The Mane Squeeze (32 page)

The music changed again, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Heat Wave” blasting through the club. The two friends grinned at each other before letting out a scream and breaking into the Watusi, the wild dogs going right along with them.

Nope
, Gwen thought as she and Blayne moved expertly around each other.
Nothing can make this night any better!

Nothing can make this night any worse!

Lock held on to the marble pillar, using his four-inch claws, while nearly ten She-dogs tried to pry him loose and drag him out of the room.

“I’m not going!”

“Come on, Lock! You look fabulous!”

“I look like an idiot! And I’m not going out there!”

This was ridiculous. He was an apex predator! There was no predator big enough or strong enough to hunt a grizzly except, maybe, another grizzly or polar—and humans didn’t count, since they had to use guns. But instead of batting these tiny She-dogs around like they deserved, he was holding on for dear life and hoping they’d grow bored.

Of course, he should know better. They were dogs! Dogs didn’t grow bored. They could dig a hole for hours, chase their tails for hours, and apparently, they could tussle with a bear for hours!

Then Jess was there. The queen of the wild dogs. She personified doglike behavior. Like the brilliant poodle hanging out with all the dumb labs.

“You’re going out there,” she said.

“No. I’m not.”

“Oh, yeah?” And she reached up, gripped his nipples, and twisted.

“Ow!”
Lock released the pillar to protect his nipples and that’s when one of them screamed,
“Heave!”

The next second Lock MacRyrie was skidding to a halt outside that damn room.

A tiger male standing by looked at him and snorted. “Nice skirt, Gentle Ben.”

Embarrassed, mortified, and pissed off in general about the nickname, Lock slammed the back of his fist into the tiger’s nose.

The tiger flew back twenty feet, eventually hitting the floor, his hand over his face.
“Motherfucker! You broke my nose!”

Not caring about the sobbing cat, Lock turned to the room, ready to retrieve his clothes and run home like a frightened cub, when the door slammed shut in his face. “Sorry!” the She-dogs yelled from the other side. “We’re closed!”

“Open this door right now, or I’ll—”

“Lock?” he heard from behind him. “Lock, is that you?”

Cringing, Lock slowly faced the She-wolf. “Hi, Adelle.”

“Lock!” Hands covering her mouth, Adelle walked around him in a complete circle. She looked elegantly Van Holtz in a Grecian gown, her hair done up on top of her head in a mass of curls, with plastic snakes sticking out. “You look…”

“Like an idiot?”

“No. No! Not at all.” Adelle stopped in front of him. “You look—” she took his hands and lifted his arms, gawking at him “—amazingly,
deliciously
Scottish.”

“Half-Scottish,” he corrected.

“Uh-huh.” Adelle dropped his arms and began to fan herself. “My, my. You have grown since I…uh…I last noticed.”

“You mean since I was ten?” Because she’d always treated him like he was still ten…until this moment. At this moment, she wasn’t treating him or looking at him like he was still ten.

This was becoming a nightmare!

“So, Lachlan,” she said, her hand stroking her collarbone. “Would you like a drink? Or something?”

“No…no thank you.” He sidestepped away from Adelle, disturbed that the woman he saw as one of his aunts watched him as if he were a wounded baby deer.

He had to find Ric, he had to get his clothes back. He couldn’t walk around for the rest of the night like…

Lock stopped, stared down at the Pack of She-dogs gaping up at him. They weren’t Jess’s Pack, they were Asian wild dogs visiting from Japan and really pretty…and gaping.

He forced a smile, knowing he wouldn’t be able to slap them around either. “Hi.”

“Hi,” they all sighed out and, shaken, Lock sidestepped around them. He spotted Ric at a bar across the room, and headed over to him. As he walked he heard distinctive She-wolf whistles, dropped glassware, and several “Oh, my dear God in heaven!” exclamations. If they were directed at him, he didn’t know, didn’t care, and wasn’t going to ask. He wanted out. He hadn’t felt this in danger since his military days when he had to sit around and patiently wait for full-humans to get him in their sights.

“We need to go,” he said as soon as he was next to Ric.

“They have some of the most exquisite wine here tonight. And a sommelier to serve. Surprising as it may sound, the wild dogs are rife with class, my…
holy shit!
Look at you!” Laughing, Ric shook his head and examined his friend. “I thought it was bad when they made me wear this Jane Austen–suitor outfit, complete with cravat. But you! You look like you just escaped the set of
Braveheart
.”

“Right. Yeah. We need to go.”

“Why? You’re already in costume, you might as well have a drink and relax.”

“That will not be possible.”

“Why not?”

Lock motioned behind him with a tilt of his head and Ric leaned over to get a look. His entire body jerked and he abruptly stood straight, facing the bar.

“Dear God, man. They’re following you like you’re the Pied Piper of Scottish sex.”

“There were six behind me before.”

“Well, now you have fourteen.” He glanced again. “And the number is growing.”

“What am I going to do?”

“If you try and make a run for it, they’ll simply take you down. It’s best to see if they lose interest.”

“Think they will?”

“Maybe if you’d worn a shirt—”

“They said they didn’t have a shirt!”

“Then I have nothing for you, my friend. You’re trapped. I, however—”

“Take one step away from me, you Mr. Darcy wannabe, and I’ll snap your spine.”

Nodding, Ric settled back into place and picked up his wineglass. “Well, then, here’s to an interesting evening.”

“Gwenie?”

Dancing to “I’m the Face,” Gwen barely heard her friend, but when she realized every female on the dance floor was staring off, Gwen looked over at Blayne. And, yep, her friend was staring in the same direction as all the other females.

