The Mating Game: Big Bad Wolf (3 page)

He looked worried. “Is this too cheap? Do you want to go back to the restaurant?”

She laughed out loud. “After that scene we all just caused there? Hellz, no. I’m not really a fancy restaurant kind of girl anyway. Hot dogs suit me just fine. I’ll take four.”

A smile spread across his face. Looked like this was going to be a good night after all. “We’ll have twelve hot dogs,” he said to the vendor. “Eight for her and four for me.”

As the vendor began putting their hot dogs into buns, a woman rushed up holding a notepad and pen. “Oh, I just
love
you. Can I have your autograph?” she gushed.

“I’m on a date,” Ryker grumbled, and signed quickly, an illegible scrawl.

By the time they vender had handed over their hot dogs,there were half a dozen people gathered around them.

They walked through the park, with the people trailing along behind them. The crowd looked as if they wanted to approach, but Ryker scared them off by spinning around and raking them with a ferocious scowl.

Daisy took a bite of hot dog, and a dozen flash bulbs went off. She chewed and swallowed quickly, annoyed.

“You have mustard on your face,” Ryker said. “Don’t worry, though – yellow is definitely your color.” He quickly wiped it off with a paper napkin. More flashbulbs went off. Daisy stared down at her hot dog with dismay.

“Mouth full of food is not my best look,” she said.

“This is ridiculous,” Ryker groaned. Then he got a wicked look in his eye. “Do you trust me?”

“Not in the slightest,” she said promptly. “Why?”

“Are you willing to at least trust my driving?”

“I guess?” She glanced doubtfully at his little red sports car. She knew guys liked their flashy sports cars, but driving in a tiny piece of tinfoil on wheels made her nervous. How did Ryker even fit in that damn thing?

Then she shrugged. “I mean, I’m a shifter. I’m pretty hard to kill, unless you go right off the edge of a very high cliff.”

“Your confidence fills my heart with joy,” he said. “Lucky there’s no cliffs in this area.”

They got into his car and drove off quickly, tearing through the streets, squealing on two tires as they rounded sharp corners, racing through yellow lights. One by one the paparazzi began dropping off.

Her phone rang as she drove. It was her roommate Larissa, making their pre-arranged call.

“Cadence is having an allergic reaction,” Larissa said. That was their code phrase. It gave Daisy an excuse to drop everything and rush home if the date was going badly.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Daisy said, which meant that Daisy didn’t need to be rescued.

“Does she need us to come kick some ass or not?” Cadence yelled in the background. “Because if not, it’s ladies night at the Thirsty Iguana and I’m gonna miss the two for one drink special.”

“No asses need to be kicked tonight, thank you,” Daisy said, as Ryker gave her a puzzled look.

“So?” Larissa said. “How is the date going tonight? My dating life is a vast, arid desert this week. Let me live vicariously through you.”

“It’s…” She glanced over at Ryker. “Indescribable.”

“Indescribable?” Larissa said suspiciously. “That doesn’t sound good. What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I do. Don’t wait up.” She hung up the phone.

“So, an allergy attack. That’s original.” Ryker grinned.

“Eavesdropper.” She smiled back.

“Shifter hearing,” he said. “Can’t help myself.”

A short while later they pulled up in front of an enormous neo-modern house in the city’s exclusive Greenwood Heights neighborhood. It had an asymmetrical angled roof, floor to ceiling windows with a dark tint, and a white-washed concrete exterior. The hedges in front of it were severely clipped into twisty corkscrew shapes.

He pulled into his garage and parked, quickly shutting the garage door.

“I’ll drive you back to get your car tomorrow morning. I hope you don’t mind getting up early – I have to take the investors on a tour of our factory.”

“That’s fine. I volunteered to help clean up the school playground tomorrow morning,” she said.

“What do you do at the school?” Ryker held open the door to the house and gestured for her to walk through. “See, I can be a gentleman.”

“I’m a teacher. Middle school English and history.”

“So you work at some fancy prep school?”

“Oh, it’s fancy all right.” So fancy that there were metal detectors in the doorways and bars on the windows. It was a culture shock that Daisy still struggled to adjust to every day.

Daisy walked down a hallway into Ryker’s massive living room and looked around. The floor plan was open concept. The furniture was shiny black leather and chrome. There were moody black-and-white photos of cityscapes in silver frames, and floor lamps that looked like movie spotlights. The floor was tinted concrete, scattered with black-and-white rugs in abstract patterns. The room was beautifully decorated but it gave off a cold, hard feeling.

