Moves Like Jagger (Wolf Mates Book 4) (3 page)

“Nope. A date.”

“As in go on one with you?”

“Yep.

She played coy. “But we have no mystery. No big reveal to look forward to. You’ve already seen me naked. What’s left?”

“Who said I wanted to see you naked again? That’s so repetitive. And maybe I don’t want to have to solve the mystery.”

She giggled—foolishly, breathlessly. “You’re a man. You all want to solve the mystery.”

Now he rolled his dark eyes in jest. “Okay, fine. I won’t say I didn’t think about solving the mystery. But I’m okay already knowing the ending. I’m not much for surprises.”

Even as flushed and distracted as she was from all this flirting, she still managed to note how utterly in the moment she was with him—how easy it was to banter back and forth.

“So where do you want to take me on this date?”

“What’s your take on paper shredding?”

“As a rule or as fun date activities go?”

“Fun date activities.”

“Oh, it’s right up there with scorpion petting, fitted-sheet folding, and watching ketchup drip for NASA.”

“NASA watches ketchup?”

“Duh. Astronauts deserve condiments, too.”

“You can get a job watching ketchup drip at NASA? What sorcery is this?”

“Who knew, right? But that’s what Craigslist tells me. It’s called viscosity, I think. I was all in until I found out I had to use a ruler to determine the rate of the drip per nanosecond. I’m the un-math.”

He nodded in solidarity, his eyes twinkling. “Yeah, me, too.”

Viv shook her head and mocked sadness, letting her lower lip jut outward in a pout. “Oh, forget that date then.”

His eyes went wide, all the while, his thumb making a lazy pattern of heat on her skin. “You’re breaking up with me already? Even after I said I’d get over seeing you naked? Why so soon?”

“How can two people who have no fiscal sense ever date? What if our scorpion-petting, ketchup-drip watching date was so awesome we decided to get married? We’d be broke in no time flat. There has to be a yin and yang. You know, I pick up the slack where you falter and vice versa. Two un-maths would be death, for sure.”

“What if I told you I’d buy a calculator?”

“I might reconsider.”

“Then how about I pick you up tonight at seven at your place. We’ll grab dinner. I’ll bring the calculator, you bring the ketchup.”

“But what about the scorpion?”

His raven eyebrow rose with a skeptical slant. “Does he eat a lot? Remember our fiscal obligations.”

Viv’s head fell back on her shoulders as she laughed. “Seven’s perfect.”

He leaned in a bit closer before letting her hand go, his cologne settling in her nose with woodsy perfection. “I’ll see you then.” With that, he let go of her hand and sauntered out of the bar, the weak mid-afternoon sunlight glancing off his dark hair as he opened the door, and then he was gone.

She stood rooted to the spot, her heart thrashing in her chest, her thoughts muddled.

JC held up her empty glass under Viv’s nose and fanned herself with a grin. “Phew, girl! I’m all hot and bothered. Ice, please.”

“It’s twenty degrees out with another five inches of snow forecasted. How could you be hot?”

“After that exchange about ketchup and shredding and scorpions? Who wouldn’t be hot?”

Viv giggled like she was at the high school dance and the cutest guy in school had just asked her to awkwardly sway back and forth to a Backstreet Boys song. “He’s cute, huh?”

JC leaned in on her elbow and chucked Viv under the chin. “He’s adorably enormous. I can’t believe you’ve been here all of a week and managed to snare yourself the town’s most eligible bachelor.”

“Yeahhh,” she whispered, still inhaling the scent of his cologne and reminiscing about his thick thighs. But then she straightened. “Wait. Most eligible? Is he a serial dater or something?”

JC shook her head full of dark curls. “No. By eligible I mean he’s the
only
bachelor in town. Most everyone here is mated.”

“I’m not getting myself into something I’ll regret, am I? He’s not super-Casanova, is he? Because as my BFF, it’s your responsibility to tell me all the juicy details you have on him. I don’t want to get all excited if he’s a bag of dicks. Remember Nick?”

JC nodded her dark head. “The one you dated because he had a Backstreet Boy’s name.”

“That wasn’t the only reason. He was pretty cute. Super smart.”

“Super engaged.”

“Exactly. No repeats of messy entanglements part two.”

