“Yeah,” he said quickly, trying to ignore the blood-covered claws that were still out and wrapped around that bread and meat. “Yeah. Sure.”

Reece got to his feet, but he looked over his shoulder to see Ronnie Lee, Sissy Mae, and the New York Smith She-wolves standing there watching them. Lord, this wasn’t good. Laura Jane was a Smith, after all. And Smith loyalty meant everything, even when a Smith didn’t necessarily deserve that loyalty.

Yet if Livy was worried . . . she didn’t show it. In fact, she showed no fear at all. Eating his delicious sandwich and staring back at the She-wolves, she waited.

When Livy ate the last bit of the sandwich, she swallowed, burped.

“You ready?” Livy finally asked him.

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

“Good. I’ve got a list of other meatheads to do, too.”

She walked off and Reece looked back at his sister, wondering what she’d do.

Sissy Mae walked over to her cousin, looked down at her, stared for a moment, turned on her heel, and walked off. Without a word, the other She-wolves followed, including Ronnie Lee.

That’s when Reece knew they’d been watching what Laura Jane was up to even before Livy had arrived—and they hadn’t liked it. Slapping her around themselves wouldn’t have been too cool, but letting someone smaller and meaner do it . . . the males of the Pack wouldn’t get in the middle of that. So, as far as the New York Pack was concerned, it was over.

Reece blew out a breath, stepped over Laura Jane’s still unconscious body, and walked into the room Livy was using to shoot the photographs.

She was adjusting lights when he came in—her claws now gone, her hands clean—and she motioned to a metal stool.

“We’ll take a few safety shots first before I try some different stuff.”

“Okay.” Reece sat down, watched the female move around the room. Finally, he just had to ask her.

“What the hell are you?”

She glanced at him. “None of your damn business,” she told him mildly. “Now take your shirt off and look pretty.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

They ran for over three hours. Three hours of nonstop movement through lush, gorgeous wilderness.

Ricky wondered what the land looked like when it was covered in the snow and ice Siberia was famous for. But this would do for now.

They finally came to rest by the Range Rover, both collapsing next to the tires, both panting with tongues hanging out. They stayed that way for a while until Ricky realized that other canines were roaming in the dense forests. Not wanting to get into a territorial spat with Russian wolves and foxes, he got up, put on his jeans, and tossed the rest of his clothes in the car. He held the door open and Toni leaped into the backseat. She rested on her side while Ricky got in thedriver’s seat and headed back the way he’d come. When they returned to the hotel, he went in through the front doors, topless and shoeless. The front desk staff watched him but no one said anything. Maybe they thought the American had drunk too much of the local vodka.

He cut through the hotel until he reached the back. Completely unfazed by the locked doors there, Ricky got them open and let Toni in. Still in her jackal form, she trotted up the stairs until they returned to the ninth floor. She went to her door, but Ricky shook his head. “You can’t stay in there, darlin’. That poor room has been through hell and back.” He jerked his head at his own door while he pushed the keycard into the lock. “Come on. You can crash in here tonight.”

Toni followed after him and once inside, she charged across the room and dove headfirst into the couch. She rolled around there for a good minute, wiggling her back against the cushions. Ricky went into his bathroom, grabbed a towel, and took it out to the now-happy canine.

He tossed it at her so that it covered her completely. A few seconds later, she’d shifted back to human and now he had a damn sexy woman wearing only a towel in his room.

This was one of those moments his daddy would say, “Proof that life is good, son. Life is very good.”

Toni put one hand behind her head and gazed up at the ceiling.

Okay. She’d admit it. She was having a bad case of separation anxiety. Only wolfdogs admitted to having this issue, but all canines suffered from it now and again.

But after tearing apart her hotel room and then that wonderfully luxurious run through the woods, she was feeling damn good. Not only that, she had to admit she was feeling a little . . . well . . . worked up.

Usually, she spent so much time worrying about her siblings that Toni didn’t focus too much on that side of herself. She simply didn’t have the time or the inclination. Yet lying here on this couch, wearing only a towel, with a very cute, bare-chested wolf standing over her, she was having all sorts of thoughts she didn’t normally entertain.

And, they were thousands of miles away from her family. Just the two of them in this room . . . alone.

“Darlin’,” the wolf practically growled, “you keep looking at me like that and we’re gonna have a problem.”

“Looking at you like what?”

“Like you could eat me alive.”

She shrugged, her gaze moving across the room. “Maybe I could.”

“Uh-uh,” Ricky said, stepping closer to the couch. “If you’re gonna hit on me, Antonella, you need to look at me.”

Toni did and they ended up staring at each other for a long moment.

Finally, Toni admitted, “I have no idea what to say next.”