“What’s going on?”

“You need to see this,” Blayne said, grabbing Gwen’s arm and yanking her over.

Gwen expected to see that her mother
had
arrived or Mitch had decided to do something particularly stupid. But it wasn’t either of those painfully atypical scenarios. Instead, it was Lock MacRyrie simply standing by the bar. Yet it wasn’t that he was merely standing there, it was that he was wearing a kilt. And it was the “full kilt experience,” as Roxy liked to put it—and one of the reasons Roxy and her sisters insisted they go to the Highland Games every year although they were Irish.

The pattern was a combination of dark green, blue, and white with the kilt reaching Lock’s knees, a large brown belt around his waist, and a swath of material stretching from his waist and over one shoulder, held together by a big brooch with a coat of arms printed on it. He also had brown leather armbands on both wrists and fur boots with thick flannel socks…and that was it. No shirt.

And wow…was that a lot of perfection to look at. Seven feet and three hundred and fifty pounds of perfection.

While most guys—most guys being her brother, cousins, and uncles—would be lapping this up—pocketing numbers, getting girls to strip, and playing “who can get my kilt to rise”—Lock looked more like a bear cub cornered by hungry grizzly males. But what exactly did he expect in that outfit? She didn’t want to imply he was asking for it but…
he kind of was!

“What do you think?” Jess asked as she and Maylin stood next to them. “Doesn’t he look great?”

Gwen pointed a finger in Lock’s direction. “Who are those women?” Those women
all over him!

“I’m going to guess they’re fans of Scottish culture and that kilt I have him in is a perfect replica of the MacRyrie family kilt.”

Fans of Scottish culture, my ass!
“They’re checking out his legs.”

“He’s got great legs,” Jess said as one of the bouncers from the front whispered something in her ear and she walked off.

But that was no problem, because May quickly took her place and said, “He’s got big strong thighs, huh? Like a Clydesdale.”

“My Clydesdale,”
Gwen ground out between clenched teeth, making the dog jump back from her.

“Well, if you’re going to get all upset,” Maylin looked at the whores surrounding Lock, “then you better get over there and get him.” Maylin reared back from the slashing claws. “And there’s no call to get nasty!”

Gwen cracked her knuckles and said to Blayne, “Watch my back.”

“Go get your man, Gwenie.”

The friends banged fists, then Gwen took several steps, crouched, and leaped forward. The legs she’d inherited from her father launched her from the dance floor, landing her directly in front of Lock. She slammed down in front of him and spun around to face the whores crowding around him.

“Hey!” some She-wolf complained. “We were talkin’ to him.”

Great. More horny hillbillies.

“Fuck off.”

“Why don’t you make us?”

Gwen unleashed her hiss-roar and the wild dogs took off running, the felines sidled away, and the She-wolves snarled back.

“I don’t see your name on him, feline,” another hillbilly complained.

“How about I put my name on you?” Gwen slashed her claws across the female’s upper chest to get her meaning across. “Would you like that, whore?”

Covering up the gushing wounds with her hands, the She-wolf backed off and the others did the same, easing back until they seemed to fade into the dancing, partying crowd.

Snarling around what suspiciously felt like a hairball, Gwen caught hold of Lock’s arm and dragged him over to one of the tables. She looked at the three males taking up her space and snarled, “Move!” They snorted at her and went back to their conversation. That’s when Lock quietly said, “Move.” And they did.

Gwen pushed Lock into a chair, paced off, and, after two seconds, paced right back.

“Have you lost your mind?”

He gazed up at her, looking so cute and sweet and unbelievably sexy she could eat the bastard alive! “In what way?”

What kind of answer was
that
exactly?

She was about to ask him that question, too, when some She-jackal eased up to his side and asked Lock in what could only be described as a disgustingly forced baby voice, “So are you really Scottish?”

“Oh, my God!”
Gwen bellowed, beyond fed up.
“Fuck off!”

“If you’re going to get so defensive,” the She-jackal sniped, that baby voice miraculously disappearing, “you may want to mark him so we’re all clear.”

Gwen’s head lowered, her eyes locked on the target in front of her, and she growled out, “I will kill you.”

Lock quickly grabbed Gwen’s arm and dragged her onto his lap while she watched the jackal practically sprint back into the crowd.

Yanking her arm out of Lock’s grasp, Gwen faced away from him, her legs straddling his big thighs, and she scowled at any encroaching females. No one was getting near what was hers. Nobody.

“Hi, Gwen,” Lock finally said to her back.

“Don’t talk to me,” she snapped, still good and pissed.

“Ever?”

Gwen looked at him over her shoulder. “What were you thinking, sashaying around here dressed in
that
outfit?”

“I didn’t sashay. Although I might have swaggered a bit.”

Turning her body around so she faced him, Gwen moved up on Lock’s lap and said, “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It’s not my fault.” He pointed at the crowd. “It’s
their
fault.”

Without turning her body again, Gwen’s head snapped around until she could look behind her.

The wild dogs standing behind her screamed in horror and ran off. All except two. Sabina, who looked as if she didn’t run from anyone, no matter how terrified she may be. And Jess.

Gazing in fascination, Jess asked, “How do you do that? Is it a genetic deformity?”

Gwen pulled her gums over her fangs, and Sabina caught Jess’s arm and dragged her off into the crowd.

“But I need to know!” Jess argued. “That is
not
normal! But, I mean, how cool!”

Feeling surprisingly better knowing that Lock didn’t pick this costume himself, Gwen faced him again and said, “You can’t wear outfits like this around predator females, Lachlan. They’re worse than males. They descended on you like vultures at a lion kill.”