Some guys shouldn’t be allowed to wear shirts. For the greater good. Seriously, men like him walking around half naked could genuinely cause worldwide peace. Women would be too busy melting into puddles of lust to get up to any evildoings, and men would just spend their days and nights doing pushups in hopes of eventually looking like him.

Daunte Cross. Otherwise known as Clari’s nemesis; well, when he wasn’t half naked.

“You’re drooling.”

Highly possible. Also, no one - absolutely no one in the entire universe - could blame her right now. Daunte was washing his jeep with a sponge and a bucket of water. Apparently, that had required removing his shirt and getting the top half of his chiseled body wet and glistening in the sunlight.

She approved. Whole-heartedly.

“And you’re not? What’s wrong with you!” she asked the small, pretty, and very pregnant brunette standing next to her.

Ace - Aisling Cross - had come to meet her at the door, as she always did, because she liked to have first pick of the leftovers Clari brought back from the bakery. She pushed to her tiptoes, one hand on her extended belly, and peeked into the box of goodies in Clari’s hands, before grabbing a cupcake.

“Because,” she replied, licking her fingers clean of frosting, “he happens to be my baby brother, so he’s gross.”

Gross. Clari tilted her head and concentrated, trying to determine what could potentially be considered “gross” about the tanned Adonis.

Then he turned and his eyes narrowed when he found her on the doorstep. She remembered. The man was a first class jerk to her.

“Yep,” she nodded emphatically. “Totally gross.”

Clari shouldn’t have cared but she had never - not even once - directly interacted with him. She didn’t speak to him, they didn’t even say hello to each other. He was just included in a queenly wave she awkwardly executed whenever she met the members of the Wyvern pride of feline shifters. So, every day. Literally, every day. She worked for Aisling, their Alpha female, and she didn’t have a life. Taking some time off meant watching too many B movies and inhaling her weight in popcorn from her sofa, so she avoided doing it as much as possible.

She got along with every member of the pride, even those who generally communicated by grunts, like Coveney. Everyone except Daunte. He’d been an ass from day one, glaring like her very existence was an insult to him.

She knew that there was a fair bit of racism on both sides of the spectrum - humans who hated shifters on sight and shifters who couldn’t stand humans - and at first, she’d believed that had been the problem, but she’d since seen Daunte interact with other humans in Lakesides. He smiled at them. Like, really smiled, without baring his teeth like he was about to take a bite.

That’s when she’d taken to imagining his annoyingly handsome face on the target when she threw darts at the pub. She never missed the center now. Whatever his problem was with her, it was personal, which annoyed her. She hadn’t done anything to him, dammit.

“How was work?” Aisling asked, with a certain degree of indifference.

A few months back, she’d done everything in the bakery, baking, selling, accounting, while Clari had just delivered the goodies. Things had changed when the Wyvern Pride had turned up; she’d taken a step back and Clari had started taking on more responsibilities.

Ace still popped by almost every day, to bake, to supervise their two new employees, and do little things here and there, but the bakery had become Clari’s thing, too. She’d almost felt guilty at finding an undue amount of pride and concern for a business that wasn’t really hers, until recently. Last week, Ace had presented her with a pretty document printed on thick paper, and told her it needed her signature. She’d made her a partner. Clari still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Sure, it wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be a multi-million dollar corporation, but she had a business now. The thought still made her teary.

“Exhausting. We totally need another pair of hands on Saturdays.”

They both knew that, but they lived in a small town seemingly inhabited by children and their grandparents; there weren’t a lot of potential part-time employees. Clari had cooked up an idea weeks ago, but she hadn’t voiced it, feeling like she might be stepping on someone’s toes. Biting her lip, she spelled it out, “But hey, I was just wondering if Niamh would want to do a few hours a week. You know, like a summer job. Get some work experience, or something.”

Yep, she was rambling.

Niamh was one of the children the Pride had adopted into their folds; she’d just turned thirteen, and from a vantage point of view, Clari saw just how bored and frustrated she was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, without meeting anyone her age. She expressed her annoyance by buying tight, revealing clothing and rolling her eyes at the first provocation, knowing full well that it made the adults want to strangle her pretty neck.

Clari felt uncomfortable in her shoes as Ace’s amber eyes focused on her, unblinking. She didn’t often see it, but right now, it was obvious that she was dealing with Aisling, the Alpha that could dismember a man twice her size with one hand tied behind her back.

“Hm,” was all she said, before calling out, “Rye!”

Oh shit.

Clari froze. She didn’t fear Rygan Wayland, not exactly, but he was a dominant, powerful Alpha, and unlike his mate, he wasn’t her personal friend. Why did Ace want him here?

She forced herself to breath in and out. Of course, she called him. This was a Pride decision; she wasn’t going to jump in without speaking with her partner first.

Ace laughed a little.

“You know, for a human, you’re very attuned to the dynamic of Prides. You always act like a shifter when you see Rye.”

“A submissive shifter, you mean,” she grumbled, annoyed by her own reactions.

It wasn’t like Rye was going to do anything to her. Hell, she was pretty sure that the man would actually protect her if she ever needed him to. Jas and Ian liked to call her an honorary member of the Pride. Mostly because they loved cake.

Ace shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so. Submissives are normally appeased by high levels of dominance because shifters don’t tend to attack them. Well, sane shifters anyway. You act like a dominant who doesn’t want to be forced into submission. Me,” she said, pointing to herself, “you defer to. But the others; Jas, Ola, Ian, Coveney- you try to push when you can. It’s just Rye who makes you squirm because you know he tops you and it’s bugging you.”

Clari lifted a brow, intrigued, and flattered. She hated the idea of submission, so it was comforting to know that Ace didn’t think it was in her nature. Not that it mattered. She was human, so, whatever.

“No comment on the fact that I didn’t mention Daunte?” Ace teased her.

Although she hadn’t actually spelled it out, her friend had caught on early about her unrequited admiration for the dick who treated her like trash.

“I’ll tell you what I think, regardless. You’re going around in a circle, ready to pounce. Someday, one of you will take the first step and determine who comes out on top.”

Clari opened her mouth and closed it a few times in a row, not finding her words. Finally, all she could say was, “Whatever.”