She laughed. “Good point.”

“Besides, I was going to schools in Manhattan from the time I was ten.”

“From where you live in Jersey?” He nodded. “That must have been a hell of a daily haul for your mother.”

“Not when there’s a bus and subway system available.”

“When you were ten?” He nodded again and Gwen moved around until she could look at him without turning her head. “Your mother sent you into the city on your own at ten?”

“My mother is a big believer in self-sufficient children.”

“So is my mother, but she never put me on a bus alone at the age of ten.”

“But then how else would I have accidentally discovered the Bowery—and learned at such an early age exactly how fast bears can run?”

Gwen shrugged helplessly. “I have no response for that.”

“Yeah,” he said after swallowing another spoonful of his sundae. “Most people don’t.”

“I have to go,” Lock said.

Of course, he should have said it forty minutes ago, but they were having such a nice conversation about the ins and outs of copper plumbing, he hadn’t wanted to leave. But they’d run out of things to say and she was staring at him, waiting for him to make that move. That move to put him in her bed.

He knew his uncles would cuff him in the back of the head and ask him what the hell was wrong with him and “didn’t you learn anything from us? Or have you been listening to that idiot father of yours again?”

The truth was, Lock had learned a lot from his uncles, but there was one big difference between the MacRyrie bears of Jersey and Professor Brody MacRyrie—Brody had the woman he wanted. Had her and had managed for over thirty-seven years to hold on to a sow that everyone said would never be caught, much less kept. Lock didn’t know if that’s where things were going with Gwen, but if he hoped to have a chance in hell with her, something told him he needed to follow his father’s path down this road. Not his uncles’.

“Already?” She glanced at her watch and gave a small wince. “I didn’t know it was so late.”

“Yeah. And I’ve got work…or something.” Or something? Is that the best you can do, you idiot! “I mean, I’m working on a job and I’m running behind.”

“Okay.” They were sitting on the couch again, Gwen facing him, her legs tucked up under her. Those gold eyes watching him with that heavy-lidded, barely blinking, feline stare. Yet she wasn’t tense. She simply waited. For him.

An enticing move, but he wasn’t falling for it. At the same time, though, a little good-night kiss couldn’t hurt, right?

Leaning forward, he slipped his hand behind her neck, his fingers massaging the muscles there. Gwen groaned and closed her eyes, her lipsparting in what he could only see as a personal invitation.

Gripping the back of her neck to hold her in place, Lock kissed her. He’d meant to keep it short and controlled, but Gwen’s small hands gripped his shoulders, those damn nails grazing against his throat, behind his ear. It drove him nuts! He tilted his head to the side, allowing himself to be pulled in to that kiss as his tongue stroked hers, as his lips played with hers. She abruptly pulled as far back as the hand holding her in place would allow.

“Your lips,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “What is that thing you do with your lips?”

“What thing?” he asked and then pulled her in again. She groaned deep and long, the sound coming from the back of her throat as she rose up on her knees, her hands releasing his shoulders so she could wrap her arms around his neck.

He knew he had to stop, he had to pull away. God knew he didn’t want to but…

Lock pulled back, untangling her arms from around his neck. “I have to go.”

Gwen’s eyes blinked open. She stared at him with unabashed surprise but also passion. Deep, raw passion that he’d never seen from another female before.

“You’re…?”

The word “going” hung out there between them.

He kissed her forehead and released her, pulling away as a card was swiped in the front door and it swung open. A male stepped in. Lion. He looked like Brendon Shaw. Must be the infamous half-brother of the half-brother.

The lion strode into the room yawning, glanced at them, and waved.

“Where’s Sissy?” Gwen asked, moving farther away from Lock.

“Off with her She-wolves. I don’t know how she does it, because the jet lag is kicking my ass.” He grabbed a bottle of water from the minifridge underneath the end table closest to Lock, waved again, and headed down a hallway. “Night,” he called out seconds before a distant doorway slammed shut.

“Huh,” Gwen said. “That went well.”

Lock wasn’t sure what she meant until they heard a roared “Who the fuck was that?” and that distant doorway crashed back open.

Jet lag! She forgot about jet lag! Of course, since Gwen had never traveled off the East Coast, this wasn’t exactly surprising. Plus, an early night in for her brother and his mate was usually around six in the morning.

But Gwen had forgotten that Mitch wasn’t used to traveling the way Sissy—a hardcore traveler since she’d turned eighteen—was. And because of that miscalculation, her brother was here—exhausted, pissed off, and ready to kill a bear. Her bear!

Mitch Shaw went right for Lock, too, his claws unleashing as he moved in for the killing blow, the power behind those claws capable of snapping a human spine with one well-placed slap.