“No idea. Early.”
She nodded and settled back onto his chest, eyes closing, arms tightening around his chest. “Good. I’m still so tired.” Wait. What just happened?
“I have to get up.”
“Another hour,” she bargained. “Maybe two. Just relax.”
Completely confused, Crush said, “Look—”
Her head snapped up, those eyes locking on him. “Are you going to keep talking? ’Cause it’s irritating. I’m trying to sleep, and I’m extremely hungover.”
Crush’s eyes narrowed. He was irritating? “Tell me we didn’t have sex last night.”
“As drunk as you were?” She yawned, already bored with him, it seemed. “I don’t think you could have gotten it up with a crane.”
“Thanks.”
“Wait. Is that what you think? That we fucked?”
“We’re in bed together. What was I supposed to think?”
“That I was tired and needed someplace to sleep.”
“But we’re both ...” He shrugged a little. “Naked.”
“Yeah, I was really drunk, too, so I just took my clothes off.”
“Wasn’t there somewhere else you could have slept?”
“Most of the people who crashed here last night were either full-humans or canines. Have you ever tried to sleep with a canine? They yip in their sleep. And run. It’s annoying. And Mace wouldn’t take the couch so I could sleep with his wife so—”
“You asked a lion male to move out of his bed for you?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Because he’s the majestic lion male, king of the jungle? Or because he’s a rich Llewellyn of the Llewellyn Pride?”
“Because it’s the man’s house.”
“It’s his wife’s house. MacDermot just allows him to stay here with her and those giant, useless dogs she owns. And I know she’d pick those ridiculous rotties over that lion in a hot second.” She sat up. “Well ... now I’m awake.”
“How annoying for you.” Crush struggled to sit up, too, ignoring the screaming in his head.
“What are you so cranky about?”
“You basically just told me you used me like a giant pillow.”
“You were comfortable. And didn’t yip once. I hate the yipping. Let me tell ya, you don’t know hell until you’ve been trapped in a rainy, miserable jungle during monsoon season with a bunch of canines. Everyone wet and miserable and goddamn yipping.”
Crush tried to ignore his migraine and asked, “Why would you be sitting in a miserable jungle with canines?”
“For lots of reasons.”
“Name two. No. Just name one. I challenge you.”
“You challenge me?” She laughed, her almost muzzlelike nose crinkling a little as she looked him over. “Aren’t you cute?”
Finally, Crush had to ask, “Who are you?”
“If I wasn’t still hungover, I’d give you my most sultry smile and tell you ‘your dream come to life.’ But, eh. I’m just too tired to bother and, honestly, does one have to really put in that much effort for a bear?”
“Are you always this insulting?”
“Insulting? This is me being nice. I even complimented you.”
“Yes. Apparently I’m as comfortable as a pillow.”
“Yeah. But one of those full-body ones. Or like one of those giant stuffed bears you get when you’re a kid. My dad used to get me those and then he’d teach me how to maul ’em.”
“I am not—”
She held up her finger. “Hold that.” Then the insane female stretched out across his lap and reached down to the floor, grabbing a phone out of her jeans.
Annoyed and disgustingly turned on, Crush snarled, “Woman, get off me.”
“Ssssh,” she said, settling her butt onto his lap. “Business call.”
Did she just shush him? She did, didn’t she?
“Yep?” she said into the phone, clearly uncaring that they were still both naked and there was absolutely nothing separating her ass from his cock. “Now? ’Cause I gotta get home to the kid.”
Kid? The woman had a child, but she was hanging out and getting drunk at house parties and torturing him with her butt on his cock?
Thinking about all the shitty parents he had been forced to deal with over the years as a cop, Crush hissed, “You have a child?”
She nodded and while someone kept talking on the other end of her phone, she whispered, “Have to get home. Still breastfeeding.” Then, when Crush thought his head might explode, she silently laughed and mouthed, “Just kidding.”
Holy hell, who was this woman?
“All right. All right. I’ll get Smith on it. You know she loves morning jobs. I know she doesn’t work for you, but think of it as outsourcing. We both know she can do the damn job. Besides, she has to realize that not everything can be the close-up kill.” Not knowing what she was talking about, Crush was relieved when she winked at him. Good. She was kidding. Because it would be really hard to arrest a naked woman sitting in his lap. “Okay. Good. I’ll take care of it.”
She disconnected the call and tossed the phone back on her jeans. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Yes. You need to get home to your child.”
“Yeah. Her, too.” She shrugged. “She’s pretty self-sufficient. She can almost reach the stove.”
Unable to take any more, Crush pushed her off his lap. Not as hard as he’d like—damn his morals—but at least he got her off him and he could move away from her.
Grabbing his clothes, Crush stalked to the door.
“Don’t you want my number?” she asked him. “Maybe the next time we could get drunk and then actually have sex. If you’re worried about the kid, I can put a little brandy in her milk bottle and she’ll be out like a light.”
Crush began to speak, but realized he would only say something completely inappropriate and mean, something he simply couldn’t bring himself to do. So instead he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Tragically, however, Desiree MacDermott stood there in her hallway, her green eyes growing wide as her gaze moved down the length of his naked body while he lollygagged in the middle of her hallway.
His fellow detective finally looked up into his face. “Hi, uh ... Crushek. How’s it going?”
“Fine. Thank you for inviting me to your party.”
“Anytime.”
“Okay.” They stood in the hallway another second, then Crush said, “ ’Bye.”
“ ’Bye.”
And, with as much dignity as he could muster at six in the morning while naked in a coworker’s house, and still sporting a hangover and a semi hard-on—because even degenerates could be sexy as hell in the morning—Crush headed to his truck and absolute freedom.
Marcella “Bare Knuckles” Malone—She-tiger, feline nation protection contractor for KZS, pro hockey player for the championship shifter team the Carnivores, and the Malone family’s bare-knuckles fighting champion—heard the bedroom door open again, but she simply couldn’t stop her hysterical, wheezing laughter. No one could! Why? Because that had been the best!
“Cella?”
She heard MacDermot, but Cella couldn’t answer her. She was too busy laughing and trying to figure out who that guy was. It wasn’t every day Cella got to meet guys who looked like biker gang meth dealers, but had the moral fortitude of Martin Luther. All that indignant outrage over her untended daughter while sporting long, white polar bear hair that reached past his shoulders, a perpetual scowl, a scar on his neck, and pitch-black eyes that probably terrified lots of people. Of course, if all that didn’t scare someone, she was pretty sure that what had to be about six feet and nine inches and about three hundred pounds or so of hard muscle probably did the trick. Man, had that body been like a thousand levels of perfect or what?