it was a wolf. Tribal patterns and images created a visual display, and I noticed his right wrist had a thick band around it. My God, these were the sexiest things I’d ever seen.
His skin felt nice beneath my fingertips. Wheeler’s eyes slanted my way, and he was only a few inches from my face—so close I could smell him.
“You should tell me about these sometime,” I said, still outlining one of the tribal patterns with my finger. “I’d love to know why you chose to hide beneath all this ink.”
He suddenly wrenched away. “You think I’m hiding? This is me, inside and out.”
“You really want people to believe that, don’t you?”
Something flashed in his eyes before he looked down, but I caught it. Wheeler switched on the radio and cranked up the volume. “It doesn’t matter what the world believes—it’s what I believe.”
***
When we arrived at the club, Wheeler remained quiet, shadowing me as I surreptitiously made my way through the back door using an emergency key. I waved at one of the girls coming out of the restroom and suddenly felt a flurry of nerves causing my heart to speed up. When I approached Delgado’s office, I turned the brass knob and found it locked.
“Damn,” I whispered. “Why did I think it would be that simple? What was I thinking?”
Wheeler knelt down and pulled out a slim metal stick from his wallet. “Turn around, sweetheart. Use your body to hide me.”
I snorted. “My body isn’t big enough to hide all of you.”
He put the metal pin between his teeth and tucked his wallet in his back pocket. “If your ass were as big as your mouth, I’d have all the privacy a man could afford.”
“Well then,” I purred. “Since there’s not much to look at…” I turned my back on him and leaned my left shoulder against the wall, doing my best to keep him hidden. Of course, that meant my derrière was about two inches from his face. Call it my subtle way of sticking it to a wolf.
He released a ragged breath and I peered over my shoulder, watching him pick the lock with a shaky hand.
“Is this what they teach in wolf business school?” I asked conversationally. “You sure are a jack-of-all-trades.”
“You’d be surprised what a man in my position has had to do.”
“Hmm,” I moaned, shifting my hips. “I’m quite familiar with that position, and I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would surprise me.”