Now Nick just had to seduce a woman and this whole mess would be solved.

It wasn’t that easy, of course. He still had to deal with the possibility that Paul would double-cross him. And he’d have to make sure Tyler Lake was punished for leaking his name. While his first thought had been to let the Pack take care of Lake, now that he’d seen how easily the main problem could be resolved, he was tempted to look after the whole thing himself.

But that would come later. For now, he had to concentrate on part one: the seduction.

Back at the office, he ran a quick search on werewolf romance. He used another computer, of course. He wasn’t sure which would be worse—being caught researching werewolves or reading romances.

A quick scan of a few stories told him "romance" wasn’t exactly the right word. He remembered reading stuff like this as a kid—books and magazines "enjoyed" under the cover of night. These had better stories and were, generally, better written but they had a lot in common with his old reading material.

Not that he had a problem with that. If women liked getting a buzz from this—and maybe learning new techniques—then he was happy to reap the benefits . . . just as long as they didn’t expect any guy—even a werewolf—to provide the marathon sessions described. Sure, being a werewolf gave Nick extra energy, and at forty-four he still had the stamina he’d had at twenty—which was saying a lot—but reading those stories was almost enough to make him feel . . . inadequate.

He shuddered, closed the browser and declared his research at an end. He had what he needed—proof that Paul wasn’t lying about the existence of werewolf romances. And he had a good idea what might attract some women to them.

Nick had no intention of exploiting Mrs. Paul’s werewolf fetish—he didn’t need to resort to that—but he wasn’t above using the stories to get an idea of what she was after. It was like checking out a potential girlfriend to discover the best tools to woo her.

It seemed the main attraction was appeal of "the beast within." Nick could manage that. Pull out the edge he usually kept hidden. Rough it up a little. Just a little, mind you. Dominance games weren’t his style, and he wouldn’t fake it, no more than he’d pretend to love opera for a woman.

That was one thing his dad had taught him: be honest with women. A rule that covered everything from not lying about liking opera to not saying "I’ll call you in the morning" when he had no intention of doing so. No woman entered Nick’s life with the expectation of anything more than, in crudest terms, a "fuck buddy"—someone to hang out with, have fun with and have sex with. No commitment. No expectation of exclusivity.

Plenty of guys thought they needed to lie about commitment, that for anyone with two X chromosomes, sex was given only if there were wedding rings on the horizon. But saying that no woman was happy with friendship and sex was like saying women didn’t read the kind of stories he’d seen on the web. It was just a matter of finding the right ones, being honest and staying honest. And that was what he planned to do with Mrs. Paul. At least, as far as he could.

 

He wasn’t going to rush into this. Seduction took time and effort and while Nick was clearly on a schedule, he’d give himself twenty-four hours, ample time to find Mrs. Paul—Rita—and get a good sense of her. Where did she work? Did she arrive early or late? What did she do after?

Watching prospective lovers came naturally to Nick. It was the hunting instinct. He knew that. He didn’t follow them around, just posted himself someplace public and watched. He supposed it could be called stalking, at least in a wolf sense, but he never used the word. He called it research.

Clay scoffed at that. He said that as long as Nick didn’t trail women around, gathering private information with the intention of forcing his attentions, then it didn’t fit the human definition of stalking. Nick wasn’t so sure.

It was easier for Clay. It always was. When he went off in one of his rants like that, Nick just listened, nodded . . . and did his own thing. Clay didn’t care. He’d made his opinion known and that was all that mattered.

 

Mrs. Paul—Rita—was certainly attractive. Even prettier in real life. But as Nick watched her tongue lash a server for a spotted glass, he knew if he’d been scouting her with genuine interest, he’d have moved on by now.

He set two tables away from Rita and two friends, in a little bistro next to her office, where they’d gone for wine after work. She wore a past-the-knees skirt, a blouse buttoned to the top, and glaring red lipstick on thin lips that stretched thinner every time a man glanced her way, her glower saying "don’t even bother, buddy."

The bistro was pack and noisy, and overhearing her conversation wasn’t easy, but it didn’t matter. Nick had tuned out five minutes ago. From the moment Rita walked through the door, she’d been complaining—about her boyfriend, her boss, her landlord—and he only needed a sidelong glance at her expression to know she hadn’t stopped.

After thirty minutes, her friends made their excuses and their escapes. She’d lingered, finishing her wine slowly, defiantly, as if to say her own company was just fine, thank you. When she left, Nick waited until she stepped out the door. Then he fished a silver compact from his pocket and hurried after her.

Rita stood on the curb, surveying traffic as if preparing to cross.

"Miss?" Nick jogged up behind her. "I think you dropped this."

She scowled at the compact, as if it was a piece of rotten fruit.

"I think you dropped his inside," he repeated, flashing his friendliest smile.

"That is not mine."

She enunciated each word, punctuated with a lip curl, as if offended he’d think such a thing belonged to her. It was a perfectly good compact. Expensive, classic and classy. From her photo, he’d imagined she’d like it.

He closed his hand over the offending object and offered another smile, this one tinged with wry embarrassment. "Sorry. I could have sworn—"

"Goddamn it!" She flung a hand at a passing cab. "You made me lose a taxi. Do you know how hard it is to flag one in this city?"

He could point out that the cab’s light was off, meaning it already had a fare, but he suspected she knew that.

"Here, let me get you one. Two minutes, tops." His disarming grin now. "You can time me."

"No, just—" She waved him off, stepping away. "Just go away."

She strode off to her office, three doors down, leaving Nick squelching the urge to check his deodorant.

Well, at least now he knew how a woman like that ended up with a loser like Paul. The only question was why, after she dumped him for his buddy, he hadn’t breathed a huge sigh of relief and decided his friend would be punished enough.

Nick had nothing against women who stood up for themselves, knew what they wanted and what they didn’t. He liked strong women. Tough women, even. But ball-busting was a whole other matter.

This job was going to be a lot harder than he thought. He tried to call it a challenge, but he wasn’t like Clay and Elena—he didn’t really like to be challenged. A straight, easy road would be boring, but he preferred meandering slopes and curves to hairpin bends and roller-coaster hills.

Instead, he reminded himself of those werewolf "romances" Rita liked to read. Any woman who was into that couldn’t be quite as cold as she seemed. Or so he hoped.

 

At home, Nick looked up more of those stories, hoping for insight into how to thaw Rita. He’d started to think that showing a glimpse of "the beast within" just wasn’t going to cut it. Hell, at this point, he’d be lucky if he could get close enough to let her see it.

After a few readings, he thought he might have the answer. Most of the guys in these stories were a lot more, well, alpha than he was. There were more than a few arrogant bad boys in those pages.

He envisioned calling Elena and saying "hey, think I could borrow your hubby for a day? I need bitch-bait." Elena would go for it. She’d think it was hilarious. And Nick had to admit there was something deeply satisfying about the thought of unleashing Clay on Rita. A few minutes in his company and she’d realize that rude, arrogant bad boy werewolves weren’t really all they were cracked up to be—at least, not when you were on the receiving end. She might even decide a laid-back nice guy like Nick wasn’t really so bad after all.

He wouldn’t do it, of course. Well, maybe as a last resort. But for now, the thought heartened him enough to declare he was ready for another run at Rita.