“So his fiancée showing up at the fundraiser for the Hoboken shelter and all but knocking you out of that amazing pair of shoes you wore is out?”

Boo-hiss. Just remembering those shoes made her heart hurt. They’d been amazing, all right. Sparkly, gold Louboutins. Now sold in the estate sale the bank had forced her into.

But the worst part of that night was the pain she’d help cause without even knowing she was a party to it.

“Definitely out. I never want to be a party to someone else’s heartache again. So have you heard anything about Jagger? Tell me the truth. I can take it.”

She held her breath. JC would come clean if she had, but Viv really, really didn’t want there to be any dirt.

JC lifted her fork and grinned. “Clean as a whistle as far as I know. But he’s only been here a few months, Viv. Finally moved his practice for good last month after Max talked him into leaving New York and coming here to help with the pack, among other things. He’s been a tremendous resource for those who’ve suffered with the DNA issues.”

“But he’s a vet. Not a doctor.”

“Which is better than a human doctor and discovery, don’t you agree? How do you go to a human doctor and explain getting stuck in shift and the side effects that creates?”

Viv smiled and raised a finger in the air. “Point. So wish me luck?”

JC rolled her eyes. “As if you, the queen of vixens, need help? I’d be smarter wishing Jagger luck.”

But this was different somehow. Jagger was different. She just wasn’t sure why or how it was different. But it felt important. Really important.

Grabbing JC’s hand, she looked at her friend. “No. I mean it. Wish me luck.”

JC’s blue eyes were confused at first and then they went soft and warm. “Luck. So much luck.”

Viv straightened, her stomach in an unfamiliar knot, her heart pitter-pattering at an erratically excited beat.

She squared her shoulders as she looked at the clock. She still had four hours until her shift ended. No more daydreaming about Jagger or dwelling on the magic that was just his mere presence.

But she found herself humming another one of those Christmas tunes someone had played on the jukebox, a smile on her face.

* * * *

Jagger dropped his cell phone in the jacket of his white lab coat and inhaled a deep breath of the cold air as he left Floyd and Marcy Brown’s old farmhouse, smiling at them as they stood at the front door with their cockapoo, Mookie, safely in Marcy’s arms.

“Thanks, Dr. Dubrov,” Marcy said with a watery smile, the tears she’d shed earlier drying to leave streaks in her makeup. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to my Mookie.” She snuggled the white dog closer.

Mookie had been the victim of some kind of animal attack. An attack, because he couldn’t identify the tooth mark, he’d have to discuss with Max. Here in Cedar Glen, they didn’t hunt out of respect for Max’s cousin Hector, who was, due to the tampering of his ancestors’ DNA, a vegetarian.

The nick to Mookie’s paw wasn’t significant, and only a partial nick at that, but it was definitely done by another animal. But what kind of animal? Certainly nothing he could smell. This had occurred just outside the fence of the Brown’s farmhouse and there weren’t any dogs in this particular part of Cedar Glen.

“My pleasure. Now make sure he finishes all the antibiotics. They should take care of the swelling in his paw, and he’ll be back to his old self in no time flat. Give me a call if you have any questions. Have a good night.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Floyd said, clapping him on the back. “Make sure you spread the word somebody’s out there somewhere, attacking our pets. Damn well better not let Max catch ’em. He’ll draw and quarter ’em just like the old days.”

Jagger winced and held up a hand. “Let me investigate before we hang ’em high, huh? Could be an animal who’s not a shifter has migrated due to population or something. So let me look into it before you break out the shotgun, okay?”

“You got it, Boss,” Floyd said as Jagger turned to leave.

He smiled at the sheer amount of Christmas lights the older couple had hung from the wide front-porch railings, stepping over the big basket full of pinecones and ornaments.

The days were darker much earlier now and he had a date to prepare for; that made him smile wider as he strode down the steps toward his van.

The longer he was here in Cedar Glen, the more he liked the people, the surroundings, the new practice he was creating since leaving his mentor, Dr. Milo Mathews, back in New York. But after meeting Viv today, everything else paled in comparison.

Jesus, she was beautiful. Blonde hair falling around her shoulders to the middle of her back; big, round green eyes fringed with dark lashes; soft, pale curves; pouty peach-colored lips.