She glanced over at the chrome bookshelves. There were artfully arranged stacks of hardcovers and giant art books that she doubted he’d ever read, mixed in with abstract granite statuettes and black and silver candles. No personal mementoes or family photos.

Same thing with the kitchen. It was a showroom kitchen. Giant, shiny refrigerator big enough to feed an army, no pictures or knick-knacks anywhere.

So, this was a man who valued style over substance, and didn’t have close family ties.

She felt an odd sense of disappointment as she looked around. It was hard to imagine ever getting truly close to the owner of this place.

Funny, she’d gotten such a different feel from him this evening. He’d been boisterous and crude and, she had to admit, kind of funny even while he was being a jerk. And she thought she’d felt the closeness between him and his uncle. Apparently she’d been wrong. His public image was the real him. Flashy and with zero substance.

So why was her body reacting like this? Just being near him was sending her into full arousal mode. All of her senses felt heightened, with her skin exquisitely sensitive to the sensation of fabric sliding across it. Her panties were damp and she could feel sweat beading on her forehead. She kept wanting to lean in and sniff him.

She shed her jacket and draped it over a chair back, then stood there uncertainly in the center of the room, clutching her purse.

“Have a seat,” Ryker said, gesturing at the couch. “I’ll get you a drink. Are you hungry? Can I order in some food?”

“Oh, no thanks,” she said. “I’m full from the hot dogs.” She’d actually only had one, so she was still hungry, but this wasn’t the kind of house she would feel comfortable eating in. It was so gleaming-clean and sterile that she’d be petrified of spilling a single crumb.

“What would you like to drink?” He gestured at an enormous bar on a nearby wall. There were glass shelves stocked with expensive liquor, and exquisite cocktail glasses and margarita glasses and shot glasses, rimmed in silver. Of course. This was the ultimate bachelor pad, designed to impress and seduce.

“I’ll have a blood orange cosmopolitan,” she said, just to be cantankerous.

He went over to the bar, poured two drinks, and came back.

He set the drinks down in front of them.

“I made you rum and Coke,” he said. “I don’t even know what a cosmopolitan is.” He took a sip of his; some kind of whiskey.

With him sitting so close to her, she could smell his earthy, masculine scent, mixing with the smell of the stables, which actually wasn’t so unpleasant after all. She’d just carped about it because of him showing up late and being so damn smug, as if she were going to roll right into bed with him just because he flashed a smile at her.

But damn it, his scent and his grin and the gleam in his eyes were all making her think of doing just that.

She could feel her nipples pebbling with desire, rubbing against the filmy fabric of her blouse. He was a shifter; he’d be able to smell her arousal, just as she could scent the musky aroma of his desire for her.

She grabbed the drink and drained half of it, then stifled a yawn.

“I’m sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “It’s not you. I was up almost all night writing grant applications.” She took another big sip to calm her jangled nerves.

She drained the rest of the drink and set it down on the chrome cube that served as a side table. “All right, what exactly is the plan?” she asked him. “How are we going to fool your investors into thinking that you actually like me?”

“What makes you think I don’t?” he rumbled, his voice low and sexy with that hint of backwoods twang. His eyes bored into her, and she felt sweat trickling down the back of her neck, despite the fans circling overhead and the icy air pumping from the air conditioner.

“Well, aside from you showing up late, you called me a snob and a stuck-up princess and said you didn’t know if you even wanted to sleep with me.”

He glanced at her empty drink, picked it up and walked back to the bar. “You called me rude and dirty and a jerkwad,” he pointed out as he mixed another drink. “And I only showed up late because I thought I was meeting my Uncle Walt, and he knows I hate fancy restaurants.”

He returned and set down the drink in front of her, then settled in next to her. Much closer this time. She slid away from him and gulped down the drink in one long swallow. She felt lightheaded. Was it him, or the alcohol on a near-empty stomach and the lack of sleep? Perhaps a bit of both.

“You could sit a little closer,” Ryker said to her, sliding towards her. Now she was up against the arm of the couch and he was only inches away. “After all, I bite.” There was a roguish gleam in his eye as he said it.

