Page 73 of Stealthy as a Wolf

The store was basically abandoned, clothes strewn about haphazardly, like the people had just disappeared from them.

It only took a second to figure out what happened—me.

I shot an apologetic look up at Grady, completely mortified. “I’m so sorry. When I ordered you to strip, the command must have been heard throughout the whole store. This is my fault.”

I braced myself for his anger, and I couldn’t have been more surprised when he threw back his head and roared with laughter. “We’d better go before they call the cops and we’re arrested for disorderly conduct.”

Still chuckling, he retrieved our cart and hurried us toward the checkout. He looked younger than I’d ever seen him, lighter, like a great weight had been lifted from him, and I couldn’t help but smile at the change.

I just hoped he didn’t regret mating me once trouble finally found me.

Because it would.

It always did.

We were just leaving the store when we spotted the old biddy who’d been stalking us, talking to a police officer. Her Sunday best clothes were askew, her granny hairdo sticking up in spots, her pearl necklace clutched in her fist. Her skin had taken on a green tinge with dark warts and liver spots sprouting all over her body, and almost every other word emerged as a croak.

She was a toad.

Even from a distance, I could feel her disdain.

And the police officer was arresting her for indecency.

It almost made me burst out laughing.

I love karma!

She was obviously trying to blame the whole mess on us, but the officer was having none of it as he dragged her away. I suppressed my snicker, allowing Grady to hustle me into our truck, and we made our escape unnoticed.

* * *

MATTY

I’d stopped pacing ten minutes ago and just planted myself at the window, no longer pretending to do anything else but wait for Maggie to return. I didn’t like having her out of my sight. Her absence was like an itch under my skin that I couldn’t reach. If she ran into trouble, she was too far away for me to save her.

Without our claim on her, without our scent marking her as ours, she was vulnerable.

We should never have let her leave.

If I’d been in my feline form, my tail would’ve been twitching with agitation. Claws pressed against the underside of my skin, fur brushed against my mind, and I fought the need to shift. My cat wanted out, determined to hunt down our mate.

At the sound of an engine in the distance, my ears perked forward, my eyesight sharpened, and I slumped against the window in relief. The twins must have heard the same thing, because they bounded out the door. They stood on the porch, arms crossed, wearing matching scowls as they waited not so patiently for our mate to arrive.

Even before the truck came to a full stop, they leapt off the porch and yanked open the passenger side door. I moved to follow, then stopped dead when the smell of sex hit me like a slap in the face.

My cock instantly hardened, a grumbling purr rumbled in my chest, and it took all my control not to snatch her up in my arms and rub my scent all over her to stake my own claim.

Grady, the smug asshole, ignored it all and just grabbed half the grocery bags out of the back.

While the twins fussed over Maggie, I sulked and collected the other bags, impatient for my turn to make sure Maggie was okay. When I dumped the groceries on the table, Grady paused and ran his assessing eyes over me. Before he had a chance to speak, the twins tumbled into the room after Maggie, fawning over her like teenagers eager to get their dicks wet. It made me want to rip off their faces.

“Since we’re relatively safe for the moment, I think now is the perfect time for us to shift and burn off some steam.” Grady methodically emptied the bags onto the table, then shoved the plastic into the garbage. “There’s no telling when we’ll get another chance.”

The twins didn’t even wait, yanking their shirts over their heads in stereo. Boone flung his shirt over his shoulder without a care that it landed behind the couch, while Burke meticulously folded his shirt and set it aside for later, the anal-retentive bastard. Even I had to admit that the twin thing worked for them. What woman would turn down a night in their bed?

They were cocky.

Confident.

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