Page 54 of The Good Boys Club

Damn, she got hotter. More beautiful. She’d always been gorgeous, but I didn’t know, something had happened in the few years since I last saw her. She seemed happier maybe. Her wolfish amber eyes sparkled more.

Dee-Dee was as tall as Ci, with curves every-damn-where. She had choppy, shoulder-length ginger hair with a stripe of silver at the front like a sexy orange badger.

She pulled away from the hug. “Mash, oh, I can’t tell you how happy I am for you.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He smells incredible on you.” Then she started laughing. Gently at first, and gradually more unhinged until she was wiping tears from her eyes.

I looked at Cian, who shrugged, but as Riley stepped out of the passenger side of the car also laughing, we found ourselves getting swept up into it.

“Gods, I was so fucking worried they were going to arrange our mating,” she said. “I almost didn’t come.”

Oh, she was relieved. She obviously wanted a pairing between us just as much as I did.

“I’m forty-six years old. I don’t need to be shipped off to beta another pack. I’ve got a multinational business to run!”

Speaking of business. “Dee-Dee, Riley, let me introduce you to my mate, Cian Barker.”

Cian and I had discussed beforehand about how we would approach his job application. My plan was to straight up tell Dee he wanted the position, but Cian figured it would be best to get to know her first, win her over, then casually mention how super fucking keen he was.

“Hi, Dylan, it’s great to meet you,” Ci said, his tail plastered to his thigh. Fuck, he was cute when he was nervous.

“Dylan, aye? Someone’s been looking me up on the internet,” she said, shaking Ci’s outstretched hand. His cheeks turned pink. “Call me Dee-Dee. Nobody outside of work calls me Dylan. So, you’re the infamous wolf who’s managed to tame Mash? I’ve known about you for a week, and already you’re something of a legend.”

Cian laughed nervously.

“This is Riley,” Dee said. “Mash, you’ve met before. She’s my right-hand woman at Byte Tech.”

“Yeah, we’ve met.” I pulled Riley into a hug, but a less warm one than I gave Dee. “You were like, I dunno, twenty when we met?”

Riley pulled away, blushing. “Yeah, I think so.”

Beside me, Cian stiffened. He held out his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Riley.”

“You too,” she said, her blush creeping further up her cheeks, spreading to the very tips of her pinna.

“Right, shall we show you to your room?” I said, before things became a little too awkward.

“Certainly. Where has Alpha Cassidy situated us this time? Let me guess, right next to your bedroom.”

I winked at her. “You got it. Pretty sure Nana allocated all the rooms before she found out about Cian, and was still hoping for . . .” I motioned a hand between us. “You know.”

She nodded. She knew. We’d had years of it. Since the first full moon after my twenty-fifth birthday, which I wasn’t homefor. Not that it ever stopped them from trying. But I’d made it to the grand old age of thirty-four without settling down, and Dee was forty-six. Could they not understand we weren’t the sort of people who paired off?

We arrived at the end of the corridor that housed my room and the room that used to belong to my sisters.

“Here you are,” I said, opening the door and placing Dee’s bags at the foot of the bed.

She dropped another bag next to the first. “The bedroom across the hall is yours, no?”

“Yep,” I said.

Cian followed us in and placed Riley’s bags down.

Riley walked in and sniffed the freshly cut roses in the vase on the dresser. She smiled at Dee, then at Cian and me. “Thank you.”

“You boys don’t need to worry about making too much noise, okay?” Dee said.

Cian squeaked, his eyes bulging.

“I understand what it’s like to be newly pre-mated.” Dee’s eyes went wide, and she stumbled over words in her haste to correct herself. “Uh, you know, from what I’ve seen with other couples. Especially the ones at work who’ve just returned from their honeymoons.”

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