~

 

“Is that some kind of a threat, because I don’t do well with threats,” Rayner bit out.

She was still evaluating her options or the lack of them. Only one person knew that she was up the mountain. Bute.

Bute was going to be her damn white knight and send someone to rescue her! Ha! Bute didn’t even know how to work a damn phone without someone pressing the buttons for him.

Her boss paid people like her to clean up his messes. Well, the man had certainly created a really big pile of crap for her to wallow in this time.

No, she’d got into this herself, and she was going to have to get out of it the same way. The only trouble was, she couldn’t really see an out right then and there.

Shifters everywhere.

One was even in his damn bear form, hell, what was she supposed to do with that?

“I can scent the uncertainty in you, a little worry, a little fear,” Dane growled at that last scent.

Fear. He didn’t want her to fear him. His bear didn’t exactly react kindly to that either.

“You don’t say,” Rayner shot back with disbelief.

“I’m not going to hurt you, woman,” he growled out, and she snapped her head back on her neck and scowled up at him.

“Ok, firstly – woman?” She bit back.

“It’s not like we were introduced when you trespassed on Bowie’s land,” he reminded her, and she took a long moment to consider that.

“Fine. I’ll give you that point.”

“And your name?” Dane asked.

“Why, so you know what to call me when you’re chasing me down the damn road?” Rayner curled her top lip, offered him the evil eye, and snorted her contempt.

“I’m Dane,” he said, trying his best to sound rational when all that he wanted to do was to shake some sense into her.

If she thought that it was a good idea to run from him – she should think again. And if she thought that he’d let that happen then she didn’t know anything about shifter mates.

“Like the – dog,” she offered back, raising her eyebrows and looking momentarily amused.

“I apologize that my mother didn’t name me Yogi,” he offered back, and for a long moment, she must have looked constipated as she held in her amusement until she crushed it inside of her.

She’d almost spat out a laugh, but the look on his face said not to go there, and she didn’t want him to think that she was weakening in her captive stance and surrendering to his easy charm. Not that the man had any, but she didn’t like to give false hope unless it was useful to her.

“I’d say nice to meet you, but … you know?” She pushed a little harder and found no way out of those arms of his.

“No,” Dane offered back with a dry tone to his voice that told her to shut the hell up and look for an out from the nightmare of the day that she’d found herself in.

“Cassie,” she said quickly and watched as his eyes slowly narrowed on hers.

Damn. She’d been busted already.

“Liar,” Dane offered back.

“Suzi?”

“Not even close,” he growled, just a little, but it was enough to make her pay even more attention to him.

Mine…

His bear was antsy. It wanted out as much as Bowie’s beast had, but he knew there was no way in hell that he could let that happen. Not around her. Not yet.

Mine…

The beast had found his mate, and he wanted to claim her every bit as much as Dane did, and yet, she was human – they needed understanding – they needed wooing.

Wooing.

What the hell do I know about wooing?

The women in my bed usually came to the bar looking to pick up a shifter for some wild times. Not that there had been many lately.

This one is wild in other ways.

She’d gone after Bowie, and she’d kicked me in the balls – she’s like a handful of damn dynamite, and I’m going to have to close my fist around it and watch it blow off my damn fingers.

She wants to run.

She doesn’t understand.

First call of wooing – explain the damn rules.

“Ok, I can see from the way that you look like you’re chewing a wasp that you’re mulling something over there, Einstein,” Rayner offered, and he grunted in annoyance, “but you need to let me go now.”

“Lady, that’s the last damn thing that’s going to happen,” Dane growled a little louder, a little deeper, and she felt it roll through her body.

The fact that her hard nipples were plastered against the muscles of his chest made that vibration all the more pleasing. But she needed to dismiss that sensation, and the tingles, and the damn look in his eyes – hunger – for her. It wasn’t helpful.

If she was going to get out of the trouble that she’d got into, then she couldn’t think of all his plus sides. She needed to get her nasty on.

“Don’t call me lady,” she sneered.

“Then tell me your damn name.”

“Rayner,” she snapped back.

“Rayner,” Dane repeated it, and he liked the way that it sounded on his tongue.

It sounded damn good to her ears when he said her name, all gravelly like that, and with just the right amount of rolling of his tongue, but she was trying hard not to notice. Trying harder to push away those tingles that touched her body wherever he did.

“I’ve got somewhere to be,” she lied, “and your brother owes money to Bute.”

Distract.

Deflect.

And then leg it for the truck.

Sounds like a plan.

“And you’re who they sent to collect it?” Dane’s voice wreaked of disbelief, and his eyes berated her.

“Now, hold on there a minute…” Rayner pushed real hard, and yet, he still didn’t go anywhere.

She took exception to the fact that men wrote her off because she was a female. Like she couldn’t do her job.

Hell, she had a ninety-two percent success rate for collecting from debtors. It would have been more, but you couldn’t collect from beside a hospital bed after you’d put someone there, the nursing staff got kind of antsy about those sorts of things.

“A female, and a human one.” Dane shook his head in anger.

“I got the drop on you, didn’t I?” She bit back, annoyance flaring within her.