“What?”
“My dogs.” Her soft hand on his cheek suddenly grabbed a hunk of his hair and pulled.
“Ow!”
“They should have ripped you apart and left you for dead on my porch by now. Where are they?”
With a dramatic sigh, “I don’t know.”
Dez got to her feet, a Packlike growl rolling from her lips. “If anything happened to my boys—”
“What exactly are you accusing me of? Harming two smelly beasts that would happily run out in the middle of moving traffic?”
Dez threw down the blanket and began to search the room. Mace had to focus hard on her face so he didn’t focus on the rest of that luscious body. Her body did things to him. Strong, almost painful things.
He shook his head. Stop it, Llewellyn. You’re wasting your time. The woman didn’t even notice him in the room.
Who was she kidding? Her dogs were somewhere. But waking up and finding one gorgeous hunk of man-meat crawling on her floor had stirred things in her she never thought existed. Things she wasn’t sure she could actually admit to. It didn’t help that seeing his face all bruised up almost shoved her right over the edge of “Stupid Things People Do,” like letting him kiss her—again.
So finding her dogs seemed the quickest and simplest thing to do, given the circumstances.
Although she was starting to worry a bit. Her dogs should have greeted them at the door. They should have definitely gone for Mace’s throat by now. He didn’t seem like much of a dog person, but she couldn’t see Mace doing anything to her “boys.” So where the hell where they?
“You check under the bed?”
Dez practically snarled at the man who had quickly become the star of any and every fantasy she would ever have. He leaned back into her couch, his arms out over the back of the sofa. His incredibly long and muscular legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. My, he certainly has made himself at home.
“My dogs don’t hide under beds, Llewellyn.”
“But did you check?”
“Did you see me go upstairs?” At his raised eyebrow, she snapped, “Fine. I’ll check.” She headed up the stairs to her bedroom. Her house wasn’t big by any stretch of the imagination, but it had a backyard for her dogs, a second floor, and a huge dining room and gourmet kitchen she rarely used. Most important, though, it was her mortgage. Her place. So it didn’t matter how big or small it was.
“Sig! Sauer! Where are you guys?”
“You named your dogs after a gun?” Dez jumped and spun around. Mace had moved up behind her and she hadn’t even heard him. “Holy shit! The Christmas stockings were for them?”
She would not be having that conversation. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Besides being freaked out by your Christmas decorations—helping you find your dogs. The dogs you named after a weapon.”
“They’re cop-owned dogs. What did you expect me to name them? Fluffy and Poopsie-head?”
Dez walked into her bedroom. She could feel Mace behind her. Feel the warmth of his body. She could smell the man. And he smelled really good.
She mentally shook herself. Snap out of it, MacDermot. She crouched down by her bed and looked under it. And, to her utter disbelief, she found her two dogs. Cowering.
She reached for Sig. “Come here, baby.”
Mace crouched down next to her and that’s when Sig gingerly gripped her wrist in his maw and dragged her under the bed. He didn’t hurt her. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the dog simply wanted to protect her.
“What in the hell?”
“You okay?” Mace held on to her ankle and she suddenly felt like a wishbone.
She pulled her arm away from Sig and slid back out from under the bed. Mace grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. She snatched her hand away. She had to. His touch made her uncomfortably warm.
“What did you do to my dogs?” She had no idea where that came from, but she couldn’t shake the feeling they were hiding from Mace.
“Me? What makes you think I did anything?”
“Sig once took down a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound professional football player because he got a little too close to me in the park. And Sauer took on three, out-of-control pit bulls to protect me. These are not dogs that hide under the bed. And then you come to my house…”
Mace didn’t say anything, he simply watched her.
Dez sat down at the foot of the bed. She ran her hands through her hair. Someone obviously drugged me. Why else would she sit on her bed, hardly worried about the unsightly rolls it would cause in her less-than-taut stomach, wearing her favorite lace Christmas bra and jeans, in front of the one man she’d happily wrap herself around like a boa constrictor? Meanwhile, her vicious, well-trained dogs cowered under her bed. Something was going on and she wanted to know what. And she wanted to know what right-goddamn-now.
“My dogs are hiding from you, Llewellyn. And I wanna know why. Or you can get the fuck outta my house.” Christ, less than twenty-four hours around Mace and Bronx Dez came roaring back. But her intense anger kept her from feeling ashamed.
Mace watched her from under a mass of hair practically covering his eyes. Hair that had not been there the day before.
What in the hell is going on?
Damn dogs ruin everything. Typical. If he told her anything but the absolute truth, Dez and her detective mind would see through it in two seconds. That would be it for him too. For them. Dez needed to trust her partners, Mace knew that just from the few precious hours he’d spent in the woman’s company. He couldn’t lie to her. Not if he ever wanted her screaming his name while she came.
So, throwing centuries of Druid tradition and secrecy out the window, he faced Detective Desiree MacDermot head-on and told her the truth.
“I’m a shapeshifter. Specifically lion. My Pride is descended from Welsh Druids. Your dogs sense that and that’s why they’re hiding under the bed. That and they’re big pussies.”
She stared at him. He could almost read her thoughts. She was thinking, I have a nut in my house. How do I get the nut out of my house? He was expecting her to start inching toward the door any second. Or pull her gun and shoot him between the eyes.
But she didn’t. Instead, Dez crossed her arms in front of those beautiful red lace–covered tits. “Prove it.”
Mace gaped at her. “What?”
“Is this a full moon kind of thing?”
He stifled his roar. Insulting little bitch. “I’m not a werewolf.”
“Then prove it. Right here. Right now.”
“You want me to prove it?”
“Right here. Right now.”
Mace smiled. “If that’s what you want…”
Yup. Leave it to Dez to find the one rich nut in New York City who wasn’t afraid to drive out to Brooklyn. The one rich nut who thought he was a—what was it?—shapeshifter? Oiy.
Of course, Dez didn’t grab the phone, lock herself in the bathroom, and call 911. No, she challenged the nut to “prove it.”
Sure. Why not? Besides, she was wearing her gun and she had a lovely shotgun in her closet. Plus, it wasn’t like she hadn’t dealt with nuts before.
Still her dogs’ whimpering, heard clearly even though they were still under her bed, gave her the first clue something really wasn’t right. Mace’s eyes started to look different too. Becoming glassy and reflective. And his scent became stronger. Filling the room, swirling around her.
Dez uncrossed her arms and let them hang loose by her side as she watched Mace carefully. She blinked several times, her brain unwilling or unable to process what she thought she was seeing. Jesus Christ, were those fangs!?