CHAPTER ONEThe closing of the ladies’ room door muffled the pounding of the music at the Bayside Club as Maggie entered and stepped up to the mirror. Jingle Bell Rock. Again. She adjusted the neckline on her clingy, black spandex minidress and smooshed her boobs up to deepen her cleavage and show off her assets. She wasn’t messing around tonight. Tonight, she was finding a mate.She’d come into heat several times since she’d come of age, and it was always excruciating. The desire. The need. The raw, gritty, swollen feeling that made everything from the waist down ache with the need to have something inside—hard, fast, and repeatedly.What she needed was a mate. Any mate. She wasn’t fussy about the species—as long as it wasn’t another jaguar. Last thing she needed was to bring a belly full of kits home as a Christmas present for her very conservative, i.e. snooty, parents. They’d freak if they had to add some random peasant’s bastard litter to the family Christmas photo. But other than that, she wasn’t fussy. As long as he was big, strong, dominant, and had the right equipment to make her ache disappear, he was a win.She dabbed off a dot of mascara under her eye and smudged her black liner into shape with her finger. Actually, now that she thought about it, it was probably better to stay away from the entire Panthera genus, given their tendency to interbreed. Never mind a bastard jaguar litter—could you imagine what would happen if she brought a little basket of liguars or tiguars home to the Duke and Duchess of Snooty Town? Good God on stilts, her mother would have a coronary. One of her male cousins had knocked up a leopard chick a couple years back, and the little jagupards ended up being shipped off to boarding school in England to avoid the scandal.So that ruled out lions, tigers, jaguars, and panthers. And no snow leopards, either. They weren’t known to interbreed, but rumor had it they had really small dicks.Pulling her lipstick out of her little black purse, she leaned over the sink, reapplied a fresh coat of shiny red lip gloss to her lips, and reassessed her situation.1. She was in heat.2. She was horny.3. She was in heat.“Yep, that about sums it up,” she said to her strange, black-haired reflection. She adjusted the long black wig. She had to admit, she looked good as a blue-eyed, raven-haired beauty. She might have to keep the blue contacts. She’d wondered if the disguise was over the top, but after entering the Bayside Club and drawing the eyes of every male—and female—in the place, she decided it had been a good idea. Just because she intended to find a mate and fuck him blind for a few days didn’t mean she wanted to see pictures of herself all over the Internet next week. Definitely best to fly under the radar on this mission.She opened the door and stepped back into the blare of music. “Jingle Bell Rock” had segued into Simple Plan’s “Christmas Every Day.” People were even trying to dance to it. Or at least jump up and down in the right rhythm. Flashes of red, blue, pink, and purple light from the Bayside Club’s phenomenal light show swirled and flickered over the crowd as they exhausted themselves on the dance floor, or stood idly along the walls, or waited three-deep at the bar for drinks. Saturday night, Christmas-Eve Eve. The place smelled of perfume, hair gel, alcohol, and sex.And something that tickled her nostrils faintly as she approached the bar. Something sexy, alluring…there and then gone. She stopped and turned her head a little, nostrils flaring. She opened her mouth just a bit to taste the air. A surge of arousal shivered its way down her spine and pooled in her pussy. What was it? Who was it? He smelled absolutely…Something plowed into her. She nearly fell over. Hands reached out to grab her elbows and steady her as she spun around.“Oh, I’m so sorry! Excuse me!”She looked up into the face of the man who’d nearly tackled her. He was looking down at her with concern, his hands still on her arms to hold her upright.“Are you OK?” he asked. His eyes were pale gray, the color of the twilight sky on a winter day. He wore his tousled, honey-brown hair to his shoulders in thick layers that had no particular arrangement, other than falling where they did. His black leather biker jacket had seen better days. Scratch that—the creases and folds that molded it to his shoulders and arms so perfectly meant their best days were right now. He was the tallest man she’d ever seen. Not freakish-tall—hot-tall. Hot-hot-hot.He smelled of misty nights, moonlight, and the deep, damp, earthy smell of the pine forest.Wolf…Her interest level shot up about a hundred notches. “No worries, I’m OK,” she said. She’d never been allowed to spend much time around wolves, just casually like at school, and more recently, out at clubs. She’d had a guy friend back in high school who was a wolf, but they’d never dated or hung out after school or anything (could you imagine?) He’d always smelled vaguely of something sleepy and warm.She’d always found wolves sexy as hell.God, her parents would have a fit. The thought made the corner of her mouth turn up in a little smile. Even better—wolves and cats couldn’t interbreed.Perfect. She was going to have this man tonight if it was the last thing she did.He smiled at her. “Are you sure you’re OK? I was moving pretty fast.”She couldn’t help letting the smile widen. He wasn’t the smell she’d smelled earlier, but he smelled almost as good. “I’m fine,” she said, unable to keep the smile from spreading wider. “But you can make it up to me by buying me a drink.”He studied her intently, as if he were trying to think of what to say next. Then his gaze slipped down to caress her body all the way to her toes and back up. When it reached her eyes again, he smiled at her with the smile of a predator on the prowl.Shivers tickled her skin and ran the length of her body. And that hot, grinding ache in her pussy swelled and throbbed. She felt the urge to rub herself against him, to mark him as hers, but she at least had the good breeding not to be so vulgar in public.When she got him home, though… Oh, vulgar wasn’t even close to describing what she was going to be.The thought of her first mating being with such an enormous, sexy wolf with eyes like winter made a flood of moisture dampen her silk thong. The little strap suddenly felt too tight, pulling too hard against her pussy, the textured, lacy seam of the front piece pressing too roughly against her clit. She moved her hips, just a little, to press against that little scrap of elastic a little harder. The fabric became wetter, slipperier.His nostrils flared slightly, almost imperceptibly. He could smell her arousal? Of course he could. Wolves had a better sense of smell than cats. The thought of that made her shiver.She ran a hand over his arm, let it trail down to the dark T-shirt he wore under that worn leather jacket of his, let her fingernail lightly graze its way down to the button of his jeans, then drift away. “So, that drink?”“Whatever you like,” he said, offering her his arm.She placed her hand in the crook of his arm. “I like tequila.”One eyebrow went up. “Huh,” he said. “I would have pegged you as a white wine girl.”She laughed. “Never. I like my alcohol the way I like my men. Hard and straight up.”He gave her a very gratifying smile. “Sounds good to me.” With one hand on her elbow, he guided her to the bar and jockeyed for position between the masses. Just as she got to the bar and rested her elbow along the padded edge, he reached for his wallet. Then reached into another pocket. Then patted all his pockets.“I think I left my wallet in the car after I got gas. Wait here—I’ll be right back.”She smiled at him. “Hurry back.”He gave her that predatory smile once more before turning and pressing his way through the crowd to the door.