“You heard me, mister. Come here!”

Scrambling to his feet, Shaw gave a low growl. If he started roaring, she was so screwed. But instead of roaring, he…he…

It was the calypso Christmas music coming from inside the house that set him off. Eyes wide, Ronnie watched the King of the Jungle shimmy his lion ass around on some poor human’s lawn. They’d never understand those paw prints come morning.

Ronnie’s head tilted to the side. Is he…? Yup. He was doing the mambo. Paws crossing over paws. Head bopping to the beat. Thick, regal mane waving in the cold December air. He actually wasn’t too bad. For a big cat doing the mambo.

Rubbing her eyes, Ronnie realized she had to focus.

“Get over here!” she commanded again, still whispering.

Shaw looked up at her, then he lowered his head toward his front paws, his big lion butt in the air.

Oh my Lord in heaven, he’s in a play bow.

She hadn’t done one of those since her first couple of years of being able to shift fully when she’d still been a pup. And she’d never heard of cats doing them ever.

Ronnie walked toward him, and he literally jumped back away from her.

Keep away. The big idiot wanted to play keep away.

She didn’t have time for this. She had to get his crazy cat ass back in the house before someone saw him.

“Brendon, please come on.”

Another step toward him, and another step back. Dammit!

He watched her, his gold eyes examining her from head to toe. Then his gaze locked on her tits…and stayed there.

Ronnie Lee rolled her eyes. No matter what breed they may be, all males were pigs.

However, she’d learned over the years that males could be controlled. With the right bait.

Looking around to make sure they were still undetected, Ronnie did what she’d promised she would never do again since that Motörhead concert when she was eighteen. She lifted her shirt and bra, flashing him.

Shaw charged her head-on, and Ronnie barely had time to pull her clothes back into place before she gave a surprised squeal and tore off back to her aunt’s house. Lifting her legs, she cleared the eight-foot fence that cordoned off her aunt’s yard from her neighbor’s. Ronnie made it up the back porch stairs when she heard Shaw right on her ass. She got inside, throwing the door closed behind her, hoping to slow him down, but he rammed right into it, knocking it off its hinges. She winced, realizing she’d have to fix that before her aunt got home.

Ronnie squealed again as humongous paws slapped against her hips, forcing her to the living room floor. She scrambled onto her back, only to realize she had a naked man on top of her with his head under her T-shirt.

“God, your breasts are beautiful,” he rasped. “Can I play with them for a little while?” He planted a small kiss against the side of her lace-covered nipple.

“No, you cannot. Now get off me!” She slapped at his head, trying to get him to let her go. The snoring, however, suggested he wasn’t going anywhere until she moved him herself.

“Lord!” she snarled. “I am gonnakick Sissy’s ass when I see her.”

Panting, Ronnie scrambled out from under Shaw. She intended to think her breathing problem merely an outcome of the outrageous situation she currently found herself in and not because the cat had the softest lips known to man or God.

She stood up and cracked her neck to the side. Grabbing Shaw’s hand, she dragged him across the floor and up the stairs back to the bedroom.

And the entire time she cursed Sissy Mae Smith’s name.

Okay. She had to stop feeling sorry for herself. True, this wasn’t how she’d wanted to spend her Christmas—fixing doors and chasing after lions—but she was here and she just had to deal with it. Like her momma would so eloquently put it, “Oh, get the fuck over it, Rhonda Lee.”

Sitting at her aunt’s kitchen table with her head in her hands, Ronnie stared down at the rapidly chilling cup of hot chocolate she’d made herself. She hadn’t even bothered to put in the marshmallows.

How, exactly, did she get herself into these kinds of situations? First off, she knew better than to trust Sissy Mae. Second…oh hell. There was no second.

All of this, though, was a perfect example of how she needed to change her life. School seemed like a good start. She already had interviews set up with a few of the local universities after the New Year holiday. Hopefully they’d ignore that freshmen year grade report from twelve years ago. It had not been a thing of beauty, and her momma’s reaction…well, She-wolf fights were never pretty. A day after the fight, Ronnie and Sissy Mae took off for Europe with their backpacks and five hundred bucks between them. Ronnie had seen a lot of the world because of Sissy’s constant drive to keep moving. England, France, Germany, Italy…When they got done with the romance language countries, they moved on to Asia, Africa. Wherever. Wherever two She-wolves could get into trouble, they were there.

Then six months ago Ronnie Lee woke up with a German wolf whose first name she knew—and not much else. “How many times,” she’d asked herself in the shower that morning, “how many times can you wake up like this?” That’s when she decided she wouldn’t anymore. She would no longer wake up with strangers. She’d no longer get into barroom brawls. She’d no longer randomly challenge other Packs for dominance. She’d no longer look for trouble.

Three weeks ago Ronnie Lee turned thirty and it looked like all was well on its way. For a while she’d even had a steady boyfriend. But that only lasted a month. She’d brought the poor Beta home and her daddy and brothers had kicked the living tar out of him. He hadn’t actually done anything wrong either, her daddy simply didn’t like him. Not surprisingly, that Beta wolf never returned her calls after that particular family dinner. So, she’d decided a few days later, she’d lay off men for a while. She had toys, and she was a woman not afraid to use her fingers. Really, what else did you need a male for except to fuck and breed with? And she was holding off on the breeding until she got her act together.