“In my defense, I wasn’t being insulting before, I was telling the truth. You are actually dirty. You’ve got manure on your shoes and hay in your hair. Nothing wrong with horses, I’m just saying, I was not inaccurate.” She reached out and plucked several strands of hay from his hair, which felt soft and silky. When her fingers brushed up against him, an electric thrill shot through her, and she stifled a whimper.

“Next time I’ll make sure that I’m squeaky clean. I’ll take a nice, long, hot shower.” He was leaning in even closer, and her head was swimming.
Damn, I am a cheap date
, she thought.

“Next time?”

“We’re mated for the next few weeks,” he said. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” Her hair had fallen into her face, and he reached up and brushed it gently behind her ear, sending blood rushing to her cheeks.

She felt faintly dizzy, and her pulse accelerated.   Thump thump, thump thump…she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears.  “Pretend mated,” she protested faintly. She looked around the big, sterile showplace of a room and tried to be repulsed by him…and failed.
He’s rude and cocky and stuck-up and…

She turned to look at him, and struggled to stifle a guttural growl of arousal.   The way he was staring at her, as if she was a rich dessert that he wanted to lap up…The thought of his tongue between her legs made her want to weep with frustration and need.

“It doesn’t have to be pretend. We’re going to be spending time together, and we’re attracted to each other. I can scent it on you.”

Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. It was true, but did he have to say it out loud?

He stroked a stray curl away from her cheek with the gentlest of touches.  “We could get to know each other better, and see…”

The next thing she knew, he leaned in to kiss her…and another piece of hay fell out of his hair, onto her cleavage. She couldn’t help herself; she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a hysterical giggle.

He let out a groan.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, I am dirty, and that is no way to court a lady. I’m going to take a nice hot shower and then we can take up where we left off.” He grinned at her. “Unless you want to join me,” he said with a wink.

“Join you?” Her head was swimming, but she forced herself to focus. She was sitting there in a room with Ryker Harrison and she’d been about to take her clothes off for him, mere hours after meeting him.  She’d fallen for his charm the same way every other woman did. How stupid was she?

“I will not be joining you,” she said indignantly. “You think I’ll just fall into your arms because you’re Ryker Harrison? You…you…womanizer.”

He let out a snort. “Okay, be that way, Miss Fancy Pants.” And he left the room to go shower.

She flopped back on the couch and closed her eyes and willed the room to stop whirling.

Daisy woke up with a start, to the sound of banging and the doorbell ringing.

The sun was pouring through the windows, throwing giant rectangles of blinding sunlight across the floor. Daisy leaped up off the couch, and then stumbled. She was still wearing her dress and her shoes. Fully clothed… Okay… She’d passed out, but Ryker hadn’t taken advantage of her…

“Ryker?” she yelled. There was no answer, and the house was dead silent inside. Right, he had to leave early this morning, he’d told her.

Then she saw that there was a folded-up note on lined notepaper on the couch next to her. She didn’t pick it up; he’d probably written something like “Sayonara” or “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” The previous night had been one disaster after another – and all this on their first date! They’d been sparring from the minute they first met. Wynona had tried to brain him with her pocketbook. And then Daisy had passed out on Ryker’s couch.

Her jacket was lying across the back of the chair where she’d tossed it yesterday evening. She grabbed it and put it on quickly, then snatched up her purse from the coffee table, mentally berating herself as she did so.

She’d been on a date with the sexiest shifter in the universe, and she’d passed out after two drinks. She was going to die an old maid. A born again virgin.

And damn it, she’d blown any chance of getting donations for the rec center. She should have tried to channel her inner vamp and be charming, for once in her life.

“Who am I kidding?” she muttered to herself as she headed for the door. “I have no inner vamp. I have a giant man-repelling ray gun.”

Well, there was no point in wallowing. Maybe Ryker would at least pretend to be mated to her for the next few weeks, and she’d still get the donation.

All she could do was move forward. She had to hurry – she needed to get home and change, because there was no way she was going to school in this outfit. The other teachers would be at the playground soon for volunteer cleanup day. She didn’t want to leave them doing all the work.

The pounding on the door grew louder.

Exasperated, she stalked over and flung the door open, and a reporter stumbled back and then quickly began taking pictures. There was a crowd of reporters clustered around, standing on Ryker’s lawn, cameras aimed at her.

She spun around and grabbed the door, trying to go back into the house, but it had locked behind her.

Flashbulbs popped in her face, and she flinched and fell back.

