Proprietary claim?
Gypsy could feel a shudder racing through her at the very thought of Rule claiming her. That was a move her life simply couldn’t accommodate, no matter how tempting it sounded.
She’d already had no less than a dozen calls since returning home that night. The calls had come from friends, family and even acquaintances, informing her that the Breed Commander Rule Breaker was questioning where she’d disappeared to.
As if it were any of their business.
She made a mental note to talk to Cullen and see what he could do to get the Breeds off her ass. After all, she had been doing a job for him while she was gone. She was certain he wouldn’t want the Breeds aware of just what kind of job she was doing for him either.
Not that he’d seemed inclined to want to help her earlier. Once he cooled off, though, he might be in a more helpful frame of mind.
Leaving the loud, smoky confines of the bar for the clear, crisp Arizona night, Gypsy drew in a lungful of clean desert air.
She was growing tired of the bars and the often lecherous, always drunken attention she gained there. More and more often she put off her arrival at the various clubs and bars until late into the night.
Pulling her hair back and retrieving an elastic band from the snug pocket of her leather vest, Gypsy confined her hair to keep it out of her face. With the Jeep’s top down, the long strands could become too tangled to comb before going to bed if she wasn’t careful.
“Hey there, Gypsy Rum.” Mutt, a Coyote Breed rarely known to smile when others were around, strangely enough often smiled at her.
He was cute as shit too.
For a Coyote Breed.
There were few of that species that Gypsy could tolerate being around, but Mutt was one of them. With his shy, hesitant smile so at odds with his kickass confidence and dry wit, he had a way of making her laugh even when she didn’t want to.
He came into her parents’ sweets and gift store often, along with two others, to buy the hard candies her sister, Kandy, made to sell.
He was especially fond of the butterscotch, she remembered, while Loki, one of his partners, enjoyed the cinnamon and Commander Breaker always went for the chocolate and peppermint.
“Hey, Mutt.” Pausing, Gypsy smiled back at the Breed moving quickly from the pickup he’d slid from as she left the bar. “What’s up?”
“You’re leaving early.” Tilting his head, he posed the question in a statement as the late evening wind ruffled his overly long dark blond hair. “You’re usually still here after I leave.”
“Things to do.” Gypsy retrieved the ring holding her key fob from the pocket of her vest and casually activated the small Desert Sport II, a redesign of the ages-old Jeep that had always done so well in the deserts.
The motor rumbled with a powerful growl that reminded her far too much of the sound that had vibrated from Rule Breaker as she walked away from him. The Jeep’s top retracted with smooth efficiency, tucking beneath the backseat and floorboard neatly in a matter of seconds as Mutt watched with raised brows.
“Man, I do love your ride, girl,” Mutt murmured, tucking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and standing rather uncomfortably in front of her, his head slightly tilted as he watched her. “One of these days, I swear I’m gonna own one.”
“One of these days?” she grinned. “I hear Breeds make a hell of a lot of money, Mutt. Go buy one.”
His lips quirked wryly. “There’s no way to make them secure without taking out the retracting hard top and completely changing the interior to make them resistant to laser and ammo fire. If I did that, it just wouldn’t be the same. And if I didn’t do it, then all I could do is watch it sit in a garage somewhere.”
Her amusement dimmed in the face of his obvious disappointment.
His gray eyes flicked to the vehicle again, his jaw bunching as Gypsy narrowed her gaze at the small, almost hidden tip of the wand attached to his comm set curving toward his cheek.
He was attempting to delay her and wasn’t exactly certain how to do so without rousing her well-known suspicious nature, it seemed.
Too late. Consider it roused.
Turning without so much as a good-bye, Gypsy strode across the wide paved road that separated the parking sections. She was in the process of gripping the door to slide into the driver’s seat when her waist was shackled from behind and she was pulled back into a hard, muscular chest.
Again.
Heated warmth surrounded her, reminding her how chilled she often felt, how lonely she always was. And how very dangerous this man could be to her precarious senses.
“Now see, I was trying real hard to play nice.” Laughter shadowed the deep drawl of his voice. “Rejection depresses me, you know. Makes me do dumb things just to get attention.”