Go Fetch

Chapter Five

Miki didn’t know a shapeshifter could be so boring. The man just rambled on and on. About himself. Even his name bored her. Bob. She silently began to call him Bob the King of Boring. She let him ramble as she looked around the club.

True, it wasn’t much. But that was because wolves didn’t need much. A dark, moody room with a big bar, room to dance, and some alcoves where they could make out with the fellow shapeshifter of their choice. This was neutral ground. A place they could all get together, dance, and have a great time without getting territorial.

Of course, this wasn’t the entire club, merely the wolf part. One flight down was one of the hottest clubs in Northern California. A place where the rich and famous met up with the vapid and thin. She’d read about Sara’s club in one of the magazines at the bookstore. The place wasn’t only hot, it made money hand over fist, starting new trends. All that shit.

And Miki had finally come to the realization she still had a hard time dealing with.

Sara was fucking rich. Not a little rich. Not sort of rich. Fucking rich.

According to Kelly, her new little Pack confidant, Sara not only had Pack money access, she had money left to her by her parents. Her grandmother refused to touch it, forcing her granddaughter instead to work for every little thing she ever got. Although, Miki was kind of glad about that. She could imagine a rich, snotty shapeshifter Sara. Miki probably wouldn’t be friends with that Sara. But cool, still wearing her Jockey For Her underwear Sara was definitely her friend. Her best friend. Just like Angelina.

It was apparently this Sara who had become quite the truce maker, too, pulling together Packs that at one time couldn’t stand each other.

Miki’s eyes searched the dance floor until she found her. She still couldn’t believe six months ago this was the girl who could barely walk, was in constant pain, and lonely beyond belief. As much as Miki envied her now, she felt overwhelming happiness for her, too. Miki watched as Sara, her favorite black cowboy hat in place, moved her body against Zach’s. She had grace and precision and, not surprisingly, Zach couldn’t keep his hands off her.

It suddenly occurred to Miki that Bob was still rambling. The tragedy with her brain was that she could still listen to him even when she was thinking about twenty different other things. Her grade school teachers called it a gift. Gift her ass, if she had to listen to Bob talk about how great he was all night. Thank God he wasn’t part of Sara’s Pack.

Of course, that fact didn’t seem to stop Bob from moving in on her. He’d gotten closer and she didn’t like it one bit. She felt naked with only her steel-toe Docs. Because she had to take a plane into Northern California, she had to leave all her precious weapons back home. Miki had learned a long time ago a woman her size definitely needed an advantage.

She glanced around for a beer bottle to smash and then use on Bob should it become necessary, but then Conall suddenly stalked out of the crowd. He grabbed Bob by the back of the neck and slammed his head down on the bar, then lifted him up and tossed him, sending the man flying across the floor and hitting the opposite wall.

Conall grinned as he sat his big body down on the stool next to her. The one he’d just forced poor Bob to leave. “So, you having a good time?”

Apparently, they wouldn’t be discussing Conall’s way of getting a man to back off. She wondered briefly if he’d done that because Bob was making her uncomfortable or because Bob was making him uncomfortable being so close to her. She hated herself for hoping it was both.

“Yeah. Downstairs sucks, but this place is great.”

“This is for family only.” And she knew he saw all wolves as his family. For some unknown reason she liked that.

“You want something to drink?”

“Water.” Miki watched as he leaned over and spoke to the bartender. Man, was his body long. Long and big. He’d taken off his jacket and stowed it along with hers behind the bar. He wasn’t dark like Zach. But at the same time he wasn’t pale. He wore a black sleeveless T-shirt and she marveled at the size of his shoulders and arms. She focused on the thin black bracelet he wore on his wrist. It looked like something a kid made. A couple of pieces of wool braided together. Yet, it had to be the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life. She couldn’t explain it. It just was.

Okay. She needed to stop this right now. Right now.

Miki slid off the stool she’d been perched on and stretched her neck. Her whole body felt tight. Tight and cranky. Angie was right. Miki was a tense mess. But she had so much on her mind. She hadn’t been bullshitting when she told Conall that. She had more on her mind than anyone could possibly imagine.

A bottle of water suddenly appeared in front of her face and she realized she’d drifted to stand in front of Conall. The thought of him watching her stretch her neck and shoulders made her warm. Again. She needed to get control of that. She had enough on her mind without worrying about uncontrollable hot flashes.

Miki grabbed the water and looked up to find Conall hovering over her. “Christ, you’re tall. Is everyone in your family so fuckin’ tall?”

“It’s the Nordic thing.”

It was funny, the music was amazingly loud, but the wolves had no trouble hearing each other. She, however, couldn’t hear shit over the industrial techno blasting from the speakers unless someone screamed at her.

Miki drank some of the water and tried to ignore Conall standing behind her. She could feel the heat coming off his body, and it was starting to feel really nice.

Conall stared at the back of Miki’s neck. Watching her stretch the tight muscles there and in her shoulders almost sent him over the edge.

She wore a tight tank top, and he could easily see how long and refined her neck was, her shoulders small but strong, her back straight and lightly muscled. He could tell Miki was a girl who knew how to handle herself. He liked that. Liked the fact that she wasn’t a little wimp waiting for some knight to come rescue her. By the time the knight made it up to the tower of the castle, she’d have devised an elaborate pulley system to extract herself to safety. He found her brain so sexy. Well, her brain and that ass.

Unable to resist, he took his thumb and stroked the back of her neck. She stiffened but she didn’t knock his hand away. Taking that as a good sign, he continued to knead the tense muscles of her neck and watch her body’s response. It didn’t take her long to relax a little, so he let the rest of his hand settle against her throat. His fingers spread out across her collarbone, gently stroking the sensitive flesh there.

