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My fingers still felt the heat of her. My chest still held the shape of her weight against it. The room inside my mind that was already hers was very full right now. I had just told the woman who lived in it that she was a mistake.

I straightened my jacket. I walked to my car. I brought my fingers to my mouth. At least I would carry her scent for a few more days.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

NELL

Iwoke up at five-forty-three in the morning in a state of profound sexual frustration due to one cock-keeping Magnus Blackwood. My best friend B.O.B. hadn't been enough to soothe me. The device kept buzzing when all I wanted was a growl.

What the hell was going on with me? I never got hung up over a guy. Except Magnus wasn't a guy. He was a wolf in a designer suit. Maybe he put me under some kind of thrall.

Wait, was that vampires? Hold up, were vampires real too?

I got up and made coffee, unwilling to deal with my over-sensitized lady parts nor my overactive imagination. Maybe I was still in shock from finding out that werewolves were real? How long did shock last?

With a few sips of coffee in me, my brain calmed down. Just a bit. I stood at the windows of my apartment with my mug and looked at the city doing its pre-dawn thing — the garbage trucks, the early delivery vans, the handful of runners who treated 6AM as a reasonable hour to exist outdoors — and I let his words replay in my head.

Hopefully that got the need for sex out of your system and you'll get back to work.

Fucker.

No, actually, he wasn't a fucker. He was a coward. That had been the move of a man who was afraid.

He wanted me. He had wanted me since the cabin. He wanted me right now—wherever he was. The problem for me was that I wanted him too. The problem for him was I was going to do something about it.

But what?

I didn't have his phone number. Not to his private line. Though I could get it. But that felt desperate. And I was too cute for that.

Speaking of cute, I could send him a naughty picture to his company email. I didn't fear he'd share it. The man operated by a code; that was clear. But then he'd have something in his spank bank, and I'd wouldn't have a guarantee that he'd come over and spank me.

I put down my coffee cup. I was going to need a different approach. Instead of working through the office problems, I set my mind to figuring out how to make the boy I liked pay attention to me. It would start with a killer outfit.

Not a power suit. The power suit was armor, and armor was for days when I needed to remind a room who I was. Today I needed something that reminded a specific person of what was underneath my clothes.

I pulled out a little red dress. Put it back. Too obvious.

I pulled out a skirt: black, fitted, falling just below the knee with a kick pleat at the back that was technically modest and practically dangerous. The kind of skirt that behaved itself when you were standing still but not when you walked. I paired it with a fitted black turtleneck that was thin enough to move with me rather than around me. The heels were simple, pointed, and made my legs look like they started somewhere around my collarbone.

I pressed my fingers to my mother's claw necklace for luck. Magnus Blackwood had told me to get back to work. I intended to be very, very good at my job today.

The problem was simple. Magnus had drawn a line. The line needed to be made untenable. Not by me pushing against it directly. I had tried that in the elevator, and while the results had been personally satisfying, they had also resulted in a dismissal speech and a closed car door. Direct pressure was not the move. Magnus was too disciplined for that.

"Your nine o'clock is here," Priya said a few hours later. "It's a new client consultation."

I looked at my calendar. The meeting had been booked through the standard intake process, a consultancy inquiry that had come through vetted sources. I had glanced at the brief and set it aside on Monday. It was a legitimate enough business, the kind of account that fit our restructuring work.

"Send him in."

The door opened. The first thing I clocked was the oppressive feel of the werewolf bodyguards outside my door. Their scent of deep forest and fresh earth wafted into my office. Layered on top of it was the scent of warm grass, dry earth and… sandalwood? I looked up. It was the man from the bar with the expensive watch and charming smile.

"You must really want that drink," I said.

He laughed — a genuine one, surprised out of him. "I'd take the drink. But I'm much more interested in doing business with you." He crossed to the desk and extended his hand. "Darius Omondi. I represent a logistics consultancy out of Nairobi. The Omondi Group. We've been looking for the right partner stateside for about two years, and think Odhiambo & Associates is the right fit."

I shook his hand. His grip was firm and brief, and professional. "It's Odhiambo, Blackwood & Associates."

"I know who the Blackwoods are," Darius said the Blackwood name like it was inconsequential, a tagalong. "I also know who built this firm's infrastructure, who structured the accounts, and who has been running the actual machinery of this operation for the last decade. That's why I'm sitting in this office instead of one a few blocks north. I came to see the brains."