His chest tightened as the visual of her in Scar’s cage came back and then he smiled again. He knew he shouldn’t laugh, but their first meeting was pretty damn funny.

She didn’t seem to mind his poking fun, either. She’d played right along. That’s when he’d found he wasn’t just instantly attracted to her physical beauty. He’d met plenty of those women back in New York. Great looking, but uninteresting in a deeper way.

He was attracted to Viv’s willingness to laugh at his jokes, to spar with him. She was quick-witted, open, and it had taken all of ten minutes for him to decide he wanted a date with her.

Among other things.

But for right now, he’d settle for some one-on-one time with her. He wanted to know what made Vivienne Hathaway tick. Why she’d mentioned the being cash poor. How she’d come to find out she was a shifter, how her family dealt with it. What it was like to grow up with humans.

Mostly he wanted to see her smile again, hear her laugh. Find out if those saucy retorts came from equally saucy lips.

As the day began to fade into a purple and bruised-blue twilight, Jagger turned the key in the ignition of his Doggy Doctor van, catching yet another smile on his face in the rearview mirror.

The smile of anticipation.

Chapter 3

W
rapping a towel around her head, Viv sorted her way through her meandering herd of cats and headed for the bedroom in the cottage JC had offered to rent to her while she got on her feet.

Four furry black bodies zoomed ahead of her, racing each other to her new bed, where the other two cats slept soundly, curled into the fluffy red and white pillows she’d managed to somehow hide from the bank and their estate-sale hounds.

Viv shook her head, pulling off the towel covering her hair and draping it on the antiqued white dresser. No feeling sorry for herself today. All that money didn’t define her. It just made her life easier.

She could handle difficult. She
would
handle difficult. So she wasn’t rich anymore. So she couldn’t devote all of her time to rescuing animals anymore, but instead had to work a real job for a living. And so what if she’d given her parents what was left in her checking account to get them to Florida. Her mother’s sister, Evelyn, lived there and had welcomed them with open arms. Since her husband, Martin, died, Evelyn said she was lonely.

They were safe and unscathed, and that was all that mattered. Out of harm’s way while she attempted to track down the bastard who’d stolen all their money.

Hiram Abrahmowicz was going to rue the day she found him—wherever the hell he was. He hadn’t just been her parent’s accountant, he’d been hers, too. He’d sauntered off with the family fortune and was likely sunning himself on some island he’d bought with her parents’ hard-earned money.

Still, she’d fared well. When JC had found out about her predicament, she’d driven to Hoboken like the cavalry, bringing her husband Max, his brother Derrick, and Derrick’s wife Martine. They’d scooped her up on the last day of the estate sale, wiped her tears, packed up what little she had left, herded the cats and driven her to Cedar Glen, where JC had demanded she stay in the adorable white cottage behind their house, rent free.

To which Viv had vehemently opposed until Derrick offered her a job at the bar as a bartender. If she had few skills other than debutante and an unusable degree in the arts, she was, in fact, a killer bartender.

She clenched her fists as Howie hopped up on the dresser and head-butted her, purring softly. Viv softened and scratched him under the chin, the only white spot on his entire body.

“I know, I know, Snookums. This, too, shall pass, right? Our budget has nowhere to go but up, right?” Howie head-butted her in acknowledgment, resting his soft cheek against hers.

AJ pawed at her calf, reminding her she had to move it along if she was going to be on time for Jagger.

Viv inhaled a deep breath.
Jagger
. He was delicious and funny and sharp and enormous. The-size-of-a-mountain enormous, leaving her feeling small and delicate. Not something usually attributed to her and her curves, but it left her feeling sexy.

She hadn’t been this excited about a date in a hundred years, and despite her poverty, she felt a little more hopeful today than she had yesterday.

She had a job, a place to rest her head, a paycheck coming, and a date.

Things were looking up.

Nick rolled his round body at her feet, looking for tummy scratches, his wide green eyes hopeful. “Later, gator. Promise. Mommy needs to get her butt in gear. I only have an hour to get ready.” Giving Nick one last stroke with her toes, she turned to assess her sparsely filled closet.

Gone were her fancy designer labels, replaced by some clothes she’d managed to sneak past the bank’s estate-sale people—a couple of pairs of jeans, and some T-shirts she used when she was on a rescue.