Jess sat down next to Smitty and smiled.
“You could have warned me, Jessie Ann.”
“I could have—but how would that be fun for me?”
Teeth gritted again and she even elicited a slight sneer. Feeling pretty good about that, Jess turned to Mitch. “How’s that nonalcoholic beer doing it for ya, Mitch?”
Really, you haven’t lived until you’ve been hissed at.
“So how long does this thing last anyway?” Smitty asked, probably trying to distract her from toying with Mitch.
“Until two. Usually.”
“In the morning?”
Jess barely held in a laugh. He sounded so... despondent. “Would you prefer I said afternoon? Besides, you don’t have to stay. In fact, feel free to go.”
“Rock on.” Mitch went to stand up and Smitty reached over and shoved him back in the seat.
“Is there a reason you’re being mean to me, Jessie Ann?”
“Other than I’m enjoying it? Not really.”
“You know, Jessie Ann,” he growled, “when you’re being mean like this you do nothing but make me hard.”
Not exactly the response she expected.
Mitch shook his head. “Wolves are so weird, bruh.”
Ignoring Mitch, Smitty took her hand, and in that one simple move had her wishing they were alone. With his thumb making lazy circles around her knuckles, he said, “Okay. You made your point. Now come home with me.”
Jess swallowed. She’d never had a man seem so desperate to be with her before. She liked it.
“Uh... ” she began awkwardly, but May jumped into the booth right behind her.
“Hey, Jess.” On her knees, May leaned over the back of the booth. “Kenshin’s here.”
Kenshin Inu walked into the club with his Pack right behind him. An Asian wild dog, Ken had a family that moved around constantly. True nomads, the Inu Pack traveled all over the world. Their main den remained Tokyo, Japan—yes, all of it—but the world was their true home. Ken and Jess had been close since he’d saved her from getting arrested one summer in Chicago many, many years ago. And Ken had given her the seed money to start the company. The dot-com bubble had busted a long time ago, and giving their Pack money had been a risk. One he still made money off of. Jess was nearly as close to Kenshin as she was to Phil.
As soon as he saw her, his face lit up and Jess pulled her hand away from Smitty’s grip, slid out of the booth, and ran over to her friend.
“Kenshin!” She threw her arms around his neck and Ken picked her up, swinging her around in a circle. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year and she missed her bud. It had been ages since they stayed up watching bad seventies slasher films and mocking. She missed the mocking.
“How is my favorite wild dog?” he jokingly asked.
“Wonderful.” She kissed his cheek and he lowered her but kept his hands on her waist. “How’s your father and mother?” Jess had always liked Ken’s parents. They were sweet and outrageously goofy.
“Tiresome.” Ken leaned back the slightest bit and gazed down into her face. “You look very... happy.” His eyes grew wide. “Did you get laid?”
“Kenshin!” She grabbed his hand and led him to a booth at the back of the club. “I swear I can’t take you anywhere.”
Smitty watched some scrawny Akita walk away with his woman.
“Uh... dude?”
He looked over at Mitch. “What?”
“You need to calm down.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your claws are out. So are your fangs.”
Retracting the offending implements of death, he demanded, “Well, who the fuck is that guy?” Other than someone who had to die.
Mitch leaned in a bit, moving his nonalcoholic beer out of the way. “Wow. You’re really hot for her.”
“What?”
“Seriously. And this would explain why you’re putting up with”—Mitch glanced at the stage in disgust—“the wild dog version of ‘Strobe Light.’ I used to love the B-52s. Now they’ve been ruined forever.”
Mitch shrugged it off. “Anyway, I wish you’d just take her in the bathroom and do her so we could go.”
Smitty didn’t bother answering him, not when he couldn’t stop staring at Jessie leaning way too close to that dog. She was practically in his lap!
“Unless you’ve already... Bruh, did you already fuck her?”
Snarling, Smitty swung back around. “Would you shut up?”
“And that’s a yes.” Mitch relaxed back in the booth, took a sip of his faux beer, grimaced, and dropped the bottle back on the table. “Bruh, just go over there and grab her. I mean, he’s a wiry little guy. What’s he going to do? Then we can go get a real beer.”
“I’m not doing that.” Jessie wasn’t even his to claim. But did he want her to be? Did he want Jessie to be his? The way he had to struggle to stop himself from killing some scrawny little wild dog, he was starting to worry that could be the exact problem.
Great. Just great.
“Why not?” Mitch asked, oblivious to Smitty’s internal struggle and panic. “You’re a Smith Pack male. Isn’t it part of your DNA?”
“Just ’cause I got the Smith name don’t mean I’m not civilized.”
“Oh. Good to know. And I hope that civilized living will keep you warm at night when your woman is off gettin’ fucked twenty ways to Sunday by an Asian wild dog.”
Smitty nearly had his hands around the cat’s throat when Jessie appeared beside the booth. She caught his hand in hers and glared at him.
“Smitty, I’d like you to meet Kenshin Inu. Kenny, this is Bobby Ray Smith. But everybody calls him Smitty.”
“My friends do anyway.”
He winced a bit when small claws dug into the back of his hand. “Smitty,” she spit out from between her teeth even while she kept that fake smile, “Kenshin wants to talk to you about your business.”
Kenshin looked at Mitch. “And are you Mace Llewellyn?”
“As a matter of fact—”
“He’s not.” Jessie released Smitty’s hand and grabbed Mitch’s arm. “Why don’t we leave you two to talk? Besides, Mitch has some singing to do.”
“I... What? Wait a minute. I’m not singing!”
Somehow Jessie dragged a man more than twice her size away from the booth and Kenshin sat down across from Smitty.
The two males eyed each other up carefully.
“Jess had a lot of good things to say about you.”
Kenshin’s English had a slight British accent to it. Jess probably found that sexy. British-sounding bastard.
Getting disgusted with himself, Smitty grunted and waited for him to continue.
“I’ve heard about your security business. The thought of our own kind running something like that intrigues me. We don’t have anything like that in Tokyo.”
“Yeah... and?”
Smiling, Kenshin leaned over the table the way Mitch had. “Look, hillbilly, let’s get this out on the table right now. First off, I’m here to talk business. Now, if you’re worried about me and Jess... don’t be. I blew my shot with her a long time ago, and I’m firmly and permanently in the ‘best friend, like-a-brother’ zone. But I’m sitting here, ready to discuss a possible deal that could bring you and your feline pal a lot of money based on Jessica’s recommendation alone. So we can either discuss business or we can sit here and let you play rabid wolf over a woman who, at the moment, is barely tolerating you. Which is it gonna be?”
Smitty rested back in his seat, his fangs and claws receding. He let out a deep breath and nodded. “All right, pooch. What do you wanna know about my business?”
Jess covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, God.”
May rested her head on Jess’s shoulder and kept her eyes down, but her entire body shook. Sabina simply stared... blindly.