Page 6 of Cold Foot Revenge (Wreck’s Mountains #7)

What was she doing here?

Roxy chickened out for the third time in a row and pulled her fist away from the hotel door.

Dylan was located on the tenth floor, at this specific room.

How could she tell? She’d followed him to see where his hotel was, and then later tracked him to this room by the lingering scent of his cologne.

She’d had to stop the elevator on every floor to figure out where he’d gotten off.

Whatever cologne he wore was such a hot-man scent.

He probably really was a runner up for homecoming king when he’d been in school.

He’d probably been Mr. Popular jock with a billion friends and four million girlfriends. Slightly annoying, slightly hot.

She had been a quiet little wallflower in school. She wondered what high school he’d attended. Had they gone to the same one? He was just a couple of years older than her. She could ask him if she just knocked.

Roxy pursed her lips and forced herself to walk away. His past didn’t matter, and she had no right be interested in it. Or him. God he was so hot. Humans usually didn’t do anything for her since she’d been Turned, but this one was different.

She poked the elevator button and waited.

He had sun bleached blond hair and blue eyes, and clearly, he worked out a lot.

She could tell he had a great physique under the T-shirts she’d seen him in.

A great physique, and this way of looking her right in the soul when he spoke to her.

She was used to being invisible, but the way he looked at her…

The elevator slid open, and she hesitated to get in.

He’d said she was pretty like this, just in her natural state.

Men usually only noticed her when she was all dolled up and dancing.

Roxy twisted to look back at his door. She should tell him thank you for the extra pack of turkey meat, and for the Fruit Roll-Ups she had devoured on the way home.

Really, she just wanted to convince him to leave this city and survive.

Yeah. That’s the main reason she was turning away from the elevator and heading back down the hall to his door.

When she turned to knock, she startled hard. Dylan was standing in the open doorway, looking wholly unsurprised that she was here. She lowered her clenched fist slowly. No need to knock now.

“Hi, hey, hello,” she said awkwardly.

“I wondered how long it was going to take you to knock,” he said.

“Were you…” she cleared her throat and clasped her hands in front of her. “Were you watching me from the peephole?”

“Yep.”

Heat whooshed up her neck and landed in her cheeks. “Right. Well, I was just stopping by to say thank you. You know. For the turkey.”

Dylan’s blue eyes narrowed, and he opened the door wider. “Want to come in?”

“Oh, I’m not looking for…I’m not wanting…I’m not here to seduce you or anything. Oh my gosh, I need to stop talking.”

He belted out a laugh, and the smile that accompanied it reached his eyes so easily.

It wasn’t a cruel laugh or making fun of her.

It was an easy sounding one. “I’m not inviting you in for that, Wolf Mask.

I’m getting ready to have dinner with my parents.

I gotta leave in five minutes and I still have to change. ”

“Change into different clothes. Not into your animal, because you are still human,” she murmured as she followed him into the well-lit room. “For now.”

“Whoo, mysterious. Are you planning on biting me and Turning me into a wolf? If so, I have to warn you. I would make a terrible packmate.”

“You think I’m a wolf?” Roxy asked, amused and a little bit flattered.

“You aren’t? Then why do you wear the wolf mask?”

“It’s a coyote mask.” The shock on his face made her laugh.

“You’re a ‘yote shifter?”

Roxy shrugged. “I don’t usually talk about it.”

“Mmm.” He nodded his head thoughtfully, and then rattled off, “Bear, Komodo dragon, crocodile, phoenix, sentry dragon.”

Confused, she sat in the chair by the door and asked, “Were those your guesses for my animal?”

“No that’s some of the shifters I run with. Yote or wolf, makes no difference to me. You can talk about it. Coyotes are cooler than wolves.”

“Yeah right.”

“I’m not blowing smoke,” he told her as he kicked off his shoes. “I mean it. I’ve heard of werewolves before but you’re the first yote shifter I’ve heard of. You’re rare right?” He peeled his shirt over his head and tossed it into the corner. Well, this was distracting.

“Technically I don’t even think I’m supposed to exist. I think it’s an experimental shifter animal or something. I haven’t been able to find anyone else like me.”

He was really stripping down. He currently had no shirt on and that was a very chiseled six pack he was rocking behind that handgun he had in a holster in the waist of his jeans. He unclipped the holster and gun from inside of his waist band and set it on the dresser, aimed carefully away from her.

