I glared at her, seething inside and out. How fucking stupid had I been? Not on duty and had a few drinks to boot. It was like I’d given her an open door to come in and homewreck the whole damn place. “What are you?” I snapped in her face, not giving her a chance to answer. “Undercover cop? Lawyer? Reporter?”

Her face whitened further, though it should have been impossible, and I swore.

“I— I— I—”

“Stop fucking stuttering at me and tell me who you are, Josie,” I snarled.

The sweet and sharp tang of her fear boiled my blood and hardened my cock all at once. I gripped the shelf behind her head hard enough to warp the thing out of shape. Better it than her. All tied up like a Christmas turkey I wanted to stuff, except that she wasn’t. Josie was prey, though more than that—there was something not quite right about her. I leaned in closer and inhaled her, then drew back in shock. “You’re only half?”

“Shifter? No, I’m full. Bit broken, though. I can get furry, but not change. I can’t.” She looked up at me shyly. Red stained her cheeks in a deep shadow that tracked down her throat and blazed across the tops of her bare breasts.

I gripped the shelf all the harder and willed myself not to worship the gorgeous little creature before me.

A sly and gorgeous shifter who could bring everything Rafe and Killian had built crashing around us all in a burning torrent. Part of me hoped she was a cop because then it would just be me who burned, though for more than one reason. The idea of taking handcuffs from her and reversing the roles only hardened my resolve—yeah, that’s what I’m going with—to work her out.

One mind shift, and she became a puzzle to solve.

Time to play that game again.

I unhooked stiff fingers from the shelving and trailed them over her breast, along her stomach. My knuckles grazed her navel. “Cop?”

“No.” She shook her head, adamant.

That was good. Good and bad. But she answered me. I dropped my hand lower and stroked her clit lightly, teasing.

She swayed at my touch, her mouth half open. A breath kissed my lips, but there was no sigh on it. Yet.

“Lawyer?”

“No. Don’t have the smarts—ohhh.”

There it was, that little whimper when I slid my fingers along her slick, swollen flesh. Her thighs quivered as I nudged her legs wider, and she let me.

Not a cop, not a lawyer, and while she could be just a curious cat out for a night’s play, I didn’t think so. She’d come here with a mission in mind, so frazzled at Killian’s mini-interrogation that she’d thrown down any answer on the page.

My gut curled at that. It meant she didn’t share my kink, or maybe she just thought she didn’t. The way her body responded to me, to the situation I’d put her in, said differently.

I should cut her down and hand her straight over to Rafe. Walk the fuck away. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to give up my little toy, not yet.

Which left… “Reporter, then.” I didn’t bother to phrase it as a question. Her eyes never widened, and her mouth didn’t pop opening in a sweet-as-fuck little O shape. She knew I’d ask, and she’d been waiting.

Still, we were playing my favorite game.

“Yes.” Another breathy admission, and the one I needed.

“Good girl.”