Page 48 of Rugged

My wolf growled. I didn’t like anyone looking into her. Not even my own packmates. Definitely not some rando shifter in Arizona. But they were right. Her boss was trouble. We needed to know everything about her and anyone who worked for him. Especially if I was going to track him and deliver him to the Council.

“She doesn’t know I’m an enforcer,” I said aloud to no one in particular.

Fuck. What would happen when she found out I hunted and killed for a living? Could a sweetheart like Lyssa stay with someone with this much darkness?

Even if I walked away from the profession for her, it wouldn’t change what I’d already done.

The violence inside me that came out when I was defending someone. Or hunting a rogue enforcer like the wife beater from a few weeks ago.

It wouldn’t change what I was–a killer.

Marina remained on for the entire thirty second ride, then slid off and high-fived Becky who was up next.

“Of course, she doesn’t. Until you mark her, that stays to yourself.”

Rob’s words had me glancing his way. I swallowed.

Fuck. He didn’t think she’d take it well, either. “Shouldn’t I tell her when I explain about shifters?”

He shook his head. “No.Afteryou mark her. She’ll need to know about our kind, so she understands you’re going to bite her and why. But the enforcer part has to come later.”

“What if…” I swallowed down my question.

What if she doesn’t want to be with me after she finds out?

What if, like my pack and family, she no longer looked at me the same way?

What if she rejected me? Banished me?

Rob raised his brows.

“Nevermind.” I shook my head. But his advice seemed backward. Telling her after I’d marked her meant tricking her into being my mate. Not being honest. That went against everything I believed in.

Becky didn’t last long on the mechanical bull since the setting had been much faster. She fell off onto one of the mats in a laughing heap. Even though she wasn’t hurt, Clint didn’t stick– he cut through the patrons to get to her.

Lyssa was next. I stood mesmerized as she stepped up to the bull and eyed it with the same expression men wore getting ready to mount a real, live one. Fear and wariness.

The women were in a line along the low wall thatseparated the main bar from the mechanical bull area. They were laughing and hooting at her, who was now sitting on the bull.

Fuck, her skirt rode up those shapely-as-fuck thighs.

Then the bull started to move. It was going so slowly it appeared broken. Then it picked up a little more speed, and she tried to move with it, but her motions were just as awkward as when she rode Chester yesterday.

From one second to the next, a smile spread across her face, her eyes lit with excitement. The bull moved even faster and her arm went up in the air for balance.

“She’s not bad,” Boyd said in my ear. He was the ex-rodeo champ, so he knew.

She wasn’t bad at all. In fact, she looked like a natural the way she lifted and lowered, her hips straddling the saddle nice and wide. Her tits bounced with each roll of the machine. She was sexy as fuck.

My wolf snarled and snapped because the Wolf Ranch women weren’t the only ones watching. Men all around were ogling her. They were seeing how she would look as a cowgirl riding a dick.

A cluster of men to one side were talking about her. Pointing, smiling, leering. And one made fucking motions with his hips as he talked to another. Then they high-fived.

I growled. I was going to kill them.Allof them.

They had to be human. I didn’t know them. They’d never been to a pack run that I’d ever seen. If they were, being so close, they’d have recognized Willow, knew her rank in the pack, and would have been more deferential to the other marked females.

The machine slowed, then stopped, and Lyssa slid off to the mat, stood there by the bull as Audrey took a picture of her with her cell.

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