The Mane Event. Shelly Laurenston
Mace really wasn’t worried. He learned a long time ago how to survive without the Pride. He’d been the hunter and the hunted. Trapped in the middle of firefights with seemingly no way out. He’d killed. Humans. To protect his men and himself. His days of pampering had disappeared as soon as he went off to the Naval Academy.
But his sister’s concern almost made him feel like he didn’t hate her. Almost.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Nothing at the moment. Just keep breathing.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t want some renegade males trying to take over this Pride. Sherry had two cubs last month by Petrov.” Missy shuddered. “I’d hate to think what they’d do if they got in.”
He didn’t want to ask the next question, but his stupid sense of duty and loyalty wouldn’t allow him to do any less. “Do you need me to stay here?”
“No. Shaw and Reynolds won’t stand for it, and I don’t need you three snarling at each other over breakfast. Besides, we have some important people coming over for a holiday banquet tomorrow. And since I know you won’t clean yourself up for it—”
Mace held up his hand. “A simple ‘no’ really would have answered my question.”
“Where will you stay? And don’t say your apartment. It won’t be safe.”
He wanted to say “between Dez’s thighs,” but that would simply set his sister off again.
“Actually a buddy of mine from the navy is coming to town. He and his Pack are staying here for the holidays. I can crash with them for a while.” He looked up to find his sister staring at him in horror. “Is there a problem?”
“Did you say Pack?”
“Yes.”
“You’re friends with a…a…dog?”
“He prefers wolf, but yeah, I am.” He actually considered Smitty his brother. They’d saved each other’s life on more than one occasion.
“But…you can’t be friends with him.”
In theory, maybe. They were Pack and Pride, dog and cat; he and Smitty should be the worst of enemies. Especially with the Pack-Pride war that had been going on for decades. But the military created strange bedfellows. Guys who had to rely on each other for their survival. Smitty was and always would be one of his best buds. Even if Mace caught him on more than one occasion licking his own balls.
“You know the funny thing is, Missy, I’m really not asking your fucking permission.”
“Don’t you dare curse at me, Mason! I’m not one of your military cohorts or that slut from the Bronx.” Mace looked back up at the ceiling. Five minutes with his sister and he felt twelve years old again.
“Now,” she continued, “are you at least going to come over for Christmas? I have a gift for you.”
Mace glanced around Missy’s office. There wasn’t one sign that in five days the world would be celebrating Christmas. It could easily be the middle of August for all the decorations that his sister had up.
“Are you even celebrating Christmas?”
“Don’t be smart. The living room is quite decorated. I just don’t like tinsel and things in my office.”
He didn’t even have to ask to know that his sisters hired someone to decorate their living room. No way would the Pride’s females lower themselves to something as middle class as putting up a Christmas tree.
“We’ll have to see. I may be busy.”
His sister’s gold eyes narrowed. “Not with that woman.”
If he were lucky, Christmas day his cock would be so far inside Dez MacDermot, going anywhere would be a physical impossibility.
But to his sister, he shrugged. “You never know…”
Dez cringed as her boss slammed his door closed. But before she could walk away, he snatched it open again. “And I better not see your ass until after the New Year!” He slammed it again.
Dez glared at Bukowski as she headed back to her desk. “I didn’t even do anything.”
“You did ask her if she killed Petrov. I think your exact words were, ‘You whacked him, didn’t you? You sadistic bitch.’”
“Sadistic heifer. And it was just a question.”
“Uh-huh. Well, your ‘question’ now has you on a lovely vacation until after the holidays.”
“Still doesn’t seem fair.”
“Maybe not.” Bukowski threw himself into his desk chair. “But your dad is the one who golfs with the lieutenant every couple of weeks. Whatcha wanna bet he went on and on about his poor baby working every holiday?”
Who knew bringing her dad to an NYPD function would cause all this trouble? She introduced him to her lieutenant, and once the men found out they were both veteran Marines, they got along like a house on fire. Then they started golfing several times a month with some other Marines. Dez knew it would only be a matter of time before her father found out that she really didn’t have to work during the holidays. With her seniority and vacation time, she could take the entire month of December off.
But Dez worked the holidays for a reason. Because anything had to be better than another Christmas with her sisters. There were just so many times a woman could hear she was a failure with men and in her career before it really started to hurt.
Dez flopped herself into her chair and glowered at a wall. The current situation did not bring her happiness.
“So what are you going to do?”
She glanced at Bukowski, then back at the wall covered in “wanted” flyers. “Pretend it didn’t happen.”
Her partner chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
Dez turned her chair around and glanced at the Petrov file sitting on her desk. She examined the picture attached to it. Petrov had been a handsome man, no doubt about that. But nowhere close to Mace.
Closing the file, Dez glanced up briefly when she heard someone settle into the chair on the other side of her desk. When big feet propped up on the vast amount of paperwork in front of her, she looked back up.
Yeah, that sure was Mace Llewellyn staring at her from the other side of her desk. Just staring. Like he used to. Like he knew where she’d buried the bodies of all her goldfish after their unfortunate “accidents” or what she did with her sisters’ toothbrushes on more than one occasion. The all-knowing, all-seeing Mace stare, and it still made her crazy.
She raised an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”
He mockingly gave her the raised eyebrow back. “You never gave me an answer.”
“Yeah. I did. In fact, my exact words were ‘no’.”
“Yes, but I’ve chosen to ignore that until I hear what I want.”
Dez laughed. “Jesus, Mace. You really haven’t changed all that much, have ya? You’re still…you.”
“Are you talking about my bountiful charisma and overwhelming charm?”
Okay. The hysterical girl-giggling had to stop. A mature woman of thirty-six, she had a divorce under her belt and a healthy mortgage. Acting like the football team captain asked her out to the prom was not, in any way, remotely mature.
“Mace—” Dez stopped and looked around the room. Yeah, she had every idiot’s attention. “Don’t you people have something to do?”
As one, “No.”
She growled and looked back at Mace. She blamed him for