Her back was still to him, but he was almost positive she’d closed her eyes when she dropped her head forward. He massaged other areas of her neck where he felt tightness, keeping it up until he heard her moan. And that sound almost killed him.

Gently, Conall pulled her body into his, her back against his front. Wearing her low-heeled Doc Martens, the top of her head just about reached his chest. Yeah, he could make that height work quite nicely for them both.

He leaned down next to her ear. “Wanna dance?”

She turned and stared at him. “Are you kidding?”

He wondered if she was concerned with the fact she was an amazingly lousy dancer. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m not even five-five and what are you? Nine feet or so? We’ll look like idiots.”

“I am not nine feet.” He moved around in front of her, finally releasing the hold he had on her neck. For a split second, she actually appeared disappointed.

“You know, Kendrick, I’m unimpressed.”

“With what exactly?”

“I thought you brilliant types were a lot more creative.” She frowned but that quickly changed into a look of surprise as he bent down, slid his hands under her ass, and lifted her off the floor. She wore a sexy leather miniskirt and he could feel the panties underneath. Satin. Nice.

“Are you nuts? Put me down!” But she was smiling and didn’t seem all that pissed.

“No way. We’re going to dance. Wrap your arms around my neck.” She did that quickly since he pretended to almost drop her. “Good girl. And wrap your legs around my waist.”

She raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Kendrick.” She rolled her eyes, but wrapped her legs around him just the same. Her ankles locked at the small of his back and her pelvis pushed against his groin. And he wished with all his heart they were back in his room doing this. Naked.

Miki couldn’t believe she hadn’t punched him yet. She should have. But, she grudgingly had to admit, he felt really good between her legs.

Staring straight at her, he walked them both to the middle of the dance floor. It was awkward for Miki, his heated gaze tearing right through her. No one had ever looked at her like that before. At least not so she’d noticed. She didn’t know what to say or do in such a situation, so she glanced around the room instead. She felt him move and her eyes almost rolled into the back of her head. She liked how he moved. She briefly wondered if he moved like that in bed.

Bad thought. Bad thought. Bad thought.

She caught sight of Sara watching her. She expected her to be all cocky and triumphant but, instead, she gave Miki the sweetest look, which only made it worse. She didn’t want to get Sara’s hopes up over nothing.

She knew Sara cared. The woman had cared about her since she’d picked Miki up off the playground floor all those years ago after some evil little boys had knocked Miki down and called her a freak. Sara’d helped her up and Angelina had kicked their asses. She smiled at the memory of those boys running for their lives by the time sweet, girly Angelina had gotten done with them. Since then they’d been protecting each other. Even risking their lives for each other. But sometimes Sara and Angelina’s concern for her could get a little stifling.

The skin of her neck was nipped and she turned her head to look at Conall, that aqua blue gaze of his trapping her immediately. He is sooo trouble.

“Where did you just go?”

“What?”

“Come on, Mik. You were two thousand miles away. Where’d ya go?”

“Nowhere.” She shook her head for emphasis. “Just thinking.”

“You do that a lot, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Like what? What do you think about?”

“You don’t want to know, Viking.”

“I like when you call me that.”

Well, that was the last thing she wanted to hear. She called him that to annoy him. You idiot, what guy gets insulted being called Viking?

“You really want to know what I’m thinking?” Perfect. She knew exactly how to scare him off. It had scared off many men before him.

“I asked, didn’t I?”

“I was thinking Sara needs to stop looking so happy about us dancing together. And I wondered if Zach was going to fuck her on the dance floor or whether he’d wait to drag her off to the bathroom. He’s had his hand down the back of her jeans and his groin pressed into hers for the last ten minutes. I was also wondering whether I should wear my blue suit to my dissertation defense or my dark green suit. Or if I should wear a suit at all. Or just a dress. Then I remembered that I don’t have a dress. Then I was wondering if I were hungry or not. I decided not. Then I wondered if I could come up with a way to cancel the government’s deficit without taxing the people.”

Conall, not surprisingly, stared. “Wow.”

“Well, as you said, you asked, didn’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” He studied her closely. “Do you ever not think? Or, at the very least, only have one thought at a time?”

Miki thought about that for a moment and shook her head. “No.”

“Really?”

“I don’t distract easily.”

The Viking leered and she had that ancient China feeling again. “I bet I could distract you.”

With a snort, and before she could stop herself, “Promises, promises.” Miki froze and so did Conall. “Uh…”

“Too late. Can’t take it back now.”

“But…”

“Nope. The gauntlet has been laid.” She felt his hands tighten on her ass and she let out a little squeak. “And I’m just the man to pick it up and run with it.”

Okay. Exactly at what point did her nipples start hardening without it being cold or someone actually rubbing them? Plus, much more of this, she’d have to change her underwear before the night was out. When the hell did that start happening? And what happened to her resolve not to get involved with anyone, especially giant shapeshifters?

I should have added his ass to the List!

“You’re vibrating.”

“I am not!”

“Your phone is vibrating.” He jokingly tsk-tsk’d her. “Again, we’re wallowing in the gutter. What is it with you?”

Suddenly her face felt as hot and uncomfortable as the rest of her.

Pulling the phone off her hip, she held it up. “I need to deal with this.”

With obvious reluctance, he slowly lowered her to the ground and led her away from the dance floor. “Make your call. I’ll be back in five minutes.” She watched Conall walk off toward the bathroom. She liked watching him walk off.

What the hell was she doing? This was ridiculous. She was ridiculous. She should be worrying about her dissertation not about how his ass looked in those jeans.

Miki flipped her phone open. “Hello?”

She knew from caller ID it was Craig. But the reception sucked in the club. So she closed the phone and headed down the stairs and out of the building.