Satisfied with her plan, Ronnie didn’t even bother to turn around when her bedroom door opened. She knew Sissy and Marty walked up behind her.

“Hey, y’all.”

When they didn’t answer, she looked at Sissy, shocked by the anger she saw there. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Do you think we don’t know?”

“That the whole Pack doesn’t know?” Marty added with more venom than Ronnie ever heard from the woman.

“If y’all are talking about Shaw—”

“You doin’ more than one lion?”

“You know what, Smith? That ain’t none of your business.” She didn’t know why Sissy should be so pissed. In the bar the other night she’d practically thrown Ronnie face-first into Shaw’s lap.

“Everything that happens in this Pack is now my responsibility.”

“You don’t even know anything happened,” Ronnie reminded her friend. “You haven’t even been here.”

“We have proof.”

Huh? “Proof of what?”

“The disgusting things you two were doing,” Sissy snapped.

Ronnie rubbed her eyes. “What the hell are you two talking—”

She stopped when Sissy Mae tossed down the first eight-by-ten picture on the bed. Staring blindly, it took Ronnie several seconds to understand what she was actually seeing.

“You’re a whore, Ronnie Lee Reed,” Sissy said while tossing down more photos. Lord…so many sexual positions. So many disgusting, inappropriate things for two beings to be doing to each other. “And now everybody in the Pack knows it.”

“You,” Ronnie said through gritted teeth, “showed this to everyone in the Pack?”

“Had to,” Marty sighed. “Had to prove what a whore you are.”

Ronnie picked up the picture of a male and female having oral sex. “You two spent time on this?”

“Sure.” Marty shrugged. “Quick stop over at FAO Schwarz to pick up Ronnie”—Marty lifted up the stuffed wolf she had hidden behind her back—“and Shaw.” Her other hand held the stuffed lion.

“Then we used Bobby Ray’s digital camera so we could capture the true essence of what you two have been up to since yesterday.”

Ronnie kept staring at the pictures. She couldn’t help herself. “Where did you find the little latex thong? And the whip?”

“Wolf ingenuity, darlin’.”

Idiots. Her Pack was filled with absolute idiots.

Marty picked up another picture. “I had heard you have some oral skills, my dear. I must say I’m impressed.”

Sissy held up a different photo, Ronnie’s stuffed representative in a position with the Stuffed-Shaw that no amount of money in the world would get the breathing Ronnieto try. “And she’s not afraid to experiment. Are ya, my kinky little friend?”

Ronnie grabbed several other photos: Stuffed-Ronnie getting it from behind. Stuffed-Ronnie sitting on Stuffed-Shaw’s face. Stuffed-Ronnie wearing a leather bustier and a little leather mask. They’d tied her paws to the makeshift cardboard four-poster bed and stuffed-lion Shaw was—oh good Lord in heaven.

“You showed these to the Pack?”

“Oh yeah. Over breakfast in that fancy restaurant they have downstairs. Couple of tigers were there too, came over and looked cause they heard us laughing. Then they laughed.”

“And the jackals. Don’t forget the jackals.”

“Oh. Those jackals were so entertained.”

The title Alpha Female of the Smith Pack completely forgotten, Ronnie slowly rounded on her childhood best friend. “Sissy Mae?”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

“Run.”

Chapter Ten

S he smelled good. She’d used his shampoo and soap, and he liked how those scents clung to her.

She’d also slipped into a worn pair of black jeans, a black V-neck sweater, and black cowboy boots that sounded sexy as hell “clopping” against his hardwood floors. Even her leather motorcycle jacket made her look like one of those biker wolves that roamed the West Coast and Texas.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as soon as she saw his face.

“Nothing. You ready to go?”

He started to stand, but she pushed him back to the couch and crawled into his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs.

“Now come on, darlin’. Something’s not right. What is it?”

Ronnie put her arms around his neck and looked at him, waiting for him to answer. It occurred to him she actually cared.

Brendon had kept most things to himself or between him and his sister. There were few he trusted with his personal information, but those hazel eyes patiently gazing at him made him feel remarkably safe.

“My brother took off again.”

She winced and he knew he’d been right. She did care. “I’m sorry, darlin’.” Her fingers tangled in his hair. “I know you’re worried about him. And I think you’re right. He’s definitely hiding something. But you can’t protect him if he doesn’t want you to. Whatever it is, I think it’s something he has to work out for himself.”

“I know. But I feel like I should help him. I didn’t know about him until he was fifteen and I wasn’t there to protect him like I should have been.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“I know. Doesn’t make me feel better, though.” He sighed. “It doesn’t make me feel less responsible for him being such a…”