“Do you carry that a lot?” she asked.

“I carry it always.”

She frowned. “Is it dangerous being a human so close to the Cold Foot Crew?”

“Sometimes, but that’s not why I carry.”

“Why then?”

“For protection,” he uttered distractedly as he kicked out of his jeans.

Oh gads, he was standing here in a pair of tight black boxer briefs, and she had the perfect profile of his dick constricted in the thin material.

He busted her looking and gave a little smirk before she squeaked and turned toward the door to give him privacy.

“I’m not modest,” he told her.

“Maybe I am.”

“You’re a stripper.”

“Dancer,” she gritted out, “and if you’re going to keep flinging that in my face, it’s not fun to be around you.”

“Huh. Okay. Do you separate your job from your personal life?”

“I…” She frowned. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

He was quiet, so she turned to take a peek at him, and he was standing there now clad in a darker pair of jeans.

He was still shirtless, and his feet were bare, and he looked like one of those models on a big billboard downtown with all his damn abs.

Good God, that man was too attractive for his own good.

“I’m going to say it plain. Are you ready?”

“Say what pl—”

“I don’t give a shit that you’re a dancer or a stripper or whatever it is you like to be called. I do like that you don’t fuck your customers, but clearly money is tight, and you are doing your thing covering bills. Right?”

“I’m four days late on rent, but everything else is paid up.”

Dylan pursed his lips into a thin smile. “I don’t think you’re going to be a dancer long-term. I don’t think you like it.”

“I like it fine,” she snapped, feeling defensive. “It’s what I do, it’s what I’ve done for years, it’s my job.”

“But you have resumes out at a bunch of places around town.” He arched his blond eyebrows higher. Shit he was annoying, calling her out like this.

“Point is, you’re real good at what you do. I saw you dancing. It was super-hot. I jacked off to it last night just like probably a thousand other guys have done during your time at the Rabbit Hole.”

“You jacked off to me?”

“Focus,” he said in a deep voice. “I saw frustration though, and sadness. You seemed drained at moments. That’s not a dream job, Roxy the yote shifter. It’s a steppingstone job.”

“Yeah, well I can make a ton of cash in one night if I need it,” she uttered.

“Then why are you four days late on rent?”

“Because…” Fuck she hated this. “Coming here was a mistake,” she gritted out, standing. She yanked the door open to leave, but Dylan’s palm pushed on it, and the door handle slipped from her grasp.

Angry, she rounded on him to cuss him out, but the fire in his eyes was abundant in the split second before his lips crashed onto hers.

She was shocked into frozen stillness, and neither of them moved. It was a harsh kiss, his lips rigid on hers, and then he pulled back with a soft smacking sound, and hovered there, right in front of her face, searching her eyes.

“I don’t want to argue,” he rumbled in a gritty voice.

“We aren’t arguing,” she whispered.

“You’re angry.”

She swallowed hard and tried to remember what she’d been angry about. Nothing came to her blank mind. Roxy cleared her throat. “Is that your move? When you piss a woman off? You just kiss her without warning?”

He inhaled deeply and said, “It wasn’t my move until you.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, unsure of how to feel. He was Dylan Hoffman. He was one of the targets. He was here on borrowed time, and he should’ve been well on his way back to Wreck’s Mountains if he wanted to avoid the hell that was coming for him.

But…even rigid, the kiss was…something.

Inside of her, little flutters consumed her stomach and gave her this giddy sensation she didn’t understand.

“Still angry?” he asked, testing, and now there was this little smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

He was so close to her, and he smelled so good. “A little. I think.”

He inhaled deeply and stood straighter, squared up to her and slipped his hand to the back of her neck. “What about now?”

This was the part where she was supposed to run. This was the part where she was supposed to save him and chase him out of town.

But she didn’t. Couldn’t maybe. She was too selfish. Instead, she said, “I’m still feeling a little…frustrated with you.”

The smirk on his lips stretched to a smile and then faded.

He leaned down and kissed her lips, this time much more gently.

It was a soft sip, like he was tasting fine whiskey.

Just a few seconds, and then he eased back again.

This time, she’d closed her eyes. This time, she’d leaned into it. This time, she’d been ready.

Roxy opened her eyes, feeling drunk as she swayed. Dylan kept his grip on the back of her neck firm, and he slid his other hand to her waist to steady her.

“Still mad?”

She swallowed hard again and shook her head. “I think I’m okay.”