She glanced down at herself and realized she was wearing her jacket inside out. She looked in the reflective glass of the windows and flinched. Hair standing straight up, makeup smeared – this was the ultimate walk of shame. The walk to end all walks.

And the worst part?

She hadn’t even done anything to be ashamed of. Now, that totally sucked.

And, she remembered, her car wasn’t here; it would still be back at the restaurant. She needed a ride to her car.

She pulled her cell phone from her clutch and quickly called Larissa and told her where she was.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Larissa said. “But you have to tell me all the dirty deets.”

Daisy sat down on the front steps, ignoring the questions that the reporters shouted at her, and waited for Larissa to get there.

A few minutes later, Larissa came racing up the block and pulled to a halt in front of Ryker’s house. As Daisy hurried towards her car, one of the photographers got in front of her and blocked her path. “So, you’re clearly not Ryker’s usual type,” he sneered.

She tried to step around him. He moved to block her. She stepped the other way. He moved again to block her and shoved the camera in her face and took a picture, and the bulb went off, nearly blinding her.

Now she’d had it. She believed in the freedom of the press as much as the next person – but this reporter was crossing the line into assault when he prevented her from leaving.

She put her hands on his chest and pushed so hard that he flew backwards into the bushes, squawking and waving his arms in outrage. Of course, the cameras went crazy.

Now she’d totally blown any chance of impressing Ryker’s investors. They wanted to see him dating someone respectable and classy? Clearly not her.

First the horrible walk of shame with the inside-out jacket, morning-after makeup and hell hair, and then she’d assaulted someone in front of a dozen other reporters.

There was no way that Ryker would want to see her again. Realizing that sent a sharp jab of pain and disappointment lancing through her. Why should it matter? They would only have been together for a couple of weeks anyway.

Now reporters were crowding onto the pathway, blocking her from getting to Larissa.

“Move it!” she yelled.

Larissa drove past the reporters up onto the lawn, through a hedge, over a flowerbed, and pulled up next to Daisy.

Daisy had forgotten – there was a reason Larissa got so many traffic tickets. Come to think of it, she probably wasn’t supposed to be driving at all.

Well, that’s the cherry on the sundae
, Daisy thought ruefully as she scrambled into the car.
Ryker’s probably going to move and go into witness protection to get away from me.

As Larissa drove off over what was left of Ryker’s flowerbeds, Wynona called her on her cell phone.

“Hello, I’m not dead,” Daisy said.

“What was I thinking, opening a mating agency?” Wynona moaned. “All my mating mojo has left me. I set you up with the biggest jerk in the world. I wonder if the bank would take me back.”

“Don’t do it! You hated working at the bank. And don’t worry about the date,” Daisy said. “It was…unique. It wasn’t all bad. Look, let me call you back later, and don’t do anything rash.” She hung up the phone.

“Tell me what happened!” Larissa demanded, pouting. She tended to act like a sulky middle-schooler if she didn’t get all the details of Daisy’s romantic life.

“I had two drinks and fell asleep while he was in the shower. Then I woke and he was gone,” Daisy said.

“That’s it?” Larissa glanced at her in annoyance. “You went out with Ryker Harrison, and that was the best you could do?”

“Well, excuse me, it’s not exactly the date I was envisioning either. Eyes on the road!” She shrieked as Larissa swerved to avoid a bicyclist.

Note to self – call an Uber next time. Or walk,
she thought.

Daisy looked up Ryker’s work email on her cell phone and sent him a text with her home address, telling him to send her a bill for the lawn. There went her measly savings – and she’d be eating ramen noodles for the next six months.

Her phone rang again. Ugh, the mother ringtone. Well, no point putting it off. She answered it.

“Daisy Bennett, did I see you on the news eating a
hot dog
? In
public
?” her mother moaned. “I thought I raised you better than that!”

* * * * *

Daisy had moved to Cedar Park from Georgia six months previously for three reasons: Because her aunt lived there, because it was far away from her cheating ex-fiancé and her suffocating family, and because she’d been offered a teaching job at Miss Bolker’s School for Proper Young Shifters. Her parents had cut her off when she’d refused to take Frasier back, so to finance the move, she’d sold the jewelry she’d inherited from her grandmother, and found roommates.

She’d moved there in May and waitressed all summer while waiting for school to start.

