~

“I took you down once…” Breanna sneered.

“And what makes you think I wasn’t being a gentleman about it?” River tossed back.

“So, you’re telling me that you let me knock you on your backside?” Breanna asked with a small chuckle of disbelief for the man.

“In truth — no. I didn’t see it coming. But that doesn’t mean the next time I won’t be ready,” he offered back.

Breanna took a long moment to consider his words. A lot of men wouldn’t admit that a woman had got the best of them, Kudos to him for that, but still — she had a duty of care toward Audrey.

She’d saved her life as a child and had felt it necessary to take responsibility for her ever since. There was no way in hell that she was going to let some rich, swanky, full of himself, vampire sweep into her territory and corrupt her friend right under her nose.

Not that Audrey needed much help in being corrupted or led astray by some sweet talking vampire. She didn’t.

But the point was that it wasn’t happening on her watch.

“Good for you. Now, back off,” Breanna warned him one more time. As vampires go, he didn’t seem that bad, but looks could be deceptive and she didn’t trust him.

River considered his options for a few moments. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his car. He jangled them for a moment and watched Breanna bristle with annoyance.

“Heads up,” he said as he tossed the keys to Audrey. She hadn’t seen that one coming, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t reach out and snatch them from the air. “Go slowly over bumpy ground, but you can open her up on a real road, don’t lose the back end,” he warned.

“You’re going to let me drive it?” Audrey looked gobsmacked.

“You’re going to let her drive it?” Breanna echoed her friend’s sentiment. “Are you insane?”

“That bad?” River chuckled.

“I wouldn’t let her drive my truck unless it was an absolute emergency,” Breanna offered back. River shot a look at the beaten up truck and grimaced inwardly.

“Well, I’m not a man to go back on my word,” he turned pleading eyes on the she-wolf. “Please don’t kill my car.”

“Yes!” Audrey jumped up and down on the spot for a moment before she took off for the driver’s side.

“She’s going to kill my car, isn’t she?” River grimaced again at the thought of what the she-wolf could do to his pride and joy.

“Oh yeah,” Breanna even nodded to make him see the error of his ways.

“Do you know any good repair shops in the area?” River said, turning toward Breanna and coming to terms with the fact that he’d probably need a new car by the end of the day.

“Mine,” Breanna shrugged.

“Yours?” He raised just his left eyebrow at her.

“Because women can’t fix cars?” Breanna sneered at him.

“Because — why would you want to?”

“Because — life gets boring if you don’t mix it up,” Breanna shrugged.

“And you drive a truck?”

“And — I have a pristine Shelby Cobra GT500 in my garage,” Breanna said, leaning in towards him slightly, and beaming a huge wicked smile at the man.

“Can I please drive your sports car?” River offered her a drop dead sexy smile back.

“If you so much as breathe on it, I will rip out your lungs and hand them back to you,” Breanna shrugged.

“Now we all know a vampire doesn’t need to breathe,” he chuckled and got a grunt in return. “Maybe when we know each other a little better you’ll think differently.”

“Better? Us?” She snorted her contempt for that idea. “Perish the thought.”

 

~

~

 

Frankie turned a look back over her left shoulder at the alpha. There wasn’t a large space behind the countertops in the kitchen, to begin with, although the dining area did mean the room was large, but his presence made it feel a whole lot smaller than it should have done.

She couldn’t deny the fact that he looked good standing there. He had that manly thing going on, resting his backside against the counter, slightly leaning to one side, with his big, muscled arms casually folded across his broad chest, yep, he looked good.

Frankie always had preferred a man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt rather than when they were suited and booted. He looked especially good in the casual clothes. But, she was sure that he would look good in whatever he was wearing, or not wearing as the case may be.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about him naked — she had — and those were some good thoughts. Right then, she was having another one, and no matter how hard she tried to dismiss it, it bounced right back into her poor, defenseless mind.

It wasn’t her fault that the man looked like sex on a stick. It wasn’t like he was forbidden fruit or anything, and she was entitled to look.

Touching — touching might bring with it its own problems, but boy did she want to poke, prod, and squeeze those hard muscles. She was going to hell in more ways than one.

It wasn’t just the way that he looked; it was him, the whole man, the whole package. Alpha male, it was so bad that it was good.

Too good. Frankie knew that she needed to stop looking, because looking led to touching, and touching led to squeezing, and squeezing led to — stuff. Not that she objected to — stuff — but this was her mate, not a one night stand, and — stuff — led to no going back.

She was definitely not at the no going back stage yet.

The trouble was that he looked confident, and that confidence gave her pause for thought. She knew that she was eyeballing him and inviting the same back, but she doubted it would matter much — he seemed to like staring at her anyway, and he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who needed a platinum invite to do as he damned well pleased.

She was a sucker for puppy dog eyes and crinkled eyebrows. It was strange, but there was something so vulnerable about that look that it kept her spellbound.

“Just to clarify — is this part of your wooing strategy?” she asked, knowing that one of them had to break the silence before she went insane, and she didn’t think that it would be him. Not unless he offered up a grunt or something equally manly.

“I have a strategy?” he asked, a slow to boil smile intriguing her enough that she didn’t even blink.

“You tell me.”

“Well, right now, I’m kind of winging it.”

“Well, when you get something concrete would you let me know?” she offered back those words and a wicked smile to boot.

Rock managed to hold onto the growl that rumbled through his chest and tickled the back of his throat. When she smiled at him like that, it wasn’t just the sun that came out; it was his feral side.

He wanted to do what mates did. He wanted to take her in his arms and love her until they were both sated.

Then he wanted to do it all over again.

It wasn’t just that she was his mate, or the mating pull working on his subconscious, it was her — everything about her — hell, witch or not, he would have had a damn hard time keeping his hands off the woman under any circumstances.

Sure, when she’d run him over, he was kind of miffed, but that didn’t stop his attraction toward her — even if he had wanted to strangle her. She was a witch, and that was forbidden fruit, but not anymore.

“You don’t like surprises?” he asked, that was always something that was good to know. He made a mental note.

“I don’t think I’m going to like them where you’re concerned.”

Scratch the previous mental note, she did like them after all. That wicked smile turned into a teasing grin, and Rock’s hard length pushed against his jeans as it tried to escape the confines of his clothes.

His little brain and his big brain were in total agreement; he wanted his mate.

“Maybe I’ll surprise you in more ways than one,” he said, making that sound like a challenge that he wanted to live up to.

“I already know you’re a shifter, what more could there be?”

“Maybe I’m not the man you think I am…”

“You don’t have a wolf?”

Mine…

“Oh, I have a wolf…”

Mine…

“And a wolfish side…”

“Baby, I am an alpha…”

“Newsflash, you don’t need to broadcast that fact.”

“Like you being a witch…”

“Shaky ground, alpha,” she warned, and yet, he dropped his arms to his sides and started toward her anyway.

Frankie guessed the surprises were starting already. It wasn’t like she could back off even if the counter wasn’t right behind her – you didn’t show weakness to a wolf.

“Be careful there, buddy, I wouldn’t want to accidentally misinterpret your actions and zap you…” she warned him once more.

There was no misinterpreting his actions when his arm came out and wrapped around her waist. Before she could do or say anything, he yanked her soft body against his hard one.

Nope, no misinterpreting that.