Literally the day before she was due to show up for orientation, she got a message from Miss Bolker’s saying that they would no longer be hiring her because they’d found a more qualified candidate.

Daisy had been suspicious – wealthy southern shifters tended to move in the same circles, and her parents knew members of the school’s board of trustees. Had they done this to force her to go back home and accept Frasier’s proposal?

No matter.

Daisy couldn’t afford to move, and she liked living near Wynona, so she had gone on a mad scramble to find a job somewhere in Cedar Park that would hire her. Despite her teaching degree and excellent recommendations, none of the private schools were hiring. She’d had no experience with public schools in her life, but she loved teaching and was determined to find a place that would take her. It turned out that there was an immediate opening at the Wildwood Elementary and Middle School – and she very quickly found out why. Nobody wanted to work at that school, or in that section of town.

She’d been working there for a month now. It was…interesting.

She felt she was struggling to break through to the kids. She came from a different world than they did, and maybe they sensed that. They also saw teachers come and go all the time, and many of them had been abandoned by adults in their lives. On the one hand, it was very rewarding to work with kids who actually needed her. But she felt as if most of them were wary and untrusting. Would they ever open up to her?

As she climbed out of her car, she saw that someone had spray-painted over the parking lot security cameras. Now they were bright blue, Daisy saw as she pulled her car to a stop.

And the prime suspect was leaning on a parked car and cleaning her nails with a pocket knife, fifty-one inches of bad attitude and emerald-streaked hair. Jasmine usually hid her pocket knife somewhere outside the school and retrieved it at the end of the day, to dodge the metal detectors. She’d also sharpened her claws so that when she partially shifted and extended them, she didn’t need any knife.

“So how’s my favorite terrorist this morning?” Daisy asked Jasmine Diaz, a very bright thirteen–year-old who kept getting held back because she didn’t play nice with others.

“I haven’t shanked anyone yet,” Jasmine said with a shrug. Daisy couldn’t tell if Jasmine thought that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Would you like to help us clean up the playground?”

Jasmine stifled a snort of amusement. “You don’t know me at all, do you?”

“Why are you here on a Sunday?” Daisy asked.

Jasmine shrugged. “Just finished morning detention. I punched Billy Jordan because he grabbed my butt.”

Daisy started walking towards the playground, and Jasmine followed her with a bored expression on her face.

They passed by a dull brick wall that was brightened by a glorious explosion of spray-paint art. “That is something else,” Daisy said admiringly.

“You like it?” Jasmine said, surprised.

“I love it. I wouldn’t mind having a painting from that artist to hang on my wall.”

“I might know how to contact the artist,” Jasmine said cautiously.

“Is she about ninety pounds and has green hair and a smart mouth?” Daisy asked, looking at Jasmine.

“Are you a spy for the cops?” Jasmine demanded.

“No, crazy J. I don’t think the cops have spies, and even if they did, I doubt they’d bother sending one in as a teacher to hunt down a graffiti artist. They don’t really have the budget for that.”

Jasmine pondered that. “Being a spy for the cops would actually be a pretty cool job,” she observed as they walked along.

“Where are you going now?” she asked Jasmine.

“Probably go tag some more buildings.”

“Why don’t you help me clean up the playground instead?” Daisy suggested again. “Less chance of getting arrested.”

“What’s in it for me?” Jasmine persisted.

“The pleasure of my company.”

Jasmine pretended to think about it. “Nah. Not really feeling it.” She held out her hand and rubbed her thumb against her index finger. “What
else
is in it for me?”

“You’re quite the capitalist, aren’t you?” Daisy said, torn between amusement and annoyance.

“Quite the what?” Jasmine looked puzzled.

“Never mind.” Daisy fished in her purse. “Fine, I’ll bribe you. Here’s ten bucks. Go get me coffee and a cruller from Debbie’s Donutz, and get something for yourself too.”

“What if I run off with the money and never come back?”

“Ten bucks?” Daisy scoffed. “Yeah, that should get you over the border into Mexico, at least. If you run off, you will be deprived of my witty repartee and the chance to sell me your graffiti paintings. Besides, you wouldn’t leave your grandma behind.” Daisy knew that Jasmine was very close to her grandmother, who was raising her and barely eking out a living as a nurse’s aide.

“I did not say that I was Jkat2016, and I don’t know what ‘re-partay’ is. I might come back if you promise to stop using all those vocabulary words.” And Jasmine